Between my health and my computer’s I have not been writing as often as I’d like Today’s edition will be about my computer’s well-being. The power cord had issues. First it had to be positioned just right. I tried to buy a new one on Wednesday when I was at Best Buy but they were out of the one I needed and a universal one cost almost three times as much. The guy at the Geek Squad told me to buy one on Amazon, so that’s what I did. I was stupid and had it delivered to the house. Sure that’s easier in theory, but not in practice. If I have it sent to the Amazon Locker it takes me 20 minutes or so to get there and the same back. The post office always have issues and I always complain, and like Wiley E. Coyote, I think next time will be different, and I’ll get my package. Wait! Who here has a connection with Warner Brothers? This can be a twice on the classic Roadrunner cartoon Instead of the Coyote trying to catch the Roadrunner with the aid of various Acme products that he has delivered, he has just one plan and the entire cartoon is his attempts to get the Acme Nuclear Powered Roller Skates delivered and his mounting frustration with the post office. After the last attempt we discover that his mail carrier is the Roadrunner. Now you know exactly how I feel.
The New Power Cord was supposed to be delivered on Saturday. For reasons that were not explained I got a text saying it was coming on Sunday. I went to write my blog and my computer had no power. The break in the cord had gotten so bad that I had to hold the cord in place to let it charge. I couldn’t do that and write. Then I got brilliant and Macgyvered something. I couldn’t sit there holding the cord but electrical tape could. It took many attempts. I needed the tape to apply a force pushing it in, not just in place. I finally figured out how to do it but it was not stable enough to let me use the computer at the same time. So I did it while the computer was on the coffee table and went out shopping while it charged.
This worked though it required additional adjustments to keep it charged. Eventually I was able to finish yesterday’s Magnum Opus. When it was done the computer wasn’t charging. I looked. There was a clean break in the wire. Good thing I was getting the new one today.
Normally when Amazon sends me a package I get a text in the morning saying that it is on the way and that it will arrive before 8 PM. I realized I didn’t get that. Amazon tracking said it was coming but didn’t send me the text. I decided to double check on the USPS website. It told me, without explanation, that I wouldn’t get it to Tuesday. That was no acceptable. I called Amazon. The wonderful Abi took my call. She was the exact opposite of everyone I had dealt with at the post office and even better than the usually excellent Amazon customer service people. Why? She was not just empathetic but genuine and funny. When I told her the problems I’ve been having she said, “Oy Oy Oy.” She had me at, “Oy Oy Oy.” She didn’t act concerned, she was concerned. When she tried to help me on her computer she sang to herself, “do do do do do.” Then she talked to her equipment, “Come on mouse, work!” I found it all very amusing and told her that we must be related as I have all those mannerisms. She laughed. I laughed. It was delightful. As I now how to buy a power supply if I wanted a computer before Tuesday she gave me a complete refund and a $10 refund on top of it.
Now I needed a power cord. I didn’t buy one I called my friend Dave; he had told me he could hook me up with one. He could, I went over to his apartment in Washington Heights, right by the Cloisters.
I’ve known Dave and his wife Maureen for about 20 years, we met volunteering at WFUV. Whenever he hears I have a computer problem he offers to help. This is the first time I needed more than phone help.
I made it to their apartment in less than an hour, to me that’s fast. I love his neighborhood. Upper Manhattan lies on a fjord and you can see it if you know what to look for. Their apartment lies on the crest of a steep escarpment by Fort Tryon Park. You look out their window and have a breathtaking view of the Hudson. The positioning leads to some odd thing. They live on the second floor. I had to take the elevator down three floors to get to it. Huh? Because of the escarpment one side of the building is far higher than the other The West side of the building is four floors above the East. You enter on the fifth floor.
After the apartment tour, Dave got to work. He had a universal power supply and had to find the right head for my computer he did. But then the computer wouldn’t boot. It was the problem I took it into Geek Squad to fix, the computer couldn’t find the hard drive. Dave said he’d fix it. He did! As soon as he opened the panel to the hard drive he saw the problem. There was nothing holding the drive, in place. The Geek Squad guy should have looked. He couldn’t get it to fail so he didn’t try. I don’t think he tried very hard. It took one minute and David jury-rigged a solution. Now the computer works great!
What was my response. My Gentle Readers should know me well enough to say. I asked him to marry me. He said that Maureen would get jealous. People are so conventional. Good thing that Joe understands that his wife Emily is my bacon wife and Steve understands that I’m LORi’s second husband and first wife. Why do people always give me that look when I tell them about this? Think outside the box.
When I saw the apartment I asked Dave if he’d adopt me. He wouldn’t do that either. But he fixed my computer and I’m forever grateful. I will not name my firstborn child after him but I will honor him in this entry’s title. I told him that he’d be the star. I wonder if Abi at Amazon will ever find this. If you do I’ll marry you too.
I took the scenic route back to the subway, along the Cabrini Wood Sanctuary. It’s a narrow strip of parkland below the escarpment and above the Henry Hudson Highway along the Hudson River. Dave has seen deer there.
The walk, right on the sidewalk, not in the park, has signs with pictures of the various birds and plants you can see. At the end of the walk is the entrance to the larger Fort Tryon Park. That’s where the Cloisters are. The Cloisters is the Medieval division of the Metropolitan Museum of art. It looks like, now get this, a cloister. I wish I didn’t had more time and my camera instead of my computer with me. I’d have explored. Many people were. The people of New York City use and appreciate our parks. The key is that we think of them as ours. It struck me that, that attitude defines a gap in the politics of the country, especially the East/West divide.
For the last six years Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, and his daughter have hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. He wrote a beautiful paean to it, Six Years, Four Sore Feet, 2,650 Miles: My daughter and I finished hiking one of “our” properties: the Pacific Crest Trail. He puts that feeling of ownership right in the title. To many in the west the preserved wilderness is not “ours” but land taken by “them!” Them being the American government. They don’t view the land as our shared patrimony but only as a source of income. If it isn’t being mined, farmed, or grazed, it’s being wasted. Kristof is from the West, Oregon, and he doesn’t feel that way; geography is not destiny. But it’s that difference of viewpoint, Kristof, New Yorkers, and I, see the government belonging to us. If its own by the government it’s ours. There is a counter tradition held by Clive Bundy and his supporters that his hostile to the government. It views the land as belonging to the people, as long as the people in effect means themselves. It belongs to Clive Bundy and those that want to exploit it, not to those that want to enjoy it for its beauty. And of course it doesn’t belong to other ranchers that want to graze their cattle for nothing as there isn’t enough land to accommodate everyone. It’s a point of view that doesn’t hold up to analysis but it’s one that people find seductive. As for me, and those walking in the Cabrini Woods and Fort Tryon park, America’s glory is its cathedral of wilderness; Whether that wilderness be the Pacific Crest Trail or the fjord of upper Manhattan. Slartibartfast does good work.
Wise Madness 