Some days are just better than other days
So when I got up this morning and staggered to the computer, blearily clutching my yoghurt and water and my pillbox with the anti-hypertensives in it, I started my morning routine and saw that Weather Underground had changed its format. There is probably nothing wrong with the new one and I'll be used to it in a couple of weeks; but it's the first thing I look at after I check my email, and I was taken aback and cranky.
Then I decided that Adobe had been bugging me long enough about doing a "video update," so I carelessly told the persistent popup to install, already. I don't know if it was really Adobe -- though they do always try to sneak MacAfee past me when I update things -- but I ended up with something that messed up my Firefox Start Page and kept popping up ads and exhortations to update this or install that, all things I did not recognize. After a lot of poking around I discovered that the right name for this nonsense was Trovi. Aside from the obligatory sponsored link, all the first hits were to pages telling you how to get rid of it. I poked around more to make sure these weren't somehow compromised too, and then did what they told me, which involved downloading and running four different anti-virus, anti-malware programs. Trovi is not technically a virus, they said, but it might as well be. It appears to be gone now.
This all made me late running my errands, and I forgot to eat any lunch. I deposited a check at the uptown TCF and then, feeling very woogly, ducked into Lund's for some kind of sustenance. They used to have a really nice tuna salad sandwich, but I came away (studiously ignoring the sushi, which seemed too complicated to manage) with a hummus and vegetable wrap. The vegetables were fresh and they had put fresh cilantro in it, but they seem to think hummus is a condiment like mustard, to be applied with care, rather than the entire protein source of the sandwich. However, it did the trick, so I took a bus over to the Whittier Clinic and finally completed a three-day saga during which I ran out of my diuretic while my doctor didn't get to the refill request and then denied it without having anybody tell me why, or even that, she had. The kindly pharmacist had to wrangle this information out of the clinic on Wednesday, and give me a week's worth to tide me over. Then I had to make an appointment with a different doctor, because mine wasn't available until May 2 and, despite having noted that I needed lab work before she would refill the prescription, she hadn't actually issued an order for it, so I had to see an actual practitioner to get the order for the lab work. The other doctor, whom I saw yesterday, was puzzled, because while he said it was useful to do lab work occasionally, it wasn't mandatory to refill the prescription. They would usually refill the prescription and send me an email or a letter telling me to make an appointment. I will say for them that the lab work was in my email inbox within six hours, and it all looks fine. In any case, today, Friday, the pharmacy gave me the proper month's worth of my medication, this providing me with a nice five-day cushion in case of weirdness next month. I had planned to walk home, but the lettuce wrap was expiring and I was grumpy and also for some reason uneasy.
I came home via the alley and the back yard, so as to admire the snowdrops and see if the crocuses were more than half an inch high. I cannot report on this issue, because as I came up the path I saw a black object on the woodpile that I took for a crow. Then I saw that it was a cat. Then I saw that it was OUR cat. I assumed it was Ninja, since he has the reputation for boldness. I called him, grabbed him rudely by the scruff and tail when he came within reach, and hauled him inside, where he was discovered to be his sister, Nuit, instead. She has white markings on her chest and underside, but the two of them don't look very different at a distance and through an adrenaline rush.
Arwen and Naomi came up to see me while I was making amends to Nuit, but there was no Ninja. I checked in with David, checked all the open windows, grabbed a can of wet food, and ran back outside, where I discovered Ninja sniffing around under Lydy's bedroom window. I lured him within reach with the food, grabbed him rudely, dumped him inside, and checked all the windows again. No loose screens, no holes, all secure. I went to see if Lydy, who is out for the day, had opened any windows in her bedroom, and was just in time to stop Ninja from going out the broken accordion of the window air conditioner, which was flapping in the breeze. It was not, when I came to examine it later, squirrel-chewed. I suspect feline intervention, possibly of long duration.
I shut him in the media room and his co-conspirator in the staircase, stole duct tape from David, who was in the middle of a complex software process that could not be left; and taped up the opening from both the inside and the outside. Then I removed various objects that ordinarily hang over Lydy's bedroom door, shut it with a resounding bang, and put a large sign on it forbidding the presence of cats.
If alcohol didn't interact badly with my meds, I would have a very large drink right about now. We live on a busy street, and while Ninja, who has escaped before, is chipped, Nuit, Miss Innocence as she used to be, is not. They are young cats and we are exceedingly fond of them. Little wretches.
Pamela
Then I decided that Adobe had been bugging me long enough about doing a "video update," so I carelessly told the persistent popup to install, already. I don't know if it was really Adobe -- though they do always try to sneak MacAfee past me when I update things -- but I ended up with something that messed up my Firefox Start Page and kept popping up ads and exhortations to update this or install that, all things I did not recognize. After a lot of poking around I discovered that the right name for this nonsense was Trovi. Aside from the obligatory sponsored link, all the first hits were to pages telling you how to get rid of it. I poked around more to make sure these weren't somehow compromised too, and then did what they told me, which involved downloading and running four different anti-virus, anti-malware programs. Trovi is not technically a virus, they said, but it might as well be. It appears to be gone now.
This all made me late running my errands, and I forgot to eat any lunch. I deposited a check at the uptown TCF and then, feeling very woogly, ducked into Lund's for some kind of sustenance. They used to have a really nice tuna salad sandwich, but I came away (studiously ignoring the sushi, which seemed too complicated to manage) with a hummus and vegetable wrap. The vegetables were fresh and they had put fresh cilantro in it, but they seem to think hummus is a condiment like mustard, to be applied with care, rather than the entire protein source of the sandwich. However, it did the trick, so I took a bus over to the Whittier Clinic and finally completed a three-day saga during which I ran out of my diuretic while my doctor didn't get to the refill request and then denied it without having anybody tell me why, or even that, she had. The kindly pharmacist had to wrangle this information out of the clinic on Wednesday, and give me a week's worth to tide me over. Then I had to make an appointment with a different doctor, because mine wasn't available until May 2 and, despite having noted that I needed lab work before she would refill the prescription, she hadn't actually issued an order for it, so I had to see an actual practitioner to get the order for the lab work. The other doctor, whom I saw yesterday, was puzzled, because while he said it was useful to do lab work occasionally, it wasn't mandatory to refill the prescription. They would usually refill the prescription and send me an email or a letter telling me to make an appointment. I will say for them that the lab work was in my email inbox within six hours, and it all looks fine. In any case, today, Friday, the pharmacy gave me the proper month's worth of my medication, this providing me with a nice five-day cushion in case of weirdness next month. I had planned to walk home, but the lettuce wrap was expiring and I was grumpy and also for some reason uneasy.
I came home via the alley and the back yard, so as to admire the snowdrops and see if the crocuses were more than half an inch high. I cannot report on this issue, because as I came up the path I saw a black object on the woodpile that I took for a crow. Then I saw that it was a cat. Then I saw that it was OUR cat. I assumed it was Ninja, since he has the reputation for boldness. I called him, grabbed him rudely by the scruff and tail when he came within reach, and hauled him inside, where he was discovered to be his sister, Nuit, instead. She has white markings on her chest and underside, but the two of them don't look very different at a distance and through an adrenaline rush.
Arwen and Naomi came up to see me while I was making amends to Nuit, but there was no Ninja. I checked in with David, checked all the open windows, grabbed a can of wet food, and ran back outside, where I discovered Ninja sniffing around under Lydy's bedroom window. I lured him within reach with the food, grabbed him rudely, dumped him inside, and checked all the windows again. No loose screens, no holes, all secure. I went to see if Lydy, who is out for the day, had opened any windows in her bedroom, and was just in time to stop Ninja from going out the broken accordion of the window air conditioner, which was flapping in the breeze. It was not, when I came to examine it later, squirrel-chewed. I suspect feline intervention, possibly of long duration.
I shut him in the media room and his co-conspirator in the staircase, stole duct tape from David, who was in the middle of a complex software process that could not be left; and taped up the opening from both the inside and the outside. Then I removed various objects that ordinarily hang over Lydy's bedroom door, shut it with a resounding bang, and put a large sign on it forbidding the presence of cats.
If alcohol didn't interact badly with my meds, I would have a very large drink right about now. We live on a busy street, and while Ninja, who has escaped before, is chipped, Nuit, Miss Innocence as she used to be, is not. They are young cats and we are exceedingly fond of them. Little wretches.
Pamela