On August 16th of last year I wrote the following:
Husband has been in NY since Sunday and is still luggage-less after a fiasco when a mobile phone during take off (not his, he assures me) caused his plane to be turned round and all the luggage taken off and checked – and not put back on again. Handy.
For most people that would be bad enough (imagine having to go out and buy a completely new wardrobe in New York… Really, really hell…), but found myself thinking rather tastelessly that for a banker being separated from his mobile phone, blackberry and lap-top is tantamount to asking Helen Keller to communicate without her hands.
I didn’t share that with him…
Keep getting sad phone calls, when he updates me on the current fate of the 17,000 or so bags separated from their owners in the chaos over the last few days. Oh yes, and asks to speak to the boys. (We used to do passionate phone calls after we first met when he was abroad for 4 years. Now we mainly check diaries.)
What on earth could have posessed me to be so flippant? Our computer has been 'down' for the last 3 days. 'Down' - not really an appropriate word, I think. 'Down' implies a little low. Not quite itself. Likely to answer questions on it's status with a heavy sigh and a 'Not so bad, thanks' (my paternal grandmother's favourite way to show she was not quite tip-top).
'Down' does not imply sulking. Refusing to come out to play. Refusing, in fact, to even answer the door. Drawing the curtains and sitting shiva for it's past fun and exciting life when I used to write long and wordy creative writing assignments on it (oh yes, dear reader, I was that wordsmith - or not).
So I sent it on a little break. The nice man at the local computer service centre took it away and spoke soothingly to it, told it that it was indeed a thing of beauty and a joy to behold, and lo! It works again. It has returned and I have promised never to treat it gracelessly again; never to switch it off manually when it was still battling to work it's way through the programmes to do that itself; and always to back up. Which of course, I hadn't done when it went into it's decline. Thoughts of losing 4 years of photos of my boys flashed through my mind when it was throwing it's hissy fit, and I will not allow it this inanimate object to hold me to ransome again. (Although just in case it is listening - please don't do that again).
So that's what I'm going to do now. Back up. Just as soon as I've sorted the laundry, finished the soup for my mother-in-law's state visit tomorrow, tidied up the living room, watched a bit of tv and reorganised my wardrobe.
What?
Husband has been in NY since Sunday and is still luggage-less after a fiasco when a mobile phone during take off (not his, he assures me) caused his plane to be turned round and all the luggage taken off and checked – and not put back on again. Handy.
For most people that would be bad enough (imagine having to go out and buy a completely new wardrobe in New York… Really, really hell…), but found myself thinking rather tastelessly that for a banker being separated from his mobile phone, blackberry and lap-top is tantamount to asking Helen Keller to communicate without her hands.
I didn’t share that with him…
Keep getting sad phone calls, when he updates me on the current fate of the 17,000 or so bags separated from their owners in the chaos over the last few days. Oh yes, and asks to speak to the boys. (We used to do passionate phone calls after we first met when he was abroad for 4 years. Now we mainly check diaries.)
What on earth could have posessed me to be so flippant? Our computer has been 'down' for the last 3 days. 'Down' - not really an appropriate word, I think. 'Down' implies a little low. Not quite itself. Likely to answer questions on it's status with a heavy sigh and a 'Not so bad, thanks' (my paternal grandmother's favourite way to show she was not quite tip-top).
'Down' does not imply sulking. Refusing to come out to play. Refusing, in fact, to even answer the door. Drawing the curtains and sitting shiva for it's past fun and exciting life when I used to write long and wordy creative writing assignments on it (oh yes, dear reader, I was that wordsmith - or not).
So I sent it on a little break. The nice man at the local computer service centre took it away and spoke soothingly to it, told it that it was indeed a thing of beauty and a joy to behold, and lo! It works again. It has returned and I have promised never to treat it gracelessly again; never to switch it off manually when it was still battling to work it's way through the programmes to do that itself; and always to back up. Which of course, I hadn't done when it went into it's decline. Thoughts of losing 4 years of photos of my boys flashed through my mind when it was throwing it's hissy fit, and I will not allow it this inanimate object to hold me to ransome again. (Although just in case it is listening - please don't do that again).
So that's what I'm going to do now. Back up. Just as soon as I've sorted the laundry, finished the soup for my mother-in-law's state visit tomorrow, tidied up the living room, watched a bit of tv and reorganised my wardrobe.
What?
Ah I loved this post. I used to find my luggage sent postcards from so many different countries when I travelled on business. Can you imagine what it was like for a woman to lose her luggage? At least with guys it was only a suit and a few shirts and then the accessories. I lost the equivalent of a whole wardrobe as I couldn't just take the one suit and a few tops. Fond memories of wearing shite to work the day after I would arrive in the US and my luggage was a tourist elsewhere. A quick dash to whatever was open to find something that wasn't jeans and had more lines than a road map after an 12 hour journey! Your husband has my sympathy!
ReplyDeleteThanks for poppping over to my blog - yup some men can be a complete waste of space but some are great too.
Oh those days of yearning when they were away (husbands and/or boyfriends not computers!) those lengthy and so sexy phone calls late at night across the waters then the excitement of the return...all too soon over inteh comfortable mundanity of living with children - I SO sympathise with Mum now and totally understand the need for a lock on the door to the master bedroom!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi mob, I know - I am generally more sympathetic to my beloved than I sound, don't worry.
ReplyDeleteTattie, you're right, I too sigh for those lost days of passion. No lock on the bedroom door yet, though I think it's just a question of time. Whilst our older boy is fine about not coming in to our room in the middle of the night, I think Boy #2 is not going to be so accomodating once he learns how to vault the side of his cot...
Back up. Just do it. Back up, back up. Please.
ReplyDeleteyes, yes you should back up - good advice. After you clean out your wardrobe and watch a bit of tv, of course.
ReplyDeleteIs that what happens when you turn your computer off manually? I'm always doing that - I can't be arsed waiting for it to go through all its obsessive little shut down rituals. I never back up either. Do you see a computer crisis in my future?
ReplyDeleteMya x
you've got me in a tizz now, all my food pix! luckily i'm horribly disorganised and they are floating between a laptop and a big computer, so the computer crisis might not be so bad for me.
ReplyDeleteYou've been gone a while, what did mother in law do to you?!
Pigx
Where's my comment?
ReplyDeletePotty Mummy, have you....erased me?
Hi all, sorry I've been so quiet but I've been computer-less due to being on holiday in.....MAURITIUS!
ReplyDelete(Stony silence)
I did put up a post about the fact I wasn't going to be around but then got paronoid about people working out who I was, where I lived, and coming to steal my (still un-backed up) computer. And stuff. Ridiculous, I know, but there you are. So I promise to post something really interesting (well, as interesting as I get, anyway), and hopefully not too sick-making for those of you who haven't just had a week in the sun, tomorrow. When Husband is off on another of his trips. To pay for our holiday, obviously...
But in the meantime:
Iota, I will. I promise. Just as soon as I've made a start on the laundry from the trip...
Rebecca - as above.
Mya - see Iota's comment. She's right, dammit. I already had to pay some fiendishly clever chap to re-find my hard drive files once - 2nd time round would just be careless.
Pig, sounds like you're OK on the file front. Clever pig.
And Frog - I never would. I promise!