I don't like cooking shows. Usually I turn the channel or take a break from my regularly scheduled sedentary life-style to mop a floor or clean out a closet when the talk shows bring on people to pretend they are preparing a meal, and hosts are forced to pretend they are at least half as excited as the hyped-up has-been- singer/actor/spouse-of-has-been singer/actor-turned celebrity-chef is to share grandma's recipe as though s/he is nearly as remarkable as the 90's 'we're pregnant' parents. But, today, Sunny Anderson's chocolate and beet cake caught my attention. Not only did I listen, I went to the website to print the recipe.
Big mistake. That's when my tiny world started to crumble.
I decided not only to print the Chocolate Beet Bundt Cake recipe but also the White Bean Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe. When I tried to print from the page, I received a message saying that my privacy settings wouldn't allow me to copy to the clip board. How'd that happen? I wasn't in the mood (ha ha ha) to remind myself that I am computer illiterate so I copied and pasted the two recipes into a word document and hit print.
White Bean Chocolate Chip printed just fine. Nice, clear, dark print even though the printer flashed a low-ink message. For once, I was prepared with a back-up ink cartridge on hand. Before anyone thinks I finally got organized, I ordered that thing to bump a Christmas order up to free shipping status. I didn't need enough to order the name brand though, just the knock-off brand. Don't know about the rest of you but I let that low ink message blink until the black print comes out looking like a bleeding sepia. White Bean was still an unblurred black so I figured I had a good 100 pages left before I would need to whip out knock-off.
That's not the way it happened. White Bean shot out and then nothing. The *smart* printer blinked some snotty remark about changing the ink *now* and held Chocolate Beet Bundt hostage. No biggie; I had a replacement – somewhere. And it didn't take too long to find and install it.
The new printer that I already didn't like much still blinked the replace ink message so it wasn't so smart after all. I turned it off and back on, which takes a lot longer with supposedly smart devices than it did with the old stupid ones. That didn't work.
This frustration called for music. I put three of my favorite CDs in the CD player (see why I didn't worry about iTunes before?) and nothing happened. I shuffled them. Removed them and blew in the drawer since unclogging the dust inside had worked before. Still nothing. Turned the television back on.
Next, I unplugged the printer, waited a minute, replugged, waited for it to think again, and got the same message. Maybe I was the stupid one and didn't remember to press gently until I heard the click. I removed the cartridge, replaced it and listened carefully for the click. (Seriously – anyone who is laughing at me for printing recipes and keeping them in a binder, reread this and tell me you'd trust your phones or laptops anywhere near me and a kitchen.) No Chocolate Beet recipe. Now, I had a message telling me that the knock-off was either empty or damaged.
I wasn't going to bake that cake today. The only beets I have on hand are pickled. But, the temperature is expected to drop to twenty below one day soon and who knows how many things I might need to print while I'm frozen in. As I removed the empty or damaged knock-off to return it to the store, the dog announced someone was at the front door. I placed it on the desk and went to the door.
There was no one at the door but there was a note, on fluorescent pink paper, taped to the door that I never use. Thanks, dog. Management wanted to remind us that we are to keep our heat on, a drip running in all sinks, and cabinet doors opened. And please check with our homeowners carriers about flood damage – in other words, don't expect them to be responsible. I have copies of the letters I hand-delivered to them when my vocal complaints about the temperature in my bathroom being twenty degrees lower than it is in the bedroom across the hall from it but I don't have a video of the property manager looking me in the eye and barking a nasty, "I don't care," when I told him that getting out of the shower in a drafty, fifty-degree room caused great pain in my systemic arthritic body, so could they please check to see why heat doesn't reach that room, or give me an outlet that can handle an electric heater. Wish I did and will double that wish if the pipes in that room burst and they try to hold me responsible.
I had more important things to worry about though, like printing the Chocolate Beet Bundt Cake recipe that I had no intention of baking any time soon. I went from the front door to the bedroom to get my shoes out of the closet. The sliding closet door slipped off the track and I hurt my already sore shoulder catching it. I was a woman on a mission so I didn't let that stop me.
With shoes, coat, and gloves on, my purse over my shoulder, and garbage in one hand and keys in the other, I braved the weather. Made it about fifty steps into my trek to the car before realizing I forgot the empty or damaged knock-off and my phone.
Fortunately, I went into the bedroom to get the phone off the charger first and saw that, although I started it ten hours or more before, it had not finished updating. I've had it less than two weeks but it came needing an update because everything needs to be updated at least once a day it seems. No problem. I would call a kid or grandkid, who all know more than I about smart devices. The daughter said to plug it into my computer so it could sync with iTunes. I went back to the office, plugged in the phone, popped the knock-off back into the box it came in, and while I was still standing there, Chocolate Beet Bundt printed, nice and clear. Without a black ink cartridge.
Took the purse, coat, and shoes back where they belong and returned to the computer to find an error message. I didn't have iTunes on my computer like I thought. I went to the iTunes page to download and received a message thanking me for downloading – making me (the computer dummy) think it had actually downloaded. But, it hadn't.
After several more tries and a bunch of other steps, I decided I had to download iCloud first. Apparently, I have nothing on this computer. That did work, after updating a driver, and I even remembered my Apple ID. There was my life, on a cloud. Still, the phone wouldn't update and I couldn't download iTunes, nor was there an iTunes app.
A little sleuthing turned up many complaints about the inability to download iTunes on Windows 8. Apple was no help so I turned to HP. Naturally, when I clicked on help, I had to enter product numbers and models and hit enough keys to have updated my autobiography for years 40 – 60. And then I was rerouted to another page where I had to type it all again, only to end up on a page where instead of reaching help, I found a FAQ list with drop-down menus. Lots of them.
After wasting about 30 minutes on FAQs, (doesn't it look like they'd realize they have a problem if that many people frequently ask about that many problems?) I Googled 'Why can't I download iTunes on Windows 8' and found a guy who read like he knew what he was talking about. He fixed his and shared the fourteen step process for dummies like me. I followed those instructions, feeling much better about myself all the way up to number twelve, where I didn't have the option he suggested I follow. Sigh. I must have done something wrong so I started over. Breezed through 1 – 11 and still didn't have what he said I should find on 12.
I went back to the HP help page, chose the 'I want to purchase' option and got right through. Imagine that. When asked what I wanted to purchase, I said I had already purchased – typed the model again – and that my granddaughter fell in love with it and wanted to buy one, too. But, before I would recommend it, I needed to know if she would be able to download iTunes.
Of course she would be able to download iTunes was the response. I said I wasn't so confident since I had been unable to download it on mine. The HP guy suggested I do exactly what I had already done. When I said none of those things worked, he sent me back to Apple.
Apple was no help, again, but, somehow I did finally get iTunes on my computer. If only I was as organized as the fourteen-step guy, I might be able to help others. I used the link on the iTunes site and started the update on the phone – again.
While that was running, I thought about my poor car out there in the freezing cold. Much as I dreaded going back out, I didn't want to push my luck. I put my coat on, the dog's coat on, grabbed that same bag of garbage, and went out. The car started and I drove it around the neighborhood for a few minutes. Came back in to a message that my phone could not update and would have to be restored to factory settings.
Sigh.
I know many people had worse days. I'm sad for them.
The good news is my phone is restored and updated, and I have transferred my data from the cloud to it. And, I'm grateful that this seems like a horrible day to me.
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