Meltdown
I have a dead iPhone.
I am hysterical. No, I am beyond hysterical.
I was going to write you about being a critter person.
I try to reread last night’s blog while I’m trying to get the brain going in the morning. Hang laundry, wash dishes, pay a few bills, water a few plants, lock Godzilla back in the closet*, recall the gashadokuro, bury superfluous bodies in shallow unmarked graves, whatever most urgently needs doing before the neighbours call the police**, then hurtle hounds . . . Anyway. After the hound-hurtling I usually approach my desk seriously. There’s probably a story-in-progress waiting for me there.*** But during the first cup of strong black tea I usually reread last night’s blog, looking for the more easily corrected humiliating errors.† This morning I read the blog and thought, this woman is entirely mad. Well, yes.†† But relationships with live critters generally are a bit strange—although I include humans in the category of live critters—and a lot of the weirder manifestations look weirder yet if you haven’t been through it yourself.††† I was going to pursue this fascinating topic for some paragraphs and then I was going to finish with some photos of Penelope’s new chicks.
And then this evening, having sorted through 1,000,0000,000 blurry pictures of very small adorable chickens, I turned on iTunes‡ And, having successfully and entirely without incident downloaded 42,891,603 updates‡‡ while Raphael was here yesterday making Astarte talk to the laptop, I decided I might as well download the update for the iPhone itself, since there was sure to be conflict between a non-updated system and a lot of shiny freshly-sharpened cutting-edge aps.‡‡‡ The update duly downloaded and at the moment of installation . . . Pooka’s screen went black and ‘Robin’s iPhone’ disappeared from the laptop screen.
None of the easy, obvious things like unplugging and restarting have any effect at all—although restarting the laptop made the internal Gogmagog insist on spending forty-five minutes byte-counting, so something discernably unfriendly must have happened.§ I’ve even dared so far as to try a couple of the things that the mostly entirely useless don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you supposed troubleshooting guides on the Apple site suggest. Nothing. Dead iPhone. HOOOOOWWWWWWWWWL.
I sent Raphael an email and left a message on his mobile, saying, I don’t know what you check first in the morning, but PLEASE RING ME ASAP I HAVE A DEAD IPHONE. This was about nine o’clock tonight. About an hour later I remembered that he went on holiday today. . . .
He answered. It’s ten o’clock at night, the man is on holiday, and he answered. He really is an archangel.
He’s already contacted Gabriel—who apparently doesn’t have evenings and holidays either—who will fit me in tomorrow sometime. Technology may be the devil§§ but there are archangels. §§§
* * *
* Made more difficult by possessing no closets.
** I have a new neighbour. He moved in yesterday. The jury’s still out.^ I missed the removal van so I can’t tell you if there are seven-foot opal-eyed idols or a piano or not. You could get an upright on the one long wall in the sitting-room but any seven-foot opal-eyed idols are going to have to recline.^^
^ He probably feels the same about us. My ex-neighbour told me proudly that they were sure he’d fit right in to our little community on the cul de sac. Snork. Which side? The distressingly posh, or the hellhounds, hellgoddess, bat army, attack rosebushes and Godzilla side?
Maybe he’d like to learn to ring handbells.
^^ Unless of course it’s a very short idol with seven feet.
*** Infinitely scarier than Godzilla.
† The big fat errors are just going to have to stay there—this daily blog thing is enough of a cow.
†† I appreciate the restraint that forum members are maintaining on this delicate topic—not that my mods aren’t poised to take down the errant—but new readers may have missed the bit about the hellhounds’ digestions being trashed by a bad first two years. I don’t like dogs that don’t eat, it makes me neurotic, but I am pathological about these guys for cause.
††† On dog training: my first dog was an Alsatian. I didn’t do a very good job of training her, but she was dead easy to train, I was just a twit. And I thought all dogs were like this just bigger or smaller or hairier or whatever, and therefore all aberrant behaviour was 100% the result of lazy negligent human training practises. I wonder how many Alsatian owners look at the hellhounds and . . .
‡ For those of you blessedly iPhone-free, it’s the computer link-up site.^ It chiefly exists to sell you stuff.
^ And yes, it’s the dumbest name going. It’s not only tunes. It’s everything. Books, aps, films, support—ha—accessories, news, whatever. It’s lately added a social network . . . No. Go away.
‡‡ Including one wrecking my favourite weather ap. What were these ball-bearings-for-brains thinking of? Well, clearly they weren’t thinking. They were going click-click-click-click-TILT.
‡‡‡ And my least favourite weather ap already has another update. It’s my least favourite because it throws out aps the way a kid with measles throws out spots. And after you’ve failed to download the first forty or so it seizes up on you and won’t work till you update it. Frell the freller.
§ What is that peculiar sulphuric smell?
§§ Give me a hellhound any day. They’re at least warm and furry. Have I mentioned that they’re still/again not eating without considerable input from me? And I wonder why I’m a little on edge.^
^ Actually . . . I don’t wonder. I don’t wonder at all. And . . . story in progress? Kill me.
§§§ I don’t pay these boys^ enough. I can’t afford to pay these boys enough. I just bought an iPad. My idea of a splashy night out is a pint at the pub and my knitting.
^ Their ages together may approach mine.
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