My Dell Is Coming Home’

I wrote this in 2018 about a totally different Dell laptop, one that had been out of commission for quite some time. The IT at Ragu, where Mike works, was able to fix the laptop and I gave the “blue” HP to my grandson who opened it and began using it right there. I had been having so many problems with it I was ready to toss it out the window. As for the power chair at that time, Mike was able to fix it for me and today I wish I still had that one. It was better than the one it was replaced by a few months later, That particular Dell laptop didn’t last very long after being fixed so I still had a Lenovo to fall back on. My Lenovo was stolen by a neighbor while I was packing to move from that building last August. After failed attempts to get him to return it and just when I was about to call the police to get it for me the former neighbor died suddenly of a massive heart attack. The Lenovo disappeared completely, so now I am once again writing from the Dell. It works but that’s about all I can say about it. Nothing like my original Dell PC, built just for me at the factory in Tennessee. I sold it when I got my laptop and at times wish I still had it. Nothing works like the old made in America things that we will probably never see again. And so goes those good old days when I wonder if things will ever be good again. Hiaerth!

Had to call Mike with an SOS about my power chair today and received the welcome news that my Dell is repaired and is coming home.  But like everything else in life, one thing is good so something has to be bad to even it all out.  The power chair is sick.  More like injured.  I guess I lean a bit too much to my right and that of course is the side the controls are on.  Yesterday while cruising thru Kroger’s I felt a slight pull and heard a small sound, just a whisper of one, and realized I was leaning a lot more on the right.  Even checked to see if I had a flat tire on the right side.  Nope, no flat.  Just the arm rest hanging down below the seat!  And a cable was loose.  I think it just might be time for a new chair.  I’m not sure how long I’ve had this one though. Surely not 5 years already?  We have to wait a mandatory 5 years between chairs, but I wonder if they will replace one that is broken?  And I wonder if Hoveround is still in business.  Haven’t seen those commercials lately, but then i don’t pay much attention to what is actually on the screen.  Just like the sound of the voices in the room with me.  Pathetic, huh?

So here I wait, more for Mike to hopefully fix the arm of the chair than to see my sweet Dell again, although getting her back is really going to be wonderful.  Blue thingy here will be designated a toy for the grandkids to play, dance on, toss around or take home for batting practice or just use for homework if they don’t mind the frustration.  I’m getting too old and cranky to have to search for a long page of prose that has been painstakingly pecked out on this jumping bean they  call a laptop.  I’ve invented a few other names for it but just don’t use them in polite company.  It just led me all over this page trying to edit the word polite, moving it around from one line to the other until my language was less than polite.   I’ll wash my mouth out later.

So, I just loaded my Picasa 3 setup app on a flash drive so I can put it back on Dell.  It is old and Google doesn’t like old so they took it away.  I found it on an android and have been fighting them to leave it alone ever since.  It’s a free program.  That’s the whole problem.  They want to sell a program and we DON’T WANT TO PAY OR A PROGRAM  when we had a perfectly food one free.  Google is greedy.  I am stubborn.  We’ll see ho wins this battle, and while it might not be me but it sure won’t be Google.

So, more good stuff from my oven.  First a real flop so I did a do-over and it is delicious!  Focaccia Bread with so many herbs it can be smelled all over this floor.  The one this morning was so bad I had to use mouthwash to get the taste out of my mouth.  It has to be pretty bad to warrant that treatment more than once in the same time frame.  I thought I was using a tried and true recipe, but will never make that mistake again.  That one is occupying file 13 now.  I located the good recipe in an exhaustive search later and this time the results are delicious!  Not exactly the way it’s ordinarily used, I made a sandwich with asparagus, tomatoes, scallions and smoked Gouda.  Not bad at all.  Gonna make another one tomorrow and use it for the Chicken Fajitas I’ve been planning for a long, long time.  Have some of the bread left but a friend who is second gen. American is on her way up to pick the rest of it up.  She is very Italian and will have the final vote on whether it passes muster or not.  I would hold my breath, but found once that blue complexion isn’t my best color.  Tends to make me light headed also.

These are burgoo kettles, each holding about 60 gallons of the food of the gods.  The location is Mount St. Joseph Convention Center, and the photos were taken several years ago when they were still having an annual picnic fund raiser.  That no longer happens, but I have to tell you burgoo is one of the best tasting foods in the universe.  Yes, it is a regional dish, not really a soup, definitely NOT a stew, and only one recipe is the real one in my humble opinion.  The burgoo cooking in these kettles is the real one!  My Mom adapted this recipe down from 60 gallons to 5 gallons, and we used to make it at home.  Then one of my sisters cut it down to one gallon, even better.  Problem is, everything has to be ground, chicken, beef, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, corn not so much, the meat pre cooked and the broth saved, then everything cooked and stirred for hours and hours.  Spices, yummy.  Worth it all, but so much better when someone else makes it and sends it to me now.  As with most recipes it always grows and overflows the pot it is cooking in.  And we found that minor accidents, like dropping the salt shaker in the pot and having to find it with the long handled spoon make the batch taste better.  I think Mom did that one.  With so many of us we took turns stirring while we were all at home, but after I was the only one left in the area it got hairy.  Mom and I took turns, sitting on the counter next to the stove, careful about moving too close.  Talk about a hotseat!  That would really have lit a fire under us.  Just a short trip down Memory Lane as I close the lid on this Blue thingy after deleting the rest of my files.  Already ran backup and have the discs on hand to move to Dell.

Coming To You From My Dell

I’ve been trying for two days to let you know that my Dell was coming home, but both of the drafts were stuck someplace in the atmosphere.  There was a knock on my door a few minutes ago and Mike stuck his head and arm in with my lovely laptop held out, in a hurry as usual, but apologizing for not bringing it last night when he came to work on my power chair.  Things never happen one at a time in my place.  We go along for months with nothing ever happening, then the big “WHAMMO!”  It all hits the fan at the same time.  I will have to do more updating with the Driver Support team to try to speed it up, but it is working on Windows 8 at the moment.  The Windows 10 it came with has disappeared and I really want that back.  I sure don’t want to pay for it again, so that requires another session with the nice people at Driver Update.

As for my chair, I was shopping at Kroger’s Thursday and felt a little, um, pull? to the right, maybe more like a jerk?  Then it felt like the right side was lower.  First thought was a flat tire.  Quick check showed the tire was inflated, so finished my shopping and came home asap, got out of the chair and the problem presented itself immediately.  The right armrest, with the joystick of course, immediately dropped so low it was under the chair seat!  Very alarming, to say the least.  I sent an immediate SOS out to Mike with added HELP,  and every other alarm message I could think of, and he came by last night and fixed that problem.  Mikey can fix anything!

For the uninitiated the photos that just disappeared from the screen are the burgoo kettles that are used at the church picnics around this area.  If I remember correctly each holds 60 gallons of the wonderful food, a local favorite and pretty much a regional dish,  Thick with ground meats, chicken, beef and mutton, onions, cabbage, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and the spices and sauces that are known to the cooking teams and very few others.  I know one of the best ones, but I won’t tell.  Just going to put the photos back on and see if it will publish this time  If it doesn’t then this one just wasn’t meant to be written!