Bow Tie o’ the Day is covered in brass instruments. If it’s Christmas season—and it is—the carolers often need a band.
This morning, my hearing doc was able to jump-start both my hearing aids. Apparently, whenever your phone updates its operating system, if the hearing aid software on the phone hasn’t updated their app yet, it can cause hearing aids to not take orders. It can cause one or both hearing devices to shut down completely. That’s what caused mine to go dead last week. My hearing doc told me this almost never happens. I’ve had my hearing aids and their software on my phone for over 4 years, and this was the first time it’s happened to me. If it ever does happen again, I will know what the problem is, and I now know how to fix it myself. My hearing aid doc told me this morning that he and everybody else in his office would prefer that I come in for any and all adjustments instead of doing them myself— because they like how I brighten up the place, and they love to see my bow ties. Well, okay then.👂🏻
Besides attempting to fix my own hearing aids, and assembling a piece of furniture I desperately need, while lugging the new printer upstairs and the old printer down, I have spent the bulk of my time over the last two days dealing with what I will call Password Problems. It began when one of my email accounts quit receiving email on my laptop. I tinkered with the account on there, but it keeps telling me to clean out my email. When I try to put the old, useless email in the trash, the trash throws it back into the account and I get a message telling me I need to clean out my email. How’s that for a little touch of argument-in-a-circle? However, that same email account of mine works just fine on my phone. So I used my phone to successfully delete tons of that email. But the tried-to-be-trashed email still hangs there in the very same account on the laptop. My computers, laptop, and phone are all connected to that same email account, with the same password. Every email I deleted on my phone got successfully deleted on all devices—except the laptop where it haunts me by remaining un-trashable. The email account on the laptop now says my password is not my password. I can’t prove I’m me, so the online support technicians won’t help me fix the problem. I can’t prove I am I, nor can I prove whoever I am is who owns the email account. And then I discovered my phone no longer let’s me open the DirecTV app on it, because—as the phone tells me—the one and only password I’ve ever had for the DirecTV app is not my password. Good golly! The password dominoes are falling, and I know it’s not a conspiracy. I have no doubt it somehow began when I inadvertently touched a button I did not know I touched, on one or more of the dozen devices in this house. I hope I didn’t kill Alexa. She’s the only one here during the day who talks to me out loud.
Yeah, I’ll get it all figured out. I have not given up on finding a solution to this pesky Password Problem yet, but I am writing this post so I can get away from the irritating tech dramas for a couple of hours. 🎭
TIE O’ THE DAY is beginning an important feature. I read many books at any given time. There are the books in the bathroom, the books by the bed, the books by my side of the loveseat, the books in the loft, the books in the Tie Room, etc. In these anti-arts, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-fact, and anti-gospel times, I am making a conscious effort to henceforth be reading at least one “banned” book on any given day, and I will let you know which banned book(s) I am currently reading. Fortunately, it won’t be difficult for me to find plenty of “banned” books to read, since so many magnificent books have been the targets of the Book Busybodies. As for the banned books I have most recently finished, I re-read Russell Banks’ AFFLICTION, as well as James Dickey’s DELIVERANCE. They were thought-provoking reads, but after partaking of those two books, I’ve had my limit of male inner angst and the American male ego, for a while anyway. Today, I’m re-reading the following Banned Book(s) o’ the Day: Toni Morrison’s BELOVED, Hart Crane’s WHITE BUILDINGS, and Donna Tartt’s THE SECRET HISTORY. All three are globally acclaimed books, artfully written. Though not as old as some of the books in our literary canon, they stand tall among the classics of 20th Century American literature. 📚
