kareina

Today I paged down on FB till I came to Duke Flieg's short story of the week . I always love his stories, I seem to fall exactly in the middle of his target market group, but this one was just such a beautiful story, with "all the feels" as they say these days, that, after I dried my tears, I felt the need to share it with a friend who I thought really ought to read it, so I used the "share in messenger" option.

Then, thought of another person I thought might especially enjoy it, and then I thought of a few more, and then I started paging down the list of friends that shows when one is in the "share in messenger" mode, clicking on at least one per page. I chose friends who create things, or who I know would appreciate that sort of magic, or who I thought might enjoy the play of emotions the story evokes.

Eventually, I realised that I had had been pressing the share rather a lot, so, curious, I exited that screen and opened messenger to count. 45 people! That doesn't count the many names I saw and didn't share the story with, because they are also friends with Flieg, and probably didn't need my help to call attention to it. Normally I am content to read the stories and leave a comment for Flieg saying what I appreciated this time. This is the first time I felt so compelled to share. I hope that they all enjoy it (those that have time to read it of course, I have already had a few people reply with "thanks, I will look later", and I expect that some of them are likely to forget). A couple of others have already replied saying that they also found the story beautiful.

I am certain that the story would have made me cry no matter when I read it, but I think I may have cried a bit extra since things have been so challenging emotionally lately. I have mentioned my housemate, E, who is living here on an extended visitor's visa until the end of June so that she can finish up her Master's degree. She's had a very rough year (and a not so easy life overall), and this weekend she got yet one more piece of bad news that shook her enough that she quit eating (saying that she just couldn't keep anything down). By Sunday evening she was doing poorly enough that she gave me permission to call the hospital, and after consulting with the 24 hour psychiatric urgent care people they said I should bring her in.

I wasn't certain were to bring her, so I tried first the main door, which happened to have someone leaving just as I walked towards it, so I asked and she said to go around to the back of the building. Around the back of the building I found the entrance for the Emergency room, and we tried that. Right now you enter the door into a foyer and you press a button on a screen for either serious emergency (symptoms of stroke, heart attack, extreme bleeding, etc.), or less urgent emergency (I can't recall the exact Swedish phrases they used). I pressed the less urgent option, and a while later a computer monitor activated and a human spoke to us. When I explained that we had called and been told to bring her in, they said that we need to go a bit further around the building to the entrance labeled "psykiatrisk akutvård".

That door is locked, but had a call button to push. Very shortly thereafter two people came to the door. When I said we had called ahead and who we were, they said that yes, they had been expecting us. They asked if we had any symptoms of covid or other illness, and since we didn't they took our temperatures (in our ear), and let us into a waiting room.

A bit later another couple of people came and did a pre-screening, asking a variety of questions, taking her blood pressure, taking her temperature again (this time with a hand held thing that one points at the forehead) etc. They went away saying that the doctor would be along soon. Then another person came and asked for a urine sample (not easy to provide, given that she also had had nothing to drink that day, but she managed a few drops).

Then the doctor came and brought us into a consultation room, where she asked lots of questions. I had heard most of what was revealed in the answers before, of course, and it is very clear to me that feeling overwhelmed and upset about the hand she has been dealt is an appropriate and reasonable response. I still wish she were doing better, and that she had had fewer things go wrong in the last year.

Eventually the doctor suggested that E.stay with them, at least for the night, and she agreed. Before I left they gave her a sleeping pill, and much to my delight, she drank water with it.

I got home from dropping her off at midnight on Sunday, and should have gone straight to sleep, but, not surprisingly, I couldn't. So I read fluffy posts on FB for a while and managed to get to sleep just after 02:00. Needless to say, I was not at work by 07:00 the next morning, but I did arrive at 08:30. I managed just over 2.5 hours of work, and decided that I was really too tired to usefully sort archive documents, so I flexed my flex time and went home for a three hour nap.

I got up in time to eat a little something before B. showed up at 15:00 for sledding on my hill. The first time this year that someone has joined me for that. It is more fun with company! Though I spend a lower percentage of my time actually sledding. It was a lovely to play in the snow, and what I really needed. Then I checked in with E. (we had also exchanged a few messages the night before after I got home, and before the sleeping pill worked), who wasn't yet doing as well as I would like.

I should have resumed work on my data processing for my Durham research that evening--I had had such a good meeting with my thesis advisor on Friday, and had been feeling even more keen than ever to get that done, so I can publish the results. But while the sledding helped with emotional equilibrium, I didn't really get by brain on line enough for that, and mostly spent the evening twiddling my thumbs.

This morning I managed to make it to work by 07:40, and put in more than 4.5 hours of actual productive time. Came home and continued reading the archaeological inspired cookbook I bought recently and then took a nap. After my nap I went out for more sledding (alone this time, but B. will return tomorrow), and then came in and did a skype call with E. She is looking better today, but I am still worried for her. But the day is still young, so I think I will try to eat a little something more and do some of that data processing before time for yoga and bed. Wish me luck!

I just sent the following note to my boss. Thought I'd also post it here, on the off chance that someone knows something about this sort of computer problem and what I should do about it. Though how I will see replies if the computer isn't working tomorrow, I don't know.

I am worried about my computer. On Saturday evening, while replying to e-mail, my notebook monitor suddenly switched from showing things to having naught but a bunch of blue lines across it. The spare monitor just then hadn't any windows open on it, so it was the normal background blue. I tried clicking with the mouse (pen), and using the space bar, and the screen went back to normal, but when I tried to click on something the screen went away again--first to those blue lines, and then to a blank, black screen. I have never seen it do anything like this before, and I was concerned. I don't know if it was a hardware issue, or some weird virus, or what. The computer was on, but nothing I could do got me anything on the screen, and eventually I had to turn it off by unpluging the power cord and removing the battery. I noticed the the computer felt a bit hot, so rather than trying to re-start straight away I took it home with me, spent some hours visiting with my mother, and then we turned it on. It worked perfectly at home, and together we revised my cv.

This evening I again turned the computer on at home, and it worked perfectly. Mom and I composed to a cousin of mine, I did a few other things, and then I decided to come back to my office to send that e-mail while she got ready for sleep. When first I arrive the computer started up normally. I plugged in the second monitor, and it behaved normally. That e-mail sent, I opened my internet browser to do something else on line (I use Eudora for mail, so don't normally need a web-browser for mail). When the browser started to open (Google Chrome) it announced that the last time it closed it didn't do so properly, and did I want it to restore all of the tabs from the last session. I said 'yes', since I was curious as to what all I had had open, and it started opening them. Before it finished opening them the computer started first to freeze up, and not let me click on the other window (which isn't that uncommon with my machine--it is getting up there in years, having bought it soon after enrolling in my PhD program). Then both monitors started showing the blue lines and nothing else. Wondering if the problem was some dodgy link opened on accident in one of the web browsers, I turned it off (again by having to unplug it and removing the battery), and then restarted it straight away.

At first it restarted like normal, but this time it thought the other monitor was on the opposite side of the notebook than it was. I opened the display window and moved the monitor to the actual side (something I don't normally need to do--it usually remembers which side it is on), but before I was able to open anything else I first got lines, and then a black screen. I tried one more re-start, without the second monitor, and while it started to work, showing the computer brand name, about the time it would normally show the windows start up details the screen went black again and stayed that way. So I turned it off again, and walked down the hall to the Mac outside your office, from where I am sending this e-mail.

I wonder if the problem is related to the issue my computer has always had with electricity--it has a tendency to suddenly shut down, no matter what I was in the middle of doing when anything changes in the electricity. If something else is plugged in somewhere in the room, if there is a thunderstorm, if someone is doing work on the lights on the next floor, and other times when I don't know why. It happens more often in my office here than when I was in Tasmania (the only time it happened there is when I plugged in a very old CRT monitor into the same power board as the computer was using). Here it happens much more often, and has always been a bit worrisome. But this new issue with the monitor is even more worrisome. I don't know if the computer was over-heated, if it is having issues with the second monitor, if this is a weird virus or what. I guess the data is still fine, but if the monitor doesn't work, I don't know how to access it. At this point I will wait till Monday morning to try again, and see if it behaves.

I have been thinking for a while that I would like a new computer, but kind of wanted to wait and see what sort of work I can find for when this contract ends, just in case I wind up having to live on savings for a while between jobs. Do you have any suggestions--is this sort of computer problem repairable? If so do you know someone who can fix it? Do they speak English, or would I need someone to translate to explain the problem? If it is repairable, would the cost be reasonable, or am I better seeking another computer? If I need another computer, is there one here that I could use, or am I better off buying one? If I need to buy one, am I better off ordering one from overseas, or getting something locally? I prefer the sort of keyboard I am used to (US), and I am hesitant to order things ever since the post office charged me 40 euros to pick up the replacement tires for my trike. If the fee is that high for tires, what would they want for a computer?