TV: Nightmares & Dinners
Yesterday we swapped out the digital cable box, for some more reasonably-priced analog. I thought it would take a pliers to remove the thing, so I asked Fred to swap out the box & replace it with the connections on the VCR. I'd thought of having Car-girl do it for our TA, but since I didn't know for sure if she has tools, I asked Fred's help: show up around 10:00, take out the box drop Trish off at work, then go up to the Invisible Cable Company, to make sure that they had their box & remote.
Then the nightmare began. I asked Fred to stick around long enough to see if it was working, but when I tried the remote to the VCR, all I could get was Ch.1-10, none of the higher channels. Since I couldn't read the letters on the phone, I had Fred call support for me. That woman, when told I was running my signal thru a VCR, so I could hook it into my stereo, had me "isolate the TV", which wasn't the right thing to do, but I'd have had a hard time even with that, were it not for the tech on the other end.
Then Fred decided, when it came to programming channels into the TV, that the way to do it was manually, one channel at a time for all 63 channels, which is, of course, ridiculous. Even though we were doing the wrong thing, you still want to use the feature that automatically adds the channels. Then he got perturbed that I was staying on the phone to talk to the tech, saying, "No, Jim, this is the way you do it. I'm sure of it." Eventually, I did get off the phone & let him go home, as he was getting frustrated with me, & I with him.
So I was headed into a real panic attack. It was around 1/4 to noon, so I took a whole Xanax, fuck the skinny dog, & then fixed a TV dinner. It was some species of chicken-thing. I called support once more, after lunch, by using redial. The woman had me do various things, then asked if there was a TV/VCR switch on the remote. There was, & I was finally able to get the skiffy channel. I thought everything was going well, then tried to change the channel, & screwed it up again.
I finally called Jeffer Auss about it. He promised to be over around 3:00 (I later got him to switch it to 2:30 so we could pick up Trish.) I put the radio on (we have to make do without our music channels, now). While I waited, I did another draft of Ch.5 of Mindstorm, but was really too upset to do much beyond that.
Jeffer finally arrived He said that the remote on his VCR resembles mine. His is also a Panasonic, but we have the one with the built-in DVD player. He messed around with the remote some, while talking to the techs -- at least he was willing to listen; Fred is too insistent on knowing what he's doing, like the thing with the door & the moths.
I finally consigned myself to needing an appointment with the repairman, when Jeff discovered the "set channels" feature on the Action button on the VCR. He'd discovered it once before, but hit cancel 'cause it just kept flashing. Thing is, it doesn't give you the channel numbers as you're loading them, instead it just keeps cycling until it's thru. Once it did finish, we played around to see if we were getting everything, & then he had to split 'cause he had no time to waste. Of course, my next step was to call the repairman & cancel.
We'd already picked up Trish, shortly after Jeff arrived, so when he left -- she changed clothes in the bathroom. I ran my C.J. Cherryh book back to the library without finishing it, then picked up my Alphagan at Western Drug. We spent some time together, I think she was playing Penguins, then I cooked some steak & mashed potatoes for supper. She'd already brought home a bunch of veggies from the salad bar. Unfortunately, the steak still wasn't well enough done for Trish. There's a delicate balance between rubbery & chewy.
Trish did some dishes after supper, using the pots-&-pans cycle on the machine. So there wasn't enough hot water for a bath for the 2 of us. I guess I'll just have to be content to be Smelly Bear, until I can hop into the tub later today. Hope called while Trish played Penguins, & we had a good, long talk. She's almost her own payee now, but doesn't know if she's making it to the State Conference as she had to buy birthday gifts for her kids.
We did watch Dark Angel, but the Xanax caused me to fall asleep during the show. Trish finally got me to get up & go to bed. I took 2 Scientology-fucking sleeping pills, instead of 3, as I felt I'd already napped pretty well from the Xanax.
But I woke up at 4:25 AM. Trish & I both had to go to the bathroom. I tried to return to sleep, finally gave up around 5:00. Today, I have my follow-up on the colonoscopy at 8:45, then my morning free, up to TA time. Tomorrow, we see Doc Larocque, & see if Trish's Lamictal really needs to be raised & if the haldol still needs to be in my blood & the blood in my head.
Then the nightmare began. I asked Fred to stick around long enough to see if it was working, but when I tried the remote to the VCR, all I could get was Ch.1-10, none of the higher channels. Since I couldn't read the letters on the phone, I had Fred call support for me. That woman, when told I was running my signal thru a VCR, so I could hook it into my stereo, had me "isolate the TV", which wasn't the right thing to do, but I'd have had a hard time even with that, were it not for the tech on the other end.
Then Fred decided, when it came to programming channels into the TV, that the way to do it was manually, one channel at a time for all 63 channels, which is, of course, ridiculous. Even though we were doing the wrong thing, you still want to use the feature that automatically adds the channels. Then he got perturbed that I was staying on the phone to talk to the tech, saying, "No, Jim, this is the way you do it. I'm sure of it." Eventually, I did get off the phone & let him go home, as he was getting frustrated with me, & I with him.
So I was headed into a real panic attack. It was around 1/4 to noon, so I took a whole Xanax, fuck the skinny dog, & then fixed a TV dinner. It was some species of chicken-thing. I called support once more, after lunch, by using redial. The woman had me do various things, then asked if there was a TV/VCR switch on the remote. There was, & I was finally able to get the skiffy channel. I thought everything was going well, then tried to change the channel, & screwed it up again.
I finally called Jeffer Auss about it. He promised to be over around 3:00 (I later got him to switch it to 2:30 so we could pick up Trish.) I put the radio on (we have to make do without our music channels, now). While I waited, I did another draft of Ch.5 of Mindstorm, but was really too upset to do much beyond that.
Jeffer finally arrived He said that the remote on his VCR resembles mine. His is also a Panasonic, but we have the one with the built-in DVD player. He messed around with the remote some, while talking to the techs -- at least he was willing to listen; Fred is too insistent on knowing what he's doing, like the thing with the door & the moths.
I finally consigned myself to needing an appointment with the repairman, when Jeff discovered the "set channels" feature on the Action button on the VCR. He'd discovered it once before, but hit cancel 'cause it just kept flashing. Thing is, it doesn't give you the channel numbers as you're loading them, instead it just keeps cycling until it's thru. Once it did finish, we played around to see if we were getting everything, & then he had to split 'cause he had no time to waste. Of course, my next step was to call the repairman & cancel.
We'd already picked up Trish, shortly after Jeff arrived, so when he left -- she changed clothes in the bathroom. I ran my C.J. Cherryh book back to the library without finishing it, then picked up my Alphagan at Western Drug. We spent some time together, I think she was playing Penguins, then I cooked some steak & mashed potatoes for supper. She'd already brought home a bunch of veggies from the salad bar. Unfortunately, the steak still wasn't well enough done for Trish. There's a delicate balance between rubbery & chewy.
Trish did some dishes after supper, using the pots-&-pans cycle on the machine. So there wasn't enough hot water for a bath for the 2 of us. I guess I'll just have to be content to be Smelly Bear, until I can hop into the tub later today. Hope called while Trish played Penguins, & we had a good, long talk. She's almost her own payee now, but doesn't know if she's making it to the State Conference as she had to buy birthday gifts for her kids.
We did watch Dark Angel, but the Xanax caused me to fall asleep during the show. Trish finally got me to get up & go to bed. I took 2 Scientology-fucking sleeping pills, instead of 3, as I felt I'd already napped pretty well from the Xanax.
But I woke up at 4:25 AM. Trish & I both had to go to the bathroom. I tried to return to sleep, finally gave up around 5:00. Today, I have my follow-up on the colonoscopy at 8:45, then my morning free, up to TA time. Tomorrow, we see Doc Larocque, & see if Trish's Lamictal really needs to be raised & if the haldol still needs to be in my blood & the blood in my head.
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