2017 Life Logs, Day 316: Update on Puerto Rico
Date: Sunday, November 12, 2017
Weather: Overcast, Turning Partly Cloudy in PM; High 48, Low 36 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA

“We got water back this morning!!!!! Long may it last!!” My day started with that text message from Jo. A while later, I got a text message from Justin with two photos attached. He explained that Ziggy and Coco had taken advantage of the running water to wash their hair and Jo took post-shower photos of the wet heads. Such pleasure from something so simple as running water. As Jo said, long may it last. Justin also sent then and now photos of a spot on their land. The ‘then’ photo was taken just after Hurricane Maria hit and the ‘now’ photo shows how the green is coming back. It looks like the land will be recovered long before the people. Next Sunday night, Heather and family, Justin and family, and I will arrive in Fort Myers Beach for a Handley family gathering. This was planned months ago as a gathering in Mark’s honor and I am so glad that Justin and Jo are going to be able to come. I wrote to tell them that I just can’t wait for a great big group hug. Again, I’ll quote Jo. “We are all so looking forward to that group hug, relaxation, feasting, family time and thanksgiving too!!” It will be wonderful to all be together after the last couple of months of struggles. And days in the 70’s and nights in the 50’s sounds a whole lot better than days in the 50’s and night’s in the 40’s. It will be a warm up for those of us from Cape Cod and a welcome cool down for the Puerto Rico gang.

Another day slipped through my fingers with not much to show for it. Unfortunately, I am dealing with email issues again. It all started yesterday when I got an email from Avast, an internet security system. The email said I had a payment due in November and it would be automatically deducted from my bank account. I know I just had the same message in July and September. So I called to find out what exactly I was paying for. The call turned into an afternoon affair as I had to get out my old computer, as well as the one I use now. The very patient guy on the phone told me how to access the services I receive and it turns out that I have been paying for internet security on two different computers and Avast computer clean-up on the two. I had 4 different billings and haven’t used the second computer since last fall. By the time we got it all sorted out, I was exhausted with computer issues. But he asked me to run the computer clean-up before we got off the phone. I noticed a message that said my router had issues, but I ignored that. When I got off the phone, I turned my attention to something else for an hour or so. When I got back to my computer, I could not get email. I just kept getting a task error message. This is what happened on the other computer last fall. Somehow I think the problem happened when I ran the Avast clean-up program. Today I took the computer to Heather’s to get some help, but it works just fine there. The problem does seem to be with my cable router, but I don’t know what to do about that. This same problem caused me to abandon one computer last fall as I never got the issue resolved. Heather is out of town for the next couple of days and then Jed leaves for four days and returns just in time for us to head to Florida. They are busy, busy. So, I am going to search for some service that can make a house call because the problem has to be resolved here between the computer and the cable router that supplies my internet service. In the meantime, I am struggling with using gmail on the internet. The issue there is that I have two email addresses which complicates matters tremendously. But at least I can limp along getting mail on my phone and through the internet. It is just not convenient, but I’m not totally disabled.