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You are here: Home / Archives for life

Henry

May 27, 2015 at 10:11 am by Claudia

5-27 henry

Meet Henry.

We call all our groundhogs Henry, but this Henry is smaller than last year’s Henry. He lives under the shed. He likes our grass.

He’s frightened easily. This is what he does when he hears a noise. He’s listening, making sure he’s safe. If he feels threatened at all, he runs very quickly to the ramp on the shed and then he disappears. I’ve seen him peek out, head raised, waiting for an all-clear.

If Don or I see him out there, we will not let Scout out. We try to let Henry dine in peace. We’ve even stopped cutting a portion of the grass near the shed, so he can have more dining options. We’re thinking of making a sign that says ‘Henry’s Pasture.’

Are you ready for your close-up, Henry?

5-27 henry 2

I have to take these shots from inside the house, of course. If I ventured out, I would scare Henry and that defeats the purpose.

I’m glad he’s timid, because it keeps him from venturing too near the road.

Much to my surprise, a recent conversation with Don about Henry revealed that Don always thinks of him as “Henri.” A French groundhog. But, I said, then it would be pronounced differently. Not Henry (HEN ree) but Henri (an REE), with a little French nasality on the ‘n’ and that French ‘r.’

But it didn’t matter. Don thinks of him as Henri but still says Henry. I think of him as Henry.

I just thought you’d like to meet him.

My back is still troubling me, but it’s certainly better than it was. I’m taking it easy, but as you can imagine, I’m itching to DO things.

We think the man who is tweeting about that scam is most likely an innocent person who is retweeting what he thought was a good cause. So I sent him a tweet this morning that thanked him for removing the tweet.

I’m sure that GoFundMe is a good site that helps a lot of people. As you can imagine, I’ve been looking at it a lot in the last few days. Bless them for immediately taking down the site that was using my nephew’s picture. But some of the causes seem questionable. Not questionable as in the obvious scam that would use an innocent child’s picture to raise money for a bogus cause; questionable in terms of what is a legitimate need and what isn’t.

It’s all subjective, of course. But I guess you can say I’m wary of the whole thing. Wasn’t it PT Barnum who said “There’s a sucker born every minute?” Be careful.

The winner of a copy of The Dismantling  is Kathy. Congratulations! An email is on its way to you.

New post up on Just Let Me Finish This Page.

Happy Wednesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Filed Under: animals, groundhogs, life 37 Comments

Okay. Let’s Start Over.

May 26, 2015 at 8:42 am by Claudia

5-26 picnic table 2

The last three days? Well, to put it simply: very troublesome.

First, my sister found out about someone using her little boy’s picture in a scam to raise money on the GoFundMe site. That was taken down, thank goodness. But yesterday, another reader alerted her to tweets involving the same scam. Meredith doesn’t use Twitter, so she called me to find out what to do. Don, who is already furious about what this man is doing, went on Twitter and reported the tweets, then he wrote a tweet to the man behind the scam, telling him to take it down and that he’d reported him. My college-age nephew (Little Z’s older brother) also reported it. And this morning, I noticed another tweet up, replied to the tweet telling him to take it down, that I knew it was a scam and I was reporting him, which I did. If this keeps up, I’m going to let you all know this person’s twitter profile and perhaps we can inundate this person with demands to take this stolen photo down.

Unfortunately, we are going to have to be vigilant about this. Even though the GoFundMe site was taken down, the tweets about it were still going strong, with over 400 people retweeting what was, and is, a scam.

Obviously, this has sickened and distressed my sister, as well as everyone who loves and adores my youngest nephew. Keep your eyes open, my friends, and if you see Little Z’s photo anywhere where it should not be, please let Meredith or me know.

5-26 hanging plant

Then, on Sunday, the little spinning beach ball that tells you something is hung up or not working on a Mac suddenly appeared on my screen. No big deal, I thought. But I couldn’t click out of any windows. So I shut the computer down and when I turned it back on again, the infamous blinking file folder with a question mark appeared on my screen. This was my first encounter with this symbol of doom and I searched on Don’s laptop for any advice as to what to do. Nothing worked. I couldn’t get the computer to recognize the hard drive.

Crap.

Somehow, though this was about noon on a Sunday, there was an appointment open at the Apple Store for 4:45. So I booked it and Don and I drove the one hour it takes to get there. They ran a diagnostic on the laptop that showed it was either a failed hard drive or a bracket problem (related to the hard drive) or both.

They told me it would be 1 to 3 days until I could get the computer back again. But that night, a wonderful tech from the store called me to tell me that the hard drive was still okay, but the bracket had to be replaced. He tried to get back my data, but it wasn’t working, so he reset the computer to the factory settings, basically wiping it clean. He did that because he knew I had backed up my computer and that I had access to my backup and could restore everything.

I have take a moment to say that I routinely get excellent help from the Genius Bar at the Apple Store. Everyone is so helpful, so friendly and, most importantly, they take care of the problem. They don’t charge me for something I don’t need. They are unfailingly polite and extremely service oriented. Thanks, everyone!

We picked up my laptop yesterday. When I got home, I plugged in the external drive that holds my backups and ran it. It took about 5 hours to restore everything. But it’s all back, minus a few photos that I had downloaded in the last week, as my last backup was about 8 days prior to this ‘event.’ I’ll be backing up more frequently in the future. I’ll also be deleting a lot of stuff I really don’t need. Time to clean up the computer.

My friends, I cannot stress this enough: If you aren’t currently backing up your computer, you need to start NOW. If I didn’t have a backup I would have lost everything, including 28,000 photos and my photo editing software (Lightroom.) If you don’t know how to do it, or what kind of external drive you need to buy, ask a friend or Google it or go to your local electronics store and ask a professional. If you’d rather back up to the Cloud, do that. Whichever way you choose to do it, start backing up your computer regularly.

Macs don’t break down all that often but they are, after all, machines and the hardware in them only lasts so long. I’m on my computer a lot, so it makes sense that at some point, the hard drive will go. The Apple techs likened it to needing to replace the tires on a car. It’s going to happen. Backing up my laptop ensures that all my information, files, applications and photos will not be lost.

Back up your computer!!!

And then, to top it all off, as I was getting out of the car yesterday (at the mall which houses the Apple Store) I felt a twinge in my lower back/tush and I was suddenly in a lot of pain. Today, it’s even worse. Such a simple movement and one I make several times a day – getting out of the car. I had a dentist appointment today that I had to cancel. No can do.

So, there you go. Yours truly is propped up in her blogging chair with lots of pillows against her back, groaning every time she moves the wrong way.

Yikes.

May I say, enough already?

Happy Tuesday.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

Filed Under: life 49 Comments

Uh Oh

May 25, 2015 at 9:00 am by Claudia

Hello everyone. I’m having computer troubles, as in I think my hard drive is kaput. I’m writing this on Sunday in case I don’t have the computer tomorrow. We’re taking it in to the Apple Store this afternoon.

Crap.

If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days, you’ll know why!

Update: Hard Drive is supposedly okay, a ‘bracket’ had to be replaced. But I’m going to have to restore all my files, etc. from a back up. Wish me luck! We’re picking it up this afternoon.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Filed Under: life 10 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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