New Normal Hasn’t Set In Yet

So here I am, in quarantine most of the time, but still busier than I expected, even though it is now just The Husband and me at home.

Phone calls and texts; Son #2 in and out of the hospital, (hopefully now on his way to health), and the rest of the family communicates a lot.

Cleaning is getting done, deep searching going on.

Cloth masks being made. More searching, as I had given a great deal of craft items away, I still found wonderful things, (and more elastic for masks).

We had the internet sped increased. After a fiasco of computer problems, (Call after call to AT&T and the Geek Squad), it seems to be settled, and biggest part of the ‘fix’ was an unexpected repair upload from Hewlett –Packard! Now we’re moving!

I had to register formal complaints. Although I have raved here, I do not like having to go to superiors, and I was nice. Both times, I simply put the matter back to the company for the lack of consistent training. I was offered an internet upgrade when I called for repair, but I wanted to check with The Husband and Teen Grandson. I called back to accept and after setting everything up, the second rep told me that the upgrade was unavailable in my area. I was shocked. When a replacement modem arrived, (even I knew that was the trouble we had with the WIFI cutting on and off as it was old equipment), it would not hook up to the back-up system which came with the old one.  The next rep said that I had to go to the battery company itself, and that they would simply send one to me. I questioned that twice: “Really? Let me ask you again. They are just going to send a new one out to me, just like that?”)  I called the company and guess what they said?  You got it. (I didn’t.) Back to AT&T where the next rep said, No, and they don’t even do the back-ups anymore, even if I had bought a new one from the battery company!

They told me to send back the old modem when they said they’d send the new one. When I called back about the back-up, they told me to send back the old modem.

Then I got a letter saying NOT to send back the old modem.

The computer acted up awfully just after the new modem was attached. The automated AT&T man-voice told me it was a ‘gateway’ problem which he could not fix and I needed a rep. The rep said it was my computer, although I quoted their little automated guy.  Back and forth to Geek Squad and AT&T.  (Supervisors were called upon.)

Just as I ended up preparing to drop off the PC at the Geek and be out of commission, HP came through. Out of nowhere,  up came the repair, right online and it fixed every problem.

I have a Smartphone. It is not the latest version, but it’s a Samsung Galaxy, very sharp, fast and fairly big.  I still don’t know how people completely function on their phones. The sites do not come put the same as they do on a computer, and forget trying to save things, (let alone SEE them!)  It makes no sense to me that a site is not a site, whether you get there via computer or phone.

But I am getting things accomplished, as I said last time, just not what I expected.

NOTHING is as expected. Who would know that I would hesitate to have my line repaired and equipment checked? “The Phone Company” used to be in our houses all the time. You could not do anything with phone equipment or lines, not even the phone itself; a company person had to do everything. (Maybe many of you remember that.  Ma Bell had us by the throat.) But here we were, less than a week out of total quarantine, most of the work would be done outside, but a man had to come in…

and we had to actually think about it.

It was a hard call, we went for it.

We had to swear that we were no longer in quarantine, that no one was sick, that we had not been in contact with a sick person within two weeks and that we would maintain at least a six-foot distance from their rep at all times; and they checked the morning before to make sure that we could meet all of the criteria.  The man was in and out as quickly as he could be, and I re-sanitized the air and every surface he possibly came into contact with; (he put booties over his shoes at the front door). He offered to replace the short bookshelf next to the computer, which is usually in front of the phone box on the baseboard/woodwork, but we moved it out (to clean behind it!) So that he wouldn’t have to touch it, we put it back.

Is this “the new normal’?  My sister was horrified that I went ahead with it, but more than ever, we need our WIFI, even to get/keep our Amazon Prime, Netflix, YouTube, not to mention our UVerse internet…and The Grandson’s computer when he comes.

Yes, he went to his mother’s and he will be coming back. My granddaughters came here last Saturday. Enough is enough. We aren’t hugging, but I am seeing them upon occassion. Otherwise, it’s killing me.

I was in mask and gloves at Kroger. Awkward to not reach into my purse with a gloved hand, to not have possible cross-contamination on everything from cards to car keys, (not to mention the phone and car. Pull off one glove, put contaminated things in one pocket, use my left hand to sign the pin-pad at the pharmacy… they can’t possibly check the signatures, btw!

We drove the 90 mile round trip to my brother’s nursing home to drop a box of cheer to him; we could not see him, we were in masks and gloves and with the infection rate in that county, we stopped at one restroom near a store’s doors and were gloved and masked.

I guess that I should not complain. I do have communications. As ill-stocked as the stores are, (as badly as they pack my bags), they are there for most of what we need.
My brother is in a good home.

But we can still hope for better, easier times, even if we will have a ‘new normal’.