“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 716 (Wednesday) – wacky wednesday

It was a wacky Wednesday. There was a high temperature of 67 degrees, which several sources declare broke a record for the date. According to the U.S. Climate Data website and other sources, the average high for February is 37 and the average low is 17. One chart showed that there have been five days this month at 50 degrees or higher. 

To participate in the weather, there was a walk to City Hall to pay the water bill, and then two colleagues and I, dressed in our accidentally matching black ankle pants and booties, continued for a walk through Lucy Larcom Park and around the block and back to the office. Back at my desk, my sinuses became stuffy and I had a throbbing headache that affected the front of my face like my spring allergy symptoms.

By 7:30 it was back to a more normal-ish temperature of 39 degrees and falling with a winter storm warning posted. Depending upon the source, there could be as much as 6 to 11 inches of snow beginning overnight Thursday and into Friday. Gotta love Mother Nature's mood swings. What climate change? <cough>

My Winston!

After work, traffic, which had been non-existent to slightly annoying for several months, was suddenly back to the pre-pandemic infuriating level and it took 20 minutes to travel two miles. If people would stop rolling through yellow and red lights and blocking intersections, the situation probably wouldn’t be as awful. The hell ride home reignited my hatred for driving, other drivers, having to go into the office to do the same work that can be done from home, and life in general. I just wanted to get home, eat, watch TV, and sit with Winston.

Unfortunately, xFinity cable chose tonight to deliver a fresh, new form of punishment. The general low-level technical torture, delivered in doses of increasing frequency and now a near-weekly event, is a black screen when turning things on. Pressing the volume button on the remote delivers the volume bar on the left of the screen, which a tech told me a couple years ago is how to check for a cable signal. But there is no guide, no shows, just darkness as if it wasn’t even turned on. 

The usual workaround for this situation is to unplug things and start from scratch, which was done either Monday or Tuesday. It’s hard to know the exact night because life is mostly a blur, sort of like a watercolor painting that someone spilled something on, but not with a pretty or artistic result, just a mess.

Tonight, the TV displayed the channel guide, but no channels. Any channel chosen would freeze with three dots blinking, and then display the message “This channel is temporarily unavailable.” All of them. For about two hours. The app was consulted and a system refresh performed. There were still no channels after the refresh, but the streaming apps are fine, so there were the latest episodes of Pam and Tommy on hulu and Wallander on Netflix with Winston at my side. Thank goodness for small favors.