The Hell of Windows 10

Here's a truly awful blog posting for you to mull over! No pictures, no access to any of our personal files and we seem to have been transported to a specific ring of Hell reserved for those who attempt to install and run Windows 10!
We downloaded Windows 10 a while ago, and while we weren't thrilled (some programs seem to not work, we could only upload one picture at a time from the camera etc etc) we were able to function somewhat normally. But yesterday morning, a very strange thing happened: we turned on the computer and it took a million years to come on and when it did, our desktop was all re-arranged and half of our icons were gone. When I tried to access files- like for documents or photos, they weren't there. All of our book marks and passwords and saved information was gone, too, when we tried to sign onto the Internet, as if our identities and profiles had all been lost.
So last night, after I got home form work, I sat on the phone for a couple of hours while a Microsoft technician rearranged our lives. (That's what it felt like. Remember the movie, "Being John Malkovich"? Where a portal allowed people to walk around inside his head? Very odd!) This technician was moving our cursor and opening things remotely... and she found all of our stuff! But she couldn't/didn't explain WHERE it all had gone. But she re-made desk top icons and re-populated our programs and seemed to do a great job. It took several hours overnight, when we were instructed to simply leave the computer to do its internal work. I woke up at 2:00 am and checked on the computer and it worked fine. I was excited. But you know as well as I do that that was not to be...
This morning, I turned the computer on and it had reverted to the weird world of Microsoft dominion. I was told (in a message that appeared and disappeared so quickly that I couldn't read all of it) that we were "granted a temporary ID" and I still cannot access any files! What a nightmare!
My sister Beatrice will recognize this; she told me a similar story the other day. Somehow, her computer downloaded this disaster while they were off dancing and stuff had just vanished. For some unknown reason, ours didn't vanish all at once. There's good news for my sister: if the download happened less than 30 days ago, they'll allow you to reload Windows 8. Our lives are made trickier by the fact that some part of the Windows 10 monster downloaded a month and a half ago, and the rest only yesterday. Which puts us in Windows 8 limbo...
Do I really want to spend another half a day on the phone with a Microsoft technician??!?!!?!?!? As I told her, all I want is my computer to be my computer. It's a tool. I don't need- or care!- how it all operates. I just need it to work!

Sleep Deprived

I now join the ranks of those people- like CIA black site prisoners and new parents- who lust after a good, long old fashioned eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I guess we are "new parents" of a sort (although I constantly maintain that I am not a "fur mother" and that our puppy is a chosen friend, not a child. I think the bond between dog and "owner" is a powerful one expressly because we are different species and speak a different language and think in different band widths. On the other hand, the case could be made that children are a very different species...) In any event, our dog is delighted to awaken us a 5:00 am or even 4:45 am. I am nostalgic for the ringing of the alarm clock.
Not that Bob and I were ever in danger of being accused of being slug-a-beds. Our alarm is typically set for six and we often wake up several minutes before it goes off. But lil' Robin the Good's internal timer is hard wired to be alert as soon as the sun starts to offer even the palest glow in the eastern sky. I calculated the other day (no mean feat for me at the best of times, but doing math when exhausted is really hard for me!) that Bob and I are surviving on about 6 hours of sleep a night... not nearly enough! It's ironic that when Jules died, I couldn't sleep and even if I did fall asleep, I'd wake up at 1:00, unable to return to sleep. At least I fall asleep just fine now, but certainly I still need more.
Robin, conversely, has her own rather attractive schedule. Wake Rita and Bob up- HELLOO!! and immediately begin prancing around, chewing socks and shoes and jumping on the bed in an enthusiastic embrace of being alive. She dances outside (with me as her foggy half dead retinue) where she enjoys a lengthy pee and a giant poop. Then she gallops inside to devour a hearty bowl of gourmet dog crunchies, plays hard with her various enormous collection of "toys" (some are primitive and some are partially deconstructed) and then collapses with her head on my stomach to sleep off the mornings excitement. I have just now managed to swallow a half a cup of coffee and she's already back to REM sleep. Bob and I have debated selecting a very pointy stick with which to poke and prod Mistress Mutt as she drifts off to sleep and keeping her awake, much as she does to us. You have to admire the zeal of the young. Every thing is new and thrilling.
Entirely unrelated is the picture of Maggie grazing, wearing her fly mask. I had promised Maggie that she'd appear in my next post and despite being an exhausted person not firing on all cylinders, I remembered to snap her picture. But it was a pleasant day!

Dogs Jumping Over the Moon and Other Subjects

Yes, Robin the Good jumps over the moon in her dreams! Impossible to actually photograph the lil' dickens in action as she moves waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast, so I opt for the Photoshop version when she sleeps. A baseball made a fine moon. But I promised Maggie that she will star in her own blog post soon as lil' Robin has been hogging the limelight! (Remember Maggie? The Mexican Pony? See? I have been neglecting her!)
So this blog posting will simply serve to get us all up to speed. Spring is relentlessly a busy time here at the BobnRita Ranch (aka The BauHaus Chicken Coop) as there's art shows and spring planting and  friends visiting and it all seems to happen at once.
Bob's been super busy since the New York Botanical Garden bought a slew of his peony rings. They're carrying them in their gift shop and discerning customers are driving up from New Jersey and elsewhere to purchase them. He even shipped peony rings to Minnesota! Maybe they'll start buying his sculpture. I keep telling Bob: that's how it happens. Get well known for one thing and your art work will follow.

Here's another fun project. If you recall the story about seeded Concord grapes, you will know that I abandoned the search. But my intrepid sister Beatrice went searching far and wide for the elusive Concord with seeds and scored one for Bob's birthday. Kudos for her tenacity!  The little cutting is happily ensconced near a window, warm and moist, and producing diminutive grape clusters that Bob is diligently plucking off. A stick and a leaf and it wants to produce grapes! (The will to live and reproduce... more on that subject later. Dangerous topics ahead!)
Anyway, we persist and spring is springing.

And okay: as a preview to a future dogcentric posting, I present Robin upside down flying through space (again). I kid her that we've had so many boy dogs that come equipped with "balls and bat" (ie: testicles and penis) that when Robin is belly up, it looks like "something is missing". There's like... blank space. She thinks we're weird. (Probably right.)

Welcome to New Members!

 

A hearty welcome to new members of the plant kingdom who will now reside in our garden! Yes, it's the time of year that has me drooling and slobbering over all the pretty leafy, scaly, flowering and otherwise exciting plant offerings to be had at nurseries, garden centers and giant box stores. As Bob carefully punned yesterday, "Whore-to-culture". That's me! Just call me a plant slut!
So above, we have a Salix Helvetica (sounds like a typeface to me). That's a lousy picture because you can't see how truly silvery and delightful the foliage is (but it's been rainy and overcast for days so I'm surprise anything is showing up.) It's a "demure selection" (their words, not mine) topping out ultimately at about three feet high and wide.
Next on our list is a shrub that I could not for the life of me figure whether it was lovely and interesting or just an awful color:

Well, I bought one so I guess I came down on the side of interesting and it will provide a jolt of color to a kind of monotonous area. (But it is a bit garish). It's Thuja plicata "Forever Goldy" and was a real deal at Home Depot.
Probably somehow related is the next beast to follow me home:

Yes, I do love a good Dr. Suess tree! This is a Cupressocyparus leylandii "David's Blue" (which I'm pretty sure is synonymous with "Naylor's Blue"). Look at the contrapposto on that baby! Going one way and another a swaying to it's own internal rhythm! He's going to live next door to the Blue Garden, acting as an important punctuation mark across the mosaic walkway from the Blue Atlas Cedar. The Blue Garden is getting quite blue! But it needs weeding...
And to top off our tour, here's my favorite garden twizzle:

Robin the Good's tail! Developing a modest fringe and the end of her tail still sports that dynamic and endearing twizzle. Fits right in with the rest of the garden denizens, all adorned with volutes, curlicues and arabesques!