Frustrations

I finally decide to get a move on ... and every attempt to get myself ready for this trip ends up in frustration.

I received my new cell phone a few days ago. It has taken me all this time to figure out how to do the preliminary things necessary to actually use it. Two days to learn how to open the back so that I could put the battery in and charge it. Another day to deal with the instruction book which asked me for numbers that were invisible to the naked eye ... and when I finally discovered their location, could not be read without using a magnifying glass.

Each stage has required me to get past my anger that it is so small and my body parts are so inept.

Today I spent all morning trying to activate the damned thing. First the dial-up connection kept hanging up. Then I ran into a blank wall while on the activation site ... over and over again. I tried calling the phone activation number. They couldn't do it right now because they were house cleaning their system or some such thing. They told me to call back or re-try on-line in two hours. I went through all the same frustrations two hours later, and finally got hold of a person who was willing and able to activate the phone ... and then we discovered that I couldn't use the phone in my house because the signal was not strong enough.

When I calm down I will take the phone and his instructions with me to Wakefield, pick up Kenya's food for the trip and the rest of my prescriptions ... and try to finish activating this phone.

I have never liked cell phones and now I know why! If I were not going on this trip I would not have bothered getting it because I can't use it unless I leave the house ... and where am I most likely to need it in an emergency? Here on my property.

So ... one thing this nomadic summer is doing for me is dragging me kicking and screaming into the 21st century where the ubiquitous cell phone is king ... so much so that its use is being outlawed while driving.