Copy Cat

Yesterday was such a nice day -cold, yes but not near as bad as it's been of late. I didn't even bother to grab my coat when I went out to get Maya off the minivan when she came home from school and I didn't freeze my dupa off doing that either! Today, sad to say, it's a whole different ball game. Freezing rain, sleet, that misty kind of drizzly rain that with the least drop in temperature or wind speed/direction and presto magic, you've got the freezing rain again. Just what everyone wants - NOT. And, apparently this neck of the woods is gonna play copy cat to the likes of Chicago and those states in between and bestow this junky stuff on us all day today and tonight too. I'm not the least bit impressed with that decision.

Yesterday was a really neat day for me in other ways too -besides just the weather. It was the last Thursday of the month and as such, it was the day set aside when four of my friends from school had decided would be the day we will get together for lunch at a little local restaurant here. There was my good friend from very early childhood -like maybe age 2 or close to that -Kate, still my neighbor after all these years. And Rose, who grew up in the house right next door to mine and who lives about 2 miles from me. Rose and I share some nieces and nephews now too as her niece was married to my ex-brother-in-law, so my nieces and nephew there are her great-nieces and great-nephew and since my ex-sister-in-law is now a grandmother, thanks to two of those kids, Rose and I have three more nieces and one nephew "together" too. 'Cept they are her great-great-nieces and nephew and only my great-nieces and great-nephew. How 'bout them apples, huh. Then there's Linda -who lives in Philipsburg now and just retired and moved back to this area from Cincinnati about 2, maybe it's 3 years ago now. And lastly, Carol came over the mountain from State College for our gathering. I've known Linda since maybe 3rd or 4th grade when we met through the summer Vacation Bible School program here. She grew up in Winburne, which is about 4-5 miles from where I live. Carol, we got acquainted with in 7th grade when our classes were all blended together then at the Winburne school and we began having to catch the bus for 7th & 8th grades and of course, our four years together in high school. Carol's husband Ed, came over with her but didn't stay with us for lunch. Instead, he went and did a little "family" visiting of his own down at Jim and Charmaine's restaurant just up on the highway from my house. Charmaine and Ed are first cousins though so for him, it was a chance to catch up on what's what within his side of his family here.

Since we didn't have anyone available yesterday to watch Kurtis though, I took him to lunch with me. He did very well there too! Sat in the high chair beside me and was relatively well-behaved and as quiet as any 21-month-old probably is capable of being. I had a really good -big - grilled chicken salad and Kurtis ate most of the french fries that it comes with, served on top of the salad and the chicken pieces then, on top of all that. About mid-way through lunch, Linda remarked about how good, how quiet especially he was and I warned her that things are not always as they seem. You see neither of Mandy's kids has what I would call and "indoor voice" ya know. And about 10-15 minutes after Linda said that, apparently Kurtis was full of enough french fries and a couple bites of chicken, had his energy levels restored - along with his vocal chords being all ready to rev up as he started jabbering away. Much of his jabberings usually include some squealing type noises too - the kind that make you feel that sound just pierced from one ear, clear through your skull, brain and came out the other side ya see! Yeah, he did that. So I'm glad I did kind of forewarn them that noise was most likely gonna happen sooner or later there!

But it was a nice day, nice lunch, great visit and then, time to leave to come home. Now, before I left the house, I noticed the tire on the right front of the van was low but I figured I could make it up to the restaurant and then from there, down to the gas station at the I-80 interchange about 3/4 of a mile from the restaurant. I hadn't said anything to my friends about the tire but a lady who had pulled in about the same time as I had, came over to me when she was leaving to warn me - she didn't know if I was aware of this or not you see - but she figured she'd best let me know that my tire on the passenger side, on the front, well, it was flat you see. Now I didn't think it was really "FLAT" - just low. But this kind of worried the group so before we left, Carol made sure Ed came over to check it out and we decided I should be able to make it to gas station to get air in it and just to be on the safe side, Carol and Ed would follow behind me till I got there. Ok, Ed - ever the gentleman he's always been - also put the air in the tire for me too! By the way, did I mention to you I grew up about 2 doors from Ed too so I've know him since we were little kids too. Yes, it's a pretty close-knit little group around here at times.

This morning, I was messing with my computer though and decided to check out the file that holds the pictures and other gems other people send us via e-mail. The lovely "attach" file -that it took me forever and a day, or so it seemed, to figure out where the heck it is hidden on this computer with the Windows XP. Well, I know how to get there now and every now and again, I like to go in there and do a little "housekeeping," shall we say? You know, go through and trash some of the things that kind of land there unintentionally. In doing that today, I discovered something I didn't like too though. Seems I have something going on there that is causing two particular items to replicate. Many, many times over these two files have reproduced themselves in my attach folder! I started trying to delete them and that's when I realized every time I tried to delete these suckers, they reproduced some more! Talk about massive multiplication, it's going on in that folder, folks. So if anyone reading this has a clue how I can get rid of these two files and all the copies that SOMETHING here has made of them, I would very much appreciate a heads up on how to do that! I've run the anti-virus thing, done the "Clean disc" and even defrag too (although I don't thing defrag would have any ramifications on this issue, would it) and nothing seems to help.

Then, to add insult to injury, in order to run the anti-virus program, I had to uninstall it and reinstall it first because for some reason or other - I have no clue why -it was asking me for my dial-up number before it would upgrade the program this morning.

On a roll here now folks, I went to run the Ad-Aware thing and before running it, of course, I wanted to check for any updates but it wouldn't download any and was even telling me that it hadn't been checked for updates in -you ready for this - "963 days since last updated." Now that was a blatant lie because I haven't even had this computer yet for 365 days so how could that program dare tell me I hadn't updated it in almost three years then? Well, I tried and tried -everything that their help files said to try - to get it to update the program but it will only go to 5 percent and then it stops and says there is an error. I even uninstalled it and re-installed it too and still, it's a no-go. So anyone have any suggestions how to get my Ad-Aware program to update? Feel free to send those ideas along to me too!

So yes, from the weather here copying what's been happening earlier in the midwest, to the antivirus and anti-spyware programs trying to play copycat with each other, sort of, and then my attachments folder sending two files off on a major COPYCAT deal, I think I've more than had my fill today of things copying ya know!

If only it would do that with money. Now, wouldn't that just be every so loverly?