iPhone fun; a dearth of human contact; I hang out with cats and communicate with a fish

Yes, Michelle, I did get my iPhone* - just before I left for Barrow. It is such a long and absurd story and I have had so many things going on that I could not bring myself to tell it.

In fact, I cannot bring myself to tell it now, either. Basically, though, you will recall that I took the gift cards that Jacob and Lavina had given me for Christmas into the local At&t store where I was informed that they would cover the cost of an 8 gig phone, but I could get a 16 gig for $100 more. I did not want to pay $100, so I purchased the eight gig phone and the entire transition took about five minutes. 

When it was done, the salesman gave one of my gift cards back and told me that it still had $48 in it. That meant that I would actually have had to pony up only $52 for the 16 gig phone. That wasn't so bad, so I decided to go for it. The salesman said "okay," then attempted to complete the transaction.

About an hour later, he determined that, for some reason incomprehensible to me, he could not just transfer the funds that I had already paid straight over to the 16 gig phone. Instead, the funds had to be put back into the card, but they could not be put in for 24 hours.

"So come back in 24 hours," he said.

So I came back 24 hours later and a lady set about to complete the transaction. She took my extra $52, which actually came out to $53, and had me sign everything that needed to be signed. In the end, she could not complete the transaction, either. "The money is still not in the cards," she told me. "It will take ten days for the money to be put back into the cards. Come back in ten days."

Oh, boy... I just can't go on with this story. Let it be enough to say that each day for the next eight, a lady from At&t by the name of Elaine would call and we would talk - the first time for a good hour. Elaine would promise to get the situation taken care of so that I could pick up my phone within the day.

After a few days, she expressed great puzzlement as to why the money was going back into the cards at all, as the policy was to refund cash directly back to the customer, in which case, she said, I should have been able to get my iPhone that very first day.

Finally, three or four days after that, eight days after I made the original purchase, she figured out some way to bypass whatever convoluted thing had happened and to have the saleslady take the cards from me, cut them up and have me the pay the $53 all over again - then I could leave with my phone.

So eight days was better than ten.

I love the iPhone. It is so many things besides a phone. For example, if I photograph someone and then ask their name so that I can identify them in this blog, all I have to do is turn on iPhone dictation, speak that name and when I need it, there it is. So now I have no excuse ever to forget a name again.

But here is the curious thing: I have already used the dictation feature with a few names, but when it came time to do the blog I remembered the names even without opening the iPhone. However, there have been other names that I did not put into dictation, thinking that I would remember them, but when the time came, I had forgotten.

And of course I can now take pictures with my iPhone. The quality is terrible, but its still kind of fun and then I can send the picture to someone else.

Like this picture of Royce, for example. Melanie has been very worried about Royce and has spent much money on his care and diet, and now I can send his picture from my iPhone to her's and type, "well, he's taking his medicine, eating his soft food, and he's doing okay. The fish are doing pretty good, too."

Speaking of which, with Margie gone and me back from Barrow, I have almost no human interaction but tend to socialize only with cats and fish. I did see Caleb very briefly this morning. I woke up debating whether to cook oatmeal or go back to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. 

I was leaning towards oatmeal, with berries cooked into it, but then I heard the sounds of him playing war video games with his friends from around Alaska and the world. I heard the gunfire and the explosions, and the excited tone of his voice as he communicated with his team members as they battled the enemy.

I did not want to eat oatmeal in the middle of a battle, nor did I want to interrupt Caleb's game. My head felt groggy. I did not know if I could deal with cooking oatmeal and brewing coffee. I did not want to add more dishes to the pile. I knew that if I went to Family, I wouldn't have to.

I punched the auto-start to the car. Even before I left my bed, the car began to warm up.

"Hi Dad," Caleb when finally I stepped out, even as he blasted away at a enemy who dodged and blasted back at him.

"Hi Caleb," I said. Then I went to Family. There, I spoke briefly with my waitress, and with the lady behind the counter who took my money. As she was getting my change, I saw these folks admiring this baby, so I pulled my pocket camera out of my pocket and shot this scene and that was the total of my human interaction there.

"How was breakfast," Caleb, still fighting, asked as I reentered the house.

"It was good," I said.

I checked my email, then took off on my walk. I saw but one person, and he was atop a hill, about half-a-mile away from me. I did not see a moose. I did not even see a dog. I did see this raven, flying overhead. He had nothing to say to me.

Sometimes, ravens have lots to say, but not today - not this one.

And I saw this military jet.

And this airplane, which looks a lot like my crashed Running Dog. But I encountered no people.

By the time I reached home, Caleb had gone to bed. I came right out here to my office, sat down at this very computer and struggled to work. I don't know why I struggled, but I did. There was nothing unusally hard about the work, but sometimes, even when its easy, I struggle. I can barely do it. I find it almost impossible to put down a single word. It can take me hours to write two paragraphs.

And so it was today.

Finally, it was 4:00 PM, coffee break time, time to get back intp the car, grab an Americano and listen to the news. I had to drop off a bill, too. Along the way, I saw this kid. I said nothing to him. He was completely unaware of me and I'm pretty sure that's how he wanted it to be.

"Look!" said when I pulled up to Metro Cafe. "It's light! It's not dark. It's here, Bill. It's here." By "it" she meant light of course.

"Yep," I said, "it sure is."

"I've had a really good day today. It's been busy."

"That's good," I said. I want Metro Cafe to stay busy, because busy means staying in business.

"It's because we have lunch sandwiches now, and soup," she said. "People are coming for lunch."

"I will have to try your lunch, sometime," I said.

"Yes, you must," Carmen agreed.

And that would be the closest that I would come to having a conversation today.

When I saw this little girl exit her school bus, I thought that it really is a good thing that the light is back.

The road was slippery, though. One can never take an icy road for granted.

The moon is growing. I rolled down the window and shot a few frames as I drove down Church toward home. Except for the occasional glance, I did not look at it as I drove, but I knew where it was. I knew where to point the camera.

Wasilla moon.

Then I came back here to my office and here I have been ever since, not counting the half-hour that I spent inside the house, reheating some black bean soup that I made yesterday and then eating it, with applesauce for dessert. Just before 10:00 PM, I heard the sound of Caleb's footsteps as he walked from his room through the house and to the front door.

I heard the door open. I heard the door close. Caleb was gone.

At about 11:30 PM, I looked over at the parrot fish and saw him looking back at me, obviously wondering what I was up to. I have had him for eight years and for all but the first few months of that time, he had lived in the 55 gallon tank that I gave to Kalib just before I left for Barrow. I gave Kalib all the other fish that were in that tank, plus the giant plecostomus that had lived alone in the 90 gallon tank ever since the two big oscars died.

I am very fond of the parrot fish, and he likes me. He is smart, too. Very smart. He is the smartest fish that I have ever known. Some people think oscars are smart and they are, but they're not as smart as this guy. I could not bear to give him away, so I put him in the 90 gallon tank, which sits three feet to my right and kept him here with me.

Yesterday, I bought a little cichlid to go with him. It was yellow in the store, but it has been blue here. I also bought a little plecostomus, to be a house keeper.

"Hi, fish!" I waved.

The parrot waved back with the fin on his right side. "Hi, Bill!" he shouted.

I told you he is smart!

Who needs human interaction, when he has a fish such as this?

*see comments, previous post

Royce and his fellow patients at the vet; Art blows the snow away; linemen and At&t iPhone limbo

These are symptoms that an aging cat with thyroid problems can be expected to exhibit: voracious appetite, gorges food, vomits often, powerful thirst, becomes very vocal, meows more than ever, once-beautiful fur coat becomes ratty and ragged.

I learned this from Dr. Gerald Nance of the Wasilla Veterinary Clinic, seen here giving Royce a good look-over.

Royce is a bit nervous, but he enjoys attention and he is getting it.

Whoa! Maybe a little bit too much attention! Royce gets his temperature taken.

The only way to know for certain that Royce has a thyroid problem is to take a blood sample and get it analyzed, for several conditions. So Dr. Nance took Royce into the backroom and got a sample taken. We should know by Friday.

Up front, a tiny patient named "Teddy Bear" waited in the arms of a clinic receptionist.

And a dog named "Gunner" waited his turn. I wonder what kind of guns he uses, and how does he shoot a gun, as he lacks both thumb and fingers?

Or could his name be "Gunnar," not Gunner?

It could be, I suppose.

That's what they teach you in "Newspaper Reporting 101":

"Always ask how the name is spelled - never assume." A boy's name might sound like "Jim" to you, but it might actually be, "Gym."

And no boy named "Gym" wants to see his name in print spelled as "Jim."

But this is not a newspaper. This is a blog. The rules for blogs are different than newspapers. In fact, there are no rules for blogs. A blogger can do whatever he pleases.

And no dog that I have ever met gives a whimper how you spell it's name. Call it what you will and it will still wag its tail if it likes you and growl at you if it doesn't; maybe even bite you.

Gunner wouldn't bite. He would just shoot.

Unless he is Gunnar. In that case, he has no need for guns.

Still, at some point, I think I should adopt that old newspaper standard when it comes to the spelling of names, dogs included.

And this is Buttercup, who is not sick at all, but just hangs out at the clinic with her people.

Gunner(ar) goes in to get checked up.

Shortly after I returned Royce to the house, I took my walk. I took a picture of my hand, just as an exposure check. I had no intention of putting this image in this blog, but, what the heck. Surely, this is a picture I should give the entire world the opportunity to gaze upon.

I will probably win a big prize for it.

I walked and walked without seeing another person. And then I saw snow blowing. It has not snowed here since well before Christmas, but the winds of the past three days have blown snow around, sometimes putting it back from where it had already been removed.

So Art removes the snow from his driveway again.

"It's practically as hard as concrete," he told me.

That's what a driving wind does to snow - it makes it hard, so that you can walk right on top of it without breaking through. 

On my coffee break, I saw this lineman at work in the face of Wasilla's own little "Big Ben." Notice how the clock says 4:15 and look how light it is. The light is coming on fast now. The official sunset time today was 4:12, four minutes and nine seconds later than yesterday.

Remember how a couple of days ago I noted the cold temperatures to the north of here and speculated that they might soon slip down?

So far they have not. On my coffee break, depending on where I was, the temperatures ranged from 13 to 19. It will probably go a degree or two below zero overnight. I just checked to see what the temperatures are in two of my favorite communities:

Fort Yukon is -56.

Barrow is -25, fairly warm for January. Barrow doesn't get as cold as Fort Yukon, though, because Barrow sits at the edge of the ocean and even the Arctic Ocean moderates temperatures a bit.

Still, Barrow can be a lot colder than -25 this time of year. And Fort Yukon can be much colder than -56. Barrow gets cold earlier and stays cold longer. The wind blows more in Barrow, and harder. Still, Fort Yukon gets the colder temperatures. Fort Yukon gets hot, too: 101 degrees. The very coldest places in Alaska are also the hottest - not counting the tops of mountains. It must get colder up there than anywhere else and it never gets hot, but they don't keep official weather stations on the tops of Alaska's big mountains.

And the places that get the most snow are much warmer than the places that don't - like Valdez. The snow piles past the eaves in Valdez, but super-cold temperatures don't happen. I've found both -20 and -24 listed as the record low in Valdez. The wind can really blow in Valdez. 

Anyway, now that I am not going Arizona next week, I am going to go to Barrow instead.

I will tell you what the weather is like when I get there.

There were actually two line men working.

And no, I still don't have my iPhone. I have spent hours on the phone this week, talking to a friendly woman from At&t who genuinely seems to want to get the problem solved, but so far she hasn't been able to.

Each day, she says she will have the problem solved by the end of the day, but when the day ends, the problem is not solved. I still do not have my iPhone.

I could describe the problem as she has described it to me, but it is totally illogical and she doesn't even understand herself why it has played out as it has and I lack the energy to explain.

It's enough to know that I still don't have my iPhone, and I damn well should.

Yet... off and on throughout the day, I have been seeing images coming in from Haiti. It makes me wonder why I am even concerned about such a small matter. In time, it will get worked out.

Probably most people have figured this out by now, but here is the same address that I posted yesterday where people can go to help those in Haiti:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/haiti_earthquake_how_to_help_a.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

On my second day with Margie gone, I breakfast at IHOP, find a pleasant diversion involving Jennifer, Heineken and Jazz, then head to iPhone disappointment at the At&t store

It is 9:30 AM and I am on my way to IHOP. Look how light it already is!

Just a short time ago, it was still night at this time; soon it will look like this at midnight. Shortly after that, it will start to get dark again.

This earth just keeps spinning and spinning and plunging through its orbit at a maddening pace.

It does not slow down. It just goes, goes, goes.

That's good, I guess.

We would not want it to stop.

But it spins the years off way too fast, and carries us to old age and death much too rapidly.

It is exhilarates me to see the light coming back.

Now I am going up the hill towards IHOP.

This is Melanie, who used to work at Cafe Darte - the coffee kiosk across the street from the Post Office. She was an excellent barista. Her coffee was always good. Sometime after she left Darte, I happened upon her in Carr's, carrying her new baby.

I took a picture of the two of them and put it in this blog.

Today, as she led me to my table, she told me that her step-father had googled Sarah Palin to see what he might find. That search eventually led him to this blog and when he got into it, he found the picture of his step-daughter and grandbaby.

Melanie says he now visits this blog frequently. 

Melanie says, "hi, Dad."

As regular readers know, there is another Melanie that says those same words to me.

I really wanted good hash browns today. And IHOP came through. Cooked just right, each shred firm and flavorful, not reduced to mush. Someone had made cat ears out of the ham. Nice touch.

But don't worry, Family Restaurant, I will be back.

I must spread my great wealth throughout the community.

After breakfast, I came home and found Pistol-Yero, looking at me.

I went into the bedroom and this sight made me very sad. Margie has experienced a great deal of pain in this bed. When I looked at it, empty like this, the image of Margie lying there, hurting and in agony, superimposed itself upon the quilt.

It made me feel bad.

This bed is at the foot of our big, king-sized bed, which I sat on as I took the picture.

Many of you already know this story, but for those who don't, Margie and I both used to sleep on this big bed, together. Then, on June 12, 2008, I took my fall in Barrow and found out how rotten my insurance policy really is and how deceptive the saleswoman was. I wound up in Providence Hospital in Anchorage and after two surgeries came home with an artificial shoulder.

I was too fragile and in too much pain to share a bed with anyone. So Margie had this bed placed at the foot of our bed and in it she slept.

It took me more than half-a-year to heal to the point where I could dare try to share th bed.

And just when I was ready to, Margie took her first fall and then she could share a bed with no one.

Many months passed and then, on July 25, we crawled into our bed together for the first time in over 13 months. On the next day, July 26, she took her second fall.

And as improved as she is, she still cannot share a bed.

So that also made me feel very sad when I looked at this bed.

Now she is far away, asleep in her sister's house in the high country of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.

How good it used to feel when she would cuddle up next to me, lie her head and my shoulder and there fall asleep. How I long to have her head resting upon my shoulder, once again.

It made me feel very sad to look at this empty bed.

Caleb was playing war games with his cyber-friends. He communicates with both those on his side and the enemy through a headset as their avatars fight their way through a common battlefield. I can't remember the name of the game, but it pits good Americans against bad Russians and some Russians have complained that it unfairly stereotypes them, but Russians play it, anyway.

"You should play with some Russians," I suggested.

"Oh, I've played Russians," he answered. "I've played people from all over the world."

A bit after that, he built a fire and then got in his car and headed for Anchorage. That was 12 hours ago. I have not seen him since but that doesn't worry me. He's a man, with his own life to live and it is the weekend.

Royce, Chicago Kitty and some of Kalib's toys. It was just me and the cats now.

I took a walk. It wasn't long before I came upon a neighbor from down the street, Jennifer, playing with her two dogs, Heineken and Jazz - a pleasant diversion for my eyes.

Further along, I came upon this dog. When he was a pup, he once tried to follow me home. A high school classmate and baseball teammate of Jacob's built this house and lived in it for awhile. Then he sold it and moved on to something bigger and better.

I could hardly wait for the 24 hours to end so that the money would go back into the gift cards and I could pick up my new iPhone. At 4:00 PM, I headed out, NPR's All Things Considered Weekend Edition on the radio.

Just after I turned onto Seldon Street, this kid shot past me like I was sitting still. Curious to see how fast he was going, I accelerated to 45 mph in a 35 zone, but he just kept getting farther ahead of me, so I dropped back.

He was not riding on the road - he was on the trail shared by snowmachiners, fourwheelers, pedestrians, bikers, old men, children and mothers pushing babies in strollers. In fact, Lavina has often been one of those mothers, pushing Kalib, right here, where this kid speeds by.

It is after 4:30 PM. Look how much light is still left! Not so long ago, this time of day was pitch black night. Or as pitch black as night gets around here. It never gets dark dark, the way it does down south in places without snow.

Kendall Ford, a bit after 4:30 PM.

After this, I returned to the At&t store where I would not pick up my iPhone. You can find the story in the previous post, if you have not read it already.

My five minute At&t iPhone transaction that expanded to 24 hours now expands to 10 days

I can hardly bear to proceed with this story. Just looking at this picture exhausts and frustrates me. I took it at about 5:00 PM, right after I returned to the At&t store to pick up my iPhone.

Readers will recall that I went there yesterday to pick up the iPhone that Jacob and Lavina had given me for Christmas - in the form of two gift cards. The salesman had told me that the cards were good for the eight gig iPhone, but if I wanted the 16 or 32, I could pay extra. I asked how much more I would have to pay for the 16. He said $100.

I did not want to pay $100 and so chose the 8 gig. The entire transaction was done in five minutes or less. Then the salesman returned one of the gift cards to me and told me it had $48 left on it. This surprised me, and meant that I would only have to spend $52 out of pocket to buy the 16 gig, so I told him that's what I wanted to do.

"Okay," he said. He then got a 16 gig phone for me but, after close to an hour of trying, had to give up and abandon the transaction. He informed me that he had just learned At&t would not put the money originally taken out for the 8 gig phone back into the cards for 24 hours.

More than 24 hours had now passed. I came in, eager to get my phone. This couple was ahead of me, but soon it was my turn.

The lady behind the counter, took my cards, swiped them through the card machine, had me sign and accept, then had me swipe my credit card which was billed another $53. She entered my phone number into the chip that would go into the iPhone.

We waited for a bit, and then she informed me that the transaction could not be completed. It would take At&t ten days to put the money back in the gift cards. I should come back in ten days, she said.

Now, I really wanted to lose my temper, but it was not her fault. It was At&t's fault.

A simple matter of electronic communication and one of the biggest and most sophisticated electronic communications company in the world could not handle it.

So I fought back my temper, but I let the young woman know how extremely disappointed and frustrated I was. In ten days, I told her, I would be in Arizona.

She said I could take the cards with me and get my iPhone down there.

This was not acceptable to me, but it seemed there was nothing I could do about it.

I returned home, spent a bit of time on my computer and then pulled out my phone to give Margie a call. But I could not. The phone was inactive. "Unregistered chip," it said.

So I called the At&t store. A different woman answered the phone. The store would close in 20 minutes, at 7:00 PM, but if I could get there by then they would reactivate the chip - which they had deactivated in their computer when they didn't sell me the 16 gig iPhone.

"I can get there," I told her, "but I also know that somewhere in At&t, there is someone who can solve this problem and you should spend the next 20 minutes trying to find that person. It is not right to do this to a customer."

I got there just before they closed. The original saleswoman reactivated my chip. She told me that she had sent an email to someone higher up to try to get help to solve this problem before I left for Arizona.

I had planned to cook myself a good healthy meal tonight - vegetables and such. But I was so frustrated that I went across the street and down the road from At&t and bought myself a $6 portobello mushroom burger at Carl's Jr., with a strawberry milkshake to wash it down.

Tomorrow night, I will prepare a healthy meal.

Please note: I have broken down today's post into two sections, both because I felt that this segment needs to stand by itself and it was getting kind of long.

The rest of the day will go up at 10:00 AM Alaska time, 2:00 PM East Coast Time, 11:30 PM India time.

With Margie gone, I eat breakfast at Family; the iPhone - a simple, quick, transaction suddenly turns complex and long

I awoke thinking that, with Margie gone, I might just as well go to breakfast at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant - perhaps I would go every day until the 17th, when I leave to join her in Arizona. So what if I can't afford it? What does it matter? Will I be any more broke when they shove me into the cremator's fire then I will if I don't?

I enjoy eating breakfast at Family. And it is a good place to see a good cross-section of Wasilla drift in and out. Should I ever find the time and resource to do this blog the way I want, I have this idea in my head where I will go to Family Restaurant a couple of times a week, pick out somebody, introduce myself and then do some kind of little feature on that person, both in and out of Family Restaurant.

But today I did not have the time nor was I up to such a thing. I just staggered in, groggily sat down and placed my order.

Breakfast is good at Family, but they do have a tendency to ruin the hash browns, to fry them to a hard crisp on the outside and turn them to mush on the inside.

A waitress taught me to order them "soft and light," and then they would cook them just right.

And when they do... oh, my, breakfast at Family is good!

So I ordered my hash browns, "soft and light."

She is a very good waitress and she treats me well. It is not her fault that the hashbrowns came back as mush encased in a hard shell. The omelette was delicious, but I had been looking forward to the hashbrowns and now I couldn't eat them. I tried to get a new order of hash browns done right, but the cooks were allegedly too busy.

So I had breakfast with no hash browns. I had been looking forward to those hashbrowns, soft and light, so it was a disappointment.

Even so, I still recommend Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. And if you order your hash browns "soft and light," there is about a 75 percent chance that you will actually get them that way; otherwise, maybe 10 percent - possibly 15.

And when the hash browns are soft and light, it is the best breakfast in town.

The excellent and charming waitresses are very good at keeping their customer's coffee hot.

After I finished breakfast, I returned to my car and found this dog sitting in the bed of truck parked next to it. The dog was old and looked sad, but maybe it wasn't. Some dogs just look sad.

Still, I had to stop, and visit with the dog for a minute or two.

As you can see, the dog enjoyed the stimulating conversation and perked right up. 

I started up my car, got into it and then noticed that the light was falling beautifully upon the lady in the manicure shop that sits alongside Family. You can see the reflection of my car at the left, but you can't see me. If I should find myself in this situation again, I will see if I can work myself into the picture. This time, I was just too far to the left.

Actually, I believe I'm in this one, but just barely. The reflection is so dark there that it is hard to tell for certain.

I went home after this and made an important phone call. No - not to Margie. I knew that she would be so tired after traveling all night that she might possibly be sleeping and if she was, I did not want to wake her up.

It was about health insurance. One of the great ironies that I have faced recently is that the same month that the US Senate passed health care reform is the same month that I lost my health insurance that I have paid such high premiums for these past 15 years - to the detriment of my health care, as they have covered almost nothing and if I had not been spending so much money on the premiums I would have had more to spend on health care.

Then, they recently raised the premiums 20 percent and in December I just could not cover it.

As worthless and expensive (priced in the Senate's "Cadillac" premium category, delivering "clunker" benefits)   as the policy is, I still feel very uncomfortable without it. So I called to find out how long I can push it before I lose the opportunity to reinstate it and if there was any way Mega Life and Health could make it more affordable.

As my insurance company has had such a negative impact on my health care, I have talked to their representatives a number of times, but an amazing thing happened today. I was connected with an intelligent, articulate, woman with both a knack for listening and explaining and the knowledge and patience to do both. She also seemed to care.

We talked for maybe two hours. While the problems are many, here is the basic one: to get a group rate, I bought this premium through the National Association of the Self Employed... oh hell, what reader is going to want to read through such an explanation? I've probably lost 75 percent of you already.

Briefly stated, almost all the members NASE that I joined with have moved on and now my group is very small - in fact, she couldn't assure me that my group includes anyone but me. My policy is not even offered anymore. Hence, my premiums are outrageous and my services minimal.

Plus the part that she didn't say - the heads of the company are not interested in my health, but only in their profits. When my health care gets in the way, they would just as soon raise my premiums to the point where I am forced to drop the coverage.

Worse yet, I have no alternatives - not yet.

About the best I can hope for is that somehow I last until I reach Medicare age, which is coming sooner than I wish, but perhaps not soon enough.

Thank you, Senator Joe Lieberman. I had a good chance and then your ego got in the way.

Jacob and Lavina gave me an iPhone for Christmas, in the form of two ATT gift cards. I have been eager to pick that phone up, but have been dreading the experience, too, because I was with Melanie when she picked hers up and it was a long and convoluted affair.

Since Christmas, I have been too busy to do it, plus, I had seen the ATT store after Christmas's past and it was wall-to-wall customers, most of them waiting and waiting.

So I waited until today, until after I finished talking with the insurance lady and then I headed over.

To my surprise, there was no line. I was served immediately.

I told the kid about my gift and handed my cards to him. He told me that my cards covered an 8 gig phone, but if I wanted I could add a little more and get a 16 or 32 gig phone. "How much more for the 16?" I asked.

"$100," he answered.

Logically, 8 gigs seems like more than enough for a phone, but my experience with anything having to do with computers is that no matter how much memory you get, sooner or later you find out it isn't enough. You can always plug in more harddrives to your computer, but not to your iPhone.

"The 8 gigs will do," I said. I did not want to pay $100 out of pocket today.

So he took the two gift cards, completed the transaction and zapped my phone number and data into the iPhone - just like that. The entire process took less than five minutes.

Then he handed one of the cards back to me. "You've got $48 left on that card," he said.

What? $48 left over? This meant that I would not have had to spend $100 out of pocket, but only $52.

"In that case," I said, "I'll go with the 16 gigs."

"Okay," he said.

 And from there it got complex and complicated. So much so that when I left the store close to one hour later, after spending time watching children play while my very good salesperson and his coworkers tried to troubleshoot the many problems that kept arising, I departed without an iPhone.

Not only that, but the data in my old phone had gotten messed up. The phone numbers that I had been dialing and receiving calls from all disappeared. My voicemail no longer functions.

I have to come back tomorrow, 24 hours after that he did the original transaction for the 8 gig phone. Then the money will be back in my gift cards and I can spend it again and leave with a properly functioning iPhone.

I hope.

The kid told me his name, so that I could put it in the blog and I memorized it.

But now I forget.

Sorry, kid.

My bad.

As long-time readers know, Royce has been growing old and thin. I have attributed the thinness to his age, but, during Christmas, Melanie and Lisa observed that he wolfed down bits of turkey like he was starving, whereas in the past he would gingerly sniff and sniff such offerings before eating them.

So they speculated that the reason that he was growing thin was because it was becoming painful for him to eat hard food.

After Christmas, I continued to feed him turkey until there was no turkey to feed and I also observed him when I put out the dry food. He seemed to eat it just fine.

"But maybe he can't eat as much," Melanie said. "Maybe it hurts too much. You should get him canned food.

Today, with Margie in Arizona, I did something that I hate to do. I went to the grocery store. While I was there, I not only bought soft, canned, food for Royce, I bought "Senior Blend."

As soon as I pulled a can out of the grocery bag - even before I began to open it - Royce trotted to me with a desperate look in his eye and began to meow loudly. Once I pulled the lid off, he went nuts.

So I put some in a bowl and then took Royce into the boys' old room, placed it before him and closed the door so that the other cats would not try to come and get it.

I didn't close the door tight enough. Chicago came in, nudged Royce out of the way and began to eat his food. He had eaten quite a bit by then, so I decided just to let Chicago eat and then I would give Royce more later.

Then Royce nudged Chicago away and returned to his meal.

What you need to understand about Chicago is that she is the meanest, toughest, cat in this house - not towards people, but towards other cats. There is a story behind this, but I am not going to take the space to write it, right now.

But Chicago did not fight for that food. She stepped back and watched as Royce ate.

I think maybe there are two reasons for this. Chicago loves Royce. She hates Pistol-Yero, despises Jim, absolutely could not stand Marty when she was here with Kalib, Jacob, Lavina and Muzzy, but she has always loved Royce. The two often sleep intertwined.

And I think that maybe she understood, somehow, that Royce needed that soft food more than she did.

Plus, maybe she saw the can and the words written on it, including "senior blend."

Next to Royce, she is the oldest cat here, but she still likes to think of herself as a pretty, young, kitty.

And she is pretty.