BioBooksAwardsComing NextContactBlogFun StuffHome

Thursday, October 14, 2021

Adventures With Technology

I've always skated through Mercury Retrogrades without any issues. I heard an astrologer say that a person born when a planet is retrograde doesn't have to deal with the issues that others do and I was like, okay, that makes sense. It explains why I just pretty much have zero problems when Mercury goes retrograde.

Until this past week.

Mercury Retrograde: Sep 27 through Oct 18, but Mercury is in its shadow on either side, so the dates can be a little fluid as far as the issues go.

Anyway, I'm gloriously sailing through Mercury Retrograde with zero problems--just like always--until last Friday.

I overslept. Like really overslept.

I'd only had about 2.5 hours of sleep the night before, so I assumed I was so tired that I'd just slept through the alarm. But Saturday morning told me the issue is bigger than that. I heard it go off, I hit the snooze, and then it stayed silent. I lifted the phone, it showed the alarm was going off, but nothing. It was dead quiet. This isn't good. I rely on my phone to wake me up for work.

An online search showed I wasn't the only one with this issue, but I didn't find any good solutions. So even though I wasn't ready to update to iOS 15, I hit the button to download it. I'm hoping that this solves the problem. I'm writing this on Saturday and will test it out on Sunday.

Normally, I wouldn't worry about updating my phone during Mercury Retrograde, but my technology woes didn't stop with the alarm issue.

When I got home from errands on Saturday, I went to Joann to buy some super cute Halloween fabric. I never thought making a purchase could be so frustrating. I'm all but screaming at the website: Take my money, please!

First, I wanted to order four yards of each of the fabrics. That worked for 3 of the 4 fabrics. I tried every permutation I could think of to get four yards, but nope, three yards only. Okay, I probably don't need four yards anyway. I'm planning to use the fabric to make some Japanese knot bags and maybe some bowl cozies. Maybe I'll try the project (pillows) that they were advertising, but those aren't my decor thing. Anyway, three yards. I can live with it.

Then I tried to check out using PayPal. Rejection. Something isn't verifying with my PayPal. I kept getting the error no matter what I did. Finally, as I muttered curse words, I thought: Fine, I'll use a credit card. I prefer not to enter it, but whatever.

Joann's said I didn't have an email address with my payment method. I look. My email address is there. I try and try to get my order in. Joann's refuses to believe I have entered an email.

If the fabric wasn't so cute and limited to Halloween, I would have given up then and there, but I really wanted it. I opened a different browser, signed in, and checked out the cart on my credit card without a single problem. I even had an app from that browser find a coupon code that got me an extra 20% off.

But the past two days have been so frustrating and it revolves around technology which is Mercury's bailiwick, so I'm chalking it up to retrograde.

I'm hoping the last 36 hours are all I have to deal with because I'm done with it. I guess I'm pretty spoiled, but I don't like this.

EDITED TO ADD: Joann's just emailed me. The fabric it was only letting me buy three yards of is out of stock and there's another fabric I can only have half of what I ordered. Grrr!