Panic attack!

Poor Buzz.  She comes to the side door to get her dinner.  We have a cat, formerly a stray, now the neighbors have adopted, that is an extreme jerk.  He will run up and pound on her with no warning, and tries continually to corner her.  I am not a big one for hurting animals, but I ended up having to hit him with a rock to get him to lay off her and leave.  I had no gloves, or I would have grabbed him bodily... Sigh.

 But we don't leave the food out now, we feed her, when she leaves, we put the food away.  It's a pain in the butt, but it works, we rarely see the other cat. (The one I called Midnight, by the way...)

So, she has become used to calling for us at the side door, and we come out and feed her.  This works well for all involved.  Ding even comes to the door, and Buzz will come over, they touch noses, and all seems well in the land of Kittycat. 

Until about 2 days ago.  Buzz decided Ding was being friendly, and for whatever unknown reason, Buzz just walked in the house.  I decided not to close the door, as she is NOT a house cat.

I was spot on with that thought.  She rubbed up against Ding, who looked very confused, and then Buzz actually registered.  Hey, I am in the house.  THIS IS TERRIFYING!!!  LET ME OUT YESTERDAY! 

Launch!

She yowled, then scorched out of the house like her tail was on fire, Ding ran to the door, looking even MORE confused, why did my new friend leave?  She just got here!

I managed to keep Ding from running out the door, Buzz was long gone, and I quickly closed the door. Ah.  All is back to "normal"... 

Except now Buzz stays WAY back from the door when it opens.  Guess you can't be too careful when you are near the doorway of...

Whatever she thinks it is... 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Finally!

Remember this, my resolutions?

1. Lose 5 pounds.  See, I figure, geez, 5 pounds in a year?  I should be able to do that. 

2. Write my blog once a week.  I reserve the right to write much more, should I want.  I also reserve the right not to do the A to Z challenge, or do, depending on how chaotic life is at that time.  I have quit some groups and things that distracted me from writing, (No Nanowrimo, that I had planned on doing...), so we shall see what a revised activity level will do.

3. Lose more papers and junk in my craft room.  If I can remember how to up load the pictures from the phone, I will show you the before and after photos of what I’ve accomplished so far, with help from Husband and Family. (Trust me, envision an overflowing dump, and then lower it to a slightly stuffed living room, and you have the general idea.)

Okay, so 1 is actually doing fine.  I am down 13 pounds, a slight hiccup right now, had a massive salt craving... Which means I am holding water like a camel made of sponge.  But anywho, I am doing not bad on that.

Number 3.  Yes, I am getting a slight bit of return creep, but I have removed oodles and bunches and lots o' crap, and it looks like someplace you could do crafting, not somewhere to hide a dead body...  

In fact, the desk in my craft room is completely clean, except for a bit of jewelry I am working on.  Which annoys Ding no end, it is a glass top, and she's slid off, twice.  So now she jumps in my lap to get on the desk...

Did I hear you mention part the second?  

Er.  

Yeah.  I...  

Part was just my not getting to the computer, (which is also the reason everyone hasn't had responses from me on their respective blogs.  I need to talk to the absolutely wonderful gal {NOT kidding, she's great} at Verizon, maybe she can walk me through why the phone won't talk to blogs. sigh...), but then the computer decided to show me this big sign when I opened up for doings... 

YOUR COMPUTER PROTECTION IS ENDED, YOU ARE NO LONGER SAFE, YOUR COMPUTER COULD BE INFECTED WITH G*D KNOWS WHAT AND EXPLODE INTO FLINDERS AT THE SLIGHTEST TOUCH...

Well, ok, that second part might have been my interpretation, but you get the idea.  And since I search random websites for knitting patterns and photos, I was more than a tad leery of getting online.  And who knows what some of those Facebooky things might do.  So I asked Husband to help me get the thing updated, as he has the relationship with the I.T. guy.  He did, and handed me a bit of paper.

???

This is your code for the new protection.

??!?  A code?   What do I do with it?  But, dutifully, last week, I sat down at the computer, and tried to put said code in.  Well, after wiping out our data limit with the download, I got down to business.

Two boxes come up.  I fill out one, then go to the next, which has different info, like what my account with the company is.

Huh?

I realize this one is for NEW folks, after I filled it halfway out...  But it doesn't go away when I delete it.  Now I have dueling comment boxes, and not a clue how to clear it.

I text Husband.

You know more than I do...

Oh, boy... I do?

Um.  Ok, don't panic, call I.T. guy.  Yeah, that'll work!

After working a while to figure out his phone, I call...
"We will be on vacation for a week, if you need help, please leave a message, and I will respond when I return."

Uh. I think that was when I decided panic was actually becoming an option.  I snarled, swore a bit, glared at the computer, then went to get a drink of water, with the small nasty thought of pouring the same on the computer, if it didn't cooperate.

I then tried again, carefully deleting anything unrelated to the code part.  Slowly, ploddingly, maddeningly (more so) slowly, it worked itself out.

Then I let the thing alone for a day or so.  Checked it, it needed an update, but worked ok.  Checked today, and it seemed fine.

So, before it changed its mind, or drove me out of mine, I wrote this blog...