Puzzles real and toy, and surprise brownies

Yesterday I ventured out for the first time since the olden days before this virus struck two weeks ago.

 I'd planned three errands, one to the post office, two to libraries. I managed the post office, yay, gloves on their way,  and the return of the puzzle which I never got to start, to one library  then had to come home, too tired to drive safely any further. 

The other library return has to wait a day.Also increasingly urgent alerts on the dash, now complete with beeps, about the low battery in the key fob, encouraged me not to push it.

So, once home and fuelled with tea, I finally had to change the keyfob battery. I had a battery in the house, the other one from the other fob that went down.

You have to remove the key, separate the parts of the shell and after that the actual replacement isn't so hard. What's hard is opening the shell if you don't have big burly hands like the nice man on YouTube who says just insert the key, rock, there!

You can do that till the cows come home and the thing is so tight fitting it won't give. Last time I used a screwdriver blade which opened it so fast that tiny parts flew all over and required endless reassembly. I hear this is a common problem. Inside that shell the parts, all the command functions,  are just resting in shallow grooves, not fixed. 

So this time I started with the screwdriver then inserted an xacto blade to open it further until it worked. Right way up, battery visible, tiny parts safely underneath.

Changed out the battery, then comes the other issue, shutting the shell again without exploding the parts. The burly handed man acknowledged that even he had to bring pressure, so I stood up, fob on hard surface, full court press with upper body, thumbs whining, till yay, it clicked into place.

I tested, it works, no further hysterical alerts on the dash. Quite proud of my success there. Boud 1, tech 0. For once.

However my less than two years old Fire tablet has gone to a quiet murmur when I use it for audiobooks, inaudible. Every workaround tried, it just wore out, I think. 

It's my go-to for audiobooks, sigh, Hoopla installed, which won't install on my phone whose sound is much better, even using all the sneaky tricks I used to get Hoopla onto the Fire. 

I notice other users with similar media sound issues, and I've already tried all the remedies they suggest. Everything except the media sound, all other sounds, all the video, work fine. 

If you have any good ideas, and they're not on the btdt list, I'll be glad to hear. 

Then Misfits arrived 

with lovely spinach, sardines and wholewheat pita, some of which became supper, lovely fresh spinach leaves wrapped around sardines in best olive oil, inside a pita bread. So good , I could feel strength coming back!

Later Gary came over, with this

He had got it before Christmas hoping his daughter would make brownies. Too busy, didn't. Her mother likewise. He wondered, knowing my habits, if I would ever use a mix. I think he's dying for some brownies. So I accepted it and he'll get a share. I'll add in walnuts though, because they just arrived, and anyway I think you should.

He changed the lightbulb at the top of my stairs, expressed dismay that I'd tried errands, and I explained I think you have to try just to start getting well. 

He's not convinced, but he's never known about managing chronic illness as I have. There's a psychological component to consider. If I didn't push a little I'd be on the sofa till spring.

Speaking of which here's a new puzzle

Once again, don't make it too hard! And if you solve it, don't post the answer, just try a funny clue.

Happy day everyone, may all your fobs, real and metaphorical, work, even if they need a little help.

Rereading reliable old friends

Right now I need good writing which is also funny. A lot of Georgette Heyer audio books on YouTube, listen while I weave.

And there's the paper type of book, too. I have all the novels of E M Delafield. You know, the Provincial Lady series, full of comic characters whose counterparts we know in real life. Doesn't matter that she's writing from the viewpoint of a specific group at a specific time in English history. Her characters live. She's the writer Nancy Mitford thought she herself was.

So after a debate with another aficionada, i realized I got two characters mixed, and decided it was time to re-read.

Pulled out The Provincial Lady, opened it and it exploded into many pieces.

 Glue fatigue. I had been putting favourites onto my  Kindle  before the virus suddenly changed everything, including donations to the Little Library. So I decided this was a sign to continue, and see if I could get a  Kindle version of the PL. Checked and found that Amazon not only was offering the lot, all five for .99c, a crime, really, such a price for such work. Anyway not only that, they said I had a 99c credit.

 
 So her entire oeuvre is loaded now at a cost of zero.That was last evening.That was then.


 This morning came auto related tests and challenges. Starting with braving the post office to send back the old car plates to the mvc. Trying to understand each other through masks and Plexi shielding, we managed more or less. Sign language a bit.

Then, back in the car, I noticed the gas gauge hovering near empty, since I haven't added any in the few weeks I've had this car. Soooo to the gas station, now down to two pumps, oriented parallel to the road. Managed to get the car situated near the nozzle, it being differently located from my old car, though thankfully on the same side.

 Then to find the gas cap release. Then to push, pull, turn, until finally it opened. With the door opened, dark down there. Then, door closed, struggle to locate window opener. Finally able to ask for gas. NJ doesn't permit anyone not employed at the station to pump gas. There's a funny back story to this having to do with the gas station owners'  lobby and liability.

Theeeeen on the way home, a sudden big alert, beeps and display telling me the keyless remote was nearly out of juice. Bar diagram showing barely a breath in the battery. Which was news to me, that it even had one, let alone it was nearly dead.

Long struggle short, several YouTube videos later, plus credit card, screwdriver, thumbs, knife all employed to "pop"(!) the fob open, remove battery, discover, amazingly, that I had a replacement in that drawer of all sorts of stuff, reassemble it all, snap it shut, noticing the mechanics in the videos had mitts like Godzilla, easy for them, anyway, tested same, works fine.

 I also discovered you can still unlock and drive the car even if the fob quits. so the keyless idea is just some engineer's toy, really. None of it's intuitive, though. There's a key hidden inside the fob. And a backup starting chip. Those of us in the know will show you, for a small fee.

Much learning this morning. This afternoon is about weaving and drinking tea, to Heyer's Bath Tangle audiobook. Later a Princeton Art museum lecture. It's all go.