It didn't work. in A small but passable life.

For good and bad reasons. I was hoping to get through the month without buying anything but food and the usual “household” bills. No such luck.

The first item to pop up was a flyer from Boost Mobile informing me that the 3G network was soon to be shutting down which would turn my current $40 ZTE 8GB smartphone I’ve had for four years now into a paperweight. Okay. Nevermind that I’d been shopping and discussing a new phone on the phone with Daughter and researching prices online. (An algorithm was obviously listening in on those conversations and noting those web searches?) The best prices I’d found were for a Samsung Galaxy S21 128GB unlocked for $899 or the same phone at Boost Mobile for $500. The flyer I’d gotten in the mailbox was for a CELERO 5G 64GB for $49.99. It has a 16MP triple main camera, two days battery life, 5G network capable and probably other stuff I’ll be clueless about. After ordering it online I went ahead and changed my calling plan. I’d had the family plan with two lines (One for Mom and one for me.) and a data cap of 3GB per month on each line. I changed it to one line with unlimited data. The price remained the same at $45 per month. Now I’m waiting for the new phone to arrive. And then of course the hassle of figuring the damn thing out will ensue.

The second thing to happen was the new DSL internet started acting cantankerous. It would go out and come back and go out again, until it finally went out for good. I called and the same tech guy showed up. It wasn’t the ancient RV park phone line. It wasn’t the new DSL modem he’d sold me months before. It was the possibly decades old Netgear router he’d warned me about while setting me up originally. He brought in a new router, plugged it in and the internet was connected again. The $70 charge for the new router hasn’t come through yet, but it’s only been five days.

The third thing was a call from Daughter. She wanted to know if I could purchase her airline tickets for her visit out here for the holidays. I don’t mean the money part, I mean the ‘process’ part. I was just going to reimburse her with cash upon arrival, like last year. This time she wanted me to go online and do “the thing” with my card because she said the prices were good right now and she was a little short on cash. I reminded her that even though I’ve flown out here 5 1/2 times since 2014 I’ve never actually done “the thing” online myself. Someone, usually her, has done it for me. For the obvious reason that I’m not possessed of the patience and fortitude and intelligence to do it myself. She said I could it, that she’d help me through the process. I said I’d try.

Me: “Wow! It worked, without a major meltdown!”

Daughter: “Well, almost a meltdown?”

Me: “It was just one wrong number. It just took three tries to figure that out.”

Daughter: “Good job Dad!”

And the discount airline is not so much of a discount any longer. One person round-trip, with a checked bag, a carry-on bag, free changes, and priority boarding was $319. The actual price before the add-ons was like $66 coming here and $77 returning but the only thing you could bring was one “personal item”.

So yeah, she’ll be here from Dec. 19th until Jan. 9th. We’re calling it three weeks.

She’s bringing the new backpack and sleeping bag I bought for her last X-mas, and my old solo tent I’d sent her home with last year so we can go out for a nice backpacking trip. We’re thinking about the Superstition Wilderness section of the Arizona Trail. It’s about 28 miles. We should be able to do it in 3 or 4 days with at an unhurried pace.

I’ve turned off the A/C and opened the windows at midnight every night for a few weeks already. It has usually been about 72 degrees in here at 8am. And the A/C doesn’t usually need to come back on and the windows closed until about 1 or 2pm (at 80 degrees).

Anyway, I’m still slogging through the 1000 page novel I started forty days ago. I’m not quite halfway.