Tomatoes and Computers

A week ago Thursday, my MAC told me to install a new upgrade. I did so and later that day discovered that my entire Documents folder had vanished with my poems, my stories, my blogs and everything else. Woody spent three and a half hours on line with Applecare with no success. The next day I subscribed to Geek Squad and spent over three hours on line with an agent with no better outcome. It was frustrating because I could not seem to communicate the problem to her and she kept telling me she had found very old files. i tried to explain I knew about the old versions of files from 2015. it was the last two years of files that vanished.So Thursday of this week. we took the computer to Hyannis and tried the Apple Store techie. He couldn’t do anything. Then we went to Best Buy to try Geek Squad live agents. Nothing. I’m not impressed by my experiences with Geek quad.It seems that I may have to take the computer to Boston to see if a data retrieval service can do anything. I’m told it will be pricy. I was able to recover most of my poetry files because they’re on my assistant’s computer. I’m hoping Monday we can find some of my short stories too. I found occasional recent files here and there on the computer that I moved to a better folder for accessibility [and logic].   I also discovered that my external backup had been disabled during one of the upgrades and I was backing up constantly into a void. We have no idea how long this was going on. Now I ‘ve installed Carbonite as well as a new external drive. But I really need those missing files. There’s no way we can get into Cambridge [where I’ve located two data retrieval places] before Labor Day. The traffic is excruciating. Returning on Thursday, we were in a traffic jam so bad that for minutes at a time we just sat there.After weeks of wondering if the tomatoes would ever ripen this year, of course they are all coming down in a thundering herd of PICK ME NOW. We canned six jars of tomatoes, eat them at least twice a day and this afternoon, we must can more. Last year was a bumper year for tomatoes so we still have some sauces, Italian, hot and simple, but we’ve used up most of our jars of tomatoes. That’s where we’ll continue as a priority. I should also start drying them. We’ve given some away already.Friday evening, we had company, my old friend Ann Wood and two women from Provincetown, Jen and Sophie. First time I’d had the pleasure of meeting them. I made baba genoush from our eggplants and our garlic, opened grapevine leaves and made avgolemono sauce. Besides brown rice, Portuguese flounder and tomato avocado salad, we had icecream and madeleines a neighbor baked.Today the air is heavy. Because of the computer disaster and all the time that went into trying to fix or mitigate the situation, I wrote only one poem this week and that about our dependence on our technologies. Guess what inspired that.Schwartzie has been climbing screens of late. Not a great habit. This time of year not only are their catbirds teasing the cats during the day and squirrels and chipmunks chattering at them, but at night there are raccoons, coywolves, flying squirrels, deer and possums running around out there. Plus the screens get plastered with moths seeking to immolate themselves on light bulbs.   I behaved similarly in adolescence.I’m working on something brought on by Charlottesville but so far it hasn’t cohered. Too agitated to write something useful.