Anticipation …

It’s making me wait.

This week’s theme was born at the Apple Store. But before we get to that …

Waiting has been such a theme in my life, in everyone’s life really, that I went back through past blog post titles to make sure we weren’t repeating ourselves excessively. How have we not written something called “Waiting”?

The plan – ha, famous last words – was Ragamuffin breakfast on Labor Day. What’s a Ragamuffin breakfast? You might think it involves a delicious baked good called a ragamuffin. Someday I will develop a recipe or recipes. Ideas I’ve been given so far involve nuts, lots of nuts … and a savory onion muffin made with sour cream, smash before serving. And several other poetic, abstract ideas, but when I surveyed the tribe a while back, I was in fact looking for ideas I can actually make in the test kitchen.

So Ragamuffin breakfast. Defined as breakfast with people who consider themselves ragamuffins. Whilst I enjoyed a relaxing Sunday afternoon at the family pool, floating in tranquility while waiting on kids who didn’t come up from the house until much, much later … it was looking like an early early meeting the next morning (hello, I’m Jenn, and I’m not a morning person), most likely at the home of the Grand Slam. Until … until …

Technology happened.

Or didn’t happen, as the case may be.

Sorry for taking so long to reply to your message. I was busy looking at this …

… and picking leaves out of the pool.

Hey, do you mind if we meet at the Apple Store when they open instead? I’ve been on the phone with tech support, and being on crutches, I could handle it but would be nice not to have to.

Sure, what are friends for? (And I can sleep in.)

So I took my time at the pool and the cookout that followed.  Got my baby snuggles and toddler conversations in.

Duckie Momo (I have no idea, ask the ten-year-old) is waiting for someone to rescue him. No, this pool is not in Brazil. Don't judge.

At 10am on Labor Day, there are lots of parking spaces available at Easton, even in the lot right behind the Apple Store. The device needing attention turned out to be an iMac. My partner in crime had no business trying to carry that while on crutches. It’s a desktop with a big screen. All one piece. But not so heavy that I couldn’t handle it.

Side note. Other than phones and musical devices, the last Mac I owned was the Classic on which I wrote my thesis. I know I’m dating myself here. (Good genes, the grace of God, and clean living, people.) I bought that Classic from the university in what was basically a closet in the basement of I-don’t-remember-what-building-but-maybe-one-along-the-north-Oval. Does anyone remember that place?

We hobbled into the Apple Store a few minutes after ten. Tech support is a well-oiled machine in there. Greeters at the door to direct us, check-in peeps to sign us in on their iPads and point us to staging tables along the side. We had stools to sit on while waiting. It was a pleasant customer experience the whole time. And we didn’t wait that long to be called over by our tech support guy for the day, Derek.

It turns out this iMac was gifted to Sue by someone from her church a couple years ago. So it’s older, not her primary computer, but nice to have for some things. It was hopelessly stuck in some sort of infinite loop, to the point the operating system CD would not eject and phone tech support punted and sent her to the store for more help.

We waited while Derek did a few things. The back of the store was filled with several long tables of customers and the techie peeps helping them. It was quite the operation.

So. This being an older computer, sometimes things take a while. And you have to wait. So wait we did. Derek consulted his supervisor – who has been to Genius training! – at one point. I didn’t know Genius training was a thing! Derek will be attending eventually.

While trying a few possible solutions and/or tasks to gather more info, we spent a lot of time staring at the spinning beach ball …

 

… and letting Derek multitask and help other customers ... and chit chatting and surfing Facebook on our mobile devices. (Of course they have customer wifi in the Apple Store.)

The customers across the table from us had a service dog. Hey there.

We waited.

And we waited.

And we waited some more.

After nearly two hours we left with Derek’s card, a list of authorized service providers in case the problem really was a bad hard drive as suspected, and instructions on what to try next before punting to someone Sue would have to pay money. The support comes at no charge, which is awesome, up to the point where one has to leave it with the Apple peeps or take it to another peep. So Sue will be doing more clicking and waiting … and waiting … and maybe waiting overnight.

Ragamuffin breakfast, you say? It was lunchtime by now. Restaurant candidate number one … not laboring on Labor Day. Good for them. With one on crutches we tried restaurant candidate number two … it moved up the list because of its proximity. And with that our waiting was over. For this part of our ongoing adventures anyway.

Keep looking up. You never know when you’ll see an elephant.

To Wait some more … because who doesn't love waiting ... see Sue Bowles at bebold7.wordpress.com and Leisa Herren at life4inga.blogspot.com.