Loose Ends before the New Year....

I suppose I should mention that Christmas wasn't nearly as horrific as I was braced for it to be.

All in all, it was pretty good: only one present in that class we all know, where you stare at the present and say to yourself "What made you think that was appropriate for ME?" while politely thanking the person for the lovely present......and lots of lovely desirable stuff.

No uneasiness or stuff that can be best defined as insufficiently lubricated human interaction. On the other hand, I did apply a certain amount of Captain Morgan Lubricant when I started to stress out, and it worked admirably.

Anyway, the pictures are here:

http://www.faloshi-studios.com/xmas1.html

Oh, and to my vast astonishment, and probably everyone else's, I actually got all my genealogical webpages updated! (last update date was "31 december 2001" before this)

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~piglet/

Death and Destruction....feeling like Robert Oppenheimer....

Arose Saturday to find a handful of very small ants wandering about in the bathroom.

Made a mental note to get something chemical to treat the situation, when next I sallied forth to the store, stomped a couple of them, and went about my business.

Noticed that by Sunday morning there were several dozen, and still only in the bathroom; as best I could ascertain, they were coming up alongside the heat vent.

Felt the need to tackle it with chemicals, and explored what I had available. Nothing logical for the purpose, but what the hey, try what's at hand.

Zotted the buggers (cringe, sorry) with Windex Multi-Task and waited. They had some difficulty wading, but otherwise continued. Tried Niagara Spray Starch in desperation.

By Sunday evening, there were probably a hundred ants, many of them Very Clean and/or with Rigid Posture, but otherwise quite healthy-appearing. They were starting to explore the world outside the bathroom. It...er....bugged me (re-cringe) too much to let it ride until Monday morning.

So after a complete waste-of-time Colts game, at nearly midnight, I braved the cold to tackle the 24-hour Kroger on a quest for Insect Toxicity. Found a selection of sprays; chose the least expensive, least obnoxious sounding scented one (yes, bug spray now comes Perfumed To Be Mistaken For Air Freshener) and headed for home.

Applied the spray most thoroughly to the floor and lower four inches or so of the walls of my small bathroom, turned the fan on, and closed the door, lest I take myself or either of the cats out with the ants. Tiptoed in one last time, about an hour later, for the pre-bed rituals, saw a few ants still moving, zotted them again.

Closed door, went off to sleep.

Arose on Monday morning and betook myself to the bathroom.

Wow.

A floor dotted with corpses of small ants. Nothing moving at all.

Wait: three ants, in the small area between the heat vent and the wall. Had the poison not worked? No, these were explorers from the home colony, looking to see what had happened to the battalion they'd sent forth the evening before, who had not returned home.

And all I could see was their horror at the devastation: the death and toxicity they saw around them; the shudders I surely imagined---for they were too small for me to see such movement, even in the unlikely case that ants can shudder.

And then they betook themselves back down the heat vent, quite possibly fatally poisoned themselves, to report back to the home colony and die.

A necessary victory over nature inside the house, but one I find I'm not terribly proud of......

Linguistic Oddity: Intermission

[I'm fascinated by language. I think I'm going to start interjecting the odd bit of wordplay in this blog; they'll all be labelled "language."]


Two words. Cognate equivalents. But they aren't even the same part of speech. What does that tell us about gender equality?

effeminate
emasculate

One's an adjective: effeminate is how something or someone *is*. No matter what you do---remove her ovaries and breasts, change her behavior to super-macho, you cannot "effeminate" a woman.

But the other is only a verb: see a rather butch female walking down the road, you don't say "Ooh, doesn't she strike you as a bit emasculate?"

Something to ponder.........

Irreconcilable Similarities.....

The divorce process was a bit weird....first we sat through a couple of other cases, one of which was truly bizarre. Echoes of Monty Python.

Wife. Husband. Lawyer. Interpreter.

Judge explained to the husband that he was in default, so it was all right if he wanted to be there, as long as he understood he Wasn't Actually There. He decided that since he Wasn't Actually There, perhaps he should be Not Actually There, and departed...

Wife spoke no English; lawyer spoke no Spanish. Ergo, interpreter.

Interpreter had problems grasping that he had to a) always tell the court what she said and b) not tell her what the "correct" answer was that she should be giving. Judge explained repeatedly, but we kept going through the same steps, same dance...

Lawyer asked her all the pro forma questions in full bore legalese. Whenever her response was that she didn't understand the question, he would ask it again, word for word the same, but slower and more loudly. When the judge suggested he use simple English, he didn't seem to know what that was---or would simplify entirely the wrong part of the sentence.

For example, he would take the sentence "It is your belief that there is no chance that future attempts at reconciliation will be successful, is that correct?" and would "simplify" it to "You think that there is no chance that future attempts at reconciliation will be successful, is that correct?"

Finally the judge stepped in and told the translator to translate "You don't think you'll be getting back together ever?" The lawyer couldn't grasp that.

Also, since the husband was in default, pretty much anything the wife asked for, she'd have gotten. Instead, her lawyer asked that her divorce be made final with *nothing* settled: no maintenance, no child support, no visitation, no custody worked out.

Judge ripped him a new one, not even lowering her voice, in front of everyone: made it very clear that she didn't believe the lawyer had made much effort for the client to understand what was going on, and that the client likely didn't understand what the lawyer was doing, and refused to settle.

Then it was our nickel.

Got asked the standard question about "irreconcilable differences", and "....future attempts at reconciliation." Okay, I understand courts are fairly solemn, and I did resist the temptation to do the Carol Merrill "voila" presentation aimed at my now-female ex and respond with "ya think?"

But I couldn't help it; I still answered with something along the lines of "Gee, I really don't think so" on the reconciliation.

Wasn't until after we left that I realized that the correct label wasn't irreconcilable differences. It was irreconcilable similarities: I wanted a marriage with one from column A and one from column B, and had found myself in a marriage with two from column A and nobody in column B at all.

Anyroad, we capped off the day with a dinner in Greektown and then getting reasonably tiddly. Other than that, not much significance........

Single again.....

Well, the divorce is final, for whatever that's worth.....

it's totally anticlimactic, just an accounting detail. Can't see where it makes any difference in my life in any practical sense except for the IRS part of the deal.....

Now to survive the whole Fambly Crispness Holly Day in one (emotional) piece and we'll be fine....

did some serious grandbaby time after finals were over (1 A, 2 Bs, 1 C, I've seen worse semesters...)

Just in time for snow......

Babies rock :)

SNOWY APPLE JUICE!

View from my kitchen, this morning....

Holidays

It's been a weird year. New beginnings indeed.

End of a marriage.
Spouse changing sex.
Sale of a house.
New house.
Starting school.
New directions.

It means holidays are going to be difficult: maybe moreso than in the past. Then again, maybe not. At least I'm not dealing on a day to day basis with anyone ELSE's "Old Christmas Issues".

Anyhow, having survived Thanksgiving without deep depression, thought I'd do Christmas prep before diving back into school and the approaching finals.

Pictures are here: http://www.faloshi-studios.com/holidays.html

Indianapolis?

Had the granddaughter for a bit this week, culminating in the family Thanksgiving dinner, which was a great good bit of fun. We spent a day at the museum again, met some New People (for her), and just generally played quite a bit.

She kept talking about apple juice, though, even when she a) wasn't thirsty b) wasn't drinking or c) was drinking something else, and it was a bit of a bafflement.

Until Thanksgiving. Until someone asked her about Going To Grandma's House. And Where Grandma Lives.

Apple Juice. (Indian) Apple Juice, Indiana.

Reminds me of my childhood.

We were driving to my grandparents' house, which was in Apache, Oklahoma. I did the standard "are we there yet" often enough that my dad explained that we would have to go through Anadarko first, and I should watch for Anadarko before asking again.

But I kept asking.

Every time we went under any sort of overpass, actually.

His frustration increasing, he finally asked "WHAT did I tell you about asking again?"

And I replied, "You said it'd be after we go in a dark hole......"

My parents found it far funnier than I did, oddly enough......

Felines and Religion......

I happened to look over at the end table, this evening, to note Sarah Jane Sparklecat Getouttathere sitting on my notebook of notes from my RCIA class. She was reaching down with one paw, flicking through the pages---the ways of cats are mysterious on the best of days. While she was doing this, she was also bathing her chest.

Cats and religion? What's their take on it all?

Well, apparently Sarah's take is that she's Cat-lick.


[groan at will, she said, ducking mightily......]

More Weird Signs......

It's not my area of expertise by any means, but somewhere along the line I got the impression that the whole spiritual purpose of the general Hindu/Buddhist world view was tranquillity, becoming one with the universe, detachment from the world and the things thereof.....

Now it might be that that doesn't exclude emotional exuberation, but somehow I've always read it as doing so. So it struck me as funny when I got behind a car the other day whose spare tire cover read

OM WOO

Hmm. "Ommmmmmm. Woo!!" Seems incongruous, no? :)

It's another one of those "letters missing" bits, and the car dealer the guy bought his car from's called Tom Wood. But it's much more interesting reading it the way it appears on the car :)

WWND?

Driving through downtown Indianapolis the other day, as I do on the way to class, I noticed a sign I assumed had one letter unlit and it got me to thinking.

Ok, if we specify modern day and age, an urban setting, what exactly would Noah do? You'd need a big---garage-sized?---space to build in without too many walls getting in your way; you'd need an address and a sign so the folks shipping in all the exotic not-native-to-Indianapolis pairs of critters had somewhere to send them to.

Something very like---perhaps exactly like---the large establishment with the well lit sign that said:

ARKING

Hmmm.

Obscure talents and functions....

Everyone has a variety of things they're Particularly Good At.

Some of them are good, some are bad. Probably most of them just are: no moral quality built in whatsoever.

Some are useful, some are not. And some it takes a long time to recognize as being a special function, something that one does that not everyone does.

I've realized that one of mine is providing a habitat for homeless itches. No Itch Left Behind.

The program's headquarters are right between my shoulder blades, with major subdivisions housing unfortunate itches established on both shoulder blades.

I've always found this to be somewhere between mildly irksome and downright irritating, depending on the aggression level of the itches involved, but that was a biased and self-centered view of the situation. Looking at it all from a different perspective---the perspective of the itch---it's a community service, and one for which I should be proud to suffer a bit from time to time.

So we smile, and put up that front when dealing with the itch community in public, and accept the Itchitarian Award.......

....and in the darkness of the night, when no one is looking, plot murder most vicious against the fiercest of the itches.......knowing that it will soon be forgotten and another itch will move into its home..........

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....

Haven't posted since before the move, so here's the "previously on Boston Legal" bit for what's gone on since May....

Sold the house (July)
Bought new house (July)
Started school (August)

Now we're up to mid-terms.

Grandbaby came to visit this weekend for the first time since the move. Took her to the Children's Museum. She had an absolute ball....

Guess I'm settled in now. Time to write some more.

54, huh?

Not a witty title, particularly....

Haven't said anything lately because I haven't had anything to say. I'm stuck stuck stuck waiting for this house to sell---not "doing nothing", still packing, still cleaning, et cetera, but still, utterly mired down.

Can't buy my next house until this one sells. Can't do anything with my future until this house sells. Stuck stuck stuck.

Happy stuck birthday.

On the other hand, got some people up to a *third* viewing. My insurance guy predicted the house would sell "before the end of May"---well, it's got 32 hours and change to make that. Love to see it happen, not holding my breath.

Since the beginning of this process, I've heard a voice in my head saying "June...June...June." I'll settle for that, especially if it's early June.

On the brighter side, I ****DANCED**** at powwow! I can dance again! It's been years, and I have missed it SOO much.

Next Saturday, my daughter and I are taking my granddaughter to powwow. She has her first dance dress, now; I spent the last week sewing it. I am so looking forward to dancing with her, both of us in our ribbon dresses.

So happy birthday to me......

My Day Takes Flight.....

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm terrified of birds, at least when they're indoors. And free.

Wild birds, loose in the house---hysterics time. I've gone through a thousand permutations of panic-and-get-someone-else-to-fix-it over the years: closing up the room the bird is in until somebody else is home, leaving the house until someone else comes home, you name it. Except now, there's no one else home, or ever coming home.

About five o'clock this morning, I was awakened by some banging and squawking that experience told me meant that Sarah the Siamese had come through the cat door bringing Company, presumably Unwilling Company. And the volume level said that she'd chased whatever it was upstairs, and was now chasing it back downstairs.

Well, another thing people know about me is that I Don't Do Mornings---at least not 5 am, unless it means I haven't been to bed yet. So I got up, closed the bedroom door, and said "I'll deal with this when I get up."

Eventually, of course, I did just that. Got dressed, came trucking downstairs, looking around cautiously. One or another of the cats had barfed at the bottom of the stairs, and I thought "Oh, maybe all it was was two cats arguing..." and headed for the kitchen for the paper towels.

Screeching halt.

There on the kitchen curtain rod, cheerfully hopping back and forth, is a full grown male robin, looking quite healthy, if spectacularly bored.

Well, one of the prices of responding to birds in the house by panicking is that either you're outside, locked in the bathroom, or sitting with a blanket over your head when the birds are being caught. You have NO clue what the procedure is. So I called my daughter Beth and asked her what to do.

"Just throw a towel over it, then kind of wad up the towel and take it outside."

Uh-huh.

I get a towel---and a box, just in case I need it to put over either his head or mine---and head into the kitchen, where I discover what happens if you throw a towel over a bird who is hopping back and forth on the rod of cafe curtains.

He just goes behind the curtains, then flies out and back up on the curtain rod. No Significant Progress Here.

OK, Plan B. Hmm, Beth didn't have a Plan B. Well, what can we come up with?

The bird is in front of a *window*. Windows go outside. Let's work with this....tiptoe over, gently open window....tiptoe outside, and pull off the screen. Now we can go back inside and shoo him out the window.

Well, maybe we could do that if Taliesin and Sarah didn't immediately park on the windowsill with big "Hey, Birdie, Birdie!" grins on their little cat faces. We've found parameter #1 in the intelligence of this bird: he ain't that dumb.

By the time I'm back in the house, I'm not sure where he is, until I spot Floofy staring. Bird's in the back room, just sitting, looking.

As it happens, the back door of our house is in that room. So I open the (wooden) door, and go outside to prop the screen door. Bird seems to get at least part of the concept, as he decides that the wooden door makes a great perch.

I come around the house and back in the front door and look at him: he's two feet away from freedom, sitting on top of the wooden door, looking anywhere and everywhere except outdoors. Parameter #2 in the intelligence of this bird: he ain't that bright, either. :)

Eventually, by wiggling the door from time to time while telling him repeatedly "Stupid, the door's open...", he managed to get the idea and flew away......leaving me to close the door and go back to dealing with cat barf.

Which I guess is pretty anticlimactic if you're reading this, but it was kind of a big deal from my end........

A New Holiday....

This week Jews and Christians are ramping up into the spring holiday season with Pesach and Easter, and leaving the pagans behind, since the Vernal Equinox has already passed.

Your average pagan, however, is generally Up For A Good Party at any time, and rather dislikes being left out of things. In this vein, I'd like to propose a new holiday.

The Official Hatching of the Solstice (or Equinox) Peeps.

The original Peeps, of course, are the baby chicks, and we all know that baby chicks come from eggs. Since they're all related, no matter what odd shapes they come in, I think we can assume that as unlikely as it may appear, *all* Peeps come from eggs.

So given that eggs, baby chicks and many other less-than-religiously-obvious "Easter symbols" have their roots in pagan antiquity.......

Pig hereby pronounces that All Peeps are Laid on Solstices and Equinoxes (depending, of course, on their holiday associations).

And that this week is the Week of the Hatching of the (spring) Peeps.

Is "Access" Enough?

We have a pretty binary concept when it comes to handicapped accessibility in this country: locations either is or they ain't. I had an experience last Saturday night that brought home to me the idea that maybe that's not quite enough.

I was invited to the Lund Theatre at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois, to see the Waswagoning Dance Theatre, which is an Anishinabe group worth going out of your way to see. Excellent show. But on arriving, I discovered that the Lund prides itself on being handicapped accessible---the parking area has a variety of "handicapped entrance this way" signs pointing you to the ramp, from their *three* handicapped spots (which were full long before I got there). And it's a lovely ramp, which I didn't take---now that I'm recovering from the knee surgery, stairs aren't as much of an issue as number of steps I have to take, and the ramp is easily four times the length of the stairs.

Unfortunately, the first thing you see when you enter is a sign saying "All bathrooms downstairs." A combination of visual inspection and asking around tells you that it's a very steep set of stairs, and there are no elevators. Now operating with a cane, I can do that, if slowly and carefully.

The theatre itself is beautiful, and obviously not new. That combined with being a part of an educational institution with not much money, I suppose, is how they managed to come under the hardship provision of the ADA: there really isn't anywhere, in any practical sense, to put an elevator in the building. And since there's no way to do so, and no way to get a wheelchair downstairs anyway, the money of course hasn't been spent to make either the outer bathroom doors nor any stall doors wheelchair-wide or provide rails.

But imagine yourself limited to a wheelchair, come to see a play that may last two hours or more, making the journey to this theatre having been assured that it's "handicapped accessible." And it is, of course---you will have no difficulty entering the building, or entering the theatre in your wheelchair. That's not going to be a hell of a lot of consolation when you desperately have to pee, and there's nowhere you can possibly go.

Seems to me that we need at least two handicapped classifications: "handicapped accessible" and "minimally" or "partially handicapped accessible."

"Handicapped accessible" would mean "you can come here in a wheelchair and do absolutely anything and everything anyone else can do."

"Minimally/partially handicapped accessible" would mean "you can come here, but there are things other folks can do here that you won't be able to." This would warn you that you might need to call ahead and see what those limitations are: "you can get into our theatre to see the play, but you won't be able to get to our art display on the far side of the lobby" may be quite all right with you, since the art display isn't what you came for. But "you can see the play, spend half a day, buy a great deal of consumable liquid at our concession stand, but you won't have anywhere to pee" just might be a dealbreaker.

Equinocturnal......

In a year that's chock full---perhaps overfull---of new beginnings, when better to take a bit of time to focus, contemplate, meditate, open one's mind and heart to the new, than an equinox?

Time for a bit of ceremony, a bit of ritual....a letting go of the cold dark winter. A fertilizing, being open to new growth...even if I don't know where it's going.

Time to be a wildflower---or a tomato. However it works out.

House is on the market. No nibbles yet. Not a clue how long this process will take.

Can't seriously look at replacement houses until this one sells. Have my eye on one, but who knows if it will still be available? I try to be one with the universe and will it to be available when I am available, if it is the house I'm meant to be in.

Can't make plans either to go back to school or find work without knowing where I'm going to live. Hanging fire, packing boxes......

Wonder where it will all be by the time of the summer solstice?

Wake up, Little Susie!

I read in the Sun-Times today that the Gary city clerk Suzette Raggs just had to run into the mall for a minute. Just a minute, for cryin' out loud. No big deal.

And do please note that she did NOT park in any handicapped spots. She certainly wouldn't do anything of THAT sort---we all know that's not legal. No, she parked in the "stripy bits" between handicapped spots....in her official car with the official (police) plates.....

Handicapped van owner (and the local cop he called) only had to wait an hour for her to come out, so that the van's doors could be opened and the ramp extended. How is that an inconvenience to anybody?

You know, there are few things that will concentrate your attention on how folks park in handicapped areas quite as much as having handicapped plates or placard yourself. And I've noticed a great upsurge in this lately---the idea that it doesn't count as parking in a handicapped spot if you stay out of the marked spaces and only park in the "stripy bits".

Am I the only person in this country who vaguely remembers that at some point in her upbringing, she was taught "if asphalt is painted with parallel diagonal yellow stripes, it means NO PARKING"? It's beginning to seem that way.

This event happened at Westfield's Southlake Mall on route 30, over on the edge between Merrillville and Hobart. For those of you who have never been there, I have to say I'm really surprised that she managed to do this.

Surprised because Southlake seems to have had a policy for the last three or four years of "repurposing" many of their handicapped parking spaces. Going there for a quick run into Build-A-Bear, I scope the parking lot---the area where handicapped parking usually is near a mall entrance.

You can see by the lot paint that they USED to have handicapped parking here. Apparently, however, it attracted handicapped people, and I'm guessing that might not be the heaviest shopping/biggest spending demographic out there.

It's been "fixed." Half of it is "Kid's Club Parking" (Yes, we're a nation with an obese child problem. Best way to fix it? Under no circumstances make a kid walk further than 20 yards from their car into a mall!), the other half is "Pregnant Women Only Parking" (marked as "brought to you" by a maternity shop in the mall.)

If you're handicapped and need to run into Build-A-Bear, the Correct Solution is to park somewhere else, by some other entrance, and walk the length of the mall to get to your store---that the reason you have a handicapped card is that you have a demonstrated *need* not to walk long distances only applies to car-to-mall, apparently. Intra-mall mileage on your tootsies doesn't count.

That's the Correct Solution by way of Mall Management Think. It's not the Piggie Solution.

There is no official status to "Pregnant Women Only Parking."

There is no Gummint Agency in charge of handing out nice pink Pregnant Placards.

Piggie parks in the preggers spaces. Piggie is, after all Demonstrably Female.......if visibly presumably post-menopausal. But look at all those news stories of older women and babies........how can you know for sure?

If questioned by mall personnel, they get only my name, rank and serial number. I ain't peeing in the cup. That said, exactly how are they going to prove I'm *not* pregnant? :)

Leaving my mind on idle, unsupervised......

Scenario: Tom Sawyer and his friends, in their later years, go to visit a radio studio. They look around at all that is new and different since the pre-Civil War days of their childhood.

Finn is particularly fascinated with the table of various gadgets, boxes and machines used to make live sound effects. He turns to his friend, who has spent far more years in the big city than he.

"Tom, what do they call that?"
"Foley, Huck!"

Counter INTUITive?

Last week I did time in the hospital having my left knee replaced, which doesn't have anything to do with this story, except to explain why I would do something as bizarre as actually shutting down my iMac. And for the second time in the hair over two years I've owned the iMac, shutting it down has caused it to fail---it's going to have to go into the shop and get a new power supply before it boots, and that won't be any time real soon, because of the aforementioned surgery: can't drive quite yet.

Not a big deal; I can function for quite a while on the laptop. Probably the biggest issue is financial---Quicken resides on the iMac and not on the iBook, having come with the G5. The actual files are backed up nicely on an external hard drive, but I can't read them without having Quicken installed.

The obvious solution is the one I choose: go to Intuit's website, order the 2007 edition of Quicken as a CD, snail mail, $10 extra for second day air. Maybe it's a manifestation of my dinosaur status, but I prefer the CD in hand to the licensed download as a software purchase method.

Today the package arrives. I open it and inspect the invoice: Quicken 2007 Mac CD Direct. Yep, that sounds right to me---just what I ordered. Pick up the disk, prepare to insert it in the disk tray of the iBook to install it, reading it in passing: Quicken, 2007 Basic, Windows XP/2000.

Argh.

Inspect the various instructions on the label. Sure enough, "Wrong Shipment - incorrect material received" is one of the categories listed. I check more closely to see what I'm expected to do: pack it up, ship it back, pay the postage myself.

That doesn't quite cut it. Let's try a bit of telephone contact before we go down that road.

Several telephone menus later, I'm connected with a customer service guy somewhere in the Middle East - to - India sector. To protect his identity, we'll call him Abu Dhabi.

I explain that my invoice says "Quicken/Mac" while the disk says "Quicken/Windows." Mr. Dhabi begs my patience while he looks up my order. "Yes," he agrees. "You ordered the Mac version. Is there anything else I can do to help you?"

I explain that yes, I meant to order the Mac version. However, that isn't what they shipped. What I have in my hand, accompanying that invoice, is a Windows disk, and that is a problem.

"Well," asks Abu, "Did you install it?" A deep breath later, I explain that one CANNOT install Windows software in a Mac OS environment.

"Oh," he says. "Please hold for two minutes while I find out what the best offer I can make is."

Best offer? I wait, wondering exactly when Mr. Dhabi confused himself with Howie Mandel. Two minutes later, he returns.

"I have my best offer here," he advised me cheerfully. "We can send you the disk you ordered."

I'm still contemplating that "best offer" concept, but the solution seems acceptable---it appears it will get what I've already paid for into my hands without my being expected to hobble to the post office with my walker to return at my expense their mistaken order. 'Twill do. But Abu is not done.

"Would you say that my customer service was okay?" he asked me.

"Sure, I suppose so," I responded, wondering where he's going with this.

"I need for you to stay on the line for a few minutes, then, to take a survey and confirm that my service has been Above and Beyond Expectation, please."

Above and beyond expectation, indeed.

My original expectation, of course, involved Intuit managing to ship to me what I ordered on the first try. That is already beyond help---and I freely admit, through no fault of Mr. Dhabi's. But having Intuit manage to send what I actually ordered on the second try isn't capable of being Above And Beyond Expectation. At best, it meets Minimal Expectation.

Above and Beyond Expectation? That would have required, I think, tossing in a free copy of QuickBooks. Or solving the problem the other way---by sending me a Windows computer for the software to be installed on.