Contemplating all the modems, cords, surge protectors, programs, updates, installations, and so forth and so on attached to the continued successful utilization of my home office technology, threatens to fry more than a few of my brain cells.

How am I ever going to keep going without Rick’s help?

Last fall, while he was in the hospital, I tried to update my iPad to System 8 all by myself. It crashed and burned and even he couldn’t fix it—I had to buy a new one. The “epic fail” was not even my fault, but I sure took it personally.

I love my iMac, and with a lot of patient hand-holding from Rick, for the first time in four computers, I’ve managed to keep this one “current,” in regards to updates and upgrades and uploads and upwhatevers—ad infinitum.

Rick was responsible for creating and designing my website—he even named my business! It’s because of him that I’m able to sell books online—at least the eight books that were printed before he passed.

He figured out how to do “hyperlinks” so that my eBooks could be listed in the “premium” catalog, and used photo shop to design many of my book covers. Heck, even the font inside my last three books is exclusively on his computer, not mine.

I have written two cozy mysteries set here on the peninsula. As of today, neither one of them has been published in either print or electronic format. And why not? Because I’ve lost my mojo—I’ve lost Rick—and at the present time, I can’t seem to locate my bootstraps, either.

I was hoping by now he’d have sent me another “tech guy” to help me navigate the hurdles and quagmires of the computer age that continues to frustrate the crap out of me. He promised he would, but so far, I’m on my own here, totally out of my element.

A few years back, there was a Mac User Group (BeachMUG) here on the peninsula. Perhaps the first step to my becoming unstuck (and less of a ninny about these things) is to find another group, or resurrect the old one. Perhaps.

Or—here’s another idea—I could just keep wringing my hands and wailing, which so far has not put even a tiny dent in all my myriad of techno-problems.

It’s a tough choice.