What's Your Password

          "Please enter your password".

   I have seen that directive several times recently.  It began Friday when I made several unsuccessful attempts to connect with a colleague via his platform.  I worked on that challenge much of the night while sleeping. Seems that updating one browser and installing another solved the situation.  Was feeling rather pleased with my tekkie skills until . . . 

  And,  even now  I do not know how it happened, but my various electronic devices became 'unsynched',  A password that allowed access on one was met with refusal  from another instrument.  Finally, after many hours of experimenting, they again 'talked' to each other.  How did I accomplish that miracle ?  I do not know and am doubtful that  I could replicate the process from memory.

   Security of personal information appears in lots of ways.  Not that long ago, I still remembered the combination for my parents' post office box from my high school years. I did Army Basic Training in 1962 and have had no active service since then, but I still remember my serial number. Still,  'Breaches' of data occur often . . . personal, governmental, institutional.

  A county in our state recently experienced such an incursion by hackers who then  demanded a ransom against disclosure.  When government officials refused to pay, the hackers began to publish sensitive personal and official information on-line.

   So, the necessity for 'passwords' persists. There are lots of them and since we are instructed to make them complicated and not easily intuited, my creativity becomes challenged as does keeping a written record of these encryptions.  Yesterday,  I even attempted  '1, 2, 3, 4, a, b, C' .  You can readily guess the computer's response  !!  (and, without my knowing 'why?', the computer decided to change the font size!)

   Maybe respite will come in the next world. Unless Saint Peter asks "Please enter your password !"

    Satchel

 

    

"THINK IT'LL RAIN ?"

 

      

A  tourist driving through drought stricken Vermont asked a farmer,  "Think it'll rain ?"  The laconic old man  mused that,  "Always has!"   Anyone asked that question around here would likely retort "Think it'll stop ?"  Songs high on the local charts include "Rain, rain, go away" and  "Raindrops keep falling on my head . . ."

   Yesterday a local  meteorologist reminded listeners that 2020 had been the wettest  year on record and that  2021 was maintaining the trend.  Mark Twain receives credit for the observation that "Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it". 

   

   "If you don't like the weather now, wait  five minutes and it will change", a familiar cliche, has lost its humorous ring.  Just a few miles to our north, residents this week-end are contending with ice, snow, power outages, slippery streets and roads. 'February-itis' it is sometimes named  . . . the combination of wet, cold, steel-grey days that turn hearts and minds towards Spring.

   Forgotten at the moment are the torrid days of July and August when vegetation and heat-exhausted farmers  yearn for an end to the drought.  

   Some find the monsoon season to be a kind of metaphor for the seeming deluge of stormy events in the world at large . . . Covid, political wrangling, climate changing, on the list goes . . . that weigh heavily on the soul and psyche.  

   Remember the 1981song, I Love a Rainy Night ?

Probably not a request for it to be played just now.

Without minimizing the toll that recent events have exacted, how to keep the gloom at bay?   Where and how does one find the precious perspective of HOPE ?  Somewhere in the recesses of my memory of French lessons is the word for "Raincoat" ; it is 

Impermeable.  Making our spirits and  well-being impermeable to the  rain, literal and metaphorical, will require constant attention to Resources that provide nurture. .  . music, prayers, art, movies, making things, finding ways to connect with friends and family when visits are limited. 

    Maybe Annie knew an important secret when she sang Tomorrow.  We are often reminded that it is darkest just before sunrise.

       Satchel