The Howdygram 2: Happy Pesach to our Jewish friends and relatives.

It’s barely Thursday morning, just a few minutes past 1 a.m., and those “killer thunderstorms” we were expecting 10 hours ago finally decided to roll in. They’re LOUD, and I swear I can hear hailstones … although I’m sure they’re not as big as baseballs because baseballs would make a lot more noise than this. These have to be teeny hailstones, maybe the size of nipples. And in case the lights go out I’ve got some emergency essentials within arm’s reach: 1) a gigantic high-beam flashlight that could double as a lethal weapon; 2) a battery-powered oxygen generator; and 3) a box of Hostess Suzy-Qs. Woo-hoo!

A side note for your possible interest. In a perfect demonstration of ridiculous overreaction, the entire Dallas Independent School District — and all the suburban school districts, too — sent their entire student populations home at noon yesterday so nobody would get murdered by weather. Seriously, what a bunch of morans.

It’s time for our annual tribute to Charlton Heston with a big, fat HAPPY PESACH to our Jewish friends and relatives! We’re not having a seder this year — actually, we’ve never had a seder — nor are we participating with anybody via FaceTime, either. For dinner tonight I’ve got a few interesting options … Manischewitz canned matzo ball soup, a 74¢ Banquet chicken pot pie from Wal-Mart or an order of Chicken Egg Foo Young from China City. And I’ve got Twinkies for dessert!

Here’s a question for you. How can an old lady — like yours truly, for instance — with a stuffy nose use a cannula? The answer is, she can’t. So I just sent Sam to the drug store for a bottle of FloNase allergy relief. And that’s because I think I’ve got spring allergy crap going on right now. The symptoms are a stuffed and runny nose, a watery and itchy right eyeball (not the left eyeball; don’t ask) and frequent multiple back-to-back sneezes. And since I don’t actually feel sick, and there are no other symptoms* (fever, cough, etc.), this is NOT a cold or pneumonia … it’s allergies.

The hospice administrator’s typical reaction to just about everything is hysteria. When Sam texted Bea a few minutes ago to tell her I had allergy symptoms (see previous paragraph) and it was really difficult to wear my cannula for oxygen, she responded: “Marcy needs BREATHING TREATMENTS and a BREATHING MACHINE and a NURSE! I’ll have somebody call you IMMEDIATELY!”

Holy crap. A breathing machine is for chest congestion, not spring allergies! Bea focused on only two words in Sam’s text message — “cannula” and “congestion” — and she was off to the races with the world’s fastest fucked-up misdiagnosis, which is the standard M.O. for our hospice. Jesus.

I would like to express my gratitude to Adobe for an excellent customer support experience on Thursday!

A few weeks ago while I was using Adobe’s InDesign software I realized I’d lost access to all of the amazing features of my OpenType fonts, including alternate fancy characters, style sets, swashes, ligatures, and so on. I was heartbroken. I’ve been collecting OpenType fonts for a long, long time, and not being able to use all of their most artistic attributes was seriously traumatic for me. To help you understand what I’m talking about, here’s “Cereal Script” written with two sets of alternate characters. Each letter in this font has at least half a dozen different options; some have many more.

Apparently there was a “glitch” or bug with Adobe’s 2019 InDesign software update. Customer support didn’t admit it, of course (they should have!), but as soon as I told the service rep about my problem she knew exactly what was wrong and fixed it almost instantly, a change that reverted my workspace format back to how it looked before the software update was installed in February.

I love how these issues get solved! Adobe uses software to access my iMac remotely, make changes and adjustments without any involvement by me — the cursor darts all over my screen and I’m not touching the mouse! — and I didn’t have to hang on the phone yelling at a tech support genius in Mumbai, India.

My only other Adobe customer support hoo-hah was last year just before Halloween. I’d been frustrated for months because I lost the ability to use some of InDesign’s (and Illustrator’s) most basic keyboard shortcuts to manipulate graphics … for instance, holding down the shift key to constrain rectanges to perfect squares. Adobe used their remote software to access my iMac, discovered that my WebRoot virus protection software was causing the problem and asked for my permission to uninstall it. I said yes, and — BLAMMO! — all of my keyboard shortcuts came back! Woo-hoo!

I’ve got a huge, long list of wonderful free fonts for you today! I won’t spend too much time describing them for you except to say that I’m wild about “Ana” (a fancy layering font), “Daughter” (with hundreds of OpenType alternate characters), “Objet” and “Crossroad Vintage.” Download links will appear below the graphic so you can add any or all of these to your personal collection. You’re welcome.