So here’s a classic Mercury retrograde anecdote.
A few days ago an editor emailed me about a magazine piece I’d submitted. “The editor reviewing the piece said that what you’ve written doesn’t match the charts for the dates and times you provided,” the email read. “The problem seems to be that your charts were not adjusted for British Summer Time, which will be in effect on those dates.”
Nonsense, I thought. I use a software program that is the beloved choice of professional astrologers the world over. It automatically adjusts to the correct time zone! But when I ran the charts again, I noted that sure enough, the time zone was not adjusting properly.
I made sure all my program updates and operating system updates were installed. They were. After some poking around, my clever spouse (Virgo planets) discovered that the program’s time zone table for that city stopped abruptly in 2010. I contacted the creators of the software to report the problem, was told to install an update patch (which I already had) and to check a particular setting (it was already correct), and that if that didn’t work I’d have to upgrade to the new version of the software.
Initially, I threw a fit. “I’ve already upgraded, like, ten times!” Incensed, I consulted my Quicken records to survey the cumulative damage to my checking account, and found… that I’d already upgraded to the current version, a couple of years ago! (And it was only my second upgrade, not my tenth.)
Oops! I guess when I upgraded my computer and reinstalled all my applications, I had used a creaky older version of my astrology software. I found the latest version on a CD tucked in a dark cranny of my desk, installed it, ran an update, and voila – all systems are go.
Instead of being aggravated by the whole thing, I suppose a better response would be amusement, and gratitude that the problem was uncovered (and that this is not the program I use for most of my client work). At least, that’s what Mercury would say – in between wry chuckles at my expense. But then, he has a vested interest in making his retrograde periods seem useful and productive instead of simply maddening.
