I’m a cheerleader for all things Apple. In fact, I’m co-captain of the cheer squad for Team Mac. (We wear black mock-turtlenecks, little round glasses and no ponytail accessories. My co-captain is my husband, who would do a split on top of a human pyramid for an iTunes gift card.) So imagine my disappointment - make that horror - to find that when I hopped on the new iCloud last Saturday morning, my entire calendar went to shit. Let me give you a little bit of background about me, my calendar, and my obsessive-compulsive tendencies regarding writing things down in a boxy chart with numbers and color-codes. Please don’t judge. I love graphs, charts and maps. Before I went digital, I had a datebook that cost me $24. It was as detailed and high-tech as you could get while still using a writing utensil. I eventually moved to a Palm Pilot and then realized my lifelong dream with an iPhone that synched my iCal with my computer, my laptop and eventually my iPad. The iCalendar contained directions to appointments, stored phone numbers for RSVPs, and had recurring reminders that went to infinity, so there was no excuse for missing a bill payment, a birthday or a mammogram. “Do you want a card?” the hair salon receptionist would say when she was making my next appointment. A card? A card? And where am I supposed to put that? In my 1974 Rolodex? I might as well have you carve it into a stone tablet and bury it in a cave. No, I don’t need a card. I’m putting it onto my calendar right now. I jauntily swiped my finger over my phone and slipped it in my pocket. So it was awkward when I had to call her this morning and ask when that appointment was. No, I didn’t take a card. I put it on my calendar, which disappeared. Have you ever heard a smirk over a phone line? The Cloud, that hovering, all-encompassing force of nature that Apple promised would give me super-powers, decided that my life was too busy. All these payments and appointments, fundraisers and meetings, project deadlines - what a freaking bore, the Cloud said. Simple down, my friend! And with that, it wiped out about 75 percent of my calendar, past, present and future to infinity. A few items made the leap. I hope I’m not supposed to draw any conclusions by which calendar items were chosen to stay. I got my daughter’s midterms, but not my son’s. I got my brother-in-law Dan’s birthday, but not my own siblings or my best friends. I didn’t get any doctor’s appointments. I got one day of a four-day trip to Orlando. And according to my new lean, toned down iCalendar, I don’t have to pay any bills and I don’t go to the dentist. The Cloud refuses to acknowledge my husband’s business trips and it downright despises my book club. If I stick with this and allow iCloud to choose which appointments I keep, I’m going to lead a simpler life, but I’m going to look like a skank, because all things related to my hair, nails and body - inside and out - are gone. And there’s no app for that.
