Lucky Me

My awesome yesterday technically started at midnight on Monday night. It was about five minutes after midnight that I rose from my seat here at the little desk that holds my laptop. We're at our summer home in Pennsylvania, and conditions are a little primitive. Seems you have to plug a wire into your computer and into the wall to get internet. It's shocking. Reminds me of way back in 2006, you know? Those were such crazy, wiry times.

So at five minutes or so after midnight, when Tuesday was just a nascent and innocent day, full of hope and promise, I stood up from my seat and reached for my diet Coke, which was on the dining room table. My traitorous foot wickedly ensnared itself in the headphones wire, yanked the laptop off the desk, and smashed the screen into the hard point of the chair seat. "Oh, no no no," I said under my breath. No, no, no, as I lifted my precious baby laptop up off the floor. But yes, yes, yes it had a screen that looked like a broken windshield. But more colorful and horrifying. Something like this:

After bawling and crying and complaining to Ahno immediately, fretfully sleeping for five hours and then cranking and crying at Dan in the morning, I drove to the local computer store and they helpfully sold me a 20 year old monitor for $25. It is working. I am okay. Dan is going to buy me a new laptop. It is not the end of the world.

With the laptop drama over, I loaded the kids into the van, strapped the bikes on the back, and went to the Sandy Creek Bike Trail to put in a ten mile ride. After all the refried crapola with the laptop, I could use ten miles of stern, bitter bicycling. We reached the start of the trail, and I had the bikes unloaded, the helmets on, the baby in the trailer, everyone water-bottled and sunscreened and the van locked up when I realized I was missing a very crucial knob on the trailer hitch and could not attach it to my bicycle.

Tore the van apart, searched all around the surrounding area and the parking lot, and could not find this miserable, rat-soaked knob. Even when four paunchy and pasty middle aged men showed up, back from their ride, and very kindly proceeded to tear my van apart (again) to show me that it had to be there (it wasn't), there was no knob. So, off with the helmets, back in the van, bikes back on the rack, everyone home, me saying dire and unreportable things under my breath. I called Dan and cried and complained. He determined that I can go get a wingnut at Home Depot and use that for now, and he is going to order the real part. So, fine. Everything alright.

Bike drama behind us, I decided to just take the kids down the hill to the creek. If we can't ride bikes we can at least get muddy and look for crayfish and throw rocks around. So we're down there up to our knees in creek water, busily rearranging the rocks and persecuting the minnows, and I hear a car on the road. Not a huge deal, but notable, because we're almost at the end of a very untravelled road. Then I heard the sound of a shotgun. At least, that's *REALLY* what it sounded like. Then I heard the screen door slam.

So, in my mind, the universe has smashed my laptop, hidden my bike trailer knob, and now has arrived in a strange vehicle, shot my Ahno, and is now butchering her in the kitchen sink. I gathered up the children and yanked their clothes on, charged up the hill to find that the apple tree in the side yard, one that I labored over at length last year to establish a surrounding flower garden and rock border, has fallen over.

So, the car was unrelated, the screen door slam was Ahno going out to check on the tree, but seriously, after the day I had yesterday, I'm almost ready to just stay inside for the rest of the week!