Immediately before I left for a long Christmas vacation, my trusty laptop went kaput. I ordered a new laptop, which I had shipped to where I would be on Christmas Eve, and alternated between packing and file recovery the next day. Everything important was saved, I'm pleased to say. What wasn't important wasn't lost--I just haven't bothered moving everything off the old computer because the process is a pain. But all my writing and work files are here, and I didn't have to worry for very long that they were irretrievable.
Since I had just wrapped up a big project that had to be out before Christmas, and I hadn't lined up any work for the week I would be on vacation, being without a computer was almost relaxing. It gave me more time to relax and really focus on the things that are important in life, like food, naps, movies, and presents.
I came home with a supply of good literature (Stephen King's special extra-long edition of The Stand), good games (the first season of Telltale Games' The Walking Dead, as well as the lost trove of my Super Nintendo titles finally uncovered by my dutiful sister in exchange for custody of the N64 and its games*), good music (Florence + the Machine's album "Lungs," which provided the soundtrack for the drives between New York and Philadelphia), a great movie (Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai), good chocolate, and two bottles of Sky River mead, one of a handful of Pacific Northwest beverages that I miss almost as much as my friends who still live there.**
If you've read the news about as much as I have, you've probably noticed that it's cold all over the place. That includes here in Maryland, and although I don't claim to be nearly as hard off as folks in the Midwest, or the folks who recently had to get rescued off an Antarctic research boat, or the people who just had to be rescued off the boat that rescued those people. But it's pretty cold here, and by "here" I mean "inside."
As it happens, my contentious downstairs housemates moved out on New Year's Eve. And it turned out that they called the gas company as they moved out and had the gas shut off. Do I know why? No. Am I going to speculate about their motives or possible negligence in a public forum? Heck no. Can I see my own breath in the dining room? Yes.
If Pepco is as good as its word, this will be sorted out on Monday, which will be very nice. In the meantime, Girlfriend and I have been keeping very close to our favorite space heater.
Not that I want to complain, or, more correctly, not that I want to complain any more. I am not nearly as miserable about the situation as you might think I have right to be. But a maxim I'm coming to believe--and one I beg everyone not to abuse--is that if a situation must be bad it behooves it to also be interesting. It also helps to spend the time in good company, and I suspect I would be a great deal grouchier about this if the school year had resumed on the second.
* If playing Dungeons & Dragons has taught me anything, it's that people will delve for your lost treasure and fight the necessary monsters for you if you let them in exchange for a share of the loot.
** Hey, I said "almost."
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