If you’ve spent any time at all reading past posts here, you are well aware of the much maligned bathtub- and dishwasher-less situation of our old house and my fantasies of having said fixtures.  The week or so after we moved into our new place, thus acquiring said glories, not just one but BOTH of them broke, requiring repair.  This was my first glimpse into the powerful, life-controlling machinery that is MY ENTHUSIASM.  But did I learn my lesson from this?  OH NO, I DID NOT.  Sunday night I had my Monday post all time stamped and set to publish, thinking (ENTHUSIASTICALLY, this was my fatal flaw) how clever I was to have pre-planned and bought myself scads and scads of blogging time.

Clearly I underestimated the cosmic powers of my cheerful naivete.

My Mac is BROKE.  Like broke broke.  Monday I had been tooling around, Internetically speaking, when all of a sudden the screen, in horrible reverse Wizard of Oz fashion, turned all the images gray and informed me, in what I am certain would have been a robotic voice were it to have happened aloud, “You must restart your computer.”  The Gray Screen Of Death seemed serious enough to me, but my Mac, ensuring that I would Take It V. Seriously, repeated the message in no less than FOUR languages. Just in case I was confused after reading the English and needed foreign language confirmation. Or in case I was quadralingual.  Either way, the message was clear: WE AIN’T MESSIN’ AROUND ABOUT THE RESTARTIN’, WOMAN. (Update: see comments section for handy visual aid! That L included to point out my fake German!)

Ever the optimist (you know, after saying WTF LAPTOP? out loud), I restarted and pulled up all my previous screens and continued on my way….until five minutes later when I was greeted with the EIN REBOOTEN ACHTUNG (loosely translated) screen once more. Restart number two yielded me two minutes of screen time, restart three, one, and then finally the last time as the Harmonious Mac Chord was chiming, everything froze and a black box popped up that was devoid of text, but was clearly saying Earlier We Were Being Nice, But What We Really Meant To Say Was: YOU’RE FUCKED.

So the laptop is off to the Mac hospital, and I am crossing my toes that I don’t receive a phone call telling me that “all your pictures and blog files and the like are now off to data heaven, but it’s ok because you’ll always have the memories!” except not really because that computer was where I was stashing all those memories and if I have to rely on the old fashioned method of Facts In My Head, then years from now you can be sure that when asked about my childrens’ early years I will pause for an embarrassingly long time before answering, “They said some things. And pooped.  And occasionally I bathed them. I think.”

Posting will most likely be light until I can work up my arm wrestling endurance and gain control over L’s laptop for a few hours.  Apparently in law school you’re required to do all kinds of computer-requiring things like reviewing documents and writing briefs which according to L, trumps “watching downloaded True Blood.”

WHATEVER DUDE.  I’ll see you at the kitchen table with my sleeves rolled up.