Riding the ‘Coaster

Today has been a day of highs and lows — and all of them extreme.

First, my Tinderbox document was corrupted. I outline my novels on Tinderbox (Post-In Notes on Steroids), and because I’m doing an in-depth revision of East of Jesus, that outline is the roadmap that keeps me from getting lost. Well, the most recent copy was corrupted, and when I opened it, it was completely blank. No worries — I’m anal about backing up, so I only lost the changes I made in the past few days. But when I restored the backed up version and did a Save As on my hard drive, it too was corrupted. I suspect I need to download a newer version of Tinderbox since upgrading to Leopard. But until I do, I can’t use my outline. Bummer!

About the time I realized that, the postman drove up, honking. Mad Scientist ran out and brought in an Amazon box. I didn’t remember ordering anything from Amazon, so I looked to see if it was addressed to Mars and saw a handwritten label, addressed to me!

And … oh, my gosh! It was the coolest thing EVER! An absolutely adorable vintage hat, a gift from one of the regular readers here. Thanks, Ginnie, I LOVE the hat! Love, love, love it! And you know it’ll be the hat I choose the winner from next week, so everyone will get to see it. I promptly put it on and did a happy dance in front of the bathroom mirror.

Then I went upstairs to send Ginnie a proper thank you note — only to find I have no internet. I did all the things we try first — restart all the machines, unplug and replug all the connections. Nothing. Finally I called New Delhi, and spent an hour patiently following the instructions of a really sweet technie with a strong accent. He eventually decided our satellite isn’t transmitting. They’ll have to send someone out, and it’s not covered under warranty. Even worse, it’ll take a week or so. Apparently, a motor home was not an acceptable burnt offering to the computer gods. I was just hanging up when I heard Mad Scientist howling downstairs like he was mortally wounded.

I ran down to find him curled up in his bedspread on the floor, crying in Surround Sound. “I ran into something,” he said. His bedspread was pulled over his face, so I immediately jumped to a conclusion. “Were you trying to walk around with your eyes covered up? No wonder you ran into something!” His feelings were hurt. How could I possibly think he’d do something that foolish? “I didn’t have my eyes covered,” he cried defensively. “I was walking backwards!”

I walked away rolling my eyes. Since the internet wasn’t working, I checked my e-mail on the phone. There were two entires in the Monday Book Giveaway and something called, “Query – East of Jesus.” I opened it and stupidly read it twice before I realized what it was: an agent I’d queried last September asking to read the full manuscript. Woot! SQUEE!!

I was still doing a happy dance when Mad Scientist ran past me, screaming even louder. “MOM! I need a band-aid! I’m dripping BLOOD!”

Yes, he’s a drama king. But “blood” does tend to get my attention. I practically dropped the phone to run into the bathroom after him …

And saw the back of his head, smeared with blood. It literally dripped down his neck and back, and for a second, I thought it was spurting (it wasn’t). PANIC! I grabbed a wet rag and began applying pressure while he washed the blood from his hands. It turned out to be a minor flesh wound (you know how head wounds bleed), and after several minutes of direct pressure and half an hour with an ice pack, there’s little more than a bump.

So I’m three and two for the day: three bad, two good.

But the two goods were really great, so I’m calling this a fantastic day.