Gina and I had two great weeks away from work and with family–both in Boulder and in Portland. Monday, January 3rd was my first day back and I was thrilled to reengage with work and the like. The week, it turned out, had more in store for us than we imagined.
In short, our heater broke, computer broke (again), Neko kills, Ruby killed, surprise for Gina, food poisoning for me. Read on…
Monday
I got my new computer set up (my old one had crashed the hard-drive so many times they gave finally gave me a new one) and sorted through hundreds of emails from 2 weeks off. Heat goes out on a 20-something degree day. We are bundled in hats and scarves in the house.
Gina manages to get it fixed same day (she is my hero) and $745 later, we have heat.
Tuesday
I prepped all day for the Salon and then hosted it that evening. It was so fun. We didn’t get to bed until after midnight.
Wednesday
My new computer is acting funny. Track pad won’t work well- making it difficult to get work done. Excited about my new Unravelling Course with Susannah Conway- but unable yet to get assignments or do homework given back log of work and computer issues.
Heater seems to be acting up again. Hmm.
Spend much of the day seeing clients. Good to be back in the chair.
Thursday
I spent the day both seeing clients and re-writing contracts I had already written but lost on last computer debacle (yes, I back up hourly – the back up was part of the old issue). Feels good to get that all done but heater is definitely messed up. Spend all morning with furnace guy at the house telling us what else could be the problem ($1000 circuit board manufactures error that is no longer covered).
Spend another two hours on the phone with tech support for my brand new computer’s track pad. They ask me if it’s a static electricity deficiency in my fingers.
Neko kills and brings in a dead songbird. Trail of feather all throughout the house that lead us to it’s final resting place behind our little woofy stereo. Given that I’ve just finished reading Jonathon Franzen’s Freedom, this is especially disturbing to me.
Friday
I spent another hour on the phone with tech support. My computer’s trackpad is so bad I can no longer use the computer without a mouse and I want to just throw it off the roof I am SO frustrated!
Friday evening I bring the computer to Apple where the man behind the bar looks me in the eye with sympathy and tells me that I have simply had some really “bad luck”. He doesn’t want to send it back to depot to fix the hardware problem- that that would just add to the absurdity of all that I’ve gone through so far, he says. So he just gives me a new computer. Again. To be clear. This is the second brand new MacBookAir I’ve been given in 6 days.
We head out for happy hour to celebrate the excellent customer service and the hope that our house will stay warm, my new, new computer will work and we’ll be back on track. All around, we feel happy and blessed. Chalk it up to a hard week. Go to be by 9:30 and sleep a solid 10 hours.
Saturday
I wake up around 7:30 and go to let chickens out but something is strange. My white Clementine is in the run just sort of pacing back and forth in a crazy kind of way. The other chickens are no where in sight. I see a big lump further down in the run. “Uh, oh”.
I get inside the hen house and open the doors. I count two chickens. Plus Clemmie in the run makes three. There are suppose to be four. I walk down a bit further in the run to the large lump and along the way I see massive clumps of feather where my girl Ruby put up a good fight. Eventually, though, she lost and I found her headless, half eaten and frozen. I let the other chickens out so they would be away from her and went to wake Gina up and tell her the sad news.
We buried Ruby that morning along the side of our house, the only place we could find where the ground wasn’t frozen solid. I placed one blueberry in her grave. She loved blueberries. The rest of the day was just sort of weird. Our chicken was dead yet I had a wonderful surprise for Gina that night: Dinner and Joan Rivers (whom she loves) live.
We made our way through the day and by evening we were hoping to have a good time, despite our loss. And we did. We had a great dinner. Oysters and champagne. The works. We went to the show, laughed our asses off and later attended a friend’s 50th party afterwards. Lovley.
I’m looking forward to Sunday where I can get my computer set up, Unravelling homework completed, house cleaned and groceries in the kitchen.
Sunday
Sunday morning 5am I wake up with the runs. Really bad runs. Feel sick. Go back to bed hoping it was a one off. I wake up 2 hours later. Same thing. Uh oh. By 9am I’m hoping it’s just the venison I ate (mixed with grotesque images of finding my Ruby) and nothing else but by 10am it’s clear I’m really sick. Greener and greener. Puke. More sick. More nausea. More runs. More puke. Body aches so bad I cry. Can’t hold anything down. Trying all my homeopathics but there is no dent. Just have to ride it out. I can’t wait to sleep just to get out of the misery.
Gina is my savoir. She cleans, get some food (for her for our bare fridge), waits on me with every need (and gives me ample space, too), cancels all my Monday meetings.
In general, I am forced to surrender.
Monday (today)
Monday I wake up to discover that I’m still a bit weak and green and runny, but no aching and no puking. Things are looking up.
The heater is working, cats are healthy. Three chickens are clucking in the backyard as if nothing ever happened and my new, new computer is set up and running. Beautifully this time.
This is a short week given we are leaving Friday to do a training. Hoping that this week is non-eventful until then, even if full catching up from last week. Sometimes busy and boring is good.
It was a rocky start to the new year and the superstitious part of me is keen to make that mean something about how awful the rest of the year will be but I’m stopping that astrocious thinking and re-framing that the only thing it means is that we got all the kinks worked our right away and from here on out: smooth sailing. Look out 2011. Here we come!
xo,
regina
We love you, Ruby.
Rest in Peace, Ruby.