I managed, with a bit of help from the printer’s technical support staff, to upload the corrected file for the book About the Fruit. That was a positive thing, but I was up until five finishing it, and up again at six, struggling to keep myself awake and to awaken the schoolboy. I was not the only one fighting this battle–the houseguest son of one of our houseguests missed his bus this morning, apparently due to a failure of the alarm clock. I am so very grateful that my son made it, and I was back in bed by seven.
I was up again around eleven, because Kyler needed me. He had an important appointment at four, almost an hour from here, and so I already had accepted that I would be driving him there immediately after dropping his mother at work. However, he was also concerned that he needed to get an important errand done, half an hour in the opposite direction, and so felt it important to do before the afternoon pressure hit. I might have managed to drag myself to the truck in under an hour, and we managed to get back in time for everything else.
The appointment was the sort where you must be there on time but should anticipate waiting forever. I took my Romans notes along, and made some progress while waiting. I also brought along and read a printout of a very favorable review of the newest game from my friend Seth Ben-Ezra, of Legends of Alyria fame, Dirty Little Secrets. I’m going to have to break down and buy a copy, it’s that good. The system design generates a Noir Mystery Genre feeling, even if you have no idea what that is. That’s good design.
However, in case it did not strike you, this appointment took several hours. Kyler did very well at it, probably one of the most encouraging points of the day. I, however, was already concerned about how to get home in time to feed people as we left.
That concern increased greatly immediately after I stopped for gas, four miles from home, and then could not start the vehicle again. The starter had complained a bit here and there before, but tonight it did not function properly at all. Kyler and I, and our papers and gear, had to be picked up and brought home; the truck will have to be picked up and taken to a shop tomorrow.
Mercifully, two of our houseguests are equipped with their own cars, and are pitching in to help us deal with transportation. This is especially important, since the other son has to return to Delaware tonight so he will be at work tomorrow.
Coming home to find that the counter where I was planning to make the waffles for dinner was covered in unwashed cups, I realized I had little hope after nine at night to feed anyone before ten. Chinese delivery became the order of the evening, and I turned my attention to my morning study, along with my first, and probably last, cup of coffee, both interrupted multiple times in major ways.
I am now working my way through today, and the light at the end of the tunnel is dimly visible.
In other news, our company president decided, posting on our private company forum, to create a cooperative effort on the new website by having development (me) and public relations work together with art on the total site, rather than having each of us working in his own section. Because I’ve got all the access codes and am the company contact with the hosting service, I’ve been given the task of chairing this. As usual, I’ve taken a significant part of that upon myself–the best way I can see to start is to do a bit of recoding on the old pages (which I still have), and then upload these and make changes as we go. That hopefully means that we will have a website in the next two and a half weeks–in time for the directors meeting, where he wants a report from development on the progress. What’s Gandalf’s phrase? And I was already tired. Hopefully some of the others are ready to pitch in and help make it work.
On one last point, it appears that there might be yet another chance of getting a car, but it’s a long story, and I’m going to leave it for another time.
It was the best of days, it was the worst of days.
–M. J. Young