A scream-worthy day

I should have seen it coming.

This morning, as on other mornings, David crept into our room at about 6:30.  I was so very sound asleep, having put my NaNo to bed at around 11:30 PM, that I didn't even hear him come in.  Apparently Doug did, though, which is a switch.  Anyway, I was completely unaware of his presence until he pushed the "play" button on our answering machine.  Since I'd zeroed out the messages at about midnight, there weren't any so the little man on the machine said, "No messages" in his weird mechanical voice.  That roused me and I struggled to consciousness and searched for the source of the noise.  As I was searching, I realized that that was the answering machine man and I needed to look for the answering machine, which is on the floor next to my side of the bed.  I couldn't see the machine or its little red and green lights and as I was puzzling this out, I looked up at the darkness beside my bed and realized that someone was watching me.

Yes, you guessed it, I screamed bloody murder before becoming aware that the face barely registered above the level of the bed.  You understand, though, that that was right at face level, about 2 inches from my face.  Not a pretty way to wake up in the morning.

Understand also that all of this took place in about 3 seconds.  Before my heart even had a chance to stop racing, I had scooped David up and tucked him into bed with us, apologizing for screaming at him.

"You scared me, Mom," he answered solemnly.

"You scared me too, David," I replied. 

Keziah joined us and the twins spent the next 30 minutes squirming against each other, between Friend Husband and me, until I gave up and got up, made them and myself breakfast and unwillingly started my day.  With a headache.

I should have seen it coming.

I picked up Friend Husband's salvaged laptop (one he bought from the University), a bottle of water, and my NaNo book (No Plot, No Problem) and started downstairs for a snuggle with the cat before starting on my much-anticipated day of writing.  I had done some really good writing yesterday and last night.  Fun writing.  I was into it.  Although I've been taking Terri's advice and fleshing out scenes every day, I have not done three a day as suggested.  I think my scenes are more epic than hers.  One scene, not even completely fleshed out, is over 2200 words.  But that's ok, it's a good way to think of things, and to plan for them.

Anyway, did the kitty snuggle, opened up the laptop to look for my chapter from last night.  I finally had to do a search for it but finally found it and clicked it to open.  "This file cannot not be opened as the application is not in use."  Oh.  Oh yeah, Abiword is not up.  Go to find the Abiword icon.  It's not where it usually is so I look all over the desktop but don't find it.  I did a search for it and only found the scroungings of remnants.  Now I'm starting to feel the frisson of alarm rising up.  Have I backed everything up?

I really should have seen it coming.

I've been backing up Sarah's NaNo every day, as per Terri's suggestion.  I am a good mother.  I do have copies of about everything that I've written on both the desktop computer and on Friend Husband's flash drive.  Everything but the chapter I was working on last night.  And the chapter suggestions for future writing.  That's what I was going to back up this morning.  But Abiword is gone and so is the hope that I can just jump on this thing this morning and cruise on.

Why did I not see it coming?

I have been very diligent about saving each sentence or so on the laptop.  It's taken me some time to get adjusted to typing on a laptop because the keyboard is different.  Every so often, I accidentally hit the track pad, highlight a bunch of text and delete it or insert a bunch of text about two paragraphs back in the story.  So I compulsively save.  I wish I was so compulsive about saving on the flash drive and maybe even e-mailing out my story like I do Sarah's.  It's not so much that I thought it was unnecessary but that I thought it would be a huge pain to have to mail out all those chapters every day.  Sarah's story is complete in one file but mine is on about 20.  Of course, it didn't occur to me that I could just e-mail new chapters every day instead of the whole thing.

I am a chump.  That's why I didn't see it coming.

Is this irretrievable?  No, it's not.  If all else fails, Friend Husband should be able to put AbiWord on the computer on Monday.  Meanwhile, unless I want to write in longhand, I have lost a weekend's worth of writing time, right before having limited writing time due to the Thanksgiving holiday.  Hear that?  That's the sound of me beating my computer monitor.  With my head.

I'm such a dunce.

Ok, I feel better.  I'm going to see if I can find AbiWord and see if there's some way I can get it from here to the laptop, which has no Internet browser.  This is not fatal.  But it's one of those things that, if left to fester, could gangrene the whole project.  The sunny day has turned dim.

I really should have seen this one coming.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, I did a quiz that Teri found online.  Guess which Star Trek character I am? 

Your results:
You are An Expendable Character (Redshirt)

An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 100% Deanna Troi 80% Uhura 70% Worf 60% Data 58% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 55% Jean-Luc Picard 55% Will Riker 55% Beverly Crusher 50% Spock 39% James T. Kirk (Captain) 35% Chekov 35% Mr. Sulu 35% Geordi LaForge 35% Mr. Scott 15%

Since your accomplishments are seldom noticed, and you are rarely thought of, you are expendable. That doesn't mean your job isn't important but if you were in Star Trek you would be killed off in the first episode you appeared in.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

That's foreshadowing, folks.  See that blue face?  That'll probably be me in a couple of hours.

At least I'll see this one coming.