It’s Only Temporary

I had high hopes of having everything set for a smooth transition into this year’s NaNoWriMo (nanowrimo.org). I was going to do my shopping for lots of coffee and tea and things to eat that are easy to fix in twenty minutes or less. I was going to burn a couple of CDs with different music from what I used during my writing sessions during last year’s NaNoWriMo. I was going to sit back and relax on the 31st, saying I was all set for the 1st to arrive.

I didn’t do any of this. Life got in the way.

Some of you will know that my daughter had room mate problems after moving into a new housing situation and her room mates pulled the rug out from under her after a week and told her to move out. She came to my house. This is temporary. This is temporary. This is temporary. Excuse the repetition but this has become my mantra. She has been here for a week. In that week her former room mates continue to be jerks, moving all of her things outside into the carport. Her things include two tv sets which were left outside in full and plain view of everyone and anyone that happened to walk, run, jog, bike, or drive by. We’ve managed to bring everything and put it in my garage, however we don’t have any way of moving her queen size mattress, box spring, and bed frame, her couch or her 1950’s vintage formica table that seats eight. We have had glimmers of borrowing a truck or van only to not have anyone to do the lifting and moving. I can’t help her. I have back, knee, and neck injuries. So those things remain there, in full view of anyone that might want to go and get them.

Along with this come two cats. One does not get along with the cat that already lives in my house permanently. He scares our cat and hisses and jumps at him. That means that our cat will not go into the room with the litter box in it because the mean bully cat is there. Need I say more? The other cat that is temporarily living with us is a kitten. He’s about four months old but really looks and acts as if he’s about two months old, He’s tiny. He’s cute. But he’s a baby, which means that he wants, no demands, constant attention. Constant, twenty-four hour attention. He is between my feet when I try to walk, on my lap when I sit to eat, on my shoulder when I lay in bed, on the keyboard when I try to type. Then he cries. I would rather listen to a crying baby than this tiny, squeaky kitty cat’s meow.

My daughter works full 8 hour shifts every day. She works about a half hour away. That means she’s gone about ten hours a day. The kitty cat does not go to work with her. Darn! She finally has two days off this week. I thought she’d use it to start looking for a place to live or maybe she could rent a van or small truck to go get her things. No. Instead she went to see her father for the two days she has off. That’s okay. I don’t mind her visiting her father. I have always encouraged it. However, the timing of this visit just is not right. But she went. He lives a 7 hour drive from here. She flew. Who took her to the airport? I did. How long did it take for the round trip to the airport? We had to deal with traffic for opening night of the basketball season. We didn’t know this. It took almost six hours. Guess who is going to pick her up when she comes back the day after tomorrow, early in the morning? Yup. You guessed it. Luckily the traffic should not be as bad in the morning and it should only take me three hours round trip.

This means I have her cats. Fun. The kitty will not leave me alone. Today I went out for a couple of hours. When I got back the kitty cried even when I was holding him he was crying as if to say “Why did you leave me? You aren’t ever going to leave me again, are you?” I’ve been home for three hours. He’s still crying.

To top things off, my laptop went bonkers on me and after a week of trying to scan, defrag, diagnose, and fix it, I ended up doing a full system restore. Before doing that, of course, I had to burn everything on to DVDs. It took me forever and an hour to sort out what had to be saved and organize it into folders and burn it and make sure I hadn’t forgotten to back anything up. Then I had to create the restore discs and finally, reformat. Then fun begins when you get the little message on the screen that says your computer has been successfully and fully formatted. That’s when you have to begin all of the software updates. Then you have to install all of your software. I haven’t gotten that far yet.

To top things off, the wireless mouse and keyboard on my desktop went out today. I had to go find one another set. I still have to hook it up. I haven’t had time.

Instead of shopping for a stash of coffee, snacks and quick-to-fix foods for NaNoWriMo, I had to go shop for Halloween candy before the munchkins began to arrive. Now I am running back and forth from the kitchen (where I have camped out until the 9 when I will shut off the lights and retire to the nether regions of the house) to the front door to appease the sugar-seeking children before they become hostile!

At least I got my laptop in typing condition and my desktop should also be ready to accept the words and ideas as they flow from my brain to my fingertips and onto the monitor!

Thank goodness for small miracles!

It’s only temporary. It’s only temporary. It’s only temporary.