Bill says that with me there’s no such thing as a short story, so please, bear with me.

This morning I was going to tell a simple story about the current state of our disorganized affairs.  I wanted to start it with a song which meant I had to tell another story first and then another one before that.  So here goes:

Not surprisingly, there are big differences between how people on either side of the country communicate.  I write on the West Coast, the Left Coast as we call it around here, and my editors are all on the East Coast.  Differences often surface when editors object to something in one of my manuscripts.  The best example of that was when I mentioned a local club that featured country western music.  My then-copyeditor sent me a notice saying it was country and western music.  I wrote back saying, “If it were country and western, it would have to be s— and kicking country and western music.  But it isn’t.  It’s s—kicking, country western music.”  (When I started reading Zane Grey books in fourth grade, I quickly managed to decode all the cuss words that were expressed as first letters only with appropriate dashes following.  I’m sure you managed to translate the missing letters in that previous passage.)  And, just to be clear, my version–country western music–is the one that showed up later in the printed book.  In other words, Author 1/Editors 0!!

So I was going to start this post with a few words from an old country western song:

Gloom, despair, and agony on me.

Deep dark depression, excessive misery.

If it weren’t for bad luck,

I’d have no luck at all.

Woe, despair, and agony on me.

And what’s this all about?  We’re still dealing with the after effects of our flood.  What happens to a house when 180,000!!! gallons of water wanders through places where it shouldn’t be isn’t pretty.  The ServePro folks came and tried to dry out the crawlspace, but it turns out some of it wasn’t dry-able.  All the tile in the bathroom, including the shower and the shower pan had to come out.  By then, water had wicked up through the wood on the outside wall of the house which promptly swelled up and wrecked the recently (two years ago) applied coat of stucco.  Yesterday, that part of the outside wall had to be stripped off.  A visitor who came by late yesterday afternoon said, “It keeps looking worse and worse.  When is it going to start looking better?”

I keep asking myself that very question.  When???!!!

So last night, late in the evening, after all the worker bees left, Bill and I were going to share a late supper.  I put a potato into the microwave and pressed cook.  Ran like a charm–at least it seemed to.  The light came on; the potato went round and round.  Except, when the microwave turned off with the cheerful announcement that “Your food is ready,” the potato was still stone cold.  We knew right then that our twelve year-old microwave had finally bitten the dust.  We had poured glasses of wine in anticipation of eating our evening dining experience.  After putting the potato in the regular oven to bake, we went ahead and drank the wine.  By the time the potato was finally done, it was after nine.  We said “Fahgettaboudit” and went to bed, like bad little kids, without any supper.  The wine was good, though.

So I was in bed, sleeping.  Bill was awake, worrying and reading his iPad.  He woke me up giggling, sometime around midnight.  Because some of you may need a laugh today as much as we do right now, I’m going to include the link in the post he was reading.  It turns out some of the things the auto-correct lady does on Instant Messages really are hilarious.  For instance, this morning when I was trying to get Siri, the auto-correct lady, to direct me to Frederick’s Appliances in Redmond, she wanted me to go to Rick’s for some reason, instead.

Here’s the link:  http://www.iclarified.com/26042/the-funniest-auto-correct-texts-of-2012-list.

With or without help from Siri, we did manage to find our way to Frederick’s and purchase a replacement microwave.  By the way, did you know that microwaves from 2000 were built to slightly different size specifications than the new ones are?  That means the hole in the cabinet–the laminated spot that supposed to hold the microwave–isn’t quite the right size.  It’s a few silly millimeters too small.  Great.  Now I suppose we’ll have to redo the kitchen, too.

Remember that country western song I mentioned above?  I guess this counts as “same song; second verse.”