I’m sitting in my kitchen on a terribly uncomfortable chair. We replaced the frumpy chair pads with nifty red ones for Christmas. Alas, the holiday ended, and the pads are packed away. O, how I long for those frumpy chair pads…
I hope your holiday was glorious and that your new year holds nothing but grand promise.
My holiday ended finally just this last weekend, with the return of my daughter’s stuff to her college dorm. She’s officially ensconced in her small liberal arts school in what is right now the frigid wasteland of Central Oregon.
Oh come now, a frigid wasteland? you say with that subtle tone of parental correction, surely it cannot be as bad as that.
Listen, mister, or sister, I know what I know, and saw what I saw, see?
Actually, the ice storm was really quite beautiful, the trees, the fences, even the blades of grass perfectly outlined in ice.
We were stopped long enough on the freeway that I got to mess around with the quarter-inch thick sheet of ice on the K-rail divider. What was so amazing to me was that the vertical surfaces were just as coated as the flats and tops. How could this be?
My fingers are still cold.
We met some lovely people while stranded in Grant’s Pass – a guy from Hawaii and a girl from Denver, both of whom used to be in the oil business, but who now run a farm and sell pies. A guy from Baltimore who works at one of only four biodynamic wineries in the whole world.
Wait, where’s the writer’s story in this, you ask with that tone that really moans are you ever going to land this plane?
Okay, okay, okay, here we go…
Because of that mega ice storm that laid flat Central Oregon, why, I haven’t scheduled a fourth shoot for the California Air Museums project.
…crickets…
Yeah, see, we were both so wiped out from battling the ice storm (oh please, you moan) that I haven’t even turned on my computer since getting home Monday night.
…crickets…
And I haven’t put out a single query letter on my novel this entire year!
…yawns…
Well, there it is, isn’t it?
Central Oregon in ruins, my hosting career at a standstill, my novel in the dumpster.
…sad violin music…
Marketing-wise, I did plant a link to the California Air Museums site in this post. That’s pretty cool.
And, like my mom used to say, “Life ain’t beer and skittles, you know.”
Although I still don’t know what that means, let us remind ourselves that out of calamity comes creativity, out of ruin comes rebirth, and it ain’t over ’til it’s over.
Or until the fat lady sings, although I don’t quite get that one, either…
John D Reinhart 