Perpetual Ruminations

Saturday

What a day! It actually started two days back, when I sat myself down to finish the novel I'm writing for NaNo. I had my fifty thousand, but the story wasn't done. I had a story outline and an ending already worked out, I just needed to fill in the details leading up to the ending.

This took a couple of chapters, and two nights back, Thursday, I wrote out almost seven thousand words for the final chapter. It was getting late when I typed that last sentence, but it was complete. What a rush it was to have my novel done. Excited, I wanted to celebrate a little.

I would have liked to celebrate a lot, but I had to be up at three the next morning for work, so we celebrated a little. But, I had been sipping on wine while I worked on the final chapter, two glasses worth. After finishing, Rhonda assisted me in the word count tally, and updating my count here, and on the NaNo site. We sipped on Brandy while we worked, and then had another after.

It helped calm my excitement, and by eleven-thirty I was ready for bed. Sometime after, I woke up, and upon returning from the bathroom snuggled up and spooned my lovely wife. this got her snuggling back tighter against me, and that got me snuggling tighter to her, then she rolled and we exchanged some kisses and .... Well, I think you get the picture.

After, we snuggled into each other's arms and drifted back to sleep. At three, the alarm went off, and I drug my tired butt out of the warmth of the bed, drank a cup of coffee, and got ready for work. My head was about to explode, I was extremely tired, and I felt like I'd been trampled in my sleep.

Now, I know what your thinking. Wine? Brandy? Headache and feeling trampled? I know -- I know, hangover.

Nope. I'm sure it assisted, but I had not drunk enough to give myself a hangover, although the brandy and wine very likely was the reason my stomach was unhappy. Very little sleep compounded the situation, and hours of sitting at the keyboard wrapped it up. My arms hurt, my shoulders ached, and my neck was tighter than a bow string.

After all, in three nights I had completed the novel, and in those three nights I had typed out just over twenty thousand words. Yes, seven thousand on Tuesday, six thousand on Wednesday, and seven thousand on Thursday. Also, I wrote with my laptop sitting at the writing table. It's a nice position for typing, but with the laptop it puts the monitor a little low, and that's why the neck and shoulders ached, looking down for so long.

The other culprit was what I was drinking while I typed. I normally drink coffee through the afternoon and into the evenings, and I seldom have any issues. But, coffee just was not working for me on Thursday, so I dumped out my cup around three or four in the afternoon and sipped on water with a lemon wedge in it. Only, after drinking a full glass of water, I just wasn't thirsty for another.

I looked around and the only thing that looked appealing, was the bottle of Pinot Noir in the fridge. Besides, it had been open for a few days and needed to be used up before it lost it's flavor. I was struggling some trying to get the story to flow anyway, so I thought maybe a little wine will loosen up the imagination for me. It did and I wrote and sipped. Eventually I run dry, and about the time Rhonda arrived home I poured the remainder into my glass and resumed typing. So, two glasses of wine, around twelve ounces.

The problem wasn't in the wine, it was in the lack of caffeine from not drinking my quota of coffee. Intense headache. Add the stiff neck and shoulders, and you have very intense headache, mix in only a couple of hours of sleep, and you have a major headache. And I did.

I would have squelched it right out with coffee Friday morning, but I do not have easy access to a bathroom at work, and wouldn't get a break until around nine or ten. I could call for a break, but it's kind of a hassle. So, I don't drink very much before or at work. I know, results in dehydration. And, even mild dehydration give you a.... Say it! Headache.

Anyway, I felt like crap. My plan was to come home, send my reports for work, then lie down and take a short nap. I did just that, too. I slept about an hour, got up and worked on uploading my novel to the clouds. Because the internet isn't the fastest here in my rural little town, it wasn't going very quickly. Because our service provider doesn't provide dependable service, the network disconnects off and on as soon as it begins to overload, which is later afternoon and early evening.

So, I was having a lot of difficulty and was getting frustrated with my task when the phone rang. I do not like phones. I have received too many of those, I hate to tell you this over the phone, phone calls. Also, being a supervisor, I have received way too many, I can't make it in, calls as well. Finally, I just don't like to be interrupted, and many of the people who call me won't take a hint when I tell them I'm busy, and rattle on and on anyway.

So, back to the task at hand, the phone rings and it's Rhonda. Now, this is one fo the few calls I enjoy. But, not this night. No, she called to inform me she was running off with some good looking doctor or lawyer or something. Just kidding, but it was just as bad, she had been driving home and impacted with a deer. In fact, she had pretty well removed the front end of the van, deployed the air bags, and was unsure if she was seriously injured or not.

Luckily, she was not injured beyond some mild bruising, and once the initial pain dissipated, she didn't feel too bad at all. The van never recovered. The grill, both headlights, the hood, radiator, etc... All demolished and being dark, there was no way to try and get it home. She had managed, after the accident, to limp it onto an approach to a field, so it was well off the highway.

My plans of relaxing last night were shot, and instead of getting to bed early in the evening, it was early in the morning instead. Not that it mattered, I didn't sleep anyway. I tend to worry very easily, and this was a good source of worry.

See, we have just begun to recover a little from financial ruin from some bad luck a few years back. We managed to get the van, and it was in very good shape, but it's old, 1998 model. Therefore, it's unlikely the insurance is going to pay for repairs. Even if they do, we needed to keep insurance cost down, so we will have to dish out the first 750 dollars, which, for us, is going to be a major set back. It will take cutting back on everything, even food, and then a couple of months to raise.

So, no sleep again, and now one vehicle. This is an older SUV, and not as easy on gas as the van was. It's also not as good of shape, it's cold to ride in this time of year, and it's going to have to make double trips for us to use it to get to work. Rhonda and I will have to go in when I open, then she drives home. At eleven she drives it back in for her shift, and I get done and can drive it back home. But then I have to go back later in the afternoon to get her, and then we drive back home. It's twenty five miles one way, so we're looking at one hundred and fifty miles a day.

I doubt the old buggy will hold up to it for long, but even if we baby it along it's going to kill us trying to keep gas in it. It's going to be three times more miles, and gas, than what before, and that means it's going to take the money we wanted to set aside to get the van repaired to keep gas in the Jimmy.

So, now I need to get some good sleep, but with this all going on, I seem to have a headache, and I know I will have troubled sleep until a solution is found. Hopefully the insurance adjuster will be here while one of us is at home and we can get some answers. Right now, the best we can hope for is the insurance subtracts the 750 and we get enough from what's left if they total it, that we can either make repairs ourselves or put it down on another cheap vehicle. If we can find something in decent shape that's affordable.

One step forward, two steps back. That's been the story around here for quite a few years now. I'm hoping it's about time we can get to a better chapter and start moving towards a happy ending.