Sunday Night Storm

A monster thunderstorm moved through here last night. Heavy, booming thunder. Lightning that crackled until it felt like the air was filled with electricity and buzzed like killer bees. I jumped up in bed, checked the clock and groaned. 3 AM!  

Then I focused on the thunder, lightning, and especially the rain that was just starting to fall outside the bedroom window. It was windy and I knew all of the second floor windows were open with only the screens between us the storm. I punched Mike in the shoulder and his even snoring stopped. He growled something and rolled toward me on the bed.  

"It's raining. You should shut the windows," I said. 

"Rain's good for the grass," he replied and rolled away from me. I couldn't argue with that logic. 

After days of heat and humidity, the cool air blowing through the window felt really good. I threw off the covers, rolled toward the window, and went back to sleep. I was just too tired to close those windows.

Monday Morning

Morning dawned cool and cloudy. The storm had passed. After the alarm went off on my phone, I slapped at it, which bought me 10 more minutes of sleep. When Sam the cat started whacking me on the face with his paw, I knew it was time to get up.  When Sam's hungry, no one can sleep. Mike was already in the shower, so I checked all of the windows before going downstairs to make some life-saving coffee. 

I found wet window sills, soaked carpeting, and damp curtains. "But the grass does look good," I thought, looking out the window. We did have quite a few tree branches down on the front lawn though. I put towels out to soak up some of the wetness.  Hopefully, we'd avoid mildew.  I padded downstairs. 

The Shit Hits the Fan

At the bottom of the stairs, I nearly stepped on the biggest hairball Sam had ever horked up. It was a prize winner! I cleaned it up and went into the kitchen, shaking my head. I started the coffee, threw some cat food into a bowl for Sam, and went into the living room. 

I clicked on the t.v. to check the morning news. All I got was a lot of static. I turned it off and on. Same result. Anger started to build and I said, "Holy shit what's next?" Mike came into the living room and handed me a cup of coffee. He looked at the static on the t.v. and said, "Well, that's better than the usual political crap." I laughed. "It's broken," I replied and drank my coffee. He checked the cable set-up, plugs and played with the remote. "Yeah, definitely broken," he agreed. 

It was then that I noticed my small, backup  Dell laptop across the room was on the coffee table and turned off. I had set it up to mine steem, the cryptocurrency,  the night before. When we went to bed, it was still synching up with all of the blocks. I figured we'd be rolling in steem power when we woke up.  Panic washed over me. We had 3 laptops and other electronics plugged into power strips. What if Mother Nature had fried them all?

I went over to take a closer look. The laptop was completely off. I took a healthy gulp of coffee and put the cup on the coffee table. I sat down on the couch and pressed the power button on the Dell. Nothing. More panic came for a visit. So I checked all of the cable connections and plugs and tried again. This time the power light came on. I smiled at my success. 

Two seconds later the laptop started making a clicking sound that started low, accelerated and went back to low.  It didn't boot up.  I'd never heard that particular sound before. "Uh oh," I said, giving Mike my moment of doom look. 

"Internal power supply?" he asked. I shrugged. Neither of us were super techie when it came to hardware. I closed my eyes and did some deep breathing. I felt my body relax a bit and my blood pressure came down.

Mike sat down on the couch and turned on my other laptop. It's my workhorse for writing, curating,  email...everything! I held my breath. I do copy data off to an external drive. But still....  Seconds later it booted up!! Everything looked good. I did the fist pump of joy. He checked the power strip and said it looked like it was still working. 

Mike then went to the smaller couch on the opposite wall. Our living room is where we both work and relax. Mike's laptop sat on a wooden coffee table. He turned it on and it booted up too. We were happy but confused. It looked like we'd experienced a selective power spike. Why had the older laptop died but my workhorse computer survived? They were both plugged into the same power strip. Had someone hacked my laptop because I was going to be an extremely wealthy steem miner? (Not likely).

The Plan

We ate breakfast and put together a plan. Mike had a meeting later in the morning. So I said I'd call Comcast and see what they needed to do to get our cable t.v. back. Mike said he'd call his brother, Cal, and ask him to come over and look at the laptop this weekend. Cal was a techno-wizard. As an afterthought, I said I'd stop at a pet store and get the goop you give cats so they don't gift you with enormous hairballs first thing in the morning.  We had a plan! 

To celebrate we made a dinner date at Palermo's, one of our favorite restaurants. Mike got dressed and went off to his meeting. "It'll all work out, slugger," he said with a grin as he went out the door.  

I was heading up to take a shower when Mike came back in the door. "Forget something?" I asked. Then I saw his face. "I have a flat tire and just enough time to change it," he said. I went over to him and hugged him and then we broke down in hysterical laughter. We couldn't stop. I ended up rolling on the floor.

Lessons Learned

So what do you do when life serves you shit for breakfast? Here's what I learned:

• Whatever happens, it's probably not the end of the world. It may feel like it, especially if a bunch of crappy things happen close to each other. But it is Not.The.End.Of.The.World. 
• Don't explode at yourself or others. It may feel good for a split second, but really doesn't help the situation. 
• Stay calm, do deep breathing, try some spot meditation to relax. You'll cope and make better decisions if you're relaxed. 
• For the love of God, Keep your sense of humor! Laughter is a great way of relaxing and relieving stress. 
• Figure out what each problem that you're facing involves. Is it a technical problem? Is it a social problem? Is it a work problem? Can you solve any or all of the problems you're facing? If not, who can you contact to help you resolve the problems? 
• Make a plan. Just writing down each problem and how you plan to tackle it will help. It will give you more control.
• Don't blame yourself or your partner. Shit happens and playing the blame game doesn't help. 
• Execute the plan you developed. As you get the right people involved to help solve each problem, you'll feel much, much better. If you have a partner, divide up the steps to solving the problems between you. 
• If you don't have a partner, call the person you're closest to and talk about the crisis of the day you were faced with and your plan for addressing the problem. Get their opinion. Just talking about it with a sympathetic person will help. Then execute your plan with confidence!
• Plan a treat for yourself so that you have something fun to look forward to when all of the chaos has been resolved. It could be ice cream, dinner with someone close to you, a night out with the girls or guys, a movie. Make it something fun! 

If you wake up and the world serves you shit for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, try these steps. Not only will you solve the various problems that you face, but you'll feel 100% better about How you solved those problems. And at the end of the day you'll get a treat too! 

Photos: Pexels.com, Pixabay.com

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