Plot excercise, attempt two

We were cooking lunch over the fire, a couple of packets of Tasty Bites in boiling water, our usual backpacking fare. The sun shone brightly overhead, shaded a bit by the towering trees. Sonya sighed, "I wish we had brought coffee." John rolled his eyes and dished up her food. I glanced at Bobby, who was absently scratching his leg as he tended the fire. In the distance, the figure of a man suddenly appeared. As he came closer we could see that he was tall and fit, sporting a walking stick and a large black backpack, an iconic mountaineer. Spotting us, he ambled over. We greeted him and offered him food.  Thanking us, he sat down and then yelped as he noticed Bobby. "Is that a bug bite? You need to get medical attention!" Bobby answered, "I think it was just a mosquito. I'm fine." I peered more closely at Bobby's leg and spotted pus oozing out. "It looks a little infected," I ventured. Sonya frowned and walked over to Bobby to investigate. She jumped back: "I think there are baby bugs and blood in there!" Bobby shook his head: "I'm FINE!" Bobby started dabbing at the bite with his bandanna, scrunching his face in disgust and starting to look a bit concerned. John was fiddling with his cell phone and suddenly yelled: "WebMD says it's a sign of a poisonous bite!" "Call 911!" Sonya and I shouted in unison. Bobby was flailing around, panicked, as John yelled into the phone that they should send a helicopter. "Cut off my leg!" Bobby screamed at me. I could hear the helicopter overhead as the stranger slinked away.

Plot exercise, attempt one

Betsy and Tim looked at Michael and me and raised their glasses. Tim exclaimed, "To another great vacation."

"The cruise was a great idea, Betsy!" Michael said. Betsy smiled as she clinked his raised glass.

"Can you believe this is our tenth trip together?" I asked.

Just then, a portly man in a white linen suit walked over. "Hello folks, I hope you're having a good time."

"Yes," Betsy gushed, "this ship is amazing."

"Thank you," the man responded. "I'm Ross, the program director. May I join you?" When we nodded reluctantly, he pulled over a chair and stuck it on the corner between Michael and me. It seemed an oddly casual move in such an elegant dining room. I glanced at Tim who raised his eyebrows.

Ross turned to Tim and me. "How long have you two been married?"

I giggled. "No, I'm married to Michael, and Tim is married to Betsy," I said, gesturing.

"Really?" Ross asked, "I saw you from across the room, and..." he trailed off.

Betsy shot a panicked look at Michael and back at Ross, stuttering, "you didn't think that we..."

"Yes," Ross nodded.

"No," Betsy said, in shock.

"Well, Betsy, we are friends," Michael mumbled.

"Janie and I are too," Tim defended. "But we're not... I mean, I like her."

"Well, I like Michael," yelped Betsy, knocking over her wine glass. Michael leaped to help her mop the wine.

Without thinking, I shouted, "I love Tim!" and then looked over at Michael with horror. To my surprise he seemed almost relieved as he put his arm around Betsy.

Tim rose out of his chair and leaned down to whisper in my ear, "I love you, too, Janie."

Just before turning to kiss him, I saw Betsy and Michael kissing and a smirking Ross walking away.

iphone has arrived!

My iphone arrived in the mail yesterday. I returned home from my class excited to activate it and start playing around on it. I followed all of the directions and got to a screen on AT&T's webpage that said "Error." I tried again and was told my phone had already been activated. Okay, I thought, that was easy. I turned on the phone to a screen that said "Activating. This may take a while." And it did. Half an hour later, I gave up and started playing on the phone via wifi. I could do almost everything on the phone except make a phone call. That meant I couldn't call AT&T to report the problem, and I couldn't call Matthew. We have no landline, and since Matthew's phone wasn't there, I had no other way of making a phone call. I tried emailing Matthew to tell him to turn on his computer so that I could call him on Skype. But he did not respond. A feeling of helplessness washed over me. Finally, I resorted to emailing a friend and asking him to call Matthew to ask him to call me on Skype. Thanks goodness for multiple modes of connection.

Upon calling AT&T from my landline at work this morning, I learned that they had reactivated my old SIM card instead of activating my new SIM card, so my old phone would have worked.

In any case, the new iphone (well, the year-and-a-half-old previous-model refurbished iphone) now works. And it's very cool. Yes, I'm easily wowed.

Homework

Getting back into the habit of doing homework, even for a creative writing class with no grade, is really difficult. I found myself putting it off all weekend. When I was in school, I was usually pretty good at staying on top of my assignments, so perhaps it's the lack of grade that's killing my motivation. After all, what would happen, besides public shame, if I didn't finish it?

Anyway, I did eventually finish. I'm trying to force myself to write more, even if it's not all fiction or even good or creative. Thus you get lame blog posts like this when I have a thought and then run out of time to fully develop it. :P

Fire

I woke up at 6:30 this morning, looked at the clock, and wondered why I was up. I smelled something that was reminiscent of wax melting, but I didn't know what it was. I padded into the bathroom since I was up anyway. Walking back into the bedroom and laying down, I realized I could still smell the wax or whatever it was. So I got back up and started walking around, trying to figure out what it was. I could smell it in the bedroom and bathroom but not in the living room. I started to think maybe I was going crazy, but I decided to be safe and wake up Matthew. He said he smelled it to and jumped out of bed to investigate. (Matthew never jumps out of bed for anything.) After a briefly walking around the condo, Matthew threw clothes on to investigate the stairwell. I started to get a little frightened at that point and pulled on my own clothes and shoes, and stuffed my phone and wallet into my pockets. When Matthew came back in from the stairwell, he seemed convinced that the smell was coming from outside, out the back, not the front stairwell. Our back porch is being rebuilt, and our back door is boarded up, but we can still open our inside door to see out the back door a bit. As soon as Matthew opened the door, he yelped, "there's a fire out there" and grabbed his cell phone to call 911. I could see the sparks and could see that the fire didn't seem to be moving too quickly, so I ran to get the cat's crates, which haven't been out in a year or more. Matthew went outside to meet the firemen, and I could already hear the sirens in the distance. I guess our condo insurance company knew what they were doing when they gave us a discount for being within a mile of the fire department. I opened the crates and put them on the floor, but all of my calling "Treats! Okay, time for treats," was in vain. The kitties were firmly planted under the bed and would not budge. By this point I could hear movement outside and could see that the sparks were dying down. Matthew called to tell me that they had it under control and not to worry about waking the neighbors. I did try to call the condo board president, but no one answered at his unit. When Matthew got back upstairs, I was crying. It seemed unreal that Matthew would have to deal with fire twice in five years. Everything we had experienced then came rushing back at me. The thought of losing our kitties the way Matthew lost his was just overwhelmingly sad. I guess I've always known that in a fire the chances of saving the kitties would be slim, but I had hoped that training them to come for food and treats might help in this kind of situation. I don't know if they could smell it too, or if they were just freaked out by us freaking out and stomping around the condo.

Everyone and everything is okay, as far as I can tell. The fire never made it up close to our unit, and there was never any major smoke for anyone to inhale. I'd like to think that even if I had dismissed my concern and gone back to sleep that someone would have noticed before we were totally at risk, but I don't know that for sure. I'm just glad I thought to check it out and that Matthew didn't think I was being silly when I woke him.

UPDATE: Apparently, it was a work light that was left plugged in and hanging from a metal fence with plastic slats woven into it.  The rain must have cause the light to short out and spark, melting the plastic and catching fire to the vines on the fence. The wood post of the fence was blackened, but I don't think it was ever actually on fire. If the fire had gone untended, the flames may have reached the porch. Our neighbor called 911 right after we did, so the fire probably would have been put out in time even if the melting plastic hadn't woken me up. Thank makes me feel somewhat better. The contractors will be replacing the melted plastic slats and anything else that was affected.

Technolust

I finally broke down and bought an iphone. I've only been wanting since they came out. I almost got an iphone when I bought my current Blackjack II, but the line at the Apple store was too long, and they weren't accepting online orders at the time. I've already downloaded a few of the crucial apps (Facebook, ESPN scores, allrecipes, NPR news) and bought screen protectors. I'm a little annoyed that AT&T shut off the internet on my current phone as soon as they shipped the iphone. You'd think they could manage to wait until I activate it, but at least I can still make phone calls.

What's funny, though, is that even though the real expense of a smart phone is the monthly data service plan, I cheaped out on the one-time expense of the phone and went with a refurbished 3G instead of a new 3GS. I do want voice command and a video camera, but not enough to pay an extra $150, even if it is only one time.

Now I am anxiously awaiting delivery of my new toy. I wonder if it will make me as happy as I always think it will when I watch other people playing with their iphones...

Communications Officer

I was testing the twitter feed thing because I am now the Communications Office at Treknobabble. And by Communications Office, I mean wife who keeps saying, "you need to advertise!" :)

This is a Test

Just curious whether a blog post will actually feed into my Twitter account automatically. I don't use either the blog or Twitter very often, so I'm guessing no one will really care. :) This is basically a test for a bigger project I'm working on...

New Favorite Recipe

New favorite recipe.

Resolutions

I was going to blog about how I resolve to blog more in 2010, but I, uh, just didn't get around to posting it.

I do resolve to run more often. I dropped down to three times a week after the marathon, but since admissions season started, it's been more like once or twice a week. I've been riding the exercise bike, so I'm still working out, but I do need to run more.

And I definitely resolve to write more. I'm taking a creative writing class this quarter, so I don't think I'll have much choice, which is a good thing! Maybe I'll get around to editing my novel so that people can read it too. Maybe. :)

Happy new year everyone! 2010 started with getting sick and all the wrong football teams winning. It can only go up from here!