Nodes

My ex husband and I used to discuss this phenomenon, the idea of "nodes" in road traffic. Waves travel in nodes, a trough and a peak. Bunch a few of them together and when they climb all over each other, the wave can get bigger or the waves bunch together. I've experienced this at the beach as waves pile on each other, one after another and then it seems they all group as one big wave or wide push of water and then whoooosh! It knocks you over with a long sweep and then all is quieter as the water recedes into it's regular rhythm until maybe a boat motors by, adding waves to the waves and you get another crowd of energy. We used to wonder about interstate traffic. Why do you get congestion when there is no accident to speak of, just volume, when theoretically, everyone is traveling the same speed and using the proper signals and turn lanes? How come, when travelling on the interstate, you get times when you're stuck in the middle lane with people coming up around you from both sides and yet other times, it's empty in front of you and behind you? So we theorized that the traffic worked in nodes. Sometimes, due to a collection of small factors, those small factors pile up and suddenly, you're in a crowd on an otherwise empty interstate.

I have concluded that life events also work out that way from time to time. Since I put my dog down, I feel like I've hit a node of "things that are a pain in the ass." Of course, it's not "All Bad" so there's always a little positive to balance things out, however, I feel like I'm in the midst of a bad node. After the euthanasia, I messed up not one but two orders from my Etsy site out of sheer distraction and grief. Silver lining? The customers involved are fantastic and it is slowly getting squared away. During this time, I had to take a trip back to NY to see the folks who are getting older. Old. They are old. They need assistance but are reluctant. Dad is still driving but shouldn't be. Oh boy. It's always good to go back to see friends in NY but the trip was so short in relation to people I'd love to have seen and places I'd love to have visited. Then comes the bill and we spend way more than we expect. Okay, let me think about that. We always spend way more than we expect so maybe our expectations are consistently false expectations. I mean, really? Go back to NY and spend only $300? Who am I kidding? Gas alone costs that much. So the trip was good and yet stressful. The Etsy is good and yet stressful. I'm home, all will even out, yes?

Not quite, still in the node, apparently. I'm at home, all ready to tackle my work again, fresh start, new energy and... laptop crashes with all my work on it. And all my photos from NY. Bad crash. BAD. Hanging blue screen. No response. Have I backed up? Do you really need to ask that question? I wouldn't be writing this blog post if I had. Okay, more money out the door, money we don't have but IT'S AN INVESTMENT, right? Get the hard drive, plug in the firewire, get set to copy files and... can't get the files to show on the hard drive. In single user mode I'm getting i/o errors. I'm afraid to run disk utility and repair because I know what it's going to say so all I want to do is back up what I have so I can erase and reformat the drive. So here's the kicker: I can't get the back up to work. Not even manually dragging files across the network using the laptop in hard drive mode with a firewire connection. I'm speechless with frustration.

It's hot, humid, bad heat wave. Little things need to be attended to on the farm and the heat makes it difficult not to mention the time that computer issues eat up so, I find I am in a node. With all nodes, they eventually run out of energy and flatten out so while I am stressed, I also know this can't go on indefinitely. Still, it does make me tired. Silver lining? I am backing up my desktop computer finally!

I think this is why drinking becomes popular.