So there it was. Or better IS. Shiny in the corner of my mailbox.
The returned manuscript and with it all my beloved characters
AND
the comments from my last Beta Reader.
In the other corner:
LIFE
Truth be told I used the excitement first to get a few things done.
Stuff that had been laying around, projects to be finished.
Cleaning up. Yuk.
But that seriously works MUCH better when a treat is awaiting you.
So, I behaved and steadily worked towards my goal.
Picked up and stored, finished, cleaned.
Even put all traces of Christmas down and away.
Well, not quite.
As I carried my stack (why is there always
MORE Christmas decoration after Christmas than I carried up?!)
down to the basement I was greeted by an
avalanche.
Shelves from a cabinet in my already overstuffed cellar compartment
had collapsed and spilled everything into the narrow footpath formerly left in the middle.
What followed the shock can't be added here.
I dropped my stuff and shoveled (well it had snowed, it was the closest thing at hand)
outside and in a corner, returned to my living room to check fleamarket apps and something like craigslist for a free little cabinet to fill the void. (No way of reattaching the shelves as the famous IKEA screws had burst out of their home and shattered the wood)
Found, wrote to givers and got a reply plus acceptance (from the 16th or so)
Pick up day/time arranged, I traveled to my treasure.
Only to be told upon arrival "Oh bad luck, has just been taken by somebody else!"
WT(insert choice)?!
HAPPENED TWO MORE TIMES.
On an app where they actually tell you if both hit "agree" it's a "legal and binding transaction":
SAME THING.
The blond King of the world Rumpelstilzchen was nothing against my (private and internal monologue) reaction.
Finally found another and was actually surprised to discover it was waiting for me at designated location. Measurements had assured me it would - although bigger than planned as I wanted little to carry and simply stack boxes on top - it would fit perfectly in the corpus aka empty shell cabinet.
Unscrewed on street (at -5C), stuffed in my little car and eventually got back home where I reassembled the thing.
Of course it didn't fit through the narrow footpath.
Enlarged the path by stacking more boxes outside and wrangled the new cabinet in. Arrived at shell and could get the thing around the corner to fit inside.
More Rumpelstilzchen.
Dragged it back out (where it collapsed as the precast-holes spit the screws out again.) and sawed at it like a craze to narrow it before I attached the side again.
Got it back inside AND around the corner - tested if the suitcases (which I now remembered had to go back there as there was no space anywhere else fit on top.
Guess what.
Back outside - more swearing, sawing and tears - all to make it now SMALLER.
Screwed it back together - it nowhere resembled the former. Pushed the wobbly thing in once more
where it audibly sighed and leaned relieved at the carcass of the old cabinet...
No I had no energy to sift through the stuff, but I sorted and boxed everything
and put it on the new shelves underneath the suitcases before I dragged myself back upstairs.
"I" collapsed on the sofa. Screws had been lose before.
That was two days ago. My manuscript was within reach.
The night before restarting the writerly engine I woke up to Armageddon.
I fell out of bed, stubbed my toe on an incomprehensible object in my dark path as I tried to locate the light switch.
Turn on. Turn off.
I went back to bed counting tiny blond Rumpelstilzchens.
Today I searched for a replacement for the living-room cabinet...
