On Vacations and Writing and Unexpected Events

Jean Sexton muses:

This was supposed to be written and posted by Sunday. Yet it is in reality Tuesday now and this will be backdated to fill the hole on Sunday. What happened?

Well, vacation happened. On Thursday the Coles, Wolf, and I left on a mini-vacation. We went to the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in Candy Kitchen, New Mexico. That is up in the mountains north of I-40 -- the nearest grocery store is over 50 miles away. The wolves get an enrichment of a meal with organ meat Steve brings and chops up for them. I wanted to enjoy trees and quiet and the peace of nature. I couldn't find anything to write in the blog before we left, but I just knew I would be inspired to write a masterpiece out there.

Nature found me, all right. I got a cold which became worse due to the high elevation of 7,400 feet. (As a comparison, Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in mainland eastern North America, is 6,699 feet.) This cold knocked the stuffing out of me. No long walks. No playing in the snow. (Yes, it did snow up there while we were there.) No communing with nature, unless you count coughing, sneezing, and watery eyes. No inspiration for the blog.

Writing isn't easy for me. Steve sits in front of a keyboard and words fly from his fingertips. Me, I sit and notice that the keys for A, S, D, C, V, and M are worn clean and F and L are heading that way. I pick up my keyboard and shake it. Dust falls out, not words. I clean up the dust and check the screen and no words have miraculously appeared. I knew that writing when I was ill would be a disaster: "I'm sick. My world is coughing. I am eating chicken noodle soup. Bye," doesn't sound interesting unless you are the sufferer with a sore throat, stuffy head, and woozy thoughts. At least my head was clear enough to figure that out.

So now you know why there was no blog on Sunday, but there is a blog now backdated to Sunday. Your mind didn't trick you. You aren't having memory issues. The power of the computer gives me the power to "time-travel" to Sunday and change the past, except I confessed that I did it. Ah well, there is enough cold left in my mind to boggle at the thought and to hope I haven't changed history somehow.