That Was Not The Day You Were Looking For…

So yesterday I set up my to-do list, and I settle in with my cup of coffee #1, and I lift the lid of the trusty workhorse laptop (whose name is Archie to Nero-the-cranky-desktop), and…

The screen displayed not the usual “okay boss, hopping to it!” energy, but the unending beachball of doom-about-to-fall.

And sure enough, soon after that: everything froze.

Not having time, patience, or any other valuable commodity to spare, I finally did the only thing I could do: a hard reboot.

And got the Grey Screen of UnBooting.

We’ll cut the begging, pleading and attempts to fix it myself using all the helpdesk things that never work.  I got a Genius Bar appointment at 2pm.

…Four Hours Later….

It took TWO geniuses to fix things (the second was named Lex.  I can has an Evil Genius?  I can!),  but at 6pm I was on my way back home with a new hard drive, and the promise that yes, it was all working now, all I had to do HONEST was plug it back into my Time Machine/Time Capsule, and everything would be restored.  Really.  Trust us*.

Having a hard drive fail, when you’re mid-book, and being told “yeah, it happens” does not make one feel inspired to trust.  I’m just saying.

I want to give kudos to my geniuses, though.  They were dealing with a writer on deadline, whose writing machine had just failed under her fingertips, who had stormed into their bar on a quivering high of coffee and not a hell of a lot else (me to a friend, via text: “oh crap, I haven’t eaten anything today.  It’s 5pm.  I’m about to go into meltdown”) and kept me from utterly losing it, even when reinstall after reinstall failed.

Anyway: if you haven’t backed your shit up today, whatever your shit may be?  Take a moment.  Do it.  Trust me.  Full system backup.  Every. Damn. Day.

And now, I need to finish this coffee, open up my (restored!  Up-to-date!) files, and get the hell back to work.

*edited to add: they were right

Originally Published at Practical Meerkat: A Blog. You can comment here or there.

Occasionally, I cook.

So, I had this fillet of striped bass that I needed to make for dinner. And I'm stressed and tired and I really didn't want to be fussing, but I also didn't want it to be, y'know, boring.

So I figured, let me grill it - nice and healthy - and then make a quick-n-dirty sauce. Sauce makes everything fancy, right?

Now...what do I have that might work, that I haven't used recently? ooo, there's that balsamic vinegar, and I just picked up some lemongrass, and....

2 T. garlic butter (made last week) + 2 T balsamic vinegar w/ maple syrup + 1 t. ground lemongrass + 1 T water + sea salt and white pepper, melted and cooked together until just simmering, poured over pan-fried fish. Served with sweet corn.

O.M.G.

Reader, I licked the fricking plate.

The sweetness of the maple syrup and the bitterness of the lemongrass and the bite of the pepper and the mellowness of the garlic set against the solid, almost creamy flesh of the fish, and... yeah. Oh yum.

Served with a glass of dry white Graves.

(aside: I am a Graves fangrrl. Red and white. Just FYI. :-D)