Days to Remember

Yep, there was no post last week.

 No, I didn't forget and no I'm not doing my usual disappearing act.

Last week, at approximately 10 minutes past the hour of 11:00 o'clock p.m., Eastern Standard time my beloved laptop, let's call him Gavin, expired during a routine system upgrade procedure. (a moment of silence please)

(Sobbing) "Mon Dieu, mon ordinateur est mort!" 

 Gavin didn't die alone though, he crossed over rainbow (cyber?) bridge with his hard-drive, his dedicated CD ROM, a music library that would have been worth at least $1500.00 in 1980's Peaches Record Store currency, power cable, docking station and his devoted operator Jill at his side. Jill made a herculean effort to resuscitate him, employing CPR (system restore) multiple times and rushing him to the emergency room (local computer nerd emporium) via ambulance (her 97 Miata) but the chief coroner/nerd, (a guy called Roman who referred to Jill repeatedly as Dude even though she clearly isn't a 'dude') pronounced Gavin Lenovo Laptop dead and gave the official time of death as Wednesday, July 22nd at 11:10 p.m.

Gavin is survived by his owner/operator Jill, his cat companions Gordon and Jamie, and his successor to be named Gavin Lenovo Laptop, II. His memorial library file archive will be located in Gavin II, where photos of Christmas 2011, kitten pictures of his companions Gordon and Jamie and most of his impressive musical library will now be housed on Drive C. His hard-drive is being cryogenically frozen, and he will be interred on shelf 4 of Closet Side A.

So as you probably inferred, my laptop died and for a few days I found myself sans computer while I waited for the good folks at Amazon to rush me Gavin II. Actually, it was kind of like a mini vacation. Oh don't worry, I still had access plenty to cyber space through my 'droid and Tablet. I am a creature of habit though and for me, going on the internet still usually means powering up my laptop. All my shortcuts are there, my profiles, my saved passwords. So I 'powered down' and unplugged for a few days. No Twitter feed, no Facebook time suckage, no LinkedIn professional quandaries.

I thought I might use the time to work on a jigsaw puzzle.

'How zen that would be', I thought hating myself for becoming the kind of person that uses a word like 'zen'.

Just sitting there...working a jigsaw puzzle...that will surely relax me...
On a whim several weeks ago,  I wandered into a Barnes and Noble bookstore, which for me is like the recovering AA addict sauntering into his local tavern for "a glass of wine", it never ends up like that. In my case, it's extreme regret, a hardbound collectors' edition F Scott Fitzgerald classic that I had to have, a couple of paperbacks, a credit card charge that will invariably have me going "huh, where'd this come from, I wasn't even in a Barnes and Noble recently?"(I tend to blackout in bookstores being overcome with booklust), and a going-cheap-in-the-clearance section jigsaw puzzle called "Days to Remember".

The "Days to Remember" puzzle picture paints an idyllic picture of yesteryear, the old town, two little boys dragging their bedraggled Radio Flyer on their way home from a day spent doing whatever it is that little boys did in summer time circa 1940's. It's meant to beguile the senses, make you smile and hanker for the good ol' days and I fell right under its spell.

I had no idea of the trap I was about to fall prey to, the dark and sinister plot to undo my tightly wound psyche and make me frequently question my own sanity.

It started out fine. Humming softly, thinking, "this is going to be so much fun" with optimism, I slit the edges of the sealed cardboard box, dumped out the 500 evil puzzle pieces, turned them over to the right sides and began casting about for the border ones, just like my Grandma G taught me.

Two days later, the optimism had begun to flag as once again, I gamely rearranged the pieces in some semblance of a border. I couldn't help noticing that somehow, overnight they had inexplicably multiplied, and even stranger still was the fact that the following day they had begun disappearing in much the same manner.

Four days in and I was starting to unravel just a little bit more, getting dressed in the morning seemed to be a waste of puzzle time, so I took that off the schedule, preferring to just grub around in an old pair of jeans and my lucky blue t-shirt. Then I began skipping breakfast in order to spend even more time with my tormentor, I mean the puzzle. I started taking all of my meals at the coffee table in order not to miss a moment of staring intently into a sea of green pieces that all looked like vaguely identical tree limbs.

On the fifth day, I snapped. I became obsessed with the idea that the puzzle company execs had deliberately shorted me pieces and were no doubt sitting up high in some Manhattan Madison Avenue office building maniacally laughing at the poor unfortunates like myself who were still deluding themselves that they could actually finish "Days to Remember". I shook my fist toward the heavens and vowed that as God is my witness, I WILL finish this puzzle if I have to give up sleep, showering and well, Jeopardy. I began muttering to myself a lot at that point and frequently crawling under the sofas and table, picking at the area rug convinced that pieces were secreted under there. That had to be the reason why the pink flowers over the white picket fence were missing, IT HAD TO BE!

In a further weak moment, I have a fuzzy memory of turning one of the cats upside down while shouting, "Admit it, admit it, you ate the wheel piece of the Radio Flyer! Give it back, Give it back!"

On or around the 6th or 7th day, I've no idea which, because by this point, I was no longer sleeping, had lost all track of time, cut down on blinking because it wasted sight and I'd developed an odd sort of twitch, when outside I heard the heavy-wheeled sound of a truck and the screech of brakes. Then there was a knock at the door which startled me out of my usual sleep-deprived coma state, hunched over the coffee table, staring in a bewildered stupor at my maddening project.

Zombie-like, I wandered to the front door, where I stood in the open doorway, blinking at the dazzling light that shone from him, a brown-short and hat wearing hero proffering a Lenovo labeled cardboard box. As I reached out to take it from him, a single tear rolled down my cheek. I tried to speak, finding that words were never further from my tongue but finally I croaked out, "Thank you, you'll never know, I've been waiting for this...Days to Remember! Days to Remember!"

He backed away slowly, saying, "okay lady, sure. You take care now."
It wasn't enough, not nearly enough, I started after him in the parking lot, where I embraced him, still muttering, "Days to Remember", "Days to Remember"....you don't understand...."

I had my new laptop in my hand and all was restored to my world. Yes, Days to Remember is still on the coffee table, and yes I still think they've shorted me a few hundred pieces.

Someday I'll finish it...maybe tomorrow.
Yeah, I'll finish it tomorrow.