It was a Dark and Stormy Night

No, really, it was...

Well, the winds have picked up out there, and the power's been blipping with alarming regularity. Fortunately, I have a UPS. And, into that UPS, I currently have the Little Black Critter, plugged in but charged and ready if the power goes. I also have a flashlight/lantern around my neck... just in case.

With all these precautions, the power should hold.

The cliche title is intended to evoke thoughts of terrible novels... speaking of which, I finally edged over the halfway mark in this year's NaNoWriMo effort not one hour past. I'd hoped to be further ahead by now, but this weekend kinda sucked, long before the threat to household power became a real and valid excuse for procrastination.

Friday started out bad when I went to the car to leave for work. While wiping off wind-deposited Douglas Fir needles (nasty little things - they seem to get everywhere they shouldn't be), I noticed a crack in my windshield. This was no little thing. This was longer than my hand.

I think I would've noticed it if it had been there before. In all likelihood, I had a very minor and undetectable crack for some time, and our recent dip into freezing overnight temperatures (brief as it was) caused it to catastrophically expand.

Well, I thought, at least I have windshield replacement on my insurance.

And trying to ignore the omen, I set off for work.

At work, we were nearly half an hour late starting due to the Big Crane being snarky. During the downtime, people started talking about insurance and accidents. Kinda weird, as I'd just been thinking about that very same thing... but we finally got to work, and though an off start tends to throw the whole day out of kilter, somehow we got through the load.

Off to the grocery store, then to home... but not quite. See, backing out of my parking space, I saw someone else backing out. I stopped. They didn't.

No damage to my end, but they claimed damage on theirs. And they insisted I instigated the whole thing. (As they were copying my insurance info, a bystander came by and handed me his business card - a witness supporting my statement that I was stationary, and they were not.)

So much for ignoring omens...

I went home and got to play phone tag with the insurance company on two counts: one on the parking lot incident, and one on the windshield replacement. It was more than enough to make me want to bash teleprompters and their stock questions to which I've already provided answers with a suitably large and spiky object.

Needless to say, between that and a stubborn coughing cold, this weekend was hardly my most productive writing period...

But, today, I got my windshield replaced. It almost didn't happen due to the weather - the guy had to check a mobile app from the Weather Channel to confirm no rain, because the wind was bad enough he couldn't set up a tent - but it got done faster (and earlier) than expected... and it really was covered. And I got the call from the insurance company about the accident. Seems that having a witness may have paid off; suddenly the other party decided playing insurance chicken would be too big of a headache, and backed off on pushing a claim. Since no parties wanted money, they decided to deem the thing a wash... and, theoretically, it won't affect my insurance rates. (Since insurance companies are all about money, and they spent none, I'm hoping the guy on the phone was right.)

Thus elated, I managed to get back on the proverbial horse and get back into the NaNo race.

Which is why I was so happy to reach the halfway mark that I risked logging on for a celebratory blog post.

Even though it really is a dark and stormy night.