…because after the last two weeks, I’m in need of some good stuff happening.

First though: Sorry for the dearth of posts. It’s been unreal how busy I’ve been the last few weeks and, in particular the last couple of weeks starting from just before Christmas. I’ll get to that in a moment.

But its just been unreal busy for me. I’ve finished up the 4th draft of my latest novel and finally feel like I’m seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. The novel is solid and feels like what I was hoping it would be.

There is a second work I’m involved in though that one features less of a day to day input on my part. The hardest stuff I’ve already done and when I do work on it, it’s after my partner has done his part. Don’t mean to sound all cryptic about it but when the time approaches, I’ll give more information.

Suffice to say, I believe in the first half of this new year there will be not one but two pretty cool works released, my latest novel and the first part of this secondary project.

Now then, what happened from just before Christmas:

I have another job (yet another) and this one decided to take the proverbial shit in the bed the Thursday before I was heading out to see my daughter in another state.

I got a call at 1:00 am that Thursday super early in the morning of a strange power failure. I headed out there and spent from 1:30 am to 12 noon dealing with electrical issues. In time I finally found out that a transformer a building over had blown and caused a power failure through 1/2 our building… as well as the other buildings on the block.

Our power company sure did take its time time finally arrive by close to noon and work on it and get things going again. But in our building, the elevator was out and I had to call the elevator company to get it rebooted… even as I discovered one of our employees had gotten themselves trapped in the elevator (thank the gods it wasn’t a client…!).

Thinking that was it, I finally headed home.

Morgan Freeman voice: That wasn’t it.

For the next week plus while on “vacation” I was literally on the phone each day dealing with the repercussions of this transformer’s failure. Our phone system? Half-fried. Our internet modem? Fried as well.

From a distance I made calls and dealt with all those problems plus the fact that we were at the cusp of Christmas and finding people to fix these problems, I feared, would be really hard.

So now another week passes and finally I had one day without having to call the business. Then another.

My daughter, who was sick the week before, started feeling better. Then, just as we were about to fly out and back home, she took a turn for the worse.

So bad she wanted to stay at her house and have us take a taxi or Uber to the airport.

However, it was too late for either and I drove us there with the intention of letting her rest then she could drive her car back home. We get to the airport and she’s feeling really bad. So bad that we tell her to immediately go to Urgent Care to get looked at.

She takes off and for the next hour plus we’re seriously considering having one of us turn around, not take the flight back home, and go taxi ourselves to the Urgent Care.

My daughter, it turned out, had Influenza. We think she was first sick with a cold, got better, then somehow caught the influenza.

Urgent Care gave her fluids and drugs and sent her home and we flew back, not totally content with the situation but knowing we had to get back to deal with our home, pets, and jobs.

This was December 31st.

We get home and I’m exhausted.

I think its just exhaustion from dealing with the problems due to the transformer blowing throughout my “vacation” and then the last minute issues with my daughter.

It turned out to be something else.

I caught the influenza from my daughter. And I was really, really freaking sick from it. Like barely-able-to-get-out-of-the-bed sick. But I had to. You see, there were still things to be dealt with regarding that blown transformer and burnt out equipment…!

I, like my wife, was vaccinated for the flu but I think the stress of dealing with all this shit got to me and on Monday the 1st of January I was feeling bad and by Tuesday even worse. That day it was my turn to go to Urgent Care and get medications.

Today, Sunday the 7th, I feel like I’m over most of it.

As I said above, I hope there is such a thing as karma because truly I could not have ended 2023 and entered 2024 in too much worse shape than I have.

Let’s see if the rest of 2024 treats me a little kinder…!

Otherwise, let me very belatedly say: Hope everyone has had a great holiday and New Years!

No such luck for me but c’est la vie!