Six F*cking Hours

It almost broke me.

After getting up, blogging, making my rounds and feeding the critters here on Casa Claire, I decided to get the weekly chopping out of the way as my procrastinator’s go to move. Do something else productive.

But then I was faced with the inevitable. I had to clean my office.

After all, the new computer was scheduled to be delivered yesterday afternoon.

Now, the first couple of hours was spent sorting through my files and shredding the last 8 years of legal work product. That was cathartic. It later turned out to be very heavy when I carried it outside.

But then I had to start actually cleaning. And that sucked.

As you can see, my office is chock full of tchotchkes I have collected over 6 decades. Some belonged to my parents, and some my grandparents, which keeps their energies alive and well in the field that surrounds me and nurtures my creativity. The rest are gifts from the grans, and they make sure they are on display whenever they visit. Or else!

But over the past two years, since I completed writing WTLLM, I have not dusted one item, one picture, one photo, one book, or the walls, furniture and shelves they sit on.

Have I mentioned how dusty it is here in windy NoCo. Grapes of Wrath Okie levels of dust.

And my summer spiders have left 1313 Mockingbird Lane haunted house sized webs along the items on the window shelves chocked full of their very large expired horse flies, now covered in a brown patina of dust. It is basically a killing field. But that is the natural order of things and controlled a problem I couldn’t bring myself to deal with. I will not kill non-human creatures. The webslingers themselves have also moved on to happy hunting grounds. Each with a full belly. Circle of life.

Now I have swept, vacuumed and washed the floor in my office every time I have cleaned the basement. The dust elephants will stampede if I don’t.

Of course when I adopted the Beagle Brothers,

I had forgotten how much my Bronx Beagle, Shorty, had shed. The dust elephants Bandit and Smokey’s combined furry molting create can quickly reach tumbleweed size. And when those blow by your bare feet in the dark, it can really freak you out.

Anyway, I started from the entrance moving left to right, clockwise around the room and windexed all of the walls, hangings, shifted furniture, which was also windexed, and even cleared out a lot of electronic spaghetti from underneath my desk. I realized I never used the upgraded sound system additions to my computer. Pearls before swine with tinnitus. I’ll offer it to Luke/Georgie next time I visit.

Same with the floors as I moved in grid fashion around the room. I even windexed the windows.

But it took forever. And oddly enough did my back in. Especially when I had to move the resulting giant bag of garbage out to the side of the house after the cleaning was complete.

Just when I finished, the new Dell computer arrived. Timing is everything.

And here’s the kicker. Just as I started to prepare to transfer the files on my computer through downloading to my stand alone, detachable D drive and schedule Carbonite to complete its cloud transfer of my existing files (belt and suspenders) my screen on my existing computer comes back to life and I can again see all of the icons that had been hidden by a black screen for over two months.

Nothing I did in my Luddite attempt to try and free up space would raise those icons and other files from the Sargaso Sea of computer bytes. The Universe loves to fuck with me.

So, because there is life in this old fella yet, I’m going to store the HP computer in the garage – in the box the Dell has come in – and keep it as a catastrophic back up, just in case a solar storm fries my grid and takes out the new kid on the block. Belt and suspenders. Honestly, I have a hoarder gene.

Actually, that is the computer I used to write all five books of The Claire Saga. Now I have to keep it for posterity.

Today will be spent switching them out and loading up the new computer with all of my existing non-legal files (which will remain always within reach on the D drive but will not haunt my screen or swallow my pristine SSD and RAM memory in the Dell).

Then I have to see just how hard it will be to adapt to Windows 11.

I want to feel completely comfortable playing a new piano.

Then some technical research over the next week (and cleaning the rest of the basement next weekend, which will be a cakewalk compared to the office).

Eleven days and counting. Then Free Radical.

But first some Aleve and my rounds and my chores.

Then the unboxing, a refusal to read directions and a stumble forward to digital success.

Stay tuned.

And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the clean lair looks pretty cool.

But I must share this anecdote.

Yesterday evening, as I’m sitting here in the darkened office – post cleaning – waiting as the now resurrected screen measures the glacier speed file transfers making their way to my portable D drive – Lisa peeks into the room and – like Hyacynth Bucket –

runs her finger along the top of the closest picture frame to the entranceway, just to see if I wiped it.

I’m telling you, if my body had an ounce of strength left in it, and she wasn’t a tough old broad, she would be sharing Boot Hill at this moment. Instead a barrage of well contrived and colorful curses sent her scurrying back to the real world, laughing, with full disdain, at my anger.

I’m going to create a character with her real name and kill her twice in this next novel.

I hope during the interim that my fine, five readers do not get too bored following the minutiae of life here on Casa Claire while I am transitioning to full time writer. It is what it is.

And today is Monday, which no longer harbors a life time of imposed negative connotation.

Clean slate. One more day to do whatever the fuck I want (by which I mean, whatever the fuck Lisa wants).

But no matter what we get up to, let us make today a great one.