Annoying

     Yesterday, I knew I was still recovering from the week of early shifts, but I'd slept a lot and I figured it wasn't much.  I managed to get several things done that I'd put off, like paying my taxes and picking up a package waiting at the Post Office (a Pelikan green highlighter fountain pen -- I have a yellow one but their yellow ink is a little pale).

     Got caught up on laundry -- the first casualty of weird shifts the laundry.  I ordered a battery for my scooter and paper and ink for my color printer, and picked them up an hour later.  Grilled a steak for supper, worked on critiques for my writer's group and hey, it was getting on towards ten p.m., time to think about sleeping.  I knew I was getting a bit mentally fuzzy.

     But first, what about a sign for the writer's group?  We gave it a new name to reflect the reduced membership, and it lends itself well to visual representation.*  I was looking at some writerly props and realized one of my better fountain pens was a little dry.  No problem, I'd already grabbed a bottle of water to set on my nightstand.  Open that up, dip in a fingertip, apply a drop of water to the nib, hey presto!

     Set the water aside and went back to looking at props.  Bumped something, kept looking, thinking--

     Holy cow, what's that glugging sound?  I hadn't put the lid back on the water bottle and I'd knocked it over!  On my keyboard, the nice round-keys Azio retrokeyboard.  Stood the bottle up, stood up, reached over my desktop computer and started groping at back of it to unplug the keyboard -- and failed to notice I had knocked the water bottle over again, this time on my desk.  Water was running across the desktop and dripping onto the chairmat.

     My computer sits on top of a small two-drawer gadget that holds envelopes, well above the desk, but the desktop is very cluttered with pens, gadgets and papers.  I stood the bottle back up, turned the computer off at the power switch, grabbed the office roll of paper towel and started mopping.  Eventually, I was able to wipe off the keyboard and turn it over on a mat of paper toweling; I got the desktop unloaded as best I could, and dried off mousepad, mouse, wrist rest....  I kept finding little pools and puddles.

     I think I got it all.  The Azio keyboard proved tricky to open up, so I dried it more and will let it set.  After an hour's work, I was extremely ready for bed.

     This morning, I had another check for water, got out a backup keyboard (Qwerkywriter S -- the latest version has a wired-connection mode), put the now dry mousepad, mouse and wrist rest back in place and started up the computer.  Let's not tempt the Fates but at least I have got this far.
______________________________
* I'd tell you, but it's a secret.  As R. Buckminster Fuller said, "Never show unfinished work," and ours is as unfinished as cheap furniture.