Barrier cleared

It’s not just been lack of time that’s kept me from blogging this week, though that’s certainly been a factor. Nor was it that I had so many frankly more important things to do, though I did. This week I also had a weird technical problem I’ve never encountered before that made blogging far quite difficult. So, this is about all the barriers that led to today’s post.

In one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever had happen to me, PART of my keyboard stopped working, and for no obvious reason. Specifically, the letters Z, X, C, V, B, and N didn’t work, nor did the left side of the space bar, nor the modifier keys on that side (shift, command, option, control). The letter W also didn’t work, so I couldn’t close a window with a keyboard command. Confusingly, some characters on that side of the keyboard did work.

This was annoying partly just because I use keyboard commands to do most things (like closing a window) rather than clicking the mouse. But the bigger issue was the lack of certain letters: After all, it would be rather difficult to blog about anything to do with New Zealand without the letter Z…

I have to be honest: The keys were a little grimy and ready for another cleaning, but they weren’t as bad as the last time I cleaned it. I definitely didn’t spill anything on it, liquid or solid, so there was no sudden change. It was working right up until it didn’t on Monday. The only unusual thing I could remember happening that day was Bella crawling off my lap and stepping on my keyboard, as she’s done in the past, and I thought maybe she’d tracked-in dirt that got under the keys. So, I thoroughly vacuumed my keyboard, but it did nothing.

Fortunately, Nigel had a spare Apple keyboard (because I like them the best), and I have an extra one, too—in a box somewhere. So, I’m now back in operation.

I could have used my iPad, though it’s certainly not the easiest way to create a post, and getting access to documents (like rough drafts, or even saving the final version) is much more difficult. So is inserting links. I could have used my Macbook, but I don’t have it set up to access my cloud storage sites, and by then—after wrestling with the keyboard—I was just over the whole thing.

Tuesday morning I had a few things to do around the house before I left to drive to Hamilton to pick up my mother-in-law, who was staying with us through the weekend so she could attend the wedding of our niece (her granddaughter). On the way home on Tuesday, we stopped to pick up a few things, then we visited until Nigel got home. That night I went to try and either finish a post I started Monday, or to do a new one, and discovered the keyboard problem. I gave up.

Wednesday, I was really quite tired (maybe from the drive down and back the day before), so we had a quiet day. Thursday we went back to the grocery store to pick up supplies for the weekend, because all the stores would be closed on Friday and Sunday due to the trading bans still in place in Auckland (a subject in itself).

As it happens, the remnants of a cyclone were due to hit the North Island Thursday afternoon, so we were in a hurry to get back to the house before it hit—especially after the madhouse at the grocery store and the streets in the area (between the trading bans and the cyclone, a lot of other people were also out stocking up). So, we ended up having lunch at a café not all that far from our house, and not something new to both of us as I’d originally planned.

The fact that the cyclone pretty much fizzled out didn’t matter for us (we weren’t expected to get much of it in Auckland, anyway). But the reaction of people, most of them angry that the weather forecasts were wrong, reminded me, as if I needed reminding, that apparently the Internet is now the place to be angry. All the time. About stupid things. It was probably a good thing I wasn’t able to blog about it at the time, to be honest.

Friday, we had a rehearsal for the wedding (Nigel and I were doing a reading), so we left right after lunch. We'd spent the morning just kind of relaxing for the big and long day the next day. That evening, after the rehearsal, we had dinner at the home of my sister-in-law’s (the mother of the bride), and we got late evening.

Saturday was the wedding, and we left a little before lunch. It was a wonderful day, and the bride was beautiful, but since I don’t talk about family without their permission, that’s all I’ll say about. For this story, the important thing is that both Friday and Saturday were taken up with wedding-related things.

Sunday we were hosting any family members who wanted to stop by on their way home (the reason I needed to make the trip to the grocery story on Thursday). It was a wonderful time, too, and Nigel’s oldest sister and her granddaughter (our grandniece) were staying with us that night, so we spent the entire day visiting.

And now, today. All our guests have left, and we’re having some quiet time. I’ve caught up on my games, done some laundry, and then tackled the physical barrier to blogging by surrendering and using that back-up keyboard.

I still have some topics to catch up on, but some are now pointless: Since I usually write posts just before they’re published, sometimes a current thing I want to write about is over before I can post, so I lose interest, though the topic probably loses relevance, too.

But I’m tired just reading about what I’ve been up to the past week—maybe today isn’t the day do any more blogging catch-up…