This time, I don’t think it was my travel karma, I think I got caught in someone else’s bad luck. As you might recall, yesterday I was taking the train to NYC to meet friends for dinner. It was sprinkling a little, so I took an umbrella as I left the house (at 5:00 p.m.) and I had a nice leisurely walk to the train station. The train pulled into the station on time and I caught it with ease.

At Chappaqua, ten minutes into my hour commute, the train stopped at the station and the conductor announced that they were holding us. Later they came on the speaker and said that the tracks were flooded. Interesting. Then they came on again and said that a tree had come down on the tracks, because of the flooding and that they were going to bus us around the flooding to White Plains, several stops farther down the line.

They filled three busses–I was on the third–the first two got stuck, someplace, which I heard about because I was sitting at the front of the bus close to the train conductor. By this point it was rush hour and the bus was inching forward. We finally got to the turn for the train station, and there was a police car there. Why? Initially I thought it was because someone had had a wreck, and there was a wrecked car there, but that was a mere coincidence. The policeman was there to steer traffic away from the train station because it was on fire.

He told us that we had to continue down the road we were on, and go to the next station. Unfortunately, the road went under a bridge that was 9′5″, the bus was 10′2″. The driver realized this before we got to it, but it did mean that we had to detour again. The detour led us to a stretch of road on which the water was so deep, that the door handles were under water. So he did a very impressive three point turn and finally found a route to the station to get us on the train.

Once I was on the train again, everything went smoothly, but I didn’t arrive in NYC for dinner until 9:30. Four and a half hours after I left the house. But I think the travel karma belonged to someone else, because once I reached the subway, there was a train waiting everytime I reached a platform.

I wound up staying at Jonathan’s because I couldn’t face the trip home. Sarah had the spare bed, and I took the couch. Today she and I went out to coffee and then lunch. So, in the end, it was lovely.

Yesterday, I turned my brain off and just relaxed. Peter and family are away in the Hamptons so I have their entire rambling 1905 Craftsman home to myself. It’s very peaceful.

Today we’ve had thunderstorms, which I have missed. The first serious clap of thunder made me jump; I’d forgotten how loud it can be. Tonight I’m heading into NYC to visit with some LazyTown friends. Julie and Sarah, the two puppeteers from the UK happen to both be in town at the same time. We’re all going to the Chinese restaurant where I went with Mom and Dad. It should be fun.

I came to NYC for an audition today. It was a bit crazy. Imagine a room of thirty puppeteers, most of whom know each other, and then realize that there are only three parts available. So there was this curious mix of cameraderie and cut-throat craziness. They cut the group after about four hours, and I didn’t make the cut. I’m disappointed, of course, but there were enough outstanding puppeteers in the room that I can’t be hurt about it. I’m delighted that I was on the list at all.

This means the rest of my time here is free! So, I’ll visit with friends, get caught up on some things. Simple things, like, say, sleep.

l arrived in NYC at 5:30 this morning. After travelling from JFK airport to Grand Central to the Linz Home in Katonah, I am about to fall asleep. I think I will.

This was an amazing experience. I wrote a story here, that I truly believe I would not have been able to write before the workshop. I hope that I retain even half of what I learned.

The first two days we were in a lecture with about fifty other people. At the end of Day One, Mr. Card gave us an assignment.

Take 5 notecards and come back tomorrow with five complete stories–complete as in, begining, middle, end, but not Flash Fiction. These are the Hollywood Pitches of complete ideas.
2 based on research
2 based on observation
1 based on an interview

On Day 2 we picked and presented one of those, knowing that we would spend all of Day 3 writing it to turn in Thursday morning.

On Thursday, I was the third story in the lineup. We went around the room with people saying very nice things, and offering comments. And then it was Orson Scott Card’s turn. The first words out of his mouth were, “This is a nearly perfect story.

I was hard-pressed to appear calm. Especially when he went on to say, “This is fictional anthropology at its best.” “Marvelous story”

And then he went on to point out the holes in it. But, they are all things that I feel very comfortable in handling. One of them turned out to be a stupid omission on my part from writing at three o’clock in the morning.

I’m exhausted now, but very excited. I’m looking forward to my next story, and to polishing this and sending it out.

Great! Brain very full.

I’m getting on a plane to Utah, this morning, for Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp. I may not have time or access to post. Brace yourselves

I finally have WRW back up fully. I’ll still need to put some of the modifications back on the board, but since those only affect me as administrator, I’m counting my work as “done enough.”

This evening we had Don and Wayne over for wine and a light meal. For Rob’s birthday, Don had given him a bottle of wine from 1965. Recently it developed a very small leak, so Rob wanted to open it. Don brought two other bottles from the same producer, BV, so we had a nice little vertical flight.

I almost for got in my frustrations of yesterday. I got an email from The First Line yesterday.

Hi, Mary –

We’d like to use your story Rampion for an upcoming edition of TFL on Tape. I don’t know if you have the ability to read and record the story yourself, but if you do, we’d like you to give it a shot. If not, Robin is more than willing to do the reading. Regardless of who does the reading, we’ll pay … for the rights to that specific audio version. What do you think?

Do I have the ability to read and record? Let’s see…I work with an award-winning audio theater company and I’m married to an audio engineer. Yeah. Yeah, I think I could record that.

Well, Other Hand Productions now has a new front page to replace the one eaten by nasty computer code. I will slowly redo the remaining pages on the website to match the new aesthetic, which I like better. So, there is a silver lining.

Meanwhile, my computer came back from the shop today. Interestingly, when it left here it had a purple stripe on the screen and the dvd/cd-rw drive wouldn’t work but besides that was fine. When it returned from the repair shop, the purple stripe was gone, but Windows won’t start. After spending several hours on the phone with various members of tech support, I finally gave in and decided to use the Recovery CD. Apparently, recovery in this context means that it covers your existing data, as in overwrites it, thus wiping it. You understand that it was a big step to decide to do this.

But, there’s a hitch. The dvd/cd-rw still doesn’t work. Which means that I can’t do anything with the computer. I am not having a good technology week.

Today I spent thirteen hours on the computer trying to undo the damage that some hacker did to the Willamette Radio Workshop site. We’ve been attacked with minor vandalism over the last couple of months. Basically, they replace our index.html file with another one. So far, I’ve just replaced it and adjusted the chmod permissions. I thought I had them locked out because it’s been more than a month since the last attack. (Or my sense of time has warped with all the travel).

Today, they deleted our Radio Talk forum. Now, I’m a good monkey, and I backup on a fairly regular basis, so I had a backup of our database. But I didn’t have the program files because the last backup I’d done of those was on my laptop, which is being repaired.

Suffice it to say, it was a huge pain, hampered by conflicting or unclear documentation, my desktop computer crashing, and the hackers coming back in while I was working. So after all of this, I have no way of knowing whether it will be there tomorrow.

I’m very, very cranky.

On Saturday Rob and I went to the farmer’s market. Amoung the other delightful organic produce, we picked up two globe artichokes. I’m enjoying one of them for a snack right now. I’ve got a mandarin orange olive oil that I’m dipping the leaves in, leftover from Iron Chef: Citrus Battle. Life is good.

Sorry. I’ve mislaid the list of wines, but here’s a photo of the event at least. There’s another table in the dining room, too.

Rob and I went across the street to Matt and Marietta’s for a garden party. Marietta started a community garden on the vacant lot that she and Matt own. (We have two rows there.)And they invited all the friends and neighbors to come over for potluck and music.

This is where I performed Little Shop last week.