Good, Better, Worst.

My summer was floating along. Not a cloud in the sky, happy days, starry nights, crickets chirping, tra-la-la!

-record scratch-

Then the planets aligned (literally. DOWN WITH MARS I say!), and all hail broke loose. First, picture this: a beautiful, warm August day. Sunshine, hayfield, tractors motoring along rolling up big sweet-smelling bales. And then, without even the satisfaction of that horrible screeching sound you'd expect and even hope for, I BENT THE FRAME ON THE RAKE. The huge, square, STEEL frame. Didn't hit a tree, didn't dump it into a ditch ... just tried to use the hydraulics to perform an action that the rake should have easily, normally done, and was even DESIGNED TO DO! In doing this, I have rendered the rake completely unuseable, and I believe I have also totally baffled even the Vermeer folk who created said piece of e-crap-ment. What can I say? If you're gonna screw something up, do it well.

Then, follow me if you will, to the very next day. Another beauty, just waiting to be curdled. There I am, in the tractor with the mower. Mowing away over hill and dale, I manage to encounter the harrow (a small piece of metal equipment that you occasionally see being drug behind tractors on high school baseball fields, to spread out the rocks and dirt and even it up a bit. Farmers use them in fields too). Yep, mowed over that. Two new mower blades? Check.

I don't know how long this planetary alignment/stellar screw-up is supposed to continue, but it is still affecting my world. Stay with me, citizens.

Last week:
- my work computer stopped turning on. I have taken it to IT twice, with the response: we can't get it to replicate the problem, it works just fine for us. Now, I may be a little computer handicapped, but come on, I can't even get a computer to TURN ON?!?!
- my home computer ceased all operations. Three times. Guess where the nearest Mac fixer-person is? 1 1/2 hours away. Got some good driving time in last week.
- in the midst of all the driving, I totaled my car. Had just gotten it paid off three months ago. Managed to get a new/used one. Welcome back, Car Payments.
- had a freelance client ask for a total, complete rewrite. Which, I have to say, is well within their perogative. But with everything else that has happened, this news did not make my day.
- plus, I have not had a good hair day in weeks. It seems that Mars is emitting a terrifyingly high level of static electricity - concentrated directly at my head.

I hope Planet Mars gets sucked into a very large, lonely, powerful black hole, never to return again. I think I'm gonna go back to bed. Someone let me know when it's safe to come out and live again.