Diane, Where Are You?

I’d like to say that I’ve been incredibly holy and attuned to God while spending these last few days at the cabin, but I’d be lying to you.

Let me just describe SOME of the insanity in which I’ve managed to place myself.

I left the house on Tuesday morning filled with anticipation for a glorious week spent in peace and solitude. I would occasionally get to a Wi-Fi network and upload my blog posts, and I would be able to maintain a minimal level of connectedness with my friends through my Blackberry which showed hopes of retrieving a signal in the valley that the cabin resides. It was going to be beautiful! The weather showed promise, the place is always stunningly gorgeous and I would be alone.

Alone – really alone. No one needing me for anything, not even my dog! I would be able to simply sit by myself and enjoy the peace of this eautiful place. Could anyone imagine anything better?

Oh, I was filled with anticipation on the drive up.

I unlocked the main gate, drove in and chained it closed behind me so that no one would bother me while I was here. I drove down to the cabin and began unpacking the stuff I brought with me. I tossed everything from the front seat of the Jeep into my purse and headed in. I opened up the laptop and reached into my purse to begin relieving it of its contents.

Uh oh. Why are things damp … ummm … nope … WET! I quickly began pulling everything out. Things didn’t look too bad, the Kindle was dry, my wallet and moleskins were dry. Everything except my Blackberry. Oh … what happened? Yes, the cap was on the Diet Mt. Dew bottle that I had tossed in, but I hadn’t manaed to seal it tightly. Which is weird, because I do that all the time due to concerns over spilling pop on electronics.

Argh. I pulled everything apart on the Blackberry and began a slight panic. But, maybe not. It didn’t look too terribly wet and maybe, just maybe it would be fine. Within ½ hour,I realized it wasn’t going to be fine and I needed to deal with this. I hadn’t told anyone I was here yet and since I tend to be the one that demands I be told when my friends arrive at their destinations safely, I wasn’t about to not make people aware.

What in the world was I going to do?

I was going to drive to Des Moines. Surely, there would be an Alltel store in Des Moines. I packed enough stuff up to make the trip down and headed out. I got there, pulled into a Panera, got a bagel and hit the internet. Alltel directed me to Verizon for Des Moines. Ok, I think I know where there’s a Verizon store. And off I went. I just KNEW they would rescue me.

I was wrong. Alltel and Verizon merged in January, but the transfer of all of the accounts hasn’t actually happened yet. Alltel-Omaha and Verizon-Des Moines don’t play together yet. He couldn’t help me. And, he knew I was really annoyed. Verizon took over all of Alltel in Des Moines, but can’t actually help out of town Alltel customers. Awesome.

Now I was just ticked. Oh, I know this is my fault, but are you kidding me? Back to Panera to spend some time online letting people know that I was safe. I wrote my Pour Out a Blessing post and got it uploaded. Then, I managed to get myself to a Walgreens and voila! There is a T-Mobile Prepaid telephone. Wow … at last I can have access to the outside world. $19.99. It’s mine.

The machinations of getting that thing activated are an entirely different story and not terribly interesting, but suffice it to say, it didn’t happen until the next morning and then I have absolutely no signal on that thing in the valley at the cabin. But, at least I do have access to the world.

Well, back to the cabin. Quiet night.

Wednesday morning I left again to get some internet access and finish activating the phone. All of that happened. As I was driving back to the cabin, I talked to my brother and he told me that the plumber had actually been here while I was gone on Tuesday (didn’t notice) and was there right now. What? Grand.

I got to the cabin and sure enough, there was a man here working on the plumbing so that we can install a shower and new toilet. While this is fabulous, the guy had pulled everything of mine that was out on the porch into the cabin so that it wouldn’t get wet. Really? Leave my stuff alone. I was gone for a few hours … and rain would have to drive really hard to get into the porch here. I just laughed and laughed. You all know how I love being managed by people without any input.

He was a great guy, did his thing and charged us next to nothing. And after he finally left, I had som solitude while knowing that I could get connected to the world just by driving a few miles. Whew!

But, could I concentrate on anything? Not really. My brain was pretty much done. So, I read and I wrote my blog post, practiced my talk for Sunday and another night passed.

Now, here’s the worst part of that stupid Blackberry. It works. Except for the keys. If I power it on, it taunts me with email, texts and voice mail. But, I can’t get to it and read it. I press the keys and it laughs at me. In fact, this afternoon, I powered it on, and for a few moments it worked wonderfully! I was very excited. Then, all of a sudden, it was as if the machine remembered that I was the one that had tortured it, so it just stopped working again. Sigh …

I will be at the Alltel store on Friday before I even get home. This is just unacceptable!

Things are much better today. Maybe I’ll actually write something!