I just got back from two weeks in Manitoba.  I have 682 unread emails, and there’s a stack of as-yet-unidentified but vaguely frightening papers and envelopes in my “In” tray.  It’s Wednesday morning, time for a blog post.  I’m brainless.

I pre-planned carefully for exactly this situation.  I have 38 half-written blog posts in my “Blog” folder, ready for the day that I can’t think about anything to write.  Just like a boxed meal in the freezer, all I have to do is take one out, add some seasoning, and serve it up.

I’ve tried three different ones so far.  They’re all flat, boring, and tasteless.  And that’s “tasteless” in the sense of “bland and flavourless”, not “rude and potentially offensive” (which can actually turn out to be fairly entertaining on occasion).  Apparently those posts were not only half-written, they were half-baked.

I feel the same as I did at three A.M. the day I was planning to begin my fourteen hour drive home.  “Thump-bang-bang” woke me.  This is not a happy sound at three o’clock in the morning.

I got up to discover that the pulley from the furnace blower motor had flung itself off its shaft and was lying uselessly in the bottom of the furnace.  I spent a good half-hour trying to reinstall the pulley in my semi-conscious stupor before I realized that it was just around zero outside, there were electric baseboard heaters in the rest of the house, and we were highly unlikely to freeze to death if the furnace didn’t run for a few hours.

The pathetic part of all this is that there’s only one way to put the pulley back on the shaft.  It’s not like you can do it wrong.  I tried over and over.  The same way.  The same result.  It wouldn’t go back on.

Hands covered with black grease, mind circling as uselessly as the remaining pulley on the now-disconnected drive motor, I stumbled into the bathroom to wash up and fell back into bed, realizing as I shivered under the covers that it probably would have been smart to put on slippers and something warmer than a thin robe before attempting repairs in the middle of the night.

The next morning, the problem was miraculously simplified when I looked at the furnace again and realized that both the driveshaft and the pulley had been gouged when the pulley twisted off, leaving a slight burr on both.  A few minutes work with a metal file solved the problem.  Amazing what a few hours of sleep and a modicum of alertness can do.

I’m hoping to regain a useful level of alertness soon, and maybe the judicious application of some honing and smoothing tools will fix up those blog-posts-in-waiting.  I’ve also resolved to get a few of them completely written, once I get my brain safely reinstalled on its driveshaft.

Meanwhile, anybody got a brain file?  Apparently I’ve got a nasty burr somewhere…

P.S. Many thanks to all who offered encouragement to my step-mom.  Her first treatment went very well, and she wants me to thank everyone for their good wishes.