CRISIS

Well. Peg's archive is so vast, I was running out of room on my macbook, so ordered a 500GB external hard drive from Amazon (and pretty purple padded carrying case). It arrived today. On my To Do List  is transferring all files already scanned onto this X Drive, a permanent file. How we've been going about the scanning process, so far, is scanning onto 2 different USB pen drives, then I stick them into my laptop and label each scan, ON the pen drive itself, rather than import the data (scans) onto my laptop and have to label twice (pen drive and laptop), but couldn't do this anyhow because in fact I had no room to import. Hence buying the external drive.  On Pen Drive Let's Call It "A", for example, are over, 2000 scans, probably more, because we've been using it for about a month. I have imported none of them onto my laptop. I was waiting for my X 500 GB Drive, which, as I said, arrived today. Exciting so far? It gets better.

What also happened today, is that Bonnie, while rushing to get her car keys to unlock her car (why does she keep it locked in our driveway in the middle of nowhere?), so as to get the right size phillips head screwdriver needed to remove curtain rods up in my bedroom--inadvertently side-swiped Pen Drive A, which was sticking out from/still plugged into the printer/scanner. And--it bent. At an alarming angle. And basically, in a word, or five,  IT NOW DOES NOT FUCKING WORK. I am convinced the connection has been permanenty and irreversibly severed and the thing will never work again and all those 2000+ scans are toast. Bonnie, who is incidentally devastated, is taking it into Mad Macs on Rte 7 first thing Monday morning, hoping against hope The Proper Man can retrieve everything.

I wanted to smash plates and go into the woods and wail and scream and never return, but had to keep calm for Bonnie's sake. 

So. I now have to go into my files, see what's already in the computer from Pen Drive 2, write it down, go dig into (already sealed for shipping) boxes, and go through all the fuckers again. Pictures, Letters. Pages and pages of financial reports. Scripts. And on top of everything else, because we needed the dining room table for dinner guests tonight, we worked all day organizing and scanning 98 years worth of photographs.

I can't think about it. Without another drink in my hand.

Nancy the Realtor comes to measure and take pics of the place for the brochure next Saturday. Archive was supposed to be shipped by then. Hope potential buyers like the shots showing how you can fit 12,000 scripts onto a couch and eat dinner using wedding photos as placemats.

My friend Tory Who Kindly Loans Me Her Cars has sold her house, the closing was today, and she is off to Mexico for the winter on Tuesday, so I made her a Peg's Pot Roast dinner and a Tarte Tatin to celebrate and say bye. I will miss her madly. Also in attendance were James, her other half, Dominick, David J from down the road, and, brace yourself---KEN! Yes! The very same. Back from Cincinatti, garden clippers in hand and ready to be put to work. It is unclear how long he is staying. We will play this by ear. He asked me tonight to look through a box of his dead wife's jewelry and I can't believe I actually have added to my load BUT, it's a delicate silver dog lead and collar with a dainty little silver loop handle and it's just the right size for Mabel and I cannot wait to walk down the street in Walberswick looking like a grand lady from the Upper East Side with her toy poodle. (Mabel will need dyeing and a permanent).

He also has his wife's mink coat and mink and silver fox jacket. We are going to take pictures of me in them tomorrow, plus Peg's mink, and then sling them onto eBay. Prices not great. Am thinking we should take them to Italy. I was there in Rome in December a few years ago and you could not move for fur, every single woman was wrapped up in some sort of expensive animal and loving every moment. 

It's garbage night tomorrow. Already my pulse is racing. Ah, life in the Berkshires.