The Worst Weather Witch

Thursday night, I tried to cheer up a friend in New Orleans by saying I was attempting witchcraft to keep the tropical storms at bay (and probably failing).

Dear readers, let me tell you how hard I'm failing. We had a storm Friday morning with hundreds of lightning strikes in our area. Our power didn't even flicker, not once. I thought I was safe. The weather cleared, the sun came up, and I began my vacation day by pulling up my manuscript and trying to bang out the remaining two chapters. That's when my laptop froze.

I shrugged it off, booted it back up, and continued for another ten minutes or so, and then it froze again. This time, it did not boot up. After removing the battery and unplugging and replugging everything back in again, learning what flea/residual power is, and draining it, the damn thing still won't turn on.

So, live from my office, I'm now coming to you from a new laptop. This is my most expensive foray into witchcraft yet. I should have known better. I've never been struck by lightning (knock on everything), but it always seems to damage wells (the same well got hit twice in ten years), trees (the pine tree outside our apartment building during college), and power lines near me. This is the second computer I've lost to power surges/lightning strikes, too. Yes, I learned my lesson last time. Unfortunately, I had to move my computer to a new outlet when I started working from home and brought an extra monitor from the office. My office-provided surge protector only has three outlets: enough for the computer docking station and both monitors. We had not yet made arrangements to protect my laptop (we only had three months...). I have only myself to blame. And the weather.

I am the worst weather witch ever. Sorry, New Orleans. I probably made the hurricane gods angry, too.