Local S%*!t Happens

June 28, 2006

I've been getting a lot of email wondering what happened to my Eat Local Challenge. Well, a lot happened. To put it succinctly, a local straw broke the local camel's back.

My computer curse strikes again! A few weeks ago, I come back from a perfectly lovely dinner in Half Moon Bay, all full of good food and bonhomie and oh-so-ready to write a Bay Area Bites column about some rockin' Rancho Gordo Borlotti beans...when my iBook decides to throw a tantrum.

And now that the vein in my head has stopped jumping around in a thoroughly alarming manner, I can sit down and write about it.

I had a slight fantasy about putting a well-inked pen to clean white paper and composing long epistles about the glory of returning to the lost art of longhand-composed columns and pieces, but the unfamiliar sight of my own scrabbly handwriting scared me into a corner for a few hours where I also attempted to uncramp my confused fingers.

The good thing about having a computer crisis in the Bay Area is that I could think of at least four people we could call for technical advice, and not one of them was CrAppleCare. NOT ONE! After brokenly calling my Bay Area Bites editor and leaving several tortured messages about my predicament, I called Amy to let her know I would be physically and mentally unable to make our appointment. Amy made sympathetic noises in my direction and suggested I give her incomparable husband, Lee, a call and pick his brain. I did, and The Incomparable Lee said calmly, "Okay, first thing is: Don't panic." Having just dragged myself through a sleepless night where I was up every two hours, checking on how my disk utility was coming and creeling, "The O.C.!" and "Grey's Anatomy!" to myself, I didn't have the heart or sense of humor to ask The Incomparable Lee if a towel would be of any good use in this situation...

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