Friday, June 12, 2026

Grounded

When Ms. Brugger was in Michigan on her most recent parent-maintenance visit, they lost internet at their house for several days, so she began going to Live Oak Coffeehouse (which we both frequent when we're there) to do her work. Then, kind of on a lark, she decided it might be "fun" to take her work with her to The Ground Floor, here in Uptown Martinsville. Well, we both love the coffee and vittles at The Ground Floor, so we figured why not both of us? And sure enough. It's a great atmosphere, and sometimes a change of scenery enhances the creativity. Quite by accident, as I was archiving some of my short fiction, I discovered that the MS Word file of one of my old stories — "The Herald at Midnight" from 1991 — was mysteriously truncated. The last 500 words or so were just plain gone, from both the original file and its backup. So, I decided to take the opportunity to clean up the manuscript, and when we got home, I manually transcribed the missing portion from my physical copy of The Last Trumpet. It wasn't really what I had anticipated having to do, but I'm glad I made the discovery and was able to make the necessary repairs.
 
Anyhoo, our little outing proved so positive that I think we'll be doing it again on a more regular basis. You just never know what sort of things might happen.
 
As you can see in the photo above, Ms. B. is starting to feel over-caffeinated, while the old dude is so far from even reaching caffeinated that it's kind of painful.
 
Till again.