Mark My Words

One night nearly 20 years ago, I had a close encounter of the strange kind.

To set the stage: I was single; living in a townhouse in Vancouver, WA; and hadn’t had a sip of alcohol that evening (this last point is crucial). I had shared custody of my kids, but Audrey and Rusty were at their mom’s that week.

I was chatting with a friend on my laptop when three things happened in quick succession: a dog began barking urgently, all the lights in my condo dimmed, and a mysterious noise filled the air. I described it in my journal as an electronic sort of humming, followed by what sounded like clashing cymbals.

Weird, right?

When I explained what had just occurred to my friend, she replied, “Sounds like the Mother Ship just landed.”

I laughed, and then promptly forgot all about the incident…until the next day, when electronic devices started acting funny every time I drew near. First, it was my cellphone: I tried to make a call, but it wouldn’t go through; instead, I was greeted with “a series of weird beeps and clicks,” as transcribed in that same journal. Later that day, I went to Best Buy to purchase a CD (you can tell how long ago this was!). When the cashier tried to ring me up, the register froze. She tried in vain to get it to work for several minutes, but eventually had to do a hard reboot.

“How odd,” she exclaimed. “That has never happened before!”

And so it went, for several days afterward. I’m not saying every time I used the toaster it would send burnt slices of bread flying through the air while emitting an ear-piercing shriek, nothing that crazy, but it happened often enough (not the toaster; that’s just me being dramatic…god, if that had happened, I’d totally shit my pants) that I was pretty freaked out. So many electronic devices went haywire around me that week, it was ridiculous. And a little scary.

Look, I’m not saying I was abducted by aliens that night, but I’m also not not saying I was abducted by aliens that night. Maybe they implanted something that caused a disruption in the electro-magnetic field whenever I was close by before wiping my memory clean, Men In Black-style. That makes as much sense as any other explanation IMHO.

Eventually, things returned to normal, and I could once again make phone calls and buy CDs from big box retailers and toast bread without incident. I put that whole odd week out of my mind and haven’t thought about it in a very long time.

Until Wednesday.

I was tapped to photograph an offsite CheeseGov awards ceremony that day, using the agency’s very expensive state-of-the-art Sony A7R5 digital camera. Seriously, this thing cost $5,000 and weighs a ton; I’m paranoid every time I use it, afraid I’ll get mugged, or worse, drop it.

(At least if I were robbed that wouldn’t be on me.)

Anyway. The ceremony was running smoothly; I was clicking away, taking pictures of every award winner, when the camera battery went from a full charge to 33% without any warning.

Cue a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. The event was only half over and I didn’t have a backup battery (hell, we don’t even own one). If the camera died, half the recipients would go un-photographed. No bueno, as these pics were to be distributed statewide.

When the battery dipped to 22% the next time I squeezed the shutter, I broke into a cold sweat, my heart racing wildly. I legit had no idea what to do, so I borrowed a page from IT, turning the camera off and back on again, hoping for a bit of magic similar to the ol’ unplug-it-and-plug-it-back-in trick that seems to work 98% of the time.

No such luck. I was in the unfortunate 2%.

Just when I was resigned to the embarrassment of digging out my cellphone for the rest of the ceremony and blaming the lower-resolution photos on “technical difficulties,” the battery level shot back up to 78% and I was able to complete my picture-taking duties without any additional trouble. Whew!

Afterward, I returned the camera to our staff photographer–a professional with 30+ years of experience–and explained what had happened. I was hoping he’d say, Oh yeah, batteries are finicky like that, happens all the time, but no such luck. He was completely bewildered and could offer no explanation. In his decades of experience photographing people and places and things, that had never happened to him before.

Which means this was either some totally random one-off event, or my little green friends from Alpha Centauri are back. I guess if I suddenly start sculpting my mashed potatoes into a shape that resembles a National Monument in Wyoming, we’ll have our answer.

Side note: I’m so thankful we took advantage of our brief time in Rapid City by getting out and exploring. That trip to Devils Tower was a highlight, cold as it was that November day 7+ years ago. Life is short; adventure on, friends!

I had corned beef lying around, so…

I’m a big fan of Reuben sandwiches, but up until this week, I’d never made one at home. Any pub worth its salt has them on their menu, and besides, I hardly ever have corned beef lying around the fridge.

This week, I had corned beef lying around the fridge. St. Paddy’s Day and all. I love me some corned beef and cabbage, but I hadn’t made it in years, because Tara is not a fan. I almost didn’t bother this year, either; we’d been grocery shopping a couple of weeks ago, found a good deal on corned beef brisket, and Tara urged me to buy it, but I decided it was too much of a bother for one person. Then I went shopping a week later, saw it on sale again, and decided I just had to have it after all, even if that meant a ton of leftovers.

I’m glad I did. I threw it in the crockpot Tuesday morning, along with a bunch of carrots and onions and red potatoes, and luckily this electric appliance didn’t decide to short-circuit midday. What a treat!

The next day, I had the bright idea to make a homemade Reuben sandwich with some of the leftovers. I’ve had dozens of Reubens over the years, and yet somehow didn’t know the exact ingredients. Like, there’s Russian dressing in there? Huh. I don’t even know what Russian dressing tastes like. When I couldn’t find that in my local grocery, I went with Thousand Island instead.

Making the sandwich was not much different than grilled cheese. Same concept: butter your rye bread, heat it on a skillet, add Swiss cheese on one side and corned beef on the other, top with sauerkraut and Russian Thousand Island, assemble both halves, smack it up, flip it, rub it down, oh no!!!

(Err…sorry. I got sucked into a 1990 vortex. I hate when that happens.)

Actually, I don’t. I miss the 90s. I loved the 90s. I’d give anything to go back to the 90s. [insert wistful sigh].

But I digress. The sandwich was truly delicious, better than most I’ve ordered out. I’m sure the fresh, quality corned beef had a lot to do with that.

And in just 363 more days, I can make myself another one! Unless I’m living in some other galaxy by then. Which, given the current state of affairs on this here planet, wouldn’t be a half-bad thing.

Did you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with corned beef and cabbage? Are you a Reuben fan? Ever been abducted by aliens?