Saving the Blog

 I remember the fallen,

Do they think of me?

Bones of the Ocean by the Long Johns

I had a quiet panic attack when I realized that I had lost a blog post.  I am so trusting of technology - I just trust the blog to always be here.  I did have a problem with my original blog (News From The Swamp) when through a series of glitches I lost the ability to be able to write any more entries.  I lived without it for several months, then decided that I missed it and began this one (hence, Return to the Swamp)

What if they disappeared?  I started the original in 2010, so it's a record of 14 years of my life.  I realized that I needed a backup.

Guess what?  Not easy.  I followed instructions, which results in something called a .xml file, which you have to do post by post, and it ends up just being a gobbledy gook of code that nothing I own knows how to read.  The only thing I've found that will transfer the entire blog is a service that will turn it into an actual book.  I'd like that.  The downside is that for my original blog - even before I began this compulsive writing - would be close to $500.  That's a lot to spend for something sight unseen.

So until I can find a better way, it's cut and paste, one post at a time.  Since I began "Return" I've done 254 posts.  This might take awhile.  I want to get "Return" saved first; then I'll go back to the original.

I have to say that doing this kind of hurts.  I started "Return" in 2018.  So that first year or so is rather fluffy and downright innocent.  It's weird to read a post in June about baby possums or fluffy baby vultures - not knowing that before the next post Bob would be diagnosed.

There are major differences in the two blogs.  The original one was always positive, about the cool things in life, and written as carefully crafted essays.  And lots of pictures.  Bob would often ask, "is this a blog-worthy moment?"    Sad stuff was not mentioned - a major example being that in the time period - 2010 - 2018, we lost all four of our parents.  Never mentioned.  The blog was the happy place.

Now it's stream-of-consciousness writing, not nearly as many pictures, and it's become my grief journal.  That's not necessarily a bad thing.  In the past, for the bad stuff, I had Bob to share it with me, someone to hold, taking care of each other.  Now - I have me.  And I have Last Year Self and Yesterday Self and Tomorrow Self and Next Year Self.  It's become an internal conversation, leaving a trail of bread crumbs.  Letting me know that I can handle this.

Whatever it is, I don't want to lose it, so there's a lot of cut-and-pasting to do unless I find a better way.  Which also means rereading everything, and some of it hurts (such as how many cats I've lost, and three friends)

Now another passing memory (I'm thinking again of my friend Los, who, without fail, writes daily memories of his life with his wife).  I was cooking the other day, and grabbed some garlic.  I remembered a time that he was cooking dinner - which likely was some version of sausage, peppers, and onions.  I heard swearing coming from the kitchen:  "blankety blank blank, I *know* that we just bought garlic but it's not here."  I yelled out "On the counter to the left of the stove."  He yelled back "I looked there - we don't have any."

I walked in the kitchen, looked at the counter, and said "Didja look in the garlic keeper??"  I took the lid off the little terracotta pot and handed him the bulb of garlic.  For some reason he was still annoyed.  (For the record, I had only bought the keeper a week or so prior during one of our trips to Goodwill)

I think he muttered something like "stupid place to keep garlic"

Another memory popped up, when I was thinking about how much I miss just talking together.   There was one time at work when his co-worker (a curmudgeon bachelor) looked at him and asked "You and Ann live together, right?  And don't you even carpool?  And eat lunch together?"  Bob answered in the affirmative to both.  "Then why the heck do you call her during the day?"  Bob just shrugged "I like talking to her."  Because we would sometimes call each other at work, sometimes because something interesting had happened, or just to say hi because we didn't want to go 8 hours without talking to each other.  I miss that.

On to the cut-and-paste.