the most awful April Fool's Day ever

In which I lost five months of work (manuscript pages I don't even want to think about) and photos, including all the photos of my trip to Calgary to get Alanis, photos of my son, and all photos from my trip to Boston/Cambridge before picking up Miro in Ohio. Computer was acting up, possibly due to a storm the previous day. From 7:30 am to 5:30 pm, all I did was computer wrestling and taking the puppy out on a regular basis. No walk for Alanis, especially with sleet pouring down all day. In April! What an insult.

Under the "helpful" direction of tech support from HP, I made a backup disk before doing a computer restore. Only the backup disk didn't back up. It's like losing part of your life in a fire and having to be grateful that you didn't lose everything.