So You Return That Lemon...

... and get a different laptop.  A different brand even.  This here is a Lenovo IdeaPad which used to be called an IBM ThinkPad.  Same difference.  The big difference between the Dell and the Lenovo is that the Lenovo works.  Hooray!  I bought some high-capacity USB drives and have all of the files from this computer transferring to the new computer even as we speak.  The moral of the story is: if they try to sell you the floor model laptop, RUN!




Birdies!  It was a woodpecker day.  First the male Downy Woodpecker came for a nice long suet snack,





 
then the Red-bellied Woodpecker landed on the platform feeder, ducked its head, and spent some time eating in there.  It even repelled other birds that tried to land there.  AND the junco came back--with reinforcements.  I'm hoping the hawk will fly by and remember how easily spooked juncos are and swoop down for a feathery meal.


Evidently yesterday evening's chipmunk just got a clunk on the noggin from the rat trap because it wasn't out there this morning.  Whew.  One less corpse to dispose of.  

16 October--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon.

            As I drove us away from Elena’s studio Clara asked if we could stop somewhere so she could buy another notebook.  When I reminded her that she already had two, she said, “The way I feel right now, Gail, that won’t get me to bedtime.”  Then she laughed, a real Clara laugh, rich and from deep inside.  “Is this how you felt when you started painting?” she asked.

            “Oh, it is exactly how I felt.  I wasn’t sure there was enough paint in the whole state for all the art I wanted to make.”

            I found a bookstore in one of the little towns on the peninsula where they had a whole row of journals and notebooks.  Clara said she just wanted a plain old spiral notebook like the ones we sent our kids off to school with, but I insisted that, at least at first, she deserved to have the best, prettiest book we could find for her to write in.  Later on when making beautiful poetry was old hat she could scribble in the ten for a dollar ones, but for now only the best would do.  We giggled over choosing the perfect one for her and then she spent an hour looking at the books of poetry on the shelf.  She kept piling them in her arms until, as she said, she’d spent all her egg money for the whole year on books.

             Neither of us needed the wine we had with dinner to make us drunk.  We were drunk with happiness and Clara’s excitement at the part of her she’d discovered that day.

             Back in the room, I read for a while and finally turned out my light at midnight.  I fell asleep looking at my best friend piled up in her bed with two pillows at her back and one in her lap, hunched over her second notebook, pencil flying.

Man, I'm bushed.  I had a lot of things to do today--chiro, grocery, computer return, grief group, pool walk, felt those purses which may not be dry for tomorrow night unless they have a tumble in the dryer.  Tomorrow won't be much better.  I've got a trainer session at 10:30, the cleaning lady's coming at 12:45, and tomorrow evening is Knitting Guild.  All I have to do this month is show up.  I like just showing up.  Sometime before Saturday morning I need to sew up an exchange gift for the Knit-Away Day.  I drew the pattern today, found some fabric this evening, and will cut it and sew part of it when the cleaning lady's here after lunch.  Sometimes I feel too busy but it's no one's fault but my own.  Oh, and I wrote for 15 minutes this morning.  I'm telling you this so that I'm accountable.
--Barbara