My trusty old desktop, a Hewlett Packard, is getting awfully cranky. Slow to respond, creaky when it does, so it keeps me guessing while it keeps me waiting as it eventually performs the tasks set to it. I depend on it heavily for all kinds of things, from entertainment to duty as a workhorse. I'm not sure exactly how old it is now, but likely between nine and ten years. Most people, I imagine, would replace it. I cringe at the very thought of setting up another computer.

I do have a later model, an all-in-one desktop which I use on occasion, but nowhere near as frequently as this one. I wasn't able to set up Windows Outlook on the newer one, and it's now about five years old. There was a point when I had completely despaired, thinking my older one had bit the dust. It just wasn't responding at all. When we brought the new one home, and I was setting it up, suddenly the old one found a reason to behave. It seemed to completely reform itself. And I was reluctant to give up on it, so it remained my computer-of-choice.

I must muster patience while I wait for it to react, and so I do. From time to time it just stubbornly tells me to sod off. Two nights ago when I was responding to an email from my granddaughter, and hit the 'send' button, the program suddenly went haywire, and then AWOL. The screen shuddered and shook, the image changing back and forth until I slammed the exit 'X'. And then, nothing. The icon on my screen had disappeared, I fiddled about and couldn't restore the program.

Good thing there are more important things in my life, but this was frustrating. In the end, I decided to call on the computer to turn back the clock to August 11. I set it to work and went up to bed in disgust. Next morning, there was the icon, the mail system was once again approachable, even if it was, as usual, sclerotic. Ever since it has erupted in little tantrums, but it's serviceable.

Busy day, today. Darkly overcast, cool as well. We had appointments for Jackie and Jillie at the groomer's, so we decided to take them for a tromp through the ravine a bit earlier than usual. And off we went, wondering whether it would rain, since that's just what it looked, felt and smelled like. But it didn't, and we had a pleasant romp through the forest trails as usual. Ending up in the meadow where we trailed about, picked some ripe thimbleberries for our puppies, then finally headed back home.

Just in time to take in the blue boxes, the garbage and the compost bins, emptied in our absence. And then it was off to the groomer's to deposit two very hairy little dogs for attention. We cannot enter, but ring the doorbell and step back from the stoop as requested, masked of course. We hand each of the puppies over to one of the groomers, pay in advance by Visa, and bid them adieu.

We had errands to run; the return of two videos to the library. Then to pop into a pharmacy to pick up some Vitamin D3 in far greater potency than we normally use. Irving had dome some research that cleared the way for our use of the vitamin and henceforth we'll be taking 2300 units daily instead of the usual 1000.

From there we drove to the supermarket we usually frequent weekly and set about the week's grocery shopping. We were later there than has been our wont the past year and a half, so we were reconciled with the supermarket personnel we had got to know so well over the years. Unlike the morning workers these are pleasant, smiling and personable people with whom we formed a personal bond, and it was extremely pleasurable to be able to see and speak with them again.

Soon afterward we picked up a pair of little black dorgs that looked absolutely gorgeous, sleek and tidy in appearance and excited beyond mere licks to be back in our arms again.