Macbook all better...NOT

My Macbook got sick with Random Shutdown Syndrome and kernel panic, and had to go to the repair shop for a new logic board.

For the first time since 1982 I was without a computer--for a week! It was surreal, like being in another dimension. When my Macbook came back, I gave it a big hug! Then I started catching up.

ONE WEEK later, new logic board (no serial number) and ANOTHER RSS later, an hour on the phone with AppleCare, learning I need to do a clean install (the very idea gives me hives) I am not such a happy Apple camper....stay tuned.......

Kinko's tanked on a scan, too--what is it with these top-of-the-line-but-F%#*-the-customer companies???

Fennel Candy

Found candy-coated fennel seeds while taking my beloved Japanese system Dynabook (Windows Me!) to the recylcing center. Great by-product. Now to continue with these sorts of goodies.....I know there is a store in Manhattan, but I didn't bookmark it!

I keep these in a brown paper bag in the closet, but find myself opening the closet and the paper bag for just one more handful.....

African Violet Success

The African Violet has eight flowers! Two more on the way. What a giant, happy success!

African violet petals have a shimmery sheen, like a light layer of glitter has been sprinkled on them—at least the white petals do. On the windowsill they sparkle!

My Great Success

This African violet has been all leaves since it came here in bloom five years ago. I got "how-to" from the 80+ year old friend Mother used to visit with and is now learning computers with my sister (she care for her Alzheimer's husband until he died years ago). So I feel like I have accomplished something recently!

Spring blues

"A paradise of flowers in a violent world and a person is darned lucky who only has the blues and you know that's so."
Garrison Keller, on Salon.com about Iraq

Yep---my itty bitty spring blues pale.......

I live in a place that sends whole battalions of 18-23-year-olds to Irag on a regular basis and schedules funerals on an equally regular basis--gives a more immediate perspective to the news and the blues.

Riverbend, the pseudonym of a young Iraqi woman who blogs from Baghdad tells what we don't read in the paper.

Yep, the basements of the world hold a lot more than a paltry set of the blues.