The Burrow

Brother is putting away the ladder, having added a remote doorbell to our existing system.  This is after spending yesterday defragging and otherwise improving the health and well-being of my desktop and my netbook. He also fixed G'ma's telephone, which had been broken for a month or more. He had the good grace to tell me quietly and privately that it had been unplugged, though he couldn't refrain from laughing as he said the words.  That's a repair that even I could accomplish. ***** I played on the desktop last night. I've been unable to turn it on since November.  I spent a delightful few hours syncing and organizing and, once again, not saving my photos to a thumb drive.  Then I turned it off and went to bed.  It refused to turn on this morning. Brother thwacked it and blew on it and shook it and decided that it needed more care than he was able to provide.  He and Ryan at Computer Renaissance spoke geek for a while, and then told me to pay for a $6...

(That could actually be the theme of this week's posts, don't you agree?) The Big Cuter kvetched* on the phone last Sunday that I was "the second person today who was talking about Halloween." It's not that he hates Halloween -- it's actually his favorite holiday. It's the fact that it is still September and we should still be in first month of school mode. Rushing from Back-to-School to Valentines Day was not always the norm. When I was a girl (!!), merchants took their time and displayed their seasonal wares during the appropriate season. Holidays were allowed to come and go before their merchandise was discounted. Then, again, it used to be possible to buy a bathing suit in July in New York - now, if you wait that long, you're looking at displays of corduroy car coats and woolen knit mittens. I used to shop at JoAnn Fabrics in Marin for all my holiday supplies. They had shelf after shelf of inexpensive but must have items - wooden scarecrows and h...