I'm hanging out in my daughter's basement again, posting on her laptop. Very slowly and clumsily. My computer has a pull out drawer for the keyboard and a very sensitive mouse and I can type like the wind (well, a good breeze) with very few errors. On a laptop on top of a desk, with a tracker pad, I am clumsy, I put my fingers on the wrong lines and I mutter to myself. As to why I am here instead of at home with my own equipment, I have a dental appointment at 7:15 AM tomorrow morning. Since we live an hour's drive from the city (if it is not rush hour) and since rush hour starts around 6:45 am, I had the choice of getting up at the crack of dawn or begging a bed from a daughter. Since I am not, repeat not, a morning person, the choice was easy. I am still going to have to crawl out of bed before six. More muttering.

I was at a party last Saturday, enjoying myself and virtuously munching on celery when there was an ominous crunching noise. In my mouth, and not the celery. An inlay came out of the top back molar, breaking the side of the tooth as it came. This required an emergency trip to my dentist and she said that what was neeeded was a root canal and then a crown. The dental surgery office she uses was very busy; her receptionist pleaded with someone and as a favour I got this 7:15 slot. The alternative seemed to be to eat nothing but pasta until the middle of next month. Mutter, grumble, snarl.

This is probably a lot more than you really wanted to know about the inside of my mouth, I bet.

I spent this morning writing up a set of meeting notes with illustrative graphs attached. This afternoon I finished off planting the geraniums in the planters. I got a wonderful deep, deep red this year and have planted them with deep blue 'Wave' petunias. Once they take hold, I will post a photo of this glory. And I have one iris in bloom, after planting 27. It was the wrong time of year to move them and I knew that and did it anyway, so it serves me right. The bed should look pretty nifty next year, however. Then I packed up all the alarm clocks I could find and drove into the city, where I spent a happy hour buying sunhats for Little Stuff. Four, which is what her mother thinks she needs. Two wide brims with straw, a big floppy cloth one and a small one for wearing in the boat, because big floppy ones blow off. One has a flower. I hope she will be pleased. This saves her poor mother a trip to the mall, and since her mother is even busier than I am, a Good Deed.

All of the above a reason, not an apology, for not posting much at all lately. The last few weeks have been full of days like that. This last weekend, the ED, Little Stuff and I went to a shower for my eldest great niece. She was registered at Ashley and at Restoration Hardware. She was registered for sheets and towels at Restoration Hardware, which is as unlike a normal hardware store as I could imagine. Pricy stuff, too. But really good quality and lovely colours. I don't blame the GN for putting this stuff on her list. Even if my credit card is a little limp.

This business of a store selling all sorts of stuff you wouldn't expect is fascinating me. We have a chain in Ontario called Canadian Tire. It does sell tires, but it also sells plants, paint, home furnishings, some clothing, dog and bird food, etc. The big box grocery where I shop sells clothing as well as almost everything else, including lawn furniture and televisions. Now I find Restoration Hardware selling soft goods. My book store does a fine line in candles and various picture frames, exercise equipment and coffee. All of this stuff makes the display area enormous and you need a GPS to find the cash. It wasn't like this in the Good Old Days. When I wasn't walking ten miles to school in the snow (uphill both ways) I was shopping in a 'groceteria' that was smaller than the paint department at Restoration Hardware. There was a local shop that sold meat, and one that sold fruit and vegetables. The corner store sold magazines, tobacco and evil sugary treats at a penny each. And, when Ithink about it, I walked just as far from store to store as I do slogging around the big box emporiums. And it does not snow inside them.

Okay, my brain is fried. I will try to do a coherent post sometime soon.