I am stumbling through the awkward new world of modern computing. Though everything has apparently transferred from my old computer, I've spent so many years without updates that I can't get into most of my files and sites without undergoing download purgatory. Plus, all the screens look different, and I can't navigate without tripping over myself. On the bright side, when I type something, it stays where I put it instead of jumping up or down three lines and showing up in the middle of another sentence.

Anyway, enough of this boring talk.

I've spent most of the past three days trying to be a useful but not bossy comforter to my friends who were in Portland for a dicey surgical procedure. All went well, and they are heading home today, and I was glad to have been a staff and a support. But I'm also kind of tired.

Now I'm ensconced on my comfortable shabby couch, listening to a boat horn hoot in the distance, wishing I could get rid of the headache that's been plaguing me for days, marveling at the suppleness of the keyboard on this new lap desk, trying not to think about the housework I have to catch up on today, reading an Iris Murdoch novel I've never read before: The Unicorn, first published in the early 1960s. The sky is overcast; with luck we'll have rain.