Thank You for Coming! Thank You for Going!

[mallorys_camera]

Didn’t sleep very well night before last, and then in the morning had to tackle a bunch of onerous errands—nothing earthshaking, but ugh: The errands had to get done. So, I actually had to force myself into the car when it was time to drive off to Aimee’s.

I’m glad I went, though. Aimee really is a goddess of gracious living. She cooks extremely well, and when she serves, she has an eye for presentation: Behold her simple tomato salad! The tomatoes came from three separate gardens, so the dinner guests had the chance to contrast and compare.

Turned out her other guest is the father-in-law of someone I’d been at parties with several times in Monterey! The unpolitical scion of a famous Monterey political family. And also, the other guest was in the middle of reading Sapiens—so we had enough for a pleasant animated conversation.

Michael was interesting in his own right as well, in terms of travels a lot and general life odyssey, so it was an entertaining afternoon all around.



Aimee sat through most of the afternoon knitting this rather extraordinary blue mohair sweater for one of the twin baby boys a friend of Michael’s and Aimee’s had been misguided into conceiving at the age of 49. (Your humiliating IVF story goes here!)



When the shadows began to fall in that way announces imminent sunset, Aimee chirped brightly, “My grandfather used to have this wonderful saying: Thank you for coming, and thank you for going.”

Perfect! I thought.

When I got home, I found out that the charger on my big, Clyde-horse computer had completely stopped working.

I must have sensed that this was gonna happen because just this weekend, I'd ordered a backup. It’s due to be delivered tomorrow.

But naturally, being me, I had a complete panic attack because what if it isn’t a defective charger? What if it’s the charging port on the computer?

It isn’t a matter of backing the computer up so I can reclaim data. It’s that all the art programs I really like to use are on that computer and cannot be transferred to the newer computer because of operating system issues.

The deal with legacy art programs is that they are much, much better than the upgrades Adobe et al keep pushing down your throat because they offer you much more control over the finished product than the AI-mediated results offered by newer products.

Anyway. This is not really a desperate situation. If worst comes to worst, I will merely remove the hard drive from the old workhorse computer and use it as a separate drive.

And I doubt that worst will come to worst. I know perfectly well that all the old computer needs is a new charger.

That certain knowledge hasn’t been enough to stop me from being in the throes of a massive anxiety attack this morning, though.

It is all…. TOO MUCH.