A very merry early-birthday to me!

Holly left a wrapped gift on my desk, and I had planned to wait until my birthday, but questions from Keith, Marty and Ashlee eventually persuaded me to open it. "Did you open that yet?" would be followed by a sad or puzzled look.

My favorite knife ever had had its handle dry up. Keith had oiled it, I had soaked it another time in almond oil, but it was old and I kept putting it in the dishwasher, and it just didn't last as long as steel.

But I have not found another knife I liked as much, ever. And now I have it usable again! Because Holly Dodd is thoughtful, resourceful and wonderful.

THANK YOU, HOLLY!

And thank you to a couple of people at the Apple Store in Albuquerque who didn't think the applecare policy was fair to me, and figured out how to just give me a new computer and take the one I got July 8, which had a cascading logic failure on July 18 and 19, and get it returned somehow even though it came from Europe and not north America. I don't know the manager's name (sorry, but Nicole was the one who spearheaded it, and Drew did the transfer of my AppleCare account to the new computer. The other option was for them to send it in for repair, but "repair" would mean replacing all its innards. So it's all done and transferred and looks just like the old one (as to screens and overloaded desktop and all that) but has an American keyboard rather than European. Slightly sad for me because the old one was cool and I was used to it, but friendlier because now I can share it more easily with other people.