A computer lesson hard learned and a good dinner

This afternoon as I worked in my office, I saw strange shadows flitting all around--it was the Mylar balloons left from this weekend's fun. They were floating on the ceilings in the house, and I learned the hard way that once they lose buoyancy and drift, they can set off a motion detector. So I took them outside and tied them to a porch chair, where they blew in the breeze and looked really cool. Late in the afternoon, I realized they had drifted loose from their moorings and were anchored in the crape myrtle, so I untied them and fastened them more securely to the chair. When they deflate, I'll discard them, but I'm enough of an environmentalist not to let them float off in space. The other picture is of the bottle tree Colin assembled and installed for me this weekend--the kids carried bottles to him. I had a bottle tree several years ago, made from a fallen branch of the big tree in my front yard, but as wood will do, it rotted. I saved the colorful bottles, and now they have a new life. They, like the garden, need a good rain--I didn't have time to rinse them before Colin put them up. I really like the color they add to my yard and am petitioning friends for colorful, empty wine bottles. As usual, the colors don't show up well in my photo, nor do the cone flowers, which are really gorgeous.

Lesson for the day: do not spill wine on your wireless remote keyboard. It causes it to type gibberish instead of what you mean to type. I woke early this morning worrying about that and a couple of other problems, but it turns out I can move my laptop so that I can easily type on it, while looking at the larger screen on my remote monitor. I've ordered a new keyboard/mouse set, although my mouse still works well. I was afraid it wouldn't with a new keyboard. Jordan giggled when I told her this and asked, "Am I allowed to tell this story?"

Betty and I had our weekly dinner tonight and really lucked out--we went to a wine bar that I haven't been to in a while. Their happy hour specials included $5 chardonnay (pretty good) and tuna sliders--four baguette slices topped with a horseradish-flavored cabbage-and-carrot slaw and small slices of Ahi tuna.I ordered that, and it was delicious. Betty had chicken quesadillas, made with blue corn tortillas and was equally pleased. I think each appetizer portion (plenty for dinner) was $6. Came home in time to catch part of President Obama's brief speech on the oil crisis.

Yesterday, on Facebook, a friend pointed out the irony of the state Republican convention voting to call for an end to the ban on deep-water drilling but to ban strip clubs. Someone wrote that she was sure God was a lot more concerned with strip clubs than the oil spill in the gulf. I couldn't restrain myself: if God is bothered by strip clubs, I wrote, I'm sure he's devastated by the Gulf disaster. Talk about apples (miniature) and oranges.