And so the year has rolled around again, and it was time on Friday for the Friends of the Library book sale. James had gotten up at the usual time to work, and I woke just a little later, so I could eat and walk Tucker. The days are long gone where I could skip breakfast before the book sale.

When I emerged from the bedroom James was frustrated beyond belief: the internet was down. Yes, I did look outside for an AT&T truck! This time there was none out there. First I reset the modem, then I unplugged it for five minutes. Neither did the trick: it was blinking fast green, then solid red for three to ten seconds, then back to flashing green. I gave James the phone numbers for Earthlink and went on to the book sale.

Ironically I didn't buy much for me: a book about a man hiking in Wales and another about traveling in England. (Alas, nothing in my usual series, and not a sign of the one World Book Christmas book I'm missing.) I did buy True North, which I thought James and I would both like: a bush pilot flying around Canada. I found two brand new books to use as gifts, and the rest were for James: a fighter pilot memoir and four of the Time-Life "Epic of Flight" books I thought he might enjoy: fighter pilots, aircraft carriers, bush pilots and the RAF.

When I came home, the internet was still down. James said it had come up for five minutes while he was on the phone with tech support, then failed again. They scheduled a tech to come out tomorrow afternoon, saying there was probably something wrong with the modem. I was a stubborn bugger and refused to believe it; pulled the plug and let it sit, and once again it came up for five minutes and then died, so I pulled the plug again, this time for twenty minutes then plugged it back in while we ate lunch and watched Doctor Simon Locke. It came back about 1:25. When it was still up at two, James logged back on and worked about an hour and it crashed again at three. Another plug pull, and it was off for a half hour, then came back up and stayed up. The modem my foot.

We ate supper at home and watched The Cool Kids and Hawaii overtaken by a heat wave on Hawaii Five-0.

This morning we were both up around eight. James had a meeting to get to, and I was going to Jessie Elder's 25th birthday party. (I can't believe both the girls are a quarter-century old! I remember holding Jessie when she was two days old and the size of a doll.) We had breakfast and I perambulated the pooch, then I swathed her gifts in tissue paper and put them in a gift bag and picked out a card. We both left about 10:30.

The birthday party was at the Mellow Mushroom up at Town Center; we were outside on the patio and it was still chilly enough that they had heaters running (I was in the odd position of being hot on one side and cool on the other). I sat between Alice and Terry and had a terrific time; we talked for hours. Jessie was doing well despite the health problems she has been having; she has to have more medical tests on Wednesday. Hopefully they can finally clear this up as it's been going on for a while. She had a lovely cake with a Beauty and the Beast theme, and Aubrey made her the most exquisite tiny gift: a necklace of a tiny bottle about an inch or so high with a sculpted rose inside it (like the Beast's rose).

After the party was over, I backtracked to JoAnn. When I put my phone in the Bracketron to use the GPS for directions to the Mellow Mushroom, both supports cracked and broke. I had a coupon on the JoAnn app for 40 percent off; they have some phone stuff at the checkout counter, including simple vent mounts. I got a black one.

Next wanted to check out At Home, since I haven't been there since they were Garden Ridge. Basically they just had a name change; the store looks the same. They already had aisles and aisles of Christmas ornaments, decor, and tchotchkes, plus a whole forest of trees. Their fall and Hallowe'en stuff was already picked over.

Finally I went to Hobby Lobby, just to check out stuff. Although I am planning to clean out my Hallowe'en decorations because I don't use most of them, I found two old-fashioned looking child figures among their things. I thought I would put it with the other two vintage looking decorations I have for a vintage display. I also bought some Christmas picks for a small vase that I am filling for a gift, and some autumn, Thanksgiving, and holly stickers for my journal.

I would have lingered longer except I realized I had to get home for the AT&T guy. Just as I pulled into the driveway James called saying AT&T was on the way (and so was he). The guy arrived within five minutes and I told him the system was back up, but I'd like him to check out things anyway. He did a speed test and concluded that nothing was wrong with the modem, so he went out to the switchbox. He told me that we have two lines to provide the service, and that on the line that is providing the broadband the copper is starting to corrode. So he has called the cable specialist to come out tomorrow or Monday to fix that, and that this should take care of the problem. Well, I hope so! James lost nearly $100 in pay due to yesterday's "little" outage.

We had supper at home and watched Father Brown and the Britcoms before bed.

Labels: books, crafts, electronics, friends, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:04:00 PM

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