The initial trauma – the shock and awe, if you will – has passed. For now. Thanks, you guys, for your support and commiseration. It helps.

So, I just blew eighty bucks for nothing by replacing the keys on my “old” Powerbook. The Mac gods’ minions turned it on, and it died in their arms. Hard drive failure – DOA. Having just spent around $200 to get the power connection doo-hickey replaced about – what? six weeks ago? – another $300 + to replace the hard drive illuminated the writing on the wall. Back to the Apple Store and time to dive into the wonderful world of Leopard and the MacBook Pro. Thanks, Middle Niece, for lending me your student discount. Every little bit helps.

Fortunately, pretty much everything had been backed up fairly recently (see? I keep telling you people – back up and back up often!). The only thing is that I have to completely reconstruct my contact list/address book and iCal on the new machine. The new operating system won’t read the old ones. Sucks.

MJ takes his meds and waits to see if any of the half-dozen or so possible side-effects are happening to him. We know and are operating on the rationale that weight-loss will ameliorate, and probably cure the kind of diabetes he has. It certainly won’t hurt me any to lose a few pounds, so I’m right there with him.

He keeps threatening to throw out at least half of our nearly 200 cookbooks, because “It’s pointless. I can’t have any of that stuff now.” Which is bullshit. It’s all a matter of portion-control and balance. And Common Sense. Words that I’m going to have tattooed on his forehead if he doesn’t calm down.

But here’s the really traumatic thing for me – we bought a scale. A bathroom scale. Wow. We haven’t had one of those things in the house for probably 10 years. A scale! A warden. An accusing eye. A cold, hard, unflinching judge of failure or success. I put it in MJ’s closet. I don’t want it looking at me.