Saturday was, as they say, “character building” due to multiple technical difficulties. First thing, my computer wouldn’t boot up. After six or seven tries of turning it off and on at the surge protector, I finally managed to run the diagnostics. The hard drive was bad, it said; so sad. It was serious, too. I couldn’t get past the logon screen.

So I used hubby’s computer. It worked, until I tried to turn it off. It had updates to take care of, it told me, just go on ahead about your business and it will turn itself off when finished.

Liar.

I went to the grocery store and left it running. It was still updating when I returned. I left it on while I went to a fabric postcard class at Honey Bee Quilt Store . . . where my sewing machine became finicky. Lots of “nests” in the bobbin when I was trying to do some satin zig-zagging on the edge of the postcard. Afterwards, I dropped by Sew Much More they looked at my sewing machine. It worked perfectly fine for them on every single stitch they tried. Fine. I left it there for a check up anyway.

I got home after all that and hubby’s computer was still “updating.” I turned it off and on at the surge protector. I was quite relieved when it booted up properly.

Later, I managed to turn on the TV without it exploding. Things are looking up.

I stayed up late Saturday night.  Late, as in 10:00 p.m.  This is unusual for me, as I’m definitely a morning person.  Yes, “early to bed, early to rise” people do exist.

What kept me up so late?  The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.  A friend at work showed me the application on his iPad last week, so I downloaded it as well.

Now, I am a casual crossword puzzle person.  I like them but I can’t say I’m any good at solving them.  Years ago, I tried to work the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles.  If I managed to write in five items, I was feeling pretty good.  If it turned out that any of them were correct, I considered myself really hot stuff.  However, it wasn’t much fun spending all that time for only a few entries (mostly or all wrong), so I gave that up after a very short while.

Then the Internet was born.

“Kiss of the Dragaon” star?  Jet Li, of course.  Now I know that, too, even though I didn’t see the movie. The capital of East Flanders, Belgium?  Ghent!   The Welland Canal connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Who knew?

With the Internet at my fingertips, I have a chance at doubling — no, tripling — my entries.  Fifteen, whew! The more people, geography, movie, literature clues in a puzzle, the more I can look up and fill in.

Saturday evening, I had my iPad out when ding!  The New York Times crossword puzzle application notified me that the Sunday puzzle was available.  Sure, I thought, I’ll just take one little peek.  Only a peek.  Right.  I managed a few more than my usual five entries, got inspired and decided to stay up “just a little bit longer.”

My experience makes me suspicious of some of my entries. I’ve been absolutely sure before and have been absolutely wrong.  I’m amazed at how many wrong answers have the same number of letters as the right answers.  One clue was “Rock and roll, e.g.”  I wrote “Music.”  No, it was “nouns.”  I’m leery of answers that I get right from the get go.  “Pathfinders, etc.” was the clue.  I put in Nissans.  That just sounded too easy.  But it was right.

One hour, 25 minutes and 22 seconds later, I finished it, just after 10:00 p.m.  And when I mean “I” finished it, that means me, hubby and the Internet.  Do you want to check the puzzle? the app asked me.  Sure, why not.  Ding!  The puzzle is correct!  Your time, it informs me, clocks in as puzzle solver #460.  Yep, 459 people finished the puzzle in a shorter amount of time.  Puzzle solver #1 with the shortest amount of time took 4:42 to finish.  Puzzle solver #2 managed it in 8:11.

But that was Saturday night.  By Sunday afternoon, my 1:25:22 time dropped me to #2071.  I may have downgrade my “hot stuff” level to “glacial.”

Living out in the boonies as we do, there are a lot things I take outside for disposal. Banana peels, orange peels, refrigerator science experiments, they all get recycled in the great outdoors.

Another item I take outside is the dustpan contents. I sweep fairly often due to the dog hair. (Not often enough, from the looks of the dog hair I can see right now; thus no photo with this blog entry.) There’s always a noticeable amount of dust and dog hair that I sweep up.

One of these days, I might even learn to check the wind direction before I take the dustpan outside. That would definitely be helpful information. Because as often as not, I open the door, step out on the front porch and the wind blows the dustpan contents right into my face and back into the house.

Pa-toui!

Fortunately, summer is about to arrive, with the wind out of the south. It should be safe for me to go out the front door and have that wind at my back. In the winter, I should go out the back door, to avoid the north wind.

Figuring it out is only part of it. I can’t seem to remember actually to account for the wind when I sweep. Maybe I’m trainable and maybe I’m not.

Pa-toui!