Saturday...

Long, happy, busy day.

I woke at 6:50 as usual - I'd turned off my alarm clock, but it has psychic connections - and talked myself into going back to sleep till 8. Did three loads of laundry and attached the pile of papers that was growing by the side of my file cabinet. Demolished them all. Vacuumed, dusted, tidied, and then Beulah came over and we did an hour of Tai Chi in the exercise room. It's the first time I've been there with other people using it - two men were there. Which was okay: they were using equipment, we weren't.

Then Beulah and I watched The Sarah Jane Adventures episode "The Last Sontaran". Enjoyed it very much indeed.

After Beulah left, I talked to Sandi and Pat and they were ready to bring back my DVR, repaired. Well. Mostly repaired. The man they talked to in the shop that repairs DVRs said it had a damaged logic board, which could be replaced for about $200.00. So the machine still won't work for about half an hour after it's turned on or off - but that's a lot better than a machine that won't work at all.

So they brought it back and we set it up and it worked a little, and then it didn't work, and then nothing worked (not even the VCR or television), and then my Internet connection didn't even work.... Luckily they are patient with electronics and I don't panic easily and with enough fiddling, guessing, manual-reading and finagling, everything came together.

Yesterday we had a conversation in which Sandi said, "I had to erase a lot of things on your hard drive. Was there anything particularly valuable to you?"

"Do anything you have to do to get it working," I said. "The only shows I can't replace are the episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood in French."

"Uh-oh," she said. "I started with them. I erased everything I saw that wasn't in English."

So when we were looking at what was there today, I was thrilled to see "Drôles de morts" and "Le Docteur danse" were still there, safe and sound. My two favourite episodes: "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances". I hastily copied them to DVD.

We then went for supper at Swiss Chalet. The waitress forgot to bring my cole slaw; when I reminded her, she was so apologetic she brought a double order (I shared it with Pat) and didn't charge me.

Then we went to the surprise birthday party for Harry. He's had a bad week of it with chemotherapy (for esophageal cancer) and a mix-up in his medicine; but Sheila has been planning this for a long time and we've all been hoping it would come off. And it did. Harry looked worn and tired but he was happy to see us all, and was actually able to sip water in celebration - something he hasn't been able to do for weeks. A lot of people were there - many of our mutual friends (including auriaephiala and dargit), and lots of friends of Harry's whom I'd heard about but never met.

And for Harry's birthday, his friend Chis gave him the big gorgeous sonic screwdriversuch as was used by The Master. Everyone knew I would be envious.

And I'd better watch it; can't give Harry any backtalk any more if he has something like that....