A cartridge in a mystery.

The juniper that adorned the south-east corner of our house has bitten the dust, lying in pieces on the lawn, the corner of the house incredibly bare looking, fresh chainsaw marks creasing the stump that remains. Yes folks, we are now the proud owners of an electric chainsaw. I exercised the utmost patience (for me) as Hubby informed himself about this exciting tool (I did tell him afterwards that he could have learned all that stuff online earlier, thus making our sojourn in Canadian Tire that much shorter, but of course he disagreed), finally deciding on a model with a 16" blade and 4.5 horsepower motor. While he was doing that, I found myself a new pair of skates, a lightbulb to replace the one burned out in Buddy Boy�s bedside reading lamp, and a little something that I will wrap up and give Hubby for his birthday, comprising a watch, utility pliers, knife, and flashlight, all packed in an attractive wooden box.

This was after driving Buddy Boy to East Angus, a trip of 23 kilometres from our door to his friend�s where they engaged in a band practice. We next stopped by La Cartoucherie to buy a replacement cyan cartridge for the inkjet printer and at the same time decided to bite the proverbial bullet and buy a new laser printer that will work with the new computer. We already own a fantastic laser printer, but it won�t work with the newer Mac technology, and is therefore useless. Such a waste. We also purchased a new element for the oven, the salesman of which was totally nonplussed when I handed him the old one and said, �J�ai besoin une pi�ce de r�sistance!� Oh well. Hubby did warn me not to do it. I should have listened to him this time.

When we got home I replaced the element (sucess!) and the cartridge, which proved to be problematic. I removed the old, empty cartridge, inserted the new, full cartridge, and pressed the button with the drop on it, the one that was lit up red, only to have nothing happen. I checked the printer utility which informed me that there was no cartridge in the printer. So I replaced the old cartridge, the utility indicating that there was in fact a cartridge, albeit empty, present. I removed it, replaced it with the new cartridge, and was once more told that there was an empty space. I emailed the Eps0n help desk, and I await their reply. Bummer.

Then I drew a bubble bath, fully intending to luxuriate in it when Buddy Boy called, needing a ride home, which necessitated me driving back to East Angus to retrieve my second-born (Hubby was at this time massacring the erstwhile juniper), adding another 50 km to the odometer. Upon arriving home, I stripped naked, slid into the bathtub (I had to warm it up, don�t you know) and enjoyed my first bath in a week. Ahhhhhh!

We dined fashionably late at the home of a colleague of ours, an English professor. She had prepared all sorts of food that I would ordinarily not eat, including a fennel oyster soup (I ate the whole thing, oysters and all, and they weren�t all that bad, although I wouldn�t walk a mile for it) and a Hungarian goulash (heavy on the meat, with a few carrots for colour sprinkled in) served on a dumpling. I requested a small portion, light on the meat, heavy on the carrots, and actually ended up with no meat at all, instead using pieces of baguette to soak up the excellent gravy. Hubby was not so fortunate, and ended up leaving a bowlful of chunks of lamb or whatever it was. It�s not our fault! She never asked if we had any dietary foibles! The salad that followed was excellent, as were the cheese course (very European, that) and the cr�me caramel for dessert.

Now I await the emergence of the permapress items from the dryer, and I�m off to bed.

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