Christmas Eve

Last week we took my eMac down to the Plaza to the Apple store. It had been doing fine, but I was afraid to shut it off -- as long as it didn't go to sleep, everything was okay, but if it went to sleep, or if I shut it down, chances are that it wouldn't come back on. I had discovered that there was a recall for a power problem, and mine fit within the manufacturing dates and serial number range, so I was sure that was what was wrong with it. When Bob bought it for me, he had bought the extended warranty, but because of the recall, Apple had extended the normal warranty to three years, anyway.

So either way, I had until summer, but I didn't want to wait until the last minute, even though it was working fine.

So we took it down Tuesday evening, and had dinner--our usual pre-Christmas visit to the Plaza. It was kind of a whirlwind trip, because Bob was going to get up at 1:30 a.m. to go hunting with his brother. We ended up eating at Panera Bread, which was actually perfect--there weren't very many people there, we had a great meal, and it was quick and fairly inexpensive.

The "Genius" at the Apple Store (that's not being sarcastic, that's what they call them) opened up the eMac, and said that it didn't look like the problem was the same one that had caused the recall. It had to do with capacitors (or something like that) that were defective and had bulged and leaked, like a battery. Mine didn't show that. But when she started it up (I was holding my breath!), it came on at first, then the display started flashing streaky blue lines, then died completely. I was frankly SO relieved--when I'd taken it in earlier, it worked just fine in the store, but that was before I knew of the pervasive problem.

So it obviously had a problem, just maybe not the same one.

They called on Thursday and said that when they had opened it up, one of the memory modules wasn't fastened down tightly, and that was the only thing they could find wrong with it. He said that once he pushed the memory in all the way, the computer started up fine, and they weren't able to replicate the problem again. So we went back down on Saturday to pick it up, and had brunch at the Classic Cup and walked around for awhile. I wished I had brought my camera; all I had was the camera phone. But I took a couple of cute pictures anyway.

Little glittery tree on our breakfast table:

Bob:

Statue on the Plaza:

I was up until 2:30 last night wrapping gifts. Since I had the eMac back, I watched movies on it while I wrapped -- Home Alone, and Christmas With the Kranks, two of my favorites. We ordered Chinese for dinner, which Bob went out and picked up, and at about midnight, I baked chocolate chip cookies.

Today Bob is boiling shrimp for the Christmas Eve buffet dinner at his parents' house tonight, and I need to go to the store to buy stuff to make scalloped potatoes to take to my parents' tomorrow.

We had a wonderful Christmas lunch on Friday at work--Cello took us to Morton's, which was wonderful. I like a little bit of steak, but I knew I wouldn't want to eat a whole one, so I ordered chicken, and Dave gave me a bite of his filet. We had a white elephant gift exchange, and I ended up with a ceramic kitty treat container from Eugene -- I can't help but think that he bought it with me in mind -- and no one had the heart to take it away from me.

It's been a lovely Christmas so far, and it isn't even Christmas yet!

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