So I got my early birthday present in the mail today: a digital camera! How absolutely cool. I called Patrick to rave about it, and he asked, "Have you tried it out?" "Are you kidding?" I said. "There are about five different parts!" "I'm sure you can figure them out," he said comfortably.

Ah, if only....

I do, in fact, have two beautiful pictures of Nika now stored in the camera's memory. (Really, what else was I going to take pictures of? I mean, she's gorgeous!) However, when I sat down to work my way through the instruction manual, I managed to completely mess up the very first step: setting the date and time. Luckily for me, the manual also had instructions on how to correct the date and time. If only I could get them to work....gaarh. I spent about an hour struggling, to no avail. It remains 1/1/2003 in my camera's world. And once again we see an illustration of why I will never make millions in some brilliant technological field.....

In other news, I'm re-reading Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle for the third time, and still loving it. I may even someday manage to watch the movie, if that DVD is ever available at the Leeds Public Library. (Unfortunately, it's popular enough that that's a pretty faint chance....) And I just read a nice essay on fantastic writing and fairy tales, by Alice Hoffman, one of my favorite non-genre fantasy authors. And Nika looks awfully cute in her photos (gazing up at me obediently but with great puzzlement). As soon as I install the camera's software onto this computer, I will be severely tempted to post lots of photos. I will try very hard to resist. :)