In which I take a good step

Yesterday I stopped reading a book I'd already put 3 or 4 days into.

I stopped reading this highly-reviewed book because I couldn't stand it.

I am pleased with myself at the same time that I worry that I've made a mistake.  Of course, even though I passed the book on to someone else, I feel like I'm letting down book-reading.

I've done this a few times but not with a book that everyone else was reading with great satisfaction. Every time over the last few weeks, when I get on the O-train, I've seen at least one person entirely taken up in it, and once I even caught an oral review. 

Don't tell me I can't make decisions

Why I stomped my feet today

•  We bought me a new Chromebook because my old laptop was letting me down, but in spite of the many things I love about the new machine, like the flat keyboard, the lightness of the computer and the ability to continue using the French version of the keyboard (because I worked for more than  20 years for governments that expected me to be able to write in either English or French) ...in spite of these good things I can't write more than a line at a time without finding that the Chromebook has, on its own, chosen a different place for me to continue the sentence I'm working on.  Sometimes it's not even the same page. When I learned how to use a computer keyboard, it was a rule that you didn't look at the keyboard but watched the screen, so it's even worse to see that I'm doing the right thing and still not getting the product I want. 
• I have very thick hair and it grows quickly, so I have sometimes chosen a short haircut that works really well but only lasts a couple of weeks. As a result, I've learned pretty well how to cut my own hair, even to use the scissors that cleverly thin your hair if that's what you're looking for.  A few evenings ago, I cut the sides, got out the hand-mirror so I could cut the back, and when I felt like I'd done the length well, I got ready to finish the look I wanted by thinning it in places that needed it. Those scissors were gone....no one but me and Dave in the house and those scissors were gone.  When I got up in the morning, there they were, just where they were supposed to be.  And that wasn't the first time that I was sure I knew where something was, then it wasn't there and then it was.  One of my kids told me, sweetly, that I had to expect that kind of thing to be happening to me, as my memory was getting less to be counted on because of my age. I guess I'd forgotten that.
• I go for a walk almost every day---not long walks but pleasant ones because we are so lucky to be in a place that gives me access to several different kinds of scenes: green grass, paths that follow the river, or lead to beautiful churches, others that take me over to Québec and of course I live near to both the Byward Market and the roads that are home to lovely coffee shops and bars, for which I always have a book. Today when I went out for my walk, I intended to walk over to the river where there is a beautiful waterfall only to find that the road that goes from here to Gatineau was only allowing cars and bicycles. I was so annoyed, partly because just yesterday there had been thousands of persons on that road, for a marathon, and partly because I'd left my wallet at home and couldn't choose to have a glass of wine at the museum that was right in front me. I did however take a boring route home, saw one goose, tripped over my own feet and scratched my knee. Tomorrow I'm going to stay home.