-- and it's a good thing because it does add a little perspective. I have another source of perspective this week, not so comforting. I'm prepping my tax papers. I can't figure out the final presentation but I have to take a neat set of figures to my tax accountant and that takes time. I used to shove everything into a shoe box and sort it out at Reckoning Day. I actually made some money: I wrote a Shoe Box Guide for the Canadian Life & Health Insurance Association (that was in the days when I was a professional widow) and they paid me for it, also for the name. They published a Shoe Box Guide, with my byline. That was in the days before computers docketed one's life and business.

Ah, the days of shoe boxes and Carnation milk cases! That was before I owned a filing cabinet and long before Intuit and Mint. Things aren't that simple now, though. Heartbleed is making everyone suffer as they lose their identity and privacy. It costs a lot to be private these days. I guess it costs a lot not to be, too. Remember that line from Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning: "Oh for a holiday in a complete vacuum!"

Somehow, in a weird way, my blog provides that vacuum, if only for 20 minutes a day, some days longer, but even 20 minutes is a long time. Plus mop-up (predictive editing.)

Does anyone know what I'm talking about today? Don't tell me.

Remember the Aesop's Fable about the Man, the Boy and the Donkey? A man and his son started out for market with the man riding the donkey and people jeered, saying he should let his son ride, so they switched. Then people mocked saying the boy should let his father ride, and they got confused. So they both got on the donkey and then the criticism was that the poor donkey was overloaded with both of them on. So they tied the donkey's feet together and hung it on a pole that they carried on their shoulders. More mockery. As they crossed a river on a bridge the donkey kicked one of its feet loose, causing the boy to drop his end of the pole and the donkey fell into the water where it drowned because it was too hampered to swim.

So I'm trying to plan a brunch for next Sunday. Usually I do things by myself but I've had offers of help and this is a busy week and it seemed like a good idea. But the menu keeps changing according to what people want to bring and what they like to eat and now I don't know what I'm doing, and one of my friends is mad at me because I yelled at him online. I hadn't realized that CAPS meant I was yelling. Is there a Chicago Book of Style for online writing? Anyway, that's why I thought of the man, the boy and the donkey.

No more help, please.