And yet – on we go. For the first time in many months, I rented an AutoShare car this morning – it was a Honda hybrid, sleek and silent – and did errands, which included checking out computers at a Mac store on Queen St. East. MacZine, my beloved trusty MacBook, is on her last legs. Even as I type now, the cursor is jumping around with a mind of its own. Pages open and close, things vanish and scroll and move – perhaps she has been invaded by poltergeists. Or perhaps she’s just five years old, with a crack in her side held together with scotch tape, and she has had it.

So, after much consultation with my personal genius Chuck, I have decided on a MacBook Pro. It’s silver and black; that’s all I need to know. AND it’s available at a store that is not the Apple store at the Eaton Centre, where a thousand teenagers go to play, the noisiest, most chaotic store on the planet. I hate that store. So tomorrow, I’m going to a nice quiet shop and will return with a new computer. Be still, my beating heart.

And then I bought a ton of groceries, heavy or bulky things I can’t carry on my bike, bird seed of course, kitty litter, laundry detergent … So exciting, tooling around in an air-conditioned hybrid car, just like a grown-up. And then shoved my way through the air and came home. Spent the afternoon huddled, the AC blasting, every curtain and blind closed … rushing out to water the plants, feed the birds and leave them a bowl of water, rush back inside. And read.

Jean-Marc and Richard called – off to the beach, hooray. Today we caught the 6.30 ferry; I had my bathing suit on under my dress, and as soon as we got to the beach, I rushed into the water. Absolute heaven. It was jam-packed, no surprise. We were on the “clothing optional” side this time – many people were clothed, many were naked, many in-between … women in bottoms but not a top, men in t-shirts but no bottoms – and everyone else in the water. Richard and I walked along the beach, passing at one point two pretty young girls with beautiful breasts. When they came close, we could hear that one of them definitely used to be a man. In transition.

We ate a picnic of cold chicken, arugula salad and pinot grigio, watched the sunset again – hated to leave. Even just on the other side of the island, the air was a blanket. We were going to stop at the Asian Night Market on Cherry Street on the way home, a new open market of Chinese food open from 6 p.m. to midnight, but were too tired. We’ve got a date to go soon, however. As we rode across the Distillery’s ancient cobblestones, a great blues band was playing to people sitting at a pub, outside in the dark.

Wonderful Toronto. Even in a heat wave.