Charlie cracked me up the other day, did he ever! It takes a lot to get him going, but, oh mister man, he was on a tear.

“OK, so I went into the bank to cash my check today, right? I walk in, and suddenly everyone who works there is treating me like I’m their long-lost cousin. ‘Hi, Charlie!,’ like they can’t believe their luck that I come in. Frankly, I found it a little off-putting.”

Weather permitting, I walk our little dog, Scamp, around the block every day. I can’t say I’d be motivated to walk that consistently without a dog. It’s one of the many reasons for having one.

Well, I went for my yearly mammogram last week. Nothing I particualy relish doing, but at least the place I go has made a bit of an effort to bring us out of the Dark Ages. You remember the bright lights and cold machinery, don’t you?

I love food, right? But I realize that a lot of the time, I’m not really tasting it, beyond the first bite or two. Sad to say, I’m pretty much shoveling it in. It’s a different thing to actually sit there and taste, really taste, the food.

Yup, as you so wisely suspected, I’ve found a new diet book: “Women, Food and God.” You’d think with a name like that, it’s about praying to be thin. But honey, if that worked, I’d weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds right now!

Saturday, my husband come back from the Transfer Station, chuckling.

“What is it, Charlie?”

“It was classic, Ida. Just classic.”

So, I’m working checkout at the A&P, right? When I hear this conversation out of the corner of my ear: two women, voices lowered, talking fast in a urgent sort way. I mean, who wouldn’t listen in?

“He wakes me up every morning at 5:00.”

“Every morning?”

“Like clockwork. I don’t mind it so much on week days. I have to be up for work, anyways. But, it’s the weekends, too.”

“You think he’d let you sleep in at least one morning.”

Saturday morning, Charlie and me went out for breakfast down to the Busy Bee. Now that Labor Day has passed, the tourists are thinning out, so us locals can actually get a seat. My sister Irene and her husband Jimbo were planning to meet us there. We arrive to find them sitting at an outdoor table, shooting the breeze with Craig Holden.

“Hey there, Craig,” I says. “How you doing?”

Caitlin got back from her yoga retreat this week, and like the sweet niece she is, she brought me un petit cadeau. You know, a little present, to let me know she was thinking of me while she was away.

“Oh, Aunt Ida,” she says. “When I called my mom and she told me about the ordeal you had with your computer, I felt so bad. I brought you back little something special.”

The other day, out of the blue, my email stopped working. I didn’t notice it at first. Heck, I didn’t think I was that into email, but you know what? I am. My routine is, I check my email right after breakfast, and read my daily inspirational quote from Martha Beck. She writes that column in the Oprah magazine. I like her because she’s not too woo-woo with that New Age-y stuff.

Well, me and the girls went to see that new movie, “Eat Pray Love” in Bangor the other day. Or “Eat Snooze Love,” as we called it. For the two of you who don’t know the plot, why don’t I completely give it away? It doesn’t matter. You’ll want to see it anyway for the hunk factor alone.

The movie is based on the real life book by this gal Elizabeth Gilbert, who gets divorced, then spends a year traveling around living in Italy, India, and Bali.