The dishwasher repairman is here for the third time in two weeks. The dishwasher, an oldie we inherited along with the new apartment, of respectable brand, runs and runs until you turn it off and it is still bubbling with soapy water and greasy dishes. Once we turned it on a bedtime--high hopes after the first repair--and it was still running when we put the kettle on next morning. Silently, luckily.

Actually I don't mind washing dishes, since it is my husband who does them. And I do like drying and put them away, one of those tidying tasks, like ironing and sweeping up crumbs, that make the world feel like a safer place.

The third repairman is changing the computer board. Lots of pretty little colored wires and silvery appendages for innards, which make me think we will all be better off when we are robots. I'm a little nervous because he just excused himself to go and call his base.

When he goes I get to make my fourth or fifth or sixth trip in two weeks to Ikea, ferreting out the actually-quite-pretty indispensable objects like Japanese-shaped small bowls for yoghurt (an interesting cross-cultural mix). I think I'm as hooked on Ikea as on Downton Abbey. I've watched all but the last episode of Season Five. Instead of watching the last one yesterday, I delayed and watched the second-to-last episode again, thinking: "all these soon-to-be happy couples upstairs and downstairs, what a novel! Only sad sweet Anna and Bates to keep us watching into the next season? Or will we still be watching in years to come? No, I guess not. Hard to keep Maggie Smith in the plot forever and so many happy endings waiting in the wings. What will the finale be? A wedding, the return-from-the dead of Edith's lover (no, she's going to be A Professional Woman), upstairs and downstairs meeting at--where could they credibly meet?

Beverley Bie Brahic