I got too busy fretting about phone calls to remember to make hot chocolate, but I did get the Traveller fixed. Its problem was not sea water at all, but designed-in breakage. The battery connection is held together by two screws that go into the plastic case and eventually work their way loose. I spent a couple hours on and off fiddling with sandpaper and glue, and eventually gave up and fixed it the sensible way: by cramming aluminum foil in the gaps.

Now I have blurry pix, not yet online, of the wind sculpture around the tree with hopping-squirrel prints in the snow (our squirrels, too fat to walk, leave tracks that look just like rabbit tracks) and of my bewildered niece who showed up at our door this morning while her daddy deals with the furnace people.