Update:

I have spent over 3 1/2 hours this past week with various geniuses at Apple and have finally:

A.  Successfully downloaded Mountain Lion.  I thought I already had, but it turns out that our completely undependable internet service had gone down during the first attempt at downloading and I am not computer savvy to have known that.

B.  Successfully backed up the computer BEFORE I downloaded Mountain Lion.  I thought I already had but it turns out that I am not computer savvy enough to have realized that I hadn't.

As a result of finally being successful, I am now emptying the trash.  I tried to last night, but I kept getting a message saying that I couldn't because "trash is busy emptying trash."

I am not computer savvy enough to understand what it was trying to tell me.

However, even though I am now successfully emptying trash, this is what it is telling me:

I did not put 28, 016 items IN the trash.

I don't know what is going on, but I hope that I will still have all of my photographs when this is finished.

If not, though, I have them backed up.......I hope.