Thanks. I do that frequently.
In this case I ran Repair Permissions and Verify Disk. Nothing apparently awry (except for the "unexpected" ACL issue*, which always shows up and is "repaired" by Disk Utility).

* Unexpected ACL issue:
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root”
Repaired “private/var/root”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library”
ACL found but not expected on “private/var/root/Library/Preferences”
Repaired “private/var/root/Library/Preferences”