I hesitate to ask this, but have you rebooted since this aberrant behavior started?
oh yes, it's been rebooted at least three times since the start of the problem. I'm a fairly heavy user and with a 4gb memory ceiling, the "yellow and red" in activity monitor gets gruesome after a week or so up so I usually reboot every ten days or so to reclaim that.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
