By a synchronistic 'accident' I ran across a Blogger Known Issue about some bloggers such as moi having trouble with IE giving 'operation aborted' messages, an annoyance that began here about a week ago.
Blogger's suggestion is that the Followers widget (what I term 'Favored Visitors' because they are) be moved lower in the sidebar. When my first try wasn't enough of a relocation, I moved it lower.
Then it occurred to me that the Moon of the Day widget/photo had caused problems before so why not remove it for now? So far things are working more smoothly.
Woo, I hope it lasts! And when Blogger gets their Followers conflict resolved we'll all be rollin' in green clover and it will sassily move up to where it was before!