The Friends' Meeting House is cheerful, airy, bright, and quite thoroughly mired in the 60's as regards architecture and furniture. About 15 people come to service. Everyone is very nice. It's totally non-traditional. Some of the women wear yarmulkes. Half the people don't read Hebrew. Everyone sings in an uncomfortably low register; I am unable to manage most of the songs unless I move up an octave and add a Mariah Carey/Minnie Ripperton quality to the praising of the Lord. Things go along nicely until the Torah portion. It deals with the plagues God visited upon Egypt in order to convince Pharoah to let Moses and Aaron take the Jews, their children, and their livestock back to Israel. Geekism breaks out. Speculations on mycotoxins as an explanation for the final plague are interesting. The guy who constantly refers to various movies as the source of his interpretations of the Bible is not. After two hours I have to leave. John needs the car before I take off for the city. I decide I prefer a more traditional congregation, but the informality is very appealing in some ways.

John gets back from his errands late. I leave even later, having dallied to curl my hair a bit. I'm really hating this business of growing out part of my bangs and resolve each morning to get my hair hacked off at my next appointment. By nightfall I repent of this decision. My next appointment is in the morning, so we'll see. I drive like a maniac up 280, hardly noticing the beautiful landscape. The fog is curling over the hills as I drive north; a light fog, the usual fog, high and tattered. As I race from the parking garage to Kinokuniya to meet Sei my purse strap breaks. I am horribly late, embarrassed, happy to see her. She looks pretty good for someone who's a thousand years old. We settle in for a meal of okonomi-yaki, a sort of Japanese hotdish, very comforting and filling on this winter's day. We talk, gossip, start sentences without finishing them, try to fill each other in on our lives in too short a time. I give her a book I think she'll like, Steven Brust and Emma Bull's, Freedom and Necessity. She promises to show me her favorite computer games at her house. We marvel at the booming business of "modding" Sony Playstations; for $50 you can get an illegal modification of your box that will allow you to play the latest Japanese import games which won't be released in the U.S. for months. I fill her in on some diary gossip, sf fan gossip, book publishing gossip. She tells me I'm nice, capital n, like the girl everyone gets along with in school. I laugh my head off at the very idea. She buys us French pastries and coffee. We make her boyfriend wait while we keep talking and laughing. I say something very vulgar and she decides maybe the n isn't capitalized after all. We arrange to meet for high tea at the Sheraton Palace sometime soon.

On the drive back home I weep silently. I am so sad these days. The strain is starting to show in my face; when I look in the mirror I see an older woman, sallow skin, baggy eyes, dull hair. The panic attacks are coming back. This is not acceptable. On Monday I will call my physician and get a recommendation for a therapist. I need to talk to someone who can help me face and accept the hard facts of life: a beloved animal's illness, my own aging, our mortality. I have tried to do this by myself, with John's help, with friends' support, but it's not working.

When I get home John tells me Dr. Koga called. The blood tests we did Friday are consistent with Cushing's disease. Dixie's body is producing too many steroids. There is no way to tell if the mass is malignant except by removing it. The surgery is very difficult, very dangerous, very expensive. We can't treat the mast cells until this tumor is dealt with. I do not know what to do. I will think about it again after talking with the Davis vets next week. Right now I am going to relax and spend some quality time with the family. Dixie is snoring. The cats are squabbling. John wants to use the computer. Okay, so it's not high quality, but darn it, I'm going to stay out here in the living room with all of them anyway. I read, finishing my Ancient Roman History book.

At eight we watch Iron Chef for the first time since they took away the English subtitles. A local chef is the challenger. He is clearly bewildered and slightly intimidated by the weirdness of the Kitchen Stadium. Having to prepare a five course meal in an hour with 10 reporters and several cameras hovering around him while commentators babble excitedly in Japanese is difficult, but he puts on a magnificent meal. The show keeps running a banner across the bottom of the screen with Japanese characters and a photo of San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Every once in a while you can make out an English word: Golden Gate Bridge, Nob Hill, lobster. Our Man From SF wins, surprisingly. He seems stunned. The Japanese seem excited for him. Outsiders rarely win.

I putter around on the computer after John hoves off to Tower Books. The connection is like molasses; something must be down somewhere. I try to locate current links for old favorite font sources. I try to find the spelling for Kinokuniya and fail. I decide to wait for Sei to let me know how it's spelled. I give up on the Internet, and go to bed.

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