1. Had lunch with Shelly Ross in Pacific Heights at a decent Middle Eastern restaurant to get her in the mood for her trip to Egypt this fall. Now I'm ready to go, too. Too bad I'm out of vacation days.

2. Went to the zoo to see the meerkats, stayed for the coatamundi and the snowy owls. Bought a lovely souvenir sweatshirt and put it on to cope with the San Francisco summer. Photos here include a lorikeet feeding from a cup in my hand, the coatamundi trying to escape, and the meerkats being excessively cute.

3. Failed to see a play thanks to tragic miscalculation of traffic on 101. Decided to park anyway and have fancy dinner as consolatory gesture. Was insulted by being asked three times, "Just one?" Finally snarled at the hostess and walked out, perhaps what they had in mind all along.

4. Tending to three pets, one of whom pissed on the floor by the door, one of whom barfed grass all over the pale beige carpet, and one of whom refused to go on walks unless dire threats were offered, took up a lot of my time while John was gone on a fun-filled five day genealogy tour of Wisconsin.

5. Discovered too late that the chiropractor who took over from my old chiropractor charges $45 a session instead of $30 like Dr. Bob. Paid up and determined to find a new one pronto. Egads, if only I could get paid $45 for ten minutes work.

6. Had a client ask if she could pick up her car on one Hawaiian Island and drop it off on another. I gave her the hairy eyeball. "They have an Interstate highway, I saw it on the map," she insisted feebly. Good point. They do. It doesn't leave Oahu, though. I don't know how it got that Interstate designation.

7. Programmed my cell phone to read "Huntzinger" instead of "Samsung." I know, I'm a dork.

8. Bought and read Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. My favorite novel of hers so far, and a candidate for one of my favorite books ever. Good, suspenseful science fiction about time travel and what Oxford was really like in the 14th century.

9. Sat on a hill and watched the jumbo jets depart from SFO. Such beautiful planes. Love to see them take off, improbably lofting into the air, straining upwards with engines screaming. Like watching whales breach, or elephants run.

10. Applied to matriculate at San Francisco State University this fall.

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