Saturday, July 25, 1998

        As usual, I leapt before I looked. I downloaded Netscape Navigator 4.05, the beta, and I think that was my problem last night. Someone warned me that I didn't have enough memory to run it, but I wanted it. It's really been a problem, though, and I think that was why I was having trouble with the FTP program last night. It's touchy anyway, and I'd make a connection and then it would become painfully slow and then eventually freeze up completely. So now I'm downloading Netscape 3 again. I was dumb enough to delete it yesterday when I installed 4.05. It's just that I don't have any spare room on this hard drive. What a pain.

        My friend Micki just called. She said she's going out to brunch with her son and her parents and some aunts and then she'll call when they're finished and we can meet somewhere. I have no idea where . . . I do have some things I need to do, but they're not things that entail places where you would meet someone--I want to go to the Hallmark store and cash in my Gold Crown certificates ($11.00 this quarter), and for some reason I got a $15.00 gift certificate in the mail from The Limited, so I thought I might look one of those stores up and see if I can get something for that much money. But I haven't showered yet and it's almost 11:00, so by the time I do, and get dressed and my hair dried, it will be noon. So do I go out and try to do something first, or just do stuff here and wait?

        I always have a hard time with that.

Later . . .

        We finally connected, although it took awhile. I decided to get ready and then go out and run a couple of errands. I went out to Bob's office and picked up a check, put it in the bank, got some cash, went by the post office and checked my box (empty), went by the Hallmark store but decided I was too rushed to try to pick out anything, picked up a sandwich at Subway, and came home. When I got back at about 1:15, she had already called. So I ate, read a little, waited, and she called back a little after 2:00. She said she was beginning to think that maybe it wasn't fated to get together this time. She said they (she and her son) were at Nordstrom's near the cosmetics counter and women's shoes, so I drove over there, and of course they weren't there . . .

Pyewacket and Micki bonding.

        I waited around awhile, wandered through both departments, looking for them, but didn't find them. So I sat down on a couch beneath the escalator to wait, and there they came, down it. They'd been upstairs looking at coats. Somewhat unnecessary in Hawaii . . .

        Jonathan is always wonderful about giving us time to talk. He said to his mom, "How about if we meet back here at 6:00?" I didn't know what he was going to do for three hours, and as it turned out, he spent most of that time sitting on the same couch, reading. But I whisked Micki away, and brought her home with me where Pye charmed her (and she charmed Pye), and we talked and talked and talked, a year's worth of talk. She had asked me to take her to a good independent bookstore, but there aren't any anymore. They've all gone out of business, which is sad. So she asked about a good stationery store, and I couldn't come up with anyone but Office Max or Office Depot, which is also sad.

        So we just talked, and she played with Pyewacket, and said that she has "very expressive paws," and made me capture this photograph, of Pye posing:

        It was a really nice time. We don't really keep in touch very well during the year. A few emails, a couple of letters and cards, birthday and Christmas presents, and that's about it. But we always pick up right where we left off, as if it had only been a week, not a year. A nearly effortless friendship, really, but deep. We've been friends a long time. Maybe someday before she moves back to the mainland I'll get out to Maui to visit her, although one of the things she talked about today was how difficult it is when you live in a place like that--how often people call and say they're coming on vacation, and assume that you will put them up, and how it's so hard to say no.

        I hadn't really thought about that, although I've heard it said often enough. I guess when we win the Powerball tonight and buy our place in Florida, we'll have to figure out a strategy for not accepting houseguests . . .

        Last night very late, probably midnight or so, I was sitting here in the dining from by the front window, as usual. The window was open; it's cooled off quite a bit the last couple of days and it was a very mild evening. Pye was sitting on the table in front of the window, her nose pressed up to the screen, keeping watch.

        Then the guy who lives next door came home from a business trip and started unloading things from his car. He was carrying them up to his door, and Pye was watching, and then he talked to her! He said, "Hi, Pye, how are you doing, buddy?" and her eyes got big and she carefully, but very quickly, stretched out until she could reach the arm of my chair, and she crawled up into my lap. I guess it was okay to watch him, but she didn't want him talking to her. I guess I can understand that.