TODAY'S BAY AREA TEMPERATURE: BETWEEN 60 AND 100 DEGREES

A visit with LYN MAKELA, Lee's sister, was first on today's agenda.  We drove over to Half Moon Bay this morning to take her out to breakfast at Joanne's Ketch, a cozy restaurant right on the coast with a view out over the marina.

Although debilitated by nerve-related damage both to her speaking voice and to her walking ability, she still exhibited flashes of her usual humor and kept up a steady stream of labored but clear conversation for the whole time we spent together.

We also got to see completed and in-process examples of her passion for quilting and caught, in the sparkle in her eyes, telltale glints of the pleasure she still derives from this longtime crafting pursuit.  She lives very much in the moment without obsessing on "what might have been" nor on what might lie ahead as she and her doctors work towards a fuller diagnosis of what appears to be a genetically-linked degenerative condition.  Meals on Wheels provides sustenance five days a week; someone cleans and shops for her; a good friend and her two cats keep their eyes on her; the small single story house she rents is ideally suited to her current needs.

All in all, she appears to be managing as well as can be expected.  It was good to reconnect and to see her again after all this time.  We were relieved as well to find her in such a calm and accepting state of mind, optimistic but guarded about the future.

Our agenda next brought us to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco where we met CLAIRE and JIM MARCIANO for a delightful lunch and lots of good conversation on the sunny terrace overlooking the Civic Center Plaza.

CLAIRE was in Heidi's Peace Corps group; and later she and her fiance (and, soon enough, husband) JIM were frequent good-time companions during our Stanford days as well.  Both are still employed, JIM as an Appellate Court Judge and CLAIRE as a career counselor working with those seeking employment in Contra Costa county outside San Francisco.

After lunch we wandered around the Avery Brundage Collection in the museum, admiring the classic architecture of the former public library building in which the collection is now housed, the beautiful objects themselves and the contemporary art inspired by favorite items within the collection's purview (under the rubric of an exhibit entitled "Phantoms of Asia").

Back in Palo Alto, this evening Andrew Wolf and family joined ELIZABETH and us for an alfresco supper on the patio (rapidly becoming our favorite place on the property).  We enjoyed exchanging anecdotes around our mutual Peace Corps experiences (Andrew served in Guatemala during the early 90s, encouraging rural development using available technology) while Alexander, Spenser and Emme cavorted around the yard under wife Drew's watchful gaze -- a most pleasant conclusion to yet another day spent busily "rebooting the past".