December 8, 2007 -- Saturday afternoon

In Washington Square in North Beach

Reading Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Also in her bag--Gifts from a Course in Miracles, edited by Francis Vaughan, Ph.D., and Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D..

A favorite book--Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson. It's sad, she said, but beautifully written. She's read it quite a few times, well, so many times that the book is barely holding together; the glue is coming away from the spine. Mostly, now, she just picks it up and scans through it.

Another favorite--Homer's The Iliad, which is, she said, one of those books that holds all the secrets of the universe.

Recently she read The Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler. It's about oil and what could happen, especially in this country, and how much we depend upon it, for food even. Almost all of our food is transported to us. Her dad, who is a retired engineer for an oil company, sent it to her. He's seventy-six and rides his bike everywhere.