I was planning to leave this morning, but it’s raining like hell again and I just don’t feel like it. Shirleyanne has to go to work but she invites me to stay another night and meet another of Mom’s writer friends who’s visiting tomorrow, Maxine. I gratefully agree and spend the morning getting her computer online, one service I can provide in thanks for her hospitality.

The rain keeps up all day, so I stay inside, read, work on the computer. When Shirleyanne gets home she takes me out to dinner at a great Sushi restaurant. I learn some things about her. She’s very into the medeval period of history. She has shelves of books on it, paintings, and she’s working on a novel set in the period. I learn that before I lived with her as a child she spent 15 years in a convent, and now she is contemplating becoming a Carmelite nun “if they’ll have her”. Surprisingly our religious ideas appear to be quite compatible. While she’s living in the world she seems to have no quams with enjoying some good wine, which we do. There’s a tiny bit of awkwardness, but she has a good time. I do too, and the food is delicious. I discover I have a taste for octopus.