Still at home with my bad cold. I have a dermatologist appointment today. I'll decide at twelve or so if I can make it or not - it's been postponed twice (because of the doctor, not me. He's a lovely man, even if he (no joke) looks bar mitzvah, but he's also the head of his department.) It's gone from "we need to deal with these hives of yours" to "we're dealing with the hives, but you also have all these *moles*." I've had several removed (all benign, but.) He's also the one who caught my diabetes (and was worried when I didn't call back, not realizing I'd called internist as soon as I found out I had a blood sugar of 311. My mom's Type II, and my dad had just died after a quintuple bypass, and his own Type II had contributed to that. That and his stupid stubborness.)

I can't go. It's a bad cold and that waiting room is usually crowded with a lot of kids and old people. It would be wrong. Damn.

On the other hand, Jonathan and I have been looking through his late aunt's jewelry box. She passed away shortly after we were married, but Uncle Dick threw nothing out, ever.

I regret I never got to meet the lady as she'd been. By the time I knew the family, she'd had a series of small strokes that was slowly destroying her brilliant mind. She was still able to hold a conversation and such when I met her, but I could tell she was nothing like she had been - I could see the remants of wit and humor and intelligence. She never did get to finish her book on Gallileo (her doctorate was in History of Science.) And I never got to talk to her about her career in the state department in Afganistan, either. And she'd deteriorated very quickly after that.

So we were looking at her jewelry. I felt very strange doing that, but. I took two necklaces, one of irregular turquoise beads, and one of jade. I left another, of large round jade beads, for my mother-in-law, because it's her taste and she can carry that sort of thing off. And she loved her sister-in-law. None of this was worth very much. Apparently, Aunt Win also liked the odd and strange, and Jonathan said she never wore much. Much like me.

I wish I had known her when she was herself.