I rode the camel. Of course I did. It’s one of those touristy things I just had to do. I was in Egypt, after all, visiting the pyramids at Giza and contemplating the Sphinx.

This once-in-a-lifetime trip to Egypt was fabulous, marvelous, wonderful. It was a Road Scholar program called “Up the Nile and Into History: Sailing Through the Stories of Egypt.” There were twelve of us on the tour, a manageable group and what’s more, we all got on famously.

Our guide, Ahmed, was personable and knowledgeable, with a sense of humor and lots of stories. He also had a face like that of the Pharoah Khafre, whose statue is displayed in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

Khafre built the Great Pyramid in Giza. That’s where I rode the camel. The camel wore a saddle cloth with a number and the words Ali Bob Marley. I guessed this was the camel’s name, but I’m not sure. Now, I’m quite short and the camel was tall, even while kneeling. It took Ahmed plus the camel handler to get my foot in the stirrup, let alone get me into the saddle. And once I was up there I felt quite precarious, as I wasn’t seated quite right in the saddle.

I felt like I was going to fall off, especially when the camel got to its feet. The camel handler shifted me into the proper position and off we went. Two or three minutes of riding the camel was plenty for me. The camel knelt, I scrambled off, and Ali Bob Marley and I parted company.

Cairo is overwhelming, full of energy, chaos, all sorts of images. The city is home to about 22 million people and it sprawls on both sides of the Nile, a juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary. Traffic is crazy. Ahmed told me that local drivers view traffic lights and travel lanes as suggestions only. As we navigated the streets in our bus, we saw minivans used as public transit as well as three-wheeled conveyances known as tuk-tuks. And motorbikes, everywhere.

Then there’s the City of the Dead, a huge and ancient cemetery complex that in the 21st century is home to thousands of people. It’s jarring to realize that people are living in those abandoned tombs, some of them with satellite dishes on the roofs.

We visited the recently opened Grand Egyptian Museum, which is vast. Ahmed told us the museum contains over 100,000 artifacts and that it would take a whole week to see everything. As it was, we hit the highlights, including the large gallery devoted to King Tutankhamun.

We left Cairo for Luxor, where the Queen of Egypt served as our hotel. It’s a dahabeya, a traditional flat-bottomed boat, which was towed by a tugboat, though one afternoon there was enough wind for us to sail. I spent plenty of time on deck, reading, making notes, but frequently just staring at the scenery on both sides of the Nile. As we passed villages, children gathered on the riverbank, waving and calling “Hello.”

The names of the temples unwind—Karnak, Luxor, Dendera, Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae. And El Kab, the location of a cracking good mystery by my blogmate Janis Patterson. The Valley of the Kings, where tomb KV 62 once held the grave goods of Tutankhamun. I was surprised at the small size of the tomb.

Most awe-inspiring? So many wonderful sites, almost overwhelming. The Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, the Step Pyramid, the island temple at Philae. And definitely Abu Simbel.

Two enormous rock-cut temples carved out of a mountainside in the 13^th century BC, one temple for Rameses II and the second for his wife Nefertari. I am old enough to remember the heroic efforts to move the temple complex to higher ground so it wouldn’t be submerged by the rising waters of Lake Nasser when the Aswan High Dam was built and put into service. The temples were cut into over 1,000 pieces and transported to their new site, above the level of the lake. Being there and seeing the temples makes me realize what a remarkable feat this was.

I’m home now, recuperating from jet lag and getting back to my routine. And thinking about the stories I can tell, with ideas gleaned from my travels. After all, some of Ahmed’s stories about the adventures of a travel guide provided some interesting plots that need to be explored.

Travel is wonderful for a writer. Ideas abound. And one should always ride the camel.

Several years ago, I had knee replacement surgery. When I got out of rehab and came home, a friend moved in with me for a few days to help with my recuperation. On Sunday morning, she brought me a mug of coffee. I thanked her and told her it wasn’t my Sunday mug. She looked at me like I’d taken leave of my senses and told me I was high maintenance. Well, maybe I am, but I have my rituals and having my Sunday morning coffee in that particular mug is one of them.

Rituals are an important part of daily life, from starting the day with that first cup of coffee to the getting-ready-for-bed routine. One website I encountered while writing this blog says that rituals can bring a sense of wellbeing into an unpredictable life. We have social rituals, such as getting together to celebrate a friend’s birthday, or some other significant event. We have working rituals, too. I like to have a fairly clean desk while I write. And my filing system seems to be piles of paper. I like to have documents, notes and books close at hand, where I can reach them. And I prefer black ink to blue.

As for personal rituals, I read my morning newspaper in the morning. During the years when I was working, I got up very early so I could write before going to work, which meant I wasn’t able to read my newspaper in the morning. During the lunch hour, I would go for a walk if the weather was good or eat lunch at my desk or in the break room, managing to read a few pages then. Now liberated from the day job, my ritual after eating breakfast is to settle on the sofa with my coffee, usually with a cat or two vying for space on my lap, with me angling the pages I’m reading over a recumbent lump of fur.

It’s early January and for me the holiday season is not quite over yet. And the season is full of rituals. The day after Thanksgiving, I haul the Christmas decorations out of the storeroom, put up my little tree and start decorating with the ornaments I’ve collected through the years. I play Christmas music and sing along with Mel Torme, Johnny Mathis and Rosemary Clooney. Then I watch my collection of holiday movies. I usually start with Miracle on 34^th Street and work my way through all my old favorites, culminating in White Christmas—Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney (again)!

Then let the baking begin. My holiday ritual is to bake loaves of pumpkin bread to give to friends and neighbors. I would miss it if I didn’t bake—and so would they. So my delectable pumpkin bread puts in its annual appearance. It’s delicious with a mug of coffee.

Back to those coffee mugs. Mom had quite a collection, which spent most of the year hanging on wooden racks on the kitchen wall. She also had holiday mugs. Every year, she would fetch the holiday mugs from the boxes where they were stored and put them on the racks, storing the other mugs until the season’s end. After Mom passed away, we divvied up the holiday mugs. Now, my own holiday ritual involves drinking coffee from Mom’s mugs as well as using a few of my own mugs I’ve collected over the years.

However, if it’s Sunday, I’m still drinking coffee from my Sunday mug.

What rituals bring you a sense of wellbeing in this unpredictable life?

I have a lot of books. I love to read. I suppose that’s why I became a writer. I want to tell the stories as well as read them.

No, I haven’t read all the books on my shelves. I enjoy the anticipation and the possibilities of reading them, someday.

Yes, I’ve read many of my books. There are old favorites I read over and over. With the advent of the internet, I discovered I can buy books that I read long ago, for the pleasure of having those books on my shelves, whether originally written for children or adults.

The recent airing of Ken Burns’s The American Revolution has me thinking of that era. However, the American Revolution novel on my shelves takes place in England. The Reb and the Redcoats, written by Constance Savery, was published in 1961. Charlotte Darrington, her brothers Joseph and George, and her little sister Kitty live in a manor house with their mother and their grandparents. Their father, a British officer, is fighting in the colonies. Uncle Laurence, also an officer, has recently returned from the war. The Reb—Randal Everard Baltimore—is a prisoner of war billeted with the family, a 15-year-old boy who was captured aboard a ship while carrying war dispatches from America to France. He’s escaped several times and is now kept under lock and key. A friendship grows between the Reb and Charlotte. It’s a fascinating book, letting the reader glimpse the Revolution from the point of view of English loyalists. I highly recommend it.

A longtime favorite by Phyllis Whitney also sits on my shelves, a book that early on fed my fascination with Japan. Whitney was born in Japan and spent her early years in Asia. The book I love is Secret of the Samurai Sword, published in 1958. Celia and Stephen Bronson arrive in Kyoto to spend the summer with their grandmother, a writer. They soon learn that the ghost of an old-time samurai supposedly haunts the garden. The artist who lives across the street, Gentaro Sato, is sure that it’s the spirit of one of his ancestors. Sato doesn’t like Americans. He’s determined that his Nisei granddaughter, Sumiko, who has come from America with her mother to stay with him, will conform to Japanese tradition, whether she likes it or not. Stephen and Sumiko’s cousin Hiro camp out in the garden, determined to see the ghost, but the figure disappears. It’s left to Celia to find out the truth.

Anya Seton wrote two books that sit on my shelves, read and reread. One I discovered because it was in a Readers Digest Condensed Book. It’s Devilwater, which is a fascinating look at the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and the American frontier in the intervening period, when one of the characters travels to Williamsburg and points beyond. The other Seton book that I frequently revisit is Avalon, set against the background of Anglo-Saxon England, with Vikings expanding their influence to Iceland and Greenland. Both the Seton books are grand historical novels, the kind of books I love, rich with characters, story and details.

I’ll finish this short list of books that bring me comfort and joy with one that I’ve read so many times I swear I have it memorized. My mother had a copy on her shelves, and I first read it way back in my junior high school years. I was dismayed when she loaned it to someone who never returned it—an unpardonable sin, in my opinion.

The book is Désirée, by Annemarie Selinko. Published in 1951, the book takes the form of a diary written by Désirée Clary, the daughter of a silk merchant from Marseille. The book begins in 1794, some five years after the start of the French Revolution, and the naïve 14-year-old has just met an upstart named Napoleon who professes to love her, though he throws her over for a more advantageous marriage with Josephine. Through the course of this historical novel, we get a fascinating picture of France during and after the Revolution, with Napoleon’s reign and his wars thrown in for good measure. And through the years, Désirée observes it all and finds a man who truly loves her.

Ah, books, so many books, so many possibilities—and so many pleasures!

Years ago, someone gave me a small pillow with the following quote:

In the cookies of life, friends are the chocolate chips.

Lately, the cookies of life have been handing me some broken pieces. Now, more than ever, I am grateful and thankful for my friends. They are abundant and stalwart chocolate chips.

Friends come in all varieties and are acquired in many ways. There are old friends, people I’m close to that I’ve known for a long, long time. I often call them friends of longstanding. Right now I’m thinking of three very close and longstanding friends. One I’ve known since high school, a friendship lasting nearly 60 years. Another friendship is coming up on a 50-year anniversary, someone I met while we were both serving in the Navy. A third friend I met through our mutual interest in mystery fiction and we’ve known each other 45 years.

There are friends who are also relatives, cousins that I’m close to, who I can share things with. There are other friends I’ve known since junior high and high school, bonded by that shared experience a long time ago. Friends met while I was serving in the Navy, people I’ve kept up with all these years.

Friends from the mystery writing and fan community, sharing a love of books, particularly those that feature fictional dead bodies. The kinds of friends I can talk shop with, discussing our works in progress as well as the vicissitudes of life.

Friends I met in the workplace, from jobs I’ve had over the years. We’ve stayed in touch, even though we are no longer coworkers. I lost one such friend earlier this year. She lived in San Francisco and was my buddy for outings to museums, the theatre, the symphony. I’m still getting used to going to plays by myself instead of calling her up to see when she has availability on her calendar.

I have friends I’ve known for years because I’m part of a loosely-knit cat sitting group—we take care of each other’s cats when we’re out of town. The cat ladies, as I call them, are the ones who looked after my fur babies for weeks during my mother’s last illness and the aftermath—and left food in my refrigerator when I returned home following the funeral.

I also have friends in my tai chi group. They are great fans of my famous carrot cake when I bring it to potlucks. They have been sending me good chi during my recent illness. And new friends acquired in my Italian class at the local senior center who took the time to sign and send a get-well card.

I have friends where I live. I bought my condo 33 years ago and I am blessed with good neighbors. There’s a neighbor a few doors down who takes in my mail and waters my garden when I’m out of town. She drives me to the airport and train station, and I do the same for her. There’s another neighbor across the way who shows up with his toolbox to give me a hand when I need it. Another neighbor does cat care visits in a pinch. And recently several neighbors have bought groceries for me and driven me to medical appointments.

So here’s to you, my friends. And many thanks. You’ve added sweetness and flavor to my life.

Here’s a quote from Ian Fleming, World War II Naval intelligence officer—and author of the James Bond novels:

Never say ‘no’ to adventures — always say ‘yes.’ Otherwise, you’ll lead a very dull life.

Dull life? Not me.

Recently my life has been anything but dull. Though not the way I planned it.

When I wrote the first draft of this blog, I anticipated it would appear days after my return from two glorious weeks in Bella Italia.

Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum. Rome, the Eternal City. The Vatican museums. The Coliseum. Florence, steeped in art, the statue of David looming over all of it. Venice with its canals and gondolas.

It didn’t happen. I had to cancel the journey I’d been planning for over a year.

A week before I was due to leave, I started getting low heart rate alerts on my Fitbit. Off to the emergency room, where an afternoon of EKGs, bloodwork and doctor consultations revealed that I needed a pacemaker. The doctors didn’t advise traveling for four to six weeks. Surgery, then home, then back to the ER with a fluctuating heart rate—again. One of the leads on the pacemaker had come loose. Another surgery, this time to replace that lead and reposition the others. I came home from this second hospital stay the day I was supposed to leave for Italy.

The travel insurance claim is in the works, and I’ve rebooked the trip for next spring. I’ll get to Italy yet.

So, why Italy? It’s the same reason that led me to Greece two years ago, and an upcoming trip to Egypt in January. History and art. I have an MA in history and all those books on my shelves. I love going to museums and wandering through galleries full of wonderful art. My favorites, the Impressionists. When I was in Paris decades ago, I went to the Louvre three times and the Orsay Museum twice. I sought Monet at the Orangerie, the Marmetton and took a trip to Giverny, where he painted and where I discovered he loved Japanese woodblocks as much as I do.

I used to say I didn’t like modern art. Then some years ago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art mounted an exhibit featuring Richard Diebenkorn. I went twice. Time to take a different look at modern art and understand it a bit more.

I took an art history course. I’d always thought about doing that when I was in college and never got around to it. I enrolled at the local community college and went to classes, accompanied by the weighty tome I bought in the college bookstore. I was the oldest person in the room, including the instructor. I learned a lot.

The class broadened my appreciation of art and reignited my desire to travel. Not to the land of the Impressionists, but to the ancient world. Hence the trip to Greece. I climbed to the top of the Acropolis and marveled at the treasures in the Archeological Museums of Athens and Crete. I saw the statue of the Charioteer in Delphi. On Santorini, I went to the ruins of Akrotiri, a town destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the 16^th century BCE.

I could happily go back to Greece, as there is much to see and I barely scratched the surface. Italy has been rescheduled for next spring. Now I’m anticipating Egypt. Cairo and the Grand Egyptian Museum. The pyramids and the Sphinx. Abu Simbel, Luxor, the Valley of Kings. Sailing the Nile on a boat and envisioning Amelia Peabody! I can’t wait!

Later in the year, I’m planning a return to England and France. In keeping with my interest in history, especially World War II history, I’ve signed up for an Operation Overlord tour that starts in London, with the planning of the D-Day invasion, and includes visits to Churchill’s War Rooms and the Imperial War Museum. Then to Bletchley Park, where Allied codebreakers cracked the Axis codes. From there to Portsmouth and a cross-channel ferry to Normandy and the D-Day beaches.

Of course, if I’m going to England and France, I’m spending extra days in both places. Versailles, a tour of the Paris Opera, perhaps another trip to Giverny. As for England, I’m checking to see what plays and musicals are playing in London’s West End. The Museum of London, one of my favorites. The British Museum, a must. Afternoon tea at Brown’s Hotel, of course. That’s where Agatha Christie always stayed. And it’s the scene of her Miss Marple novel, At Bertram’s Hotel.

After that? Where shall I go next? Vienna? Australia? Costa Rica? Iceland? Spain? My wish list gets longer and longer!

And yes, there’s an art history plot in here somewhere. Remember, in my latest Jill McLeod/California Zephyr book, Death Above the Line, a Vermeer looted by the Nazis appears—then disappears. What happened to it? Eventually I’ll have to find out.