My brilliant, brave and beautiful friend Mary Herczog lost a rare battle today, and to an especially unworthy opponent: breast cancer. She fought it heroically, and with great humor and style, for a dozen years. It finally got the better of her this morning.

I met Mary through an AOL message board, not long after I first joined the online world (way back in the dark internet ages of the early 90s). She was one of those people who went from online friend to 3D friend in a heartbeat. We traveled together, dined together, worked together (she dubbed me “designated drinker” for the Las Vegas Frommer’s books she wrote). We shared an affinity for Hello! Magazine and A.S. Byatt. She and her equally lovely husband Steve were fixtures at our dinner parties, and we always felt like lottery winners to be invited to their Labor Day barbecues and Oscar parties.

It’s unbelievable to me that she’s gone. I can’t quite accept that she won’t be sending another one of the characteristically wry emails with which she kept her “best beloveds” apprised not only of her health but of her travels, discoveries (especially food-related discoveries!), and not infrequently, of her pride at the accomplishments of her friends and family. She had the foresight to archive these emails online; you can read them and learn more about her at her website if you’d like.

I grieve for Steve; for Mary’s best friend Rick; for the many friends to whom Mary introduced us in real life and online; for everyone whose lives she touched who will feel her loss so keenly, and for me. As prepared as I was for her death, it’s been a gut-wrenching day. I miss her already.

Wishing you endless supplies of chocolate, jazz, and fluffy pillows, Mary. I love you.

Update February 17: Mary’s dear friend Lisa Derrick has written a wonderful obituary with more details o Mary’s richly-lived life. You can read it here.

Update February 19: Mary’s LA. Times obituary is here.

My favorite new iPhone app is PhotoTropedelic by Larry Weinberg ($1.99). I’ll say upfront that v1.0 auto-adds a credit to your photos – BOO for a paid app –  but the developer  heard the cries of his public and has submitted a 1.1 revision which he promises will eiminate this annoyance.

Here are a few originals and the PhotoTropedelic versions I created of them. Click  each one for a larger image. For a one-button photo modifying app, it’s pretty sweet, don’t you think?

… and how you can, too.

I received this email late on Saturday from Lee Kagan, our personal physician and longtime friend:

Dear Friends:

The photo below was taken today (Saturday, Jan. 16) at the hospital in Jimani, Dominican Republic, where a medical team from the International Medical Alliance (www.imaonline.org) is now working. The town sits an hour east of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, right on the frontier. Refugees fleeing the chaos in the Haitian capital are streaming over the border into Jimani. Doctors with the IMA who are there describe Haitians with crush injuries arriving at the hospital in the backs of dump trucks. The hospital and medical personnel are overwhelmed. This poor rural community where IMA has operated clinics for the past twelve years is now at the epicenter of an emerging refugee crisis. The situation is becoming desperate.

Patty and I have worked with the IMA in Jimani annually for the past two years. The people who run the IMA are the same folks we worked with in NOLA after Katrina. They have operated ongoing clinics for years in Kenya, the Dominican Republic, New Orleans, and elsewhere. There dedication is inspiring. Every dime donated to IMA goes straight to patient care. There is essentially no overhead, no paid staff.

You all look at the news. I don’t have to tell you how desperate the situation in Haiti is. Please consider making a donation to the International Medical Alliance to support the work they do. If you’re looking for an organization that will put your charitable dollars directly to work helping those in need we can tell you that this one does just that. You can donate right on line at their website. (www.imaonline.org) or send a check to the address posted at the site. The website also has some moving photos and written accounts of what they are up against in Jimani.

We are going back to the DR/Haiti frontier next month with an IMA team including students and faculty from the Mayo Clinic Medical School. We are also strongly considering making an additional, earlier trip (in about a week) to join our friends and colleagues who are already there hard at work. We’ll let you know our plans.

Thank you for your support. Our best to you all.

Lee and Patty

A dear friend, who’s three years my junior, learned yesterday that the breast cancer she’s fought fearlessly for a dozen years will soon have the last laugh. She sent a typically wry email around to announce this news to her “Best Beloveds.”

In it, she muses about how best to use her remaining time. “Does one keep moisturizing,” she wonders, “even if future wrinkles may no longer be an issue? Which books should I read: old favorites or nifty sounding new ones?”

I’m devastated.