Monday, September 7, 2026

     Happy Labor Day this bright sunny morning.  I am grateful to all those workers who keep my life going, plumbers, farmers, electricians, house cleaners, grocers. Fire fighters. So many people who are essential to my life.  Thank you, Amazon workers, and Instacart workers who make my independent living possible. Thank you, Uber drivers.

     I too am working class. I lived paycheck to paycheck raising my three children as a single mother. I was excited when our union went on strike and we finally got medical insurance for our families. I tell my kids that we are working class intellectuals, since I went to college and have piles of used books in the house.  I rented out rooms to college students to pay the mortgage.

    I read about AI. A lot of hype and bluster. AI is a toy for the upper classes.  It is the plumber and the fireman who saves the day. AI is full of hot air and words. Yes, it is fun to ask AI questions on my screens. The real work is done by the workers who get their hands dirty. Long live the working class.

     I watch the new show on Netflix, FAMOUS LAST WORDS with Gloria Steinem. A warm conversation before she died. She is 6 years older than me and a hero to me and all my women friends as we tried to find our lives, to break through the limiting roles for women.  It is definitely time for a working class woman to be president of these beautiful United States.

 

Sunday, September 6, 2026

     I remember in 1959, looking at the student journalists working at the Daily Californian college newspaper and yearning to join them.  But I am a girl and not welcomed.   I join the business staff and sell ads. I wanted to be a journalist. And now I get to write about my own life.

     I don’t mean to. I spend most of the day playing computer solitaire.  I am actually getting better at this game. I fold sheets, then solitaire, I order food on Instacart and then more solitaire, eat lunch and still more solitaire. So it goes. A flock of geese fly over the house.  I don’t see them but hear their loud voices. The squirrels return to eat more sunflowers and then more solitaire.

     Some days a rebellious energy arises. I don’t want to do my daily exercises of walking on the deck and doing chair yoga. I successfully avoid them. As a result I sleep fitfully, frequently restless and awake. At 3am an airplane flies low over the house. And the dogs are barking.

     I am so enjoying this British novel, THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT. Another story of kindness and tears. I start watching the HULU series FURIOUS, an intense mystery about women’s rage.  Too intense for me maybe. I have a plan to make sure my election ballot is counted. Time to save our democracy from corruption.

 

 Saturday, September 5, 2026  

       Really, I am not sad or depressed.  I just cry while sitting outside in the shade. Fluffy storm clouds in the distance. I am near the end of the novel, THEO OF GOLDEN, a book full of kindness and joy. Maybe the feeling is tenderness.

     All morning my roommate is busy finishing her chores in the house and garden, and packing up for her road trip to the mountains. She is on her way and the house is quiet.

     In the evening, I move into my bedroom, lock the doors, turn off the house lights.  Time to read a bit.  The dogs start barking. More than one. I am not sure which yard they are coming from. Surely the dog lovers will stop their barking dogs.  I do worry when I hear the dogs, someone is hurt and needs help.  But not true.  Just barking dogs in the evening.

     I watch the ending of Britbox’s BLUE LIGHTS, a really good series about the police in Belfast. A new season may be coming. I start reading the novel, THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT. A surprisingly good book. I am not successful in writing something smart and funny about our incompetent president.  It is beyond my skills today.