NEARLY SEPTEMBER

I'm always delighted when September comes around; I begin humming Brecht's "September Song". Summer isn't my favorite time. If I were across the Bay in SF with fog nearly every night, I'd be happy. Here in my sunny spot in Oakland, fog is a rarity. My little house faces west and during hot spells, my house warms up like an oven.

Today was my granddaughter's first day of kindergarten and I went with her mom and little brother to pick her up. She was quite poised with her Hello Kitty backpack and polka-dot shoes. Her teachers, Miss April and Miss Johnson were very sweet. My daughter-in-law, kids and I went out for burritos afterward.

I was surprised when logging into my blog to see that I've completed 100 posts. There are sometimes long spells in between them and I feel bad about that. But my life is full of demands of work and family.

Someone very close to me has developed what seems to be a mood disorder/mental illness and it is disconcerting, upsetting, gut-wrenching, but most of all exhausting. I've never been very good with boundaries and this has been a struggle for me. There's a lot of good info on the Net (and a lot of bad info) and I'm reading some books, researching it when I can. So scary and hard to understand because behaviors are not rational, sensible or predictable. Just "crazy". And not many of us can take much of that, even from a loved one.

On the bright side, we liberals have a good chance to kick the Republican bastards out and start cleaning up their god-awful mess. While watching Hillary's speech, I was delighted she mentioned Universal Health Care many times.

If this country provided Universal Health Care, I think our entire economy would radically change. I worked at shit jobs for years just to have insurance for my son and myself and I still work a job I'm not crazy about for the benefits. We could have an entrepeneurial revolution as well as a new Green Economy. So much potential.

My favorite example of revolutionary thinking is a project in Africa in a tiny village where people (meaning women) had to walk miles daily to fetch water. An engineer put in a playground-style merry-go-round that provides the energy to pump water from the distant source into the village so the women now have freedom from that chore. The kids of course love playing on the merry-go-round so there is energy to spare. Brilliant!