7/28/23

 Friday, July 28, 2023

In bed around 11:30, up at 8:45.  78℉, high 84℉, cloudy, AQI=39, Good.  Wind S at 4 mph, 3-10/22  Rain expected.  Dew points 65-75😬 The sun rose at 5:37 and will set at 8:18, 14+40.

Dinner with Caela and Saul was very lovely, outside on the veranda where it was surprisingly cool on a warm, humid night.  Two tables away Geri spotted Tom and Patti Hammer.  Tom only retired this year from the MULS faculty after 43 years, the last remaining MULS graduate on the full-time faculty.  Janine G. is technically on the faculty as Director of the Restorative Justice Center, funded with $5M by Louis and Sue Andrew.  Tom and Patti have been married 40 years now; I remember when they started dating and when they started living together, which Tom wanted kept secret because of the traditional Catholic morality that obtained at the law school in those days.  Their son Matt is a neuro-anesthesiologist in Phoenix, mostly brain and back surgeries and daughter Lauen is a state and professionally certified Spanish interpreter living in Monterey, CA, with more work than she can handle.

Three hours of conversation with Caela was good for both of us, I think.  With her visit to our house yesterday, it was the most we've been together since Tom died.  So much for her to deal with.  The time with her and Saul and the visiting with Tom and Patti Hammer drives home to me how much my reclusiveness is harmful and foolishly selfish, self-defeating.  The lead op-ed in this morning's WaPo is "Like many men, I had few close friends. So I began a friendship quest" by writer Leonard Felson.  Some excerpts:

- [M]en in particular tend to face a harder time than women making and maintaining friendships, research suggests, and it appears to only be getting worse.  That decline in social connectivity has grown so severe that U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy in May sounded another alarm, declaring loneliness a public health threat as great as smoking, obesity,,, and addiction.

- Though I know a lot of people, I don’t have close friends, not the way my wife, Julia — who keeps up with friends from childhood, college, work,,, and our kids’ school days — does, a fact that experts say underscores a common difference between how men and women treat friendships.

-  Cynthia Post, a Silver Spring, Md., psychologist has seen in her nearly 30-year practice. “Men in general don’t feel particularly skillful in how to form friendships, how to maintain relationships, how to be honest and connected in a way that feels comfortable,” she said. That contrasts with many female relationships, “where there’s a lot more room for vulnerability,” she said, based on what she has seen among her patients.

- [P]eople tend to connect when they share their vulnerable feelings such as hurt, fear,,, or sadness. Among her own patients, she said, “Men … tend to share protective feelings like frustration, anger, irritability, defensiveness, even guilt.”

[I painted the two portraits of Caela in oil many years ago from photographs Tom took on a skiing trip on which she injured her thumb(?).

New Painting over Old, a New Camille for old Aunt Lydia.

I'm not entirely sure why, but I like it a lot.  Sketch drawn with colored chalk, no grid lines.

Mitch's Momentary Muddle yesterday during a press conference has the internet and tv anchors chattering today about his age and fitness for the job as minority leader in the Senate.  He was born of Frebruary 20, 1942 and is 6 months younger than me.  He has had two serious trip & falls in the last couple of years, the first leading to a broken shoulder, the second to a concussion that had him away hospitalized, in a rehad facilty, and then away from the Senate for many weeks.  And now this very public and embarrassing 'absence seizure'.

Senator Feinstein at age 90 had an embarassing 'senior moment' yesterday when she was called upon to vote "aye" or "nay" on a measure before a committee on which she serves and started to read her prepared stateent rather than simply voting "aye."  An aide whispered to her "Just say 'sye', which she did, but the deomonstration of her incapacity was clear.

And the beat goes on with the superceding indictment.  DJT is a crook, a criminal, an enemy of the state.  I am reminded of a FB posting I made on 7/22/2022.  "Donald Trump is a bad man. He was a bad man on January 6, 2021. He was a bad man on January 20, 2017, when he was inaugurated and on November 8, 2016 when he was elected. He was a bad man on June 15, 2015 when he magisterially rode down the escalator to announce his candidacy and to denounce Mexicans as criminals and rapists, though "some, I assume, are good people." Trump's personal wickedness, dishonesty, and perfidy have been open and notorious throughout his adult life. I am mindful of that every time I watch the Republican witnesses called by the January 6th Committee. They are all Trump enablers. Pat Cipollone, his White House counselor, is the most flagrant, successfully fending off Trump's first impeachment in 2019-2020, enabling Trump to stay in power, to run for reelection, and to put all of us through the wringer of the 2020 election and its aftermath, especially January 6th. That said, while I acknowledge the testimonies of Cipollone, Pottinger, Matthews, Hutchinson, and the other Trump administration officials, I never lose sight of the fact that they were all voluntary Trump enablers. Ditto the 'Christian first, conservative second, republican third' Mike Pence.  Each hitched his or her wagon to the evil star of a bad man, a very bad man. Forgive me if I don't applaud them."

Thinking what should be obvious>  The purpose of life is to help one another.  Mt. 25: 31-46

Ellis here today, a bundle of energy and brilliance.  Nona up past midnight last night after our dinner at the Wisconsin Club. Challenging  mix.  David picked up Ellis at 5ish, Nona took a nap.😍

Phone Call from Larry Anderson, telling me he'll be here in early September for a get-together.  Always happy to talk with him, good friend for 55 years.

Sent text to Caela.  "I'm thinking of you, grateful for your friendship."