9/25/2026

 Friday, September 25, 2026

1981 Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first female US Supreme Court Justice

1986 Antonin Scalia was appointed to the US Supreme Court

1988 Pope John Paul II beatified Friar Junípero Serra (founder of 1st California missions)

1996 Last of the Magdalene laundry asylums for "fallen women" closed in Dublin, Ireland

2015 Caitlyn Jenner officially changed her name from Bruce and her gender to a woman

2017 Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner sentenced to 21 months in jail for sexting underage girls

2017 First-ever woman graduated from the US Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course

2018 Bill Cosby sentenced to 3-10 years for 2004 sexual assault

2018  Donald Trump criticized Globalism and Iran, speaking at the UN General Assembly

2025  The Italian and Spanish navies deployed frigates to assist and protect the Global Sumud Flotilla on its way to attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip after it was allegedly attacked by Israeli drones off the coast of Greece.

2025 The Slovenian government formally banned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from entering the country, linking the ban to his International Criminal Court arrest warrant.

In bed at 9:45, up at 5:15, after half-sleeping last hour; 0630 203.4  127/75/62 117; 57/67/56, a little rainy, cloudy all day

Morning meds at 9 a.m.  Entresto at 6 a.m. and p.m. Trulicity injection at 10:45 a.m.

Continuing yesterday's anti-gloom-and-doom campaign.  Three and a half years ago, on April 23, 2023, I started making notes on my iPhone about why it is that I love my wife.  What was and is it about her that made and makes me want to bond and partner with her, and only her, out of the 8,000,000,000,000 people in the world?  I omitted from my list the obvious but irrelevant point that she is an uncommonly pretty woman, with an uncommonly beautiful face and smile, but I admit that I started my list by noting, of all things, her infectious laughter.  It was listening to her laughing on the telephone during a conversation with one of her many friends on that April day, and realized that her laughter was making me smile, even though I didn't know what she was talking or laughing about.  That moved me to make a note of it on my phone and to start a list of her lovable characteristics.  Here are some of the other items on my list, not listed here in any chronological order or order of importance, but each of them a matter of significance.

She is uncommonly devoted to duty, in all the contexts in which she holds herself to be duty-bound.  As a parent to her children as well as a child to her parents.  As a sister to her brothers.  As a wife to her husband.  As an employee to her employer.  As a volunteer ombudsman at a nursing home.  As a family court mediator and investigator to the court and to the parties before the court.  As a poll worker during elections.  As a volunteer winter hat knitter for children helped by a nearby synagogue.  As a friend to her many friends.  She is responsible, reliable, loyal, loving, and dutiful, and I love that about her.

She is remarkably tolerant and forgiving of my peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, and eccentricities.

A notable example: many years ago, not long after we were married, we took a trip to France. It was in December, sometime before Christmas. We were staying in Paris, but I wanted to make a trip to the village of Solesmes, in the Loire River region in northwestern France, to visit the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Pierre, famous for its monks’ Gregorian chanting.  She agreed to join me.

To get there, we had to rise at what seemed like the middle of the night and walk through the cold and darkness from our hotel to the Gare Montparnasse, where we caught a train that would get us to Sablé-sur-Sarthe in time to reach the abbey for the 10 a.m. Mass. Solesmes lies about three miles from the station, and the plan was simple enough: take a taxi from the station to the monastery.

There were three problems. First, there were no taxis when we arrived. Second, it was raining steadily. Third, there seemed to be no one around to ask for directions.

So we started walking, with me confidently leading the way.

After perhaps half a mile, we finally saw a man on the street. In my halting college French, I asked him how to get to the abbey. He informed us that we were going in the wrong direction. So we retraced our steps and then walked another three miles through the cold rain toward Solesmes.

By the time we reached the abbey, Mass had already begun. Worse, we could not find the entrance. I was ready to give up and retreat to the Grand Hôtel across the road, but Geri persisted. She found a small, inconspicuous door that led into the chapel where Mass was being celebrated.

We slipped in, although the Mass was already half over, and I finally got to hear the monks chanting.

It was lovely, though perhaps less enchanting than I had imagined. By then we were nearly immobilized. After that long walk in the December cold and rain, we stood in a rear pew like a pair of Frankensteins—stiff, wooden, and barely able either to sit or kneel. Our winter coats were soaked, and so were we.

When Mass ended, we repaired to the Grand Hôtel, where a gracious concierge brought us hot coffee, helped us with our wet outer garments, and gave us a place to thaw out, dry off, and rest until the restaurant opened for lunch.

After a superb lunch in the elegant dining room, I returned to the abbey for either Sext or None—I no longer remember which—and listened again to the monks chanting, this time in considerably better physical condition and much better able to enjoy it. Geri, having understandingly heard enough Gregorian chant for one day {and perhaps for a lifetime), stayed at the hotel.

When I returned, the concierge called us a taxi. Ten minutes later we were back at the Sablé-sur-Sarthe station, and eventually back in Paris.

I included this particular memory on my list of reasons why I love my wife because it illustrates a little-celebrated and ill-named virtue: long-suffering—the gracious endurance of hardship, inconvenience, and even provocation without anger or retaliation.

During that entire cold, wet, exhausting misadventure through Sablé and Solesmes, Geri never blamed me, never berated me, and never reproached me for dragging her halfway across rural France in December merely because I wanted to hear some monks sing.

How many people would have been so gracious?