I invested as much as I could in Kamala…hope, outreach, money… and instead of the better future I imagined, Trump again. I had to realize we still live in a racist country. I feel alienated about what our government has come to and at times the bulk of the population. I remember feeling that way during the Vietnam war.

I remember when I read Voltaire’s CANDIDE in college, I found the ending disappointing – how could he give up trying to change anything and just cultivate his garden? Now I understand. At 88, I can only hope to work locally. In Massachusetts we live in a liberal bubble and on the Outer Cape even more so. Wellfleet is not America, now, obviously. I can work on environmental issues in this state and affordable housing and other issues locally.

I finally heard from my presumed editor at Knopf.  She, it turns out, likes my strange book THE HOUR OF MY DEATH –likes it a lot and wants to work with me on it. My agent who had been on her constantly these last weeks, wants to get me a contract before I work with her, which is my desire also, after all my trouble with my rose book where editor after editor kept being fired and the new one wanted things different from the last one until they simply closed the whole department.

I am very glad she liked the book and is at least for the moment enthusiastic about it. I am quite ready to revise yet again – anything to make the book stronger.  Deb the editor, said it is unique and fascinating.

I don’t have much else to say this week. I am fighting off depression from the rush into fascism and also afraid for what will be taken from us. No free vaccinations for flu or Covid. Once FEMA is disamanled, when the inevitable big hurricane hits here, we’ll be on our  own. Social Security and Medicare are in danger and we depend on them.  Glaucoma keeps getting worse. I have preconditions in my eyes and some of my joints like my elbow that was somehow injured when I died and was hospitalized for days.

 When I opened the front door to check the weather yesterday morning, a beautiful young orange cat walked in.  I offered her food but she wasn’t hungry. She let me pick her up to examine her collar, hoping for a phone number, but it was a flea collar.  She was very friendly and docile and seemed happy until she saw Shaman. Then she ran to the door, and I let her out. She walked down the drive with her tail straight up.  (What an adventure, apparently.) I called animal control to find out if anyone had reported a lost orange cat. No, but they said, if she returned to call them and they would try to find her people.  She has not returned.

 Woody is putting the gardens to sleep. A big project. I am bringing out warmer clothes and packing away lighter ones. Getting ready for friends Chaim and Theresa tonight.  Tony have us a whole side of wild Alaskan salmon and I mean to porch it for them, along with rice O’Brien and what Woody calls his famous Caesar Salad. (people do love. I’m not big on croutons.) He bought some beautiful tarts at PB Boulangerie yesterday and our favorite whole grain baguette with seeds. Chaim will bring his fabulous hummus and wine. We’ll talk about the election and Israel and what terrible things Trump will do or permit Netanyahu to do to the people of Gaza.