It's been very interesting going back through my diaries from 1969--1981.  I enjoyed using the piece I found about my working as a cook for Mrs. D. for this month's column. 

Other entries are like verbal snapshots when I lived in the farmhouse in Sonoma County.  Always trying to figure out my relationship with Roy--teaching Sigrid to drive in our big dusty driveway where the quarry trucks passed by.  Watching the black and white cows in the front field while I painted.  Interviewing housemates to fill my extra bedroom.  It was a whole life unto itself.  Each scenario of my life seems almost like a stage set--and I was handed a script, and played it out.

Now back to work on the Japanese book about all this.  Should I try to publish it in English?   

I had fun this weekend with Sigrid and Jim, and Trevor and Chloe.  I really enjoy sitting down with the kids and letting them create stuff out of plastic glasses, cardboard, scotch tape, and feathers.  Sigrid's baby  shower for Jolene was just perfect--brunch, balloons, champagne punch, and  pink-beribboned gifts for each woman.  Jolene is having the first girl in a big family of boys.  Many beautiful friends came to shower Jolene with gifts.  It was a gorgeous sunny Southern California day and it reminded me of one of those indie/docu- movies I saw long ago where all these women came to a party and the movie was just about their conversations--was it called Eating?  Anyway, it was lovely. Sigrid always comes through for friends and family.