Nancy, Bryn and I went out again to the look at the sea... This time we went to Point Loma land's end.  The tide was high, so the pools that most people go there to see were under water.  Never mind. We enjoyed the time.  This was one of those days when the sky and the water and the rocks were all exactly the most beautiful elements in the universe.  I had spent part of the day watching the Weather Channel presentation of the storm that is approaching the Gulf Shore of Texas.  It was difficult for me to believe there was anywhere on earth where the sea was threatening.  Bryn and Nancy waded in the area where on a day of medium or low tides the fascinating pools would have been the attraction, but today the world was perfect.  The tide pools weren't our reason for being in the area.  We were all that was needed in addition to the pulsing sea... And along came a submarine...

Margaret, Nancy, Bryn and I drove out to the Glider Port above La Jolla this afternoon.  Bryn stood at the point above Black's Beach, one of the most beautiful stretches of seascape in the world... and I took her picture.  We watched the gliders soar above the beach and the cliffs.  Margaret, Bryn and I had come from a visit to the San Diego Museum of Art.  

EVERY MORNING I go into the beautiful new park where I live, and only today did I see the other living things who are not human residents or workers or dogs.  A couple of weeks ago great strips of sod with grass growing already were fitted together to form a verdant lawn all over the park.  Wherever the sod was gathered and rolled into the bundles that were delivered to the park, these little toadstools were bundled with it and delivered to Arcadia Place.  Today they were alive and thriving all through the new lawn.  I'll pay attention to the place to see if they die out.  I'm hoping they will live on and on and on.  Why not? They are like magical living things... a veritable fairy garden.

Nancy has been to all of these places before today, but I like going there no matter how many times I've been there.  Coronado is one of the most beautiful small towns in America, and the setting of the town on the spit of land just across San Diego Bay from the City is hard to beat.  Margaret and I moved to San Diego thirty years ago.  The city has changed, and a photograph taken from this spot is a reminder of the changes in the skyline.  Today we drove from the bay front across town to the beach.  What a trip...

After newspapers and other media sources reported the death of Dick Gregory, 84, My friend John Baker received a note from John Scrempos.  I didn’t know how I could write something that said what needed to be said about Dick Gregory, and John Scrempos’ statement says it, so the BLOG writing starts here:

My friend John Baker forwarded to me a note from his friend John Scrempos.  I don’t know Mr. Scrempos, but I now know that I would like to know him.  I don’t usually send on this BLOG quotes by people I don’t know, but I can tell from the text that he won’t mind my using it… and I certainly know my friend John Baker well enough to include the quote without waiting for John to send back permission.  So… John Scrempos said,

“I met Dick. I walked with him in Forseyth, Ga. in a march led by Coretta King and children, Ralph Abernathy, Don Edwards and others. I had the good fortune of sitting with him on the bus that carried us from Atlanta out to Forseyth where we marched. He was a fiery man with a heart that covered the world....his love affair for justice was non ending. He helped many of us white guys to deal with white privilege/racism through humor.....first one to do that for me....laughing at my own foolishness was good medicine....giving me a chance to see myself and others in a new and important way....defining moment in my life.”

The pictures are a melaleuca tree near a parking lot at City Scene, the condo community where I lived before coming to Paradise Valley and a water lily I got yesterday at the Davids’ backyard.  I didn’t use them yesterday, so they seem to belong to Dick Gregory.  Dignity… YES!

Bryn and Elaine joined Nancy, Margaret and me for a family afternoon that none of will forget.  Bryn has come from Holland to stay in San Diego for almost two months.  She is eighteen.  We have seen her grow from a beautiful child into a beautiful young woman... mostly in Europe.  She and her sisters Dael and Lee and their mother, Susanne are fortunate to have dual citizenship, Dutch and American.  We are glad that they are part of our family.

Today Margaret, Irene, and I went back to our old neighborhood for tea with Bill and Ruth Derisi.  Nancy was with us. Ruth made her Pear cake and served Red Bush tea.  Bill served an iced tea drink called an Arnold Palmer.  We all agreed that family and friends are the best combination of people under the right circumstances, and the occasion was exactly the right circumstance. Life is good.

Late in the afternoon, after dinner, Margaret, Nancy, Irene and I did a little tour of the reception area at Paradise Village where we live.  The newest fountain out front looks as if it has been there forever. It was installed just a few weeks ago at the same time the new park was being prepared out back of the building where I live.  One week ago I noticed that another fountain had been installed. I like it. The picture I took inside the reception area around a fountain that has been there for as long as I have known the community was a good place to get a picture of the three good ladies.

Earlier today Nancy came to the room at The Davids' house where I was resting with THE DOGS, Cookie, Cali, and Tommy.  She took the picture.

Now a word about what is happening in Washington, D.C.  The White House continues to be in turmoil.  The only way the situation will begin to be corrected will be to get a new person in the most critical, the First Office.  Steve Bannon should never have been brought into the White House in the first place, and his being removed from his strategic role is a good move, but the trouble with the Oval Office is that the person who sits at the desk and tweets his nonsense to the world is still there.  Yesterday I was dreaming about a time when the players will all change.  I had come across a beautiful white rose, and I thought how pure and clean it is, and I was wishing the White House could be pure and clean again.  The whiteness of the rose is not what makes it pure.  The Whiteness of the house where the President of the United States was installed half a year ago is not what can make the place honest and pure. The whiteness of the rose and the whiteness of the house are symbols of the truth and the purity we expect to find in them. The person who was a two-term president and who lived and worked in the White House before the man who lives there now was a man of color, so we know the color of a person's skin doesn't determine his character. The man who is President now is proof enough that being "white" is not what makes any person pure and honest. The President's efforts to explain what he thinks America has been and is today signals clearly that he is inadequate for the job to which he was elected.

We shall see in the next few weeks that President Trump cannot become adequate for the job to which he was elected.  He has had enough time and many opportunities to demonstrate that he can correct his mistakes, and he fails in every new situation to show that he can learn from mistakes.  He is a flawed personality.  I pity him, and I am sorry he is inadequate for the job. My country needs a president who can do the job... This man can't.

One flower is enough today for what I have on my mind.  For weeks I've been trying to avoid writing about the President.  My mind has been programmed to ignore what is happening in the White House. When I'm off by myself I find myself wondering if the stuff that is happening in my country is really happening or if perhaps I have wandered into a dream that I'm having a difficult time shaking myself free from...  something as impossible as the last few days have been.  

Last Saturday in Charlottesville was a turning point for me.  I thought surely the events of that day in that place would shake the President from his need to feel as if he is right when all the people around him in his family are saying something is wrong with our country.  His daughter and his son-in-law and their children are Jewish.  I thought surely the Neo-Nazi elements in the absurd events in that quiet city would force him to see the ugliness and the danger that others are seeing.  From this day I will not try to ignore the ugliness and the danger that is present in my country.

When I was walking from the building where I live over to the place where my friend Jim lives, I saw a simple, white, beautiful rose.  It is what it is.  There is nothing anyone could say that would make this rose less beautiful.  It is pure. The White House is going to become white again in my thinking about it.  

The New Park at Paradise Village is a perfect place to go to relax.  My friend Jim and I went into the park this morning, and we went on all the trails after our coffee.  Next door a garden on a hillside was being worked by people who speak an African language which I don't understand. I'd like to be able to welcome them to National City in the U.S.A and to explain that what happened in Charlottesville last weekend is not an indication of what America is and that most Americans are glad they have come to live here.  Most of us welcome them here.

Margaret, Nancy and I went to the Midway this afternoon.  Wow!  What an experience!  What a Ship!  The Midway was moved into place and became a major American museum in the thirty years that I have lived in San Diego, and today was the first time I have actually gone on board.  What a surprise!
I knew it was an amazing museum, but I was unprepared for the history... the immensity of the place... the "stuff" that has been crammed into the living spaces and working spaces of the great ship. Anyone who comes to San Diego for a first time should include this museum/ship in the itinerary of their stay here.

We began the day in the Davids' back yard.  David and David are going to Oregon for the big sun-moon event , and Nancy is keeping their dogs and their house.  It is wonderful to have her here.  After getting here instructions for keeping the Montclaire home in good order, we enjoyed the day together.  Margaret and I went with Nancy to Imperial Beach... and we wondered why this lovely Western bottom corner of the United States is so little known and so little visited by Americans.

Nancy is here for a two-week visit.  Wow!  Life is good.