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A busy Monday at Lakeside

Yesterday at 10:30 I had a writing class with Patricia Mote at the Rhein Center. Ghastly hot, and today I'll take a cushion for the hard chair. She's a wonderful instructor, very supportive, and has had such an interesting writing career. She no longer has her publishing company, but is keeping her hand in by editing and advising other authors on their way to print. She has recently authored one of the Arcadia series books on Columbus, Indiana, and since we just visited there last summer, I think I will try to get it.

Then at 2:30 I went to the Fountain Inn to hear Dr. Eugene Swanger talk on Taiwan. He is always so interesting--gentle, kind, and carries a wonderful background of his years at Wittenburg and teaching in the foreign service. I was tempted to raise my hand and ask, "Do any of the Democrat candidates for President know this?" but I didn't. Today's topic will be Korea. Regardless of what you think about the war in Iraq, think on this: Korean War "ended" with a truce--no victory--and we're still there and millions in the north have been left to die by starvation and bad policies; we ran out on our Vietnamese allies, leaving millions to die at the victors; now our peace and justice, can't we all just get along folk want to abandon the people of Iraq. Justice for whom? Just us. We're the kiss of death. Why would any country trust our government?

At 6:30 I hustled up to the Rhein Center for an evening watercolor workshop with Neil Glazer. I would like to jump start my painting again. Haven't done anything for a year. I did two paintings, both awful by my standards, but they looked better this morning than last night. I had planned to moan and groan when I got back to the cottage, but my husband was off to the neighbors to watch "The Closer." And the cat wanted to cuddle, but didn't care to hear my troubles.

Now it is thundering, so I'm on battery power, ready to set off for the coffee shop. Yesterday I chatted with a woman near 50 who is the daughter in law of a former neighbor. I think we probably met when she was a teen-ager, before she married, because I remember meeting her husband and some of his friends when we lived on Abington. At my coffee blog I'll probably write about our meeting. It's not like we ran into each other in Europe or Asia, still it's a small world.