Trip report, pt. 2

[nosrednayduj]

Today's adventure was visiting friends and family: an old friend of my mom's, who lives in one of those all-inclusive retirement/assisted living communities in Marin County, and my stepfather's great-granddaughter, who is also estranged from the family, though for completely different reasons. She's the same age as my kids, and kind of got handed a tough lot in life by being born to a flaky teenage mother. Eventually she got raised by her grandmother (the ex of one of my stepfather's sons), which was a better choice, and she seems to be turning out really well. Unfortunately, her grandmother (who is only a little older than me) had a stroke recently. We visited her in the facility that she's in. She is, understandably, worried about her future and her chances for recovery and returning home, which the granddaughter says are not good. She needs too much care to be at home, and there's really only the granddaughter to help. I've been helping them a little financially, and they seem to be okay, but I'm worried about what's going to happen when the Medicaid cuts go on.

In the "nobody knows how bad the big horrible bill is" department, I told my mom's friend that Ken's funding had been cut by NSF, and he wasn't sure what was going to happen, especially to his graduate students, she was like "but they were only going to cut fluff" and I said "oh they cut a lot more than just fluff" which seemed to be news to her. She probably voted for Trump.

On the way back from Marin, I stopped in San Francisco at the beach, dipped my toes in, and watched surfers. It was lovely, even though chilly.

Comments

Chilly water

[lauradi7dw]

When Flo first moved to Santa Cruz for college, some of the new friends took her to the beach. They suggested that she invest in a wet suit if she was serious about swimming much. She told them that she was used to swimming in Maine. Cold water was not a problem.