spent most of her childhood with her aging grandparents in rural Idaho and Montana. She wrote in the notebook that, as a result, she felt herself more a child of nineteenth-century culture than the mid-twentieth century and that it was reflected in her novels.

It is Friday morning, I cannot recall much of what I have been up to for the last three days. Last night we went to a restaurant nearby for “happy hour” with those who usually attend The Saturday Coffee at the clubhouse. Winnie sat beside me. We discussed our various maladies, treatment, and prognoses. I drank the specialty of the house made with some local vodka and cranberry bitters. It was not very good.

The next morning while waiting for the plumber to arrive Naida discoveredand I had a great time. Naida got a bit tipsy. I went for a long walk around the lake. We sat on the veranda perched above the water and listened to Ducky (also known to be one of the two CIA operatives in the subdivision) tell the story about how her son crashed in a plane in the desert, crawled two miles to shelter and survived with only several years treatment in the local burn center. Oh also, he is a lawyer. We sat on the veranda with another old couple also. His name was Bob and hers I forgot. Bob seemed to think that Proposition 13 was a good thing for California. He may have been a lawyer too. We also listened to live music (sort