Justine Frederiksen: That was Cool

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

My Grandmother's Journals: April, 1996

My grandmother carrying my mother on Easter, 1945.

Every day my grandmother wrote down what time she woke up, where she ate breakfast, what movie she went to see, what mail and phone calls she received, then what she read and watched on TV before going to sleep.

In 1996, she was 80 years old and living alone in a mobile home park, but I wouldn't describe her as lonely; she was an extremely independent and persnickety woman whom I never knew to live with another person or even a pet. (I wrote more about her life in an earlier post.)

Close to her home in Santa Cruz, Calif., was the famous surfing spot called Pleasure Point, and she loved walking along the cliffs above the ocean and watching the surfers.
When she died at 97 in 2013, I took her ashes to those waves with a friend of hers and we each dropped some at the sand. A moment after I dropped mine, a surfer emerged from the water where I stood.

That was cool.

In April of 1995, my grandmother was in Europe, taking tours and lectures in Italy and Paris. Her journal entries for that month were sporadic and mostly recorded her expenditures each day, which was her habit when traveling.
So I chose to feature her entries for April of 1996 instead. That month she was home in Santa Cruz, watching a lot of baseball and movies.

March entries

Tuesday, April 2, 1996
Throat sore, like a cold.
Breakfast at Ferrell's on 17th.
Caught cold?
Worked in yard, bed early after Morse.

Wednesday, April 3, 1996
Up 8:30 a.m. Plane down in Croatia, Ron Brown killed. He was sharp man and dresser.
Breakfast at Kmart, looked at curtains.
Home, rested. Wrote Justine, sent video.
Got groceries, white vinegar $1 cheaper than at Albertsons.
Forgot to tape the second part of (Star Trek: The Next Generation).
Stayed in bed except for news.

Thursday, April 4, 1996
Awake 7:40 a.m. Cold in chest now.
Ate here, then 10 a.m. at Carl's Jr.
To bank, to Kmart, got 84" curtains.
Much news about Brown and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski; family gave FBI info.
Put up side curtains, rather fancy. Too long. Will return tomorrow.
Tired, cold in chest.

Monday, April 8, 1996
Not good rest. Tired. Up 9ish.
Breakfast at McDonald's. Walked in mall, checked T-shirts.
Justine called, returned call.
Bed at 9:30 p.m., unable to sleep until 2 a.m.

Tuesday, April 9, 1996
Up 9 a.m.! To Burger King for burrito.
To launderette, 1 person there! Three washings, including rugs and curtains.
Erik's Deli for lunch.
Home 2:30 p.m., rested. Took Dristan.
News at 5 p.m., "Morse" 6 to 8, Law & Order, Frasier. Taped "Face of Evil."
Bed 9:30 p.m. Slept fair.

Wednesday, April 10, 1996
Awake 4:30 a.m., then 8:30 a.m. Donut at corner.
To Lounden (Nelson Center) for blood pressure, OK.
To library, to mall. Two shirts at Gottschalk's, two shirts from Miller's Outpost.
Home 1 p.m., ate here.
Dumb - cut finger

Thursday, April 11, 1996
Up 8:30 a.m., Breakfast 10 a.m at Denny's. Crowded, Spring Break.
Finger good, no pain.
To mall, returned and exchanged shirt at Gottschalk's.
To show, "Flirting with Disaster." Gross, explicit oral sex.
Home, 3 p.m., watered lawn.
Ate here, no mail.
Watched Mystery, two women detectives, good, unusual.

Friday, April 12, 1996
Up 7 a.m.! To doctor's, finger OK. Doctor offered me a job. Joking?
Ate Jack-In-The Box, to library, then show: "James and the Giant Peach."
School is out, audience was riveted.
Home, rested, read.
Watched X-Files.

Saturday, April 13, 1996
Up 8 a.m. Breakfast at McDonald's. Spilled coffee.
Mailed packages, Mina's 3.75, Andra's 7.20.
Post office crowded, talked to woman from Aptos.
Went to Beverly's Fabrics, no iron-on tape for hems.
Mail from Mina, new ATM card.

Sunday, April 14, 1996
Up 9 a.m., showered. Coffee, donut. Walked, beautiful day.
Made two calls, wrote three letters. Took to post office.
Watched 60 Minutes, Cybill.
Police came across street?
Bed 12 a.m. Forgot to endorse check.

Monday, April 15, 1996
Good sleep from 1 a.m. until 5 a.m. Neighbor leaves at 5 a.m.!
Got paper, to bank regarding unendorsed check. No worry!
Laundromat, breakfast Kmart. Got four cans of Dinty Moore, make-up, bath tissue.
Home, sprayed and fertilized roses.
Watched Poirot, reruns on TV.
Slept good.

Tuesday, April 16, 1996.
Awake 7:30. Used earplugs, did not hear 5 a.m. truck.
Breakfast McDonald's, walked to Capitola.
Home 11:30 a.m., ironed, washed two pairs of white pants: one larger legs, one small.
Ate here, read papers.
Watched news, some Geraldo.

Sunday, April 21, 1996
Slept until 10:30 a.m. Breakfast here, to (Watsonville) Kmart.
Bought some dinners, ate grilled cheese sandwich. Did not order fries, got them anyway.
Home, got some summer clothes out, some winter to wash.
Hemmed curtains.
Read until 2 a.m.

Monday, April 22, 1996
Up 9:45 a.m., rushed to breakfast at Carl's Jr.
Home, letter from Sandra. Fertilized roses, put snail bait out.
Paid fone bill, gas $1.479 a gallon.
To Kmart, got plastic philodendron, put in bathroom.
Dodgers vs. Atlanta, 2-1. News, hemmed curtains.
Bed 9:30 p.m., read a bit. No sleep until 1 a.m.

Tuesday, April 23, 1996
Awake 8:30 a.m., breakfast at McDonald's.
Drug Emporium, got Fels-Naptha {laundry bar soap that I still buy}, TV Guide and cookies.
Home, Dodgers and Atlanta. Rain-delayed twice. Atlanta up 2-0 until 8th inning. Piazza hit home run with 2 on, then 3-2. Held it!
Mail from doctor, $118!
Some Morse, Law & Order, Frasier.

Thursday, April 25, 1996
Disjointed sleep until 3 a.m. Read until 4 a.m., up at 9 a.m. Breakfast at McDonald's.
Phoned Clothes Closet {consignment shop}, all items sold - get $18!
To show, "Last Summer in the Hamptons." Good, felt real - not actors!
Home, read, some TV. Justine called at 6:45 p.m.
Competition last weekend in Irvine, they did very well.
{I didn't tell her about all the alcohol, weed and hot-tubbing the hundreds of us college kids enjoyed while at the Irvine hotel together, but I'm sure she could imagine it just fine.}

Friday, April 26, 1996
Bad night. Up 9 a.m., to donut shop.
Walked on East Cliff Drive, talked to man. Long board competition tomorrow.
Home, Albertsons and McDonald's: got salad.
Wrote to Justine regarding nightgown.
Reviewed Mina's letters. Bed 10 p.m., up three times.

Saturday, April 27, 1996
Up 8 a.m. Watered lawn. To 41st Avenue donut shop, lost money in newspaper machine.
Ate McDonald's. To bank, home. Beach, walked. Surf competition not starting.
Read paper, news. Baseball, Cubs at L.A. Lasorda goofed. Left pitcher in too long.

Sunday, April 28, 1996
Did not call Paris! Up 7:45 a.m., breakfast at donut 41st.
To show, "Mulholland Falls." Violent, (Nick) Nolte and Melanie Griffith.
Show late starting 10 minutes, I told a worker. Not good, editing bad.
Man could not stay seated, out for drinks 3 to 4 times.
Baseball, Cubs won over Dodgers 3-0. Chan Park, Korean pitcher.

Monday, April 29, 1996
Awake 7 a.m., up 8 a.m. Breakfast Burger King.
Drug Emporium, got more allergy pills, TV Guide.
Very hot today, stayed inside until after sundown, passed out rest.
Got $30 credit from PG&E.
Watched Poirot, Cybill. Bed 10:30 p.m., slept good even though hot.

Tuesday, April 30, 1996
Up 7:15 a.m. Donut and coffee at corner.
Walked to Capitola. Kmart, got flowers and Kleenex for car.
Watered lawn early, wrote Justine, sent clippings.
Went to post office, got gas additive, home 4:20 p.m.
Watched news, Geraldo, Law & Order, Frasier. Taped "Diary of Jack the Ripper."

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Need toilet paper? Eat some corn on the cob

We've been having some interesting discussions in my family lately. And my favorite topic has definitely been what to do when you run out of toilet paper.

"In the south, we used corn cobs," my mother-in-law said.

That was cool.

My husband and I looked at each other. "Not bad," I said. "Good texture for reaching nooks and crannies. Soft. A butt brush! Pretty genius."

My father-in-law had a different plan.

"Here's what you do: cut up sh#t rags," he said, explaining that he's got a supply all ready to go in the garage. He even texted me a photo of one of the rags.

"But what are you going to do with them afterward?" I asked. "You can't flush them. Do you have a bucket set up to put them in? And wait -- does your wife know about this plan?! What does she think of it?"

He didn't answer. Then my husband chimed in.

"No dad, there's a far more elegant solution: They call it Sh#t, Shower and Shave. You take a sh#t, then you get in the shower."

There was silence on the phone.

"I never thought of that!" my father-in-law replied finally. "I gotta go ... take a shower!"

Monday, March 2, 2020

My Grandmother's Journals: March, 1995

The first Visa my grandmother got to live in Paris at age 56.

{She also wrote something I can't decipher, so I posted a photo of the words at right.}
Up 9:15 a.m. Breakfast McDonald's.
Library, returned French, got Italian and a book.
Mail, letter from Prudy, $2 from Lyon.

Friday, March 17, 1995
Up 8:15. Breakfast at Lyon's. Longs, photo copies.
Bank, deposited $2, got $100. Balance OK.
Trader Joe's, home 11:05 a.m. Trial, read papers, wrote letter.
To show 1 p.m., "Just Cause," Sean Connery. News, Geraldo Rivera, 6 -7 p.m.
Watched Star Trek Voyager, X-Files (repeat).
Slept good. Smoke detector squeaking.

Saturday, March 18, 1995
Up 8 a.m.. Breakfast at McDonald's. Waited til Longs opened, got new battery.
Ran tapes of French, lunch, read papers.
Some TV, more study.
Breathed Vicks.
Bed 11 p.m.

Monday, March 20, 1995
Put garbage on hold, mail on vacation hold.
Up 8:30. Breakfast McDonald's. Laundromat, small load.
Home 11:30 a.m., part of trial.
Put plants in tub, put breakables down, plates off wall.
Rain most of day. Bed 11:20 p.m.

Thursday, March 23, 1995
{She was headed first to Italy, then to Paris.}
Leave, bus 15 minutes late. Stops: Scotts Valley, Los Gatos 10:20, Sunnyvale 11, San Carlos, Airport 11:45 a.m., 15 minutes late.
Listened to trial, some with Marcia, then Robert Shapiro and Kato: Very vague, "I think, maybe, etc."
Left papers in toilet: Dumb.
Mailed letter at airport, called Freda 5 to 5:30 p.m.
Got sandwich, turkey. Rested.
Flight at 10:10 p.m. tarmac, left 10:30. Full plane.
Show "Affair to Remember." Slept very little.

Saturday, March 25, 1995
{Still on her way to Padua, Italy}.
Much sleep, ordered low-calorie meal.
Show with Steve Martin, straight role w/children.
Arrived in Rome 7:30 a.m., Padua 10 a.m. Bus ride to hotel, arrived 12 p.m.
Orientation walk around Basilica and Botanical Gardens. Dinner 7 p.m.
Cappuccino with Colorado woman.
Called Justine Saturday nite after walk at 8 p.m. Tried three times, then got her at 9 p.m.
Terrible connection.

February entries.

Saturday, February 8, 2020

Harold and Maude: A love story about two newts

Harold.

Liz has two newts named Harold and Maude. They used to belong to a guy she liked, but she agreed to take them when he moved to Seattle in 1994.

Yes: 26 years later, Liz is still taking care of those newts.

That is cool.

"The Argentine horned frog and the Corn snake, they lived normal lifespans," Liz said. "But these newts ... they must be the longest living newts ever!"

Maude.

Now, newts aren't exactly interactive pets. They can't fill your lap with warm, purring fur. They can't happily join you for walks. They can't even perch on your finger and nuzzle you with their beak. In fact, to her newts, Liz is at best furniture that moves. Furniture that only one of them seems to notice.

"Maude acts like I'm not there, while Harold reacts every time like I'm the most amazing thing he's every seen," she said with a laugh.

Her newts, Japanese fire-bellied newts to be exact, might not give a lot, but they don't need a lot, either. Just a small tank with water and some fish food flakes every few days. The only time they were high-maintenance, she said, was when she drove them across several states.

"I drove soooo carefully," she recalls of her move to Arizona. "I couldn't make any sudden turns or their poor fragile bodies would go sloshing back and forth in their travel tank."

But as bad as she felt moving the newts, she was never going to leave them behind.

"We're pretty much bonded at this point," she said of the creatures who have stuck around while several human partners, cats and even goldfish have come and gone. "Never once have I thought to try to ... not have them anymore. They are so helpless and it's not like I could just give them to a pet store, and I'd certainly never release them. I think if I ever couldn't take care of them, I'd have to give them to someone who I know would take good care of them."

Because, she admits, they feel like her children now.

In case you don't recognize them, the newts' names are from the title characters in the 1971 movie Harold and Maude, about a young man and a much older woman who fall in love.

Saturday, February 1, 2020

My Grandmother's Journals: February, 1995

Yvonne in the 1960s.

Every day my grandmother wrote down what time she woke up, where she ate breakfast, what movie she went to see, what mail and phone calls she received, then what she read and what she watched on TV before going to sleep.

In 1995, she was 79 years old and living alone in a mobile home park. I wouldn't describe her as lonely; she was an extremely independent and persnickety woman whom I never knew to live with another person or even a pet.
(I wrote more about her life in this earlier blog post.)

A short walk from her home in Santa Cruz, Calif., was the famous surfing spot called Pleasure Point. One of her favorite things to do was to walk along the cliffs above the waves and watch the surfers. When she died at 97 in 2013, I took her ashes to Pleasure Point with a friend of hers and we each dropped some at the shore. A moment after I dropped mine, a surfer emerged from the water where I stood.

That was cool.

In February of 1995, my grandmother was watching the O.J. Simpson trial, studying French before her next trip to Paris in April, and seemed very concerned about the landscaping being properly maintained at her mobile home park.

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 1995
Up at 9 a.m. Breakfast at Jack's. Library, got tapes of French.
Saw movie "Before Sunrise," enjoyed.
Sunny day, some weed work.
Papers, French. Bio of Sammy Davis. Bed 10 p.m.
No sleep til 3 a.m. Up, took aspirin.
Wake 8:20 a.m., noted dog droppings in yard.

Thursday, Feb. 2, 1995
Up 8:20. Mark cutting grass. Breakfast McDonald's. Trader Joe's.
Home 10. Some weeding. Watched trial.
Mail 12:45 p.m. 1099s, report on pension fund. Worked on girls' accounts {by girls she means me and my sister} and taxes.
Watched trial, news, Mad About You. Bed, news. 82 degrees! Warm.

Friday, Feb. 3, 1995
Warm. Up 9 a.m. Breakfast Burger King. Albertsons.
Worked in yard. Weeds, got avocado out, (Larry helped), put dirt in brown tub.
Mark cut grass, terrible!
To Kmart, got Boxwood bush, Xmas plant, garden gloves.
Trial, Denise Brown. Cried.
To masonry place, got .75 sand. Back 4 p.m.
Planted Boxwood. Transplanted noble plant, dead?
Watched X-Files, Homicide, Taped Under Suspicion and Picket Fences.
Bed 11 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1995
Up 8:30 a.m. Breakfast at McDonald's. Service terrible!
New employees, back-ups, no coffee on stand.
To bank, got balance.
Home, called Pro Cuts, haircut. Home 11:45 a.m.
Some yard work in back, read. Some trial, news, French.
Good program "Cracker" on A&E. Watched Frasier, bed after news.
Read Casanova a bit, cold in night.

Wednesday, Feb. 8, 1995
Up 9:30. Breakfast Carl's Jr. French toast!
Walked in mall, looked for pink turtleneck. Lane Bryant has one, $9.99.
Read paper, book til 2 p.m.
Read at library until 4:20 p.m. Got muffin at Rebecca's, juice at Trader Joe's.
Movie: "Madness of King George."
Mail: Receipt from elder hostel.

Monday, Feb. 13, 1995
Mary and I had breakfast at Kmart.
Home. Yard work. Larry cut, doesn't sweep.
Wrote Mercury News regarding left to right?
To mailbox, Mary says Larry gave two-weeks notice. He finally swept back walk in front.

Tuesday, Feb. 14, 1995
Cold in night. Mary called, go to Live Oak for Valentine's Meal.
Breakfast at Lyon's, no gas. Went to Longs, walked Capitola.
Home 12:30 p.m., read papers. To Live Oak for dinner.
Songs, chicken, talked to some ladies. Alice Campbell died.
Home 4:40 p.m. Watched news, Frost Mystery, French 1 hour. Frasier, NYPD Blue.
Bed, news. Tired.

Thursday, Feb. 16, 1995
Awake 12 a.m., 2 a.m., 4 a.m. and 9 a.m. Breakfast at Burger King.
To Kmart, got sunblock. 30 SPF. Bank, home 12 p.m.
Watched some trial, French. Read papers. Watched Morse, ER, Mad About You.
Mail, letter from Carla.

Saturday. Feb. 18, 1995
Up 9 a.m. Breakfast at donut shop. Got Lotto ticket.
Drove {Highway} 17 to San Jose, bought salmon t-shirt. Macy's for cologne, Estee Lauder.
Got gas, fast food.
Home 2:30 p.m. Watched figure skating. Bed, read.

Sunday. Feb. 19, 1995.
Up 9:30 a.m. Mall for coffee + muffin. Lilli there, talked. She has a daughter and son. He is Mormon, has seven children in Boise, Idaho. She is going to Hawaii in April.
Went to show, "Hoop Dreams." Good, sad.
Lucky, home. Called regarding bank account.
Watched Murder She Wrote, taped Voyager and Silence of the Lambs.

Tuesday, Feb. 21, 1995
Couldn't sleep, took aspirin. Up 9:45 a.m. Breakfast Carl's Jr.
Went to mall, looked at Mervyn's, Ross, JCP. Got gloves at JCP for $21.11.
Gave young man $1.
Longs, home. Called bank. Watched O.J. trial.
Owners cut grass, swept and watered lawns, raked and swept.
Watched Morse. Carol called, talked 1 hour.
Watched Mad About You, Frasier, NYPD, Morse again.

March entries.

January entries.

Saturday, January 25, 2020

She wasn't driving the car my mother died in. But she helped me forgive the boy who was.

In the park I visit most days there is a plaque for two teens killed in a car crash. I like reading it, not only because I remember writing about the crash for the local newspaper, but because I lost a loved one in a crash. Seeing the touching words written to those kids gives me comfort.

One day I saw a young woman watering the trees planted near the memorial.
"Did you know the kids who died?" I asked, my reporter's hat on my head. "Are you a family member?"

She barely hesitated before saying, "I caused the accident."
Her honesty knocked my reporter's hat off and I was suddenly 15 again, muttering about how my mother died in a car with a teenager behind the wheel.

But when the woman began explaining that she was waiting to hear back from medical schools because her recovery from the crash made her want to be a doctor, I put my reporter hat back on and asked if I could write about her life since that day. And she agreed.

That was cool.

Erica said she doesn't remember turning left in front of that pick-up truck, only waking up to a horrible scene inside her car and a man's face looking through her crumpled windshield. Next she remembers a woman standing over her hospital bed, calmly promising, "As long as you're here with me, I'll be here with you."

Now Erica is in medical school, studying to be an osteopath like that woman who held her hand while they waited for Erica's mother to drive to the hospital from hours away. But first she had to work through the guilt and blame, which came mostly from herself.

"One thing that I heard over and over from everyone was that it wasn't my fault, but it literally, literally was. There were crash analysts who surveyed the scene. There were witnesses who saw it happen. Saying to my face that it wasn't my fault was a lie and we all knew it."

Having Erica be so honest about how she blamed herself for the crash, even when others wouldn't, and struggled to live with the guilt, shame and regret, I realized how much I had wanted to hear those words from the 17-year-old who killed my mother by driving into the path of a semi-truck.

I knew nothing of that boy until I saw him in the hospital, covered in bandages and attached to beeping machines. He was severely injured but still alive, and I remember closing my eyes at the window outside his room and imagining those beeps were keeping my mother alive instead. Since the grill of the truck had stopped in her lap, had she survived she never would have walked again. But she could still talk, and I could talk to her.

Weeks later I saw the boy again at his house, my father and I sitting in his living room while his mother hovered around nervously. I don't remember what was said, only the questions in my head that were never asked: "Why was my mother in your car? Did you guys find the bird you were looking for? Did she see the truck before it hit you? Did she know she was going to die? Did she scream?"

Then I never saw or heard from him again, this boy who changed my life forever. And I never really thought about him, either. Until I met Erica. Because writing about her struggles to heal helped me heal a wound I never knew I had.

I don't remember ever feeling angry at the boy or wishing bad things would happen to him. But I know now that I want him to feel bad. I want to know that he has also struggled to forgive himself for the part he played in the crash (in his report, the crash investigator noted that the boy's actions could be considered "vehicular homicide") and that he has hoped over the years for our forgiveness, too. And that while he could never give my mother back her life, never give my father back his wife, and never give my sister and me back our mother, he can certainly vow to help others the way Erica has vowed to.

So now when I think of him, I try not to think of him breathing through all those beeping machines while my mother lies on her silent slab. I try to imagine him coming up to another patient and helping them heal as Erica wants to do.

And I thank her for that, because she already helped me heal. I may never hear the words I want from that driver, but I heard them from Erica. And that is enough.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

My Grandmother's Journals: Life of a frugal, independent woman at 79. January, 1995

My grandmother in the 1990s.

Every day my grandmother wrote down what time she woke up, where she ate breakfast (at places like McDonald's, Burger King and Kmart) what movie she went to see, what mail and phone calls she received, what she read and what she watched on TV before going to sleep.

In 1995, she was 79 years old and living alone in a mobile home park. I wouldn't describe her as lonely; she was an extremely independent, persnickety woman whom I never knew to live with another person or even a pet. A bookkeeper for much of her life, she was very frugal and took herself on trips to China, Russia, Singapore and to Paris, her favorite city, numerous times. In fact, she visited Paris twice in 1995, first in April and again in December with me.

A short walk from her home in Santa Cruz, Calif., was the famous surfing spot called Pleasure Point, and one of her favorite things to do was to walk along the cliffs above the water and watch the surfers. When she died at 97 in 2013, I took her ashes to Pleasure Point with a friend of hers and we each put some in the ocean. Seconds after I dropped mine, a surfer emerged from the water where I stood.

That was cool.

In January of 1995, she was watching the O.J. Simpson Trial and studying French to prepare for her next trip to France.

Sunday, Jan. 1, 1995
Up at 8:30 a.m., (breakfast) here, (watched) some football. Finished book, took to library.
Ate (Burger King), saw "Little Women" at 4 p.m. Very crowded, good presentation.
Home 6:50 p.m., ate here. Ran Bolshoi Nutcracker, watched 60 Minutes: Interview with Paul Newman, now 70 years old. Good, voice hoarse. (Salvi apprehended, person who shot in Brooklyn abortion clinic.)

Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1995
Up at 8:15 a.m., breakfast at Kmart. Went to Long's for photos, post office for stamps. Bought Coffee Cat t-shirt {that she later mails to me.}
In mail a card from Linda, new brochure for tour.
Phone call at 4:50 p.m., man asked for Yvonne {Her first name}, but then hung up! Accent, cultured?
Took Xmas lites down, cut cards for mailing.
Watched Fraiser, Home Improvement, NYPD. Couldn't sleep.

Monday, Jan. 9, 1995
Awoke 8:15 a.m., up 9:10. Breakfast at McDonald's. Woman took my paper!
Walked to the cliffs, wind bad! Young man asked if I was OK!
Home, chores: mended pink money belt, fixed blue sweater sleeve. Worked on taxes.
Watched Murphy Brown, Cybil (funny). Read more of The Changeling, part of "Handmaid's Tale."

Friday, Jan. 13, 1995
No heavy rain. Up 9 a.m. Breakfast at McDonald's.*
Got paper goods at Thrifty, went to Seabright Beach, library for 1 hour. To show: "Prêt-à-Porter." Enjoyed!
Took newspapers to Grey Bears, Thrifty to check prices. Home, dinner, mail: letter from Freda.
Finished footstool tapestry, some TV: Murder She Wrote, 20/20. Bed, read.

Sunday, Jan. 15, 1995
Awake early. Watched Steelers 13 - San Diego 17, surprised all. 49ers 38 - Dallas 28.
News. 60 Minutes. Murder. Presumed Innocent. Bed, read a bit.

Monday, Jan. 16, 1995
Up 9:30, breakfast at McDonald's. Got soundtrack to Prêt-à-Porter. Read paper. Saw "Immortal Beloved." Lucky's, home.
Taped "Death in Small Doses" by Sandra Locke (Eastwood's old flame). Bed 12, read until 1:40 a.m. Cold in night.

Thursday, Jan. 19, 1995
Awoke 6:40 a.m., then 10:45! Buttermilk bar + O.J.

To laundromat. Home, mail. Ad only.

Mall. McDonald's, coffee and apple pie.

Got Vitamin C at Trader Joe's, checked Drug Emporium also.

At Longs got TV Guide and Dinty Moore stew, small cans.
Home 3:15 p.m.
Read, watched Mad About You, good. Washed pink sweater. Rain forecast.

Friday, Jan. 20, 1995
Up 9 a.m. Breakfast at McDonald's. Saw man with white plaid coat on corner.
Rain, home. Mail early. Catalogued videos, No Track 29!
Worked on typing interest forms. Justine called, (she) got two letters.

{By her correspondence math that meant I also owed her two letters.}
X-Files repeat. Taped Homicide. Bed. Rain most of day.

Sunday, Jan. 22, 1995
Awake every two hours. Up at 9:30, breakfast at McDonald's.

Drove to Seacliff, walked a bit, then to Rio Del Mar.

Maltby was there! Nodded, no talk. Home 12:30 p.m.
Read "The Changeling." Weird. {Earlier she called it a "sorry mess."}
Studied French from 2 to 5. 18 killed in Jerusalem by bomb.
Rained all day.

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 1995
No rain. Up 8:40. Library, took Changeling back. Went to The Buttery.
Judge Ito {she was watching the O.J. Simpson trial} okayed camera in courtroom but under conditions. Johnny Cochran glib. Certainly knows how to speak to Afro-Am's.
Letter from Mimi.
Trial, then CNN w/angry exchange about Defense not reporting discovery! J. Cochran is slick pimp.
Bed 12 a.m.

Thursday, Jan. 26, 1995
Up 9 a.m. CNN - More arguments. To library, got some Venice books.
Ate at Jack's, chicken sandwich. Mail, 1099 from Schwab, adverts.
Watched some of arguments, Chris Darden called defense lawyers "Dream Team."
Read, watched Star Trek, Law & Order. Bed, watched Nightline, Cheers, crossword puzzle.
Rained all nite. Sanders/Chang - 6/7, 6/4, 6/3, 6/4.

Saturday, Jan. 28, 1995
Half day gone, up at 11:15. Breakfast and coffee at 41st. Walked in mall, looked at t-shirts.
To show: "Murder in the First." Explosive. Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Christian Slater - talked to young men.
Ate here, some TV - news, read papers. Almost forgot Aussie. {Australian Open}
Agassi 6/7, 6/1, 7/6, 6/4. Sampras tired - Hard matches. Bed late.

Sunday, Jan. 29, 1995
Up 9:30. Breakfast at McDonald's.
Home, read, studied French, watched Super Bowl. Not too bad, rooted for San Diego. Over at 6 p.m. Nothing good on TV.

Weeds and daffodils in back. Priced redwood boxes - high!
Bed, but ate bread and drank chicken soup. Woke in night with pains. Indigestion or bones?

February entries.

* For this she wrote "Bf McD." I lengthened a lot of her shorthand.