Woke up with a cold. All those people coughing on the plane. Slept with the grandkids. Hope I didn’t give it to them. I was supposed to go to my stepchildren’s home for dinner tonight. By that I mean Laura Turner and Rutherford Seydel and two of their three children. I still feel we are part of the same family. Their son, whose birth I filmed, is a major hockey goalie and so went to finish high school in Toronto where hockey rules. I’m so proud of him. He is an amazing human being.

I just took this picture shooting up into the overhead mirror while lying in bed. That is my granddaughter scratching Tulea’s tummy. Sometime I’ll photograph the bed and post it. I’m a fool for unusual beds and this is definitely the most unusual, one of a kind, canopied, mirrored one I’ve ever seen. Richard hasn’t seen it either. My bed at my ranch is pretty unusual as well. (Come to think of it, I have a picture of that one and will post it now). The problem is I got them when I was solo and they’re antique so not very big. If Richard and I are still together in a year I’ve promised to get a king-sized one as he’s 6’3.”

Shucks. I erased the photo of my ranch bed so I’m sending this one, a bed that is outside on the portale. My favorite napping place (and sometimes overnight place) cause I can hear the river close by and see the stars.

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The fight in the House is over, but the fight in the Senate is just beginning. It’s time to use our strongest weapon: the White House.

Join us. Ask President Obama to live up to his campaign commitment and stand with us to protect women’s health care today and every single day until reform is passed.

Click here for more information and to contact President Obama

Dear Jane,

Yesterday was brutal.

While there are some who are satisfied with the health care reform bill that passed in the House of Representatives late Saturday night, I am not one of them.

When it came down to it, Congress passed a bill that will undercut women’s access to comprehensive health care. Despite hundreds of thousands of voters like you and me who called on members of Congress to include women’s health care in health care reform, the bill that passed Saturday night includes a ban on private abortion coverage for millions of women and would prohibit it in the new “public option.”

At Planned Parenthood, we fought together with you until the bitter end (thank you), and once we lost the vote on women’s health, we started to do what we do best — gear up for our next fight.

http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcr09bse_afw?qp_source=hcr09bse_afhp

Opponents of legal abortion and health care for women are emboldened by Saturday night’s vote and ready to bring their ban on abortion to the Senate floor. But now it’s our turn. And this time we are going to use our strongest weapon: the White House.

That’s why, today, we are calling on President Obama
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcr09bse_afw?qp_source=hcr09bse_afhp
to ensure that lawmakers, especially those in his own party, support health care reform that protects women’s access to reproductive care as the next round of debate and voting occurs in the Senate.

Please, join us by asking our president to stand with us to protect women’s health care today and every single day until reform is passed.
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcr09bse_afw?qp_source=hcr09bse_afhp

President Obama campaigned on a promise to put reproductive health care at the center of his reform plan. Supporters of women’s health voted for him and contributed to his campaign in record numbers — and now it’s time for the president to reaffirm his commitment to women’s health, and demand that Congress reject any bill that leaves women worse off under health care reform than they are today. Take a moment right now to tell President Obama that we need him to stand with us — in both his words and in his actions.
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcr09bse_afw?qp_source=hcr09bse_afhp

If there’s anything we learned yesterday, it’s that women’s health is being targeted as expendable in health care reform. We also saw that anti-choice forces are working round-the-clock to roll back women’s health benefits. We will each need to take action many times over the next few weeks, and we need strong and public support from the White House to help us.

I’ve said this before, and it deserves repeating: without access to abortion care, and to comprehensive reproductive health care, there is no choice. Please, take action now http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcr09bse_afw?qp_source=hcr09bse_afhp
 — and then spread the word on Facebook, among your friends and colleagues, via e-mail — whatever it takes.

Thank you so very much for standing with us and the women, men, and teens who rely on Planned Parenthood.

Sincerely,

Cecile Richards, President
Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Charlie Evans comes to my house 3 times a week to do physical therapy with me following my knee replacement surgery. She is knowledgable, skillful, even sensual in her approach. She has the ability to push me beyond my comfort zone.

Charlie is a black woman in her fifties who, for years, has worked at the Watts Clinic every morning with a severly underserved population..

She told me how lucky I am to have had a talented surgeon. She didn’t need to tell me, I already knew it. I am privileged. “The people I work with in Watts cannot afford such excellent surgery”, Charlie says. She told me she works with people who have far from adequate health care, who know very little about preventive health care or how to take care of themselves so as to avoid catastrophic situations like obesity and diabetes.

So here I am, living the discrepancy between haves and have nots when it comes to health care; talking and working with a woman, Charlie, who daily bridges the divide. She moves my knee, exhorts me to push through the pain, watches my rapid progress, the results of my top notch surgery and thinks about the people she has just left in Watts whose situation makes it less likely that they will see these kinds of results.

And yesterday I watched President Obama explaining and defending his health care reform effort and I pray he will get everything he is seeking. This have/have not divide MUST be done away with. I was so happy to hear on the news that the majority of Americans are willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone can get health insurance. So I ask those of you who follow my blog to do what you can to support the president in this effort. Write, call, email, fax your elected official asking them to get with the program. It is unconscionable that in a country like ours so many cannot get adequate health care.

See you next time.

The longest day of the year. The opposite side of the calendar from my Winter Solstice birthday.

Continuing to be glued to Iran but also about to start writing-not the blog but my book-after a looooong hiatus. First though, some random replies to blog comments:

Enough already with nostalgia about the 60s movement. Different times, different context. There was the draft, the cultural revolution, I think there is still courage and inspiration out there today but it takes different forms and the new social media is fueling it. Obama would never have been elected were this not so. Look at how he raised money. Revolutionary. Looked how his campaign galvanized young people and people of color. Revolutionary. He is a product of the 1960s and is being very smart about it. Now, in this new context, and using the social media, and seeking out the various progressive networks that are out there by reading the progressive blogs and magazines you can plug yourself in to today’s movement. It’s never too late. If you’re a woman, go to the websites womensmediacenter.com and Vday.org (both orgs are on the front page of my blog). Google “feminist”-there are many great websites that link women together (this in response to a woman’s comment that women don’t support each other.)

Johanna, good attitude: “No one’s gonna do it for you,.”  So you gotta do it for yourself. It’s your life to make something of-or not. It’s our choice. There’s a statute of limitation on blaming parents and others. BUT, your feelings of depression and helplessness might be a result of menopause and so you should check into the serotonin uptake inhibitors like Prozac just to get you thought what is, for many if not most women, a challenging time when we feel our life is falling apart around us. Trust me, when you come out the other side ==post menopause–and your testosterone levels increase in relation to your estrogen levels, you’ll feel like a whole new woman. I’ve been researching this and writing about it in my new book.

Kate: What’s a “Hinge Wallet”?

Jason: I decided to get knee surgery in L.A. instead of Atlanta where I live because I know this doctor. He did my hip replacement very successfully and Angela Lansbury had him do her knees and is very happy with them and because I wanted to recuperate here where my son is-and many friends.

All for now. See you next time.

Last night Cecile Richards and her daughter Lily came to see the show. Cecile is the daughter of former Texas Governor, the amazing, indominable Ann Richards who died of cancer two years ago.

Cecile and Lily were deeply moved by all aspects of the play but particularly the mother/daughter relationship. I just received a very moving email from Cecile talking about her mother’s attitude toward death which were similar to my character’s in the play.

Cecile is the president of Planned Parenthood of America which is the primary health care provider to millions of women nationwide. Over dinner at Joe Allen’s, she told about the recent meeting on health care reform with President Obama at the White House; how very different the environment is now; how important it was that Planned Parenthood was invited in its capacity as a health care provider; how thrilling it is to have former Kansas governor, Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services; how the president was able to really listen and process what people said. We both hope that this administration will address adolescent health in particular, especially adolescent reproductive health. For example, African American girls are experiencing a real epidemic of HIV/AIDS. In my state of Georgia among adolescent girls in general there is an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia. We have to stop our long-standing ostrich behavior, get our heads out of the sand, stop looking at reproductive health care from a moral perspective and view it, instead, as a public health issue as is done in other parts of the industrialized world.

I got to know Cecile when she and I traveled the country together in 1998-9 talking about the potential treat to Roe v. Wade as well as comprehensive sexuality education and other aspects of reproductive health if George W. Bush was elected. Our concerns were well founded as the subsequent 8 years have shown. New rates of rising teen pregancy rates as well as STD increases can partly be blamed on the previous administration’s policies.

Looks like that is on the way to changing. Fingers crossed. No!! Too passive!! Voices raised!!!

See you next time.