Re: Solstice letter

[Noelle <http://dummy.us.eu.org/noelleg>]

Good to hear from you. I was Googling you yesterday to see if you 
were still in Michigan.
I left my job in June. I didn't get enough vacation time and burned 
out basically. My dad has dementia, and I live 300 miles away so 
it's too far for weekend trips. I told my bosses that I needed to 
spend more time with my dad(which I did after I quit). I felt I 
needed to quit before I started making too many mistakes at work and 
get fired(my coworker who had worked for the company for 25 years 
was taken off our contract with UMass Med Center mostly due to UMass 
having upped their high tech surveillance of our work, which went 
against her work habits...and so I saw more surveillance would come 
for me too). They told me I would be welcome to reapply to the 
company again if I wanted. I would prefer part-time work at this 
point. Medical coding is very difficult and stressful these days.
I've found a lot to do with myself being free of work at least. 
Trying to get the house more organized and purging it of clutter. I 
have more energy now to tackle this.
And then a local group announced that they were looking for people 
to go on a Feb. one week cultural tour of Cuba, with the Havana Arts 
Festival, 
going to Hemingway's house, visiting an organic farm and its 
farm-to-table restaurant, Santiago and UNESCO world heritage sites. 
The tour is run through a Canadian-Cuban company in Toronto. It's 
very complicated going to Cuba as an American. We are having our 
orientation meeting today. I thought since the election, I want to 
get to know more local where-I-liveans through this trip(as well as 
getting to know a different way of life in Communist Cuba). Also, I 
reached out to a college friend I had lost touch with, and we were 
able to see each other again when I was in Santa Barbara.
With all those news stories about drones all over the place I 
thought about Simon Levy. I haven't heard from him(I know he's still 
at WLU.
Anyway, hoping things don't get too horrible under Orange Man Part 
2. I frankly see the Democratic Party leadership in denial about the 
election loss.NAFTA really changed things and the Dems had no 
satisfying answer to the people who lost their factory jobs and now 
work for Uber or whatever and have lost status.
At least we live in Ca and I think we will be OK.
Noelle