TELL ME IT AIN'T SO, ALFIE

9/28/2018
Three weeks in Sweden and so much has happened. We have traveled to Skanor twice, Stockholm twice, Gothenberg, Copenhagen, and Berlin. I have made 2 new friends : Per and Busse whom I like very much and Connie and Mikan who are charming, intelligent, and fun to be with. We bought an apartment in Stockholm. I have thought about retirement and spoken to Busse and retirement seems like the right thing to do. I feel anxious but not as much as before. We should be OK
financially.Yesterday was the Kavanough hearings and though I hate to memorialize them in these pages they upset Kerstin and me a lot. I assume he will be confirmed and that will mean a rapist as President and a rapist on the Supreme Court.
"A democracy can only exist until the time the voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury"  Tocqueville, 1835
I go back to Florida with a heavy heart. 4 weeks work in October and 6 1/2 weeks Nov.-
December.Anxiety and disgust at White Supremacist America and co-dependent women who not only make choices for themselves but insist on controlling other women. Shall we move to Portugal? How will that affect health care. We will take time to decide but the issues are weighty.

10/11/18
It seems as though I haven't written for a month yet it is 2 weeks. Sometimes one does not pay attention and looking back time passed so fast. This time it feels as though so much has happened in the past 2 weeks that time slowed down. The angst with the American political system has maade Kerstin and me alternately sad and angry. I turned in a written e-mail resignation last weekend and that issue appears to be settled. I am comfortable that we have enough money, that we may not live 20 years and if we do we can sell property. I don't know where we wiull live and that may/will change with tiem. Now my anxiety centers around health insurance and being covered in US and Europe. I am glad I am retiring. I realize, usuallyu, that I am burned out. I am not focused on making money for the company and I don't like bigot patients or obese especially morbid, paatiednts, and I like helping people who could not get help and try to help the mselves. The stock market had a mini crash yesterday and maybe it continues today and I look to a tiem when gold rises and that will secure our financial future I think. I newed to find a physician in Sarasota . Kerstin's weight and blood sugar have climbed and she is having difficulty accepting she has another illness that needs treatment even though thaty has been tryue for years. I have decided I must vbe compulsive in order for retirement to work. Get up early, Swedish lessons, meditation, reading, writing, exercise. I still don't know what I will do about friends and social contact whohc is very importantg for mental health. 

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