Willow Tree

It was John and the women at coffee this morning. Dan stayed home with Trixie  and his mother, who has severe memory loss but is otherwise in good health. Dan's sister lives with her, but had a knee replacement ten days ago so Mom is staying with Dan and Tobi. I think Tobi needed a break. Bob has made a new friend who has a private tennis court which is apparently a bigger draw than coffee with us. 

We talked mostly about insurance woes which we are all experiencing. I had a call from Kayla, who is handling the reinstatement of our homeowner's insurance policy. She called the other day to assure me that they hadn't forgotten us, they had our back, it should all be done in a day or so...blah, blah, blah. Today she called to say that the insurer needed more information on the water leak we experienced in Sept 2020 for which they paid out $129,000 . I said that couldn't have been us because:
1) We didn't have a water leak in 2020 or any other time
2) We weren't insured by that company in 2020.We've only been insured by them for a year.
She said she would call them back and find out where they got their information. It's Labor Day weekend so I'm sure that the soonest we could possibly hear from them is on Sept 3rd. The policy expires on the 7th. You couldn't make it up....

After coffee we decided to walk Spike around Juilliard park that is almost next door. I walked around it back when we first moved here and felt, not exactly unsafe, but somewhat uneasy. It was not well maintained and there were a lot of unhoused people. We were pleasantly surprised at how much things had improved. There was a group of people sitting in a circle on folding chairs they had brought with them, there was an enthusiastic tournament going on on the Bocce courts, and a beautifully maintained rose garden backed by huge sunflowers covered in birds (extra) enjoying the seeds from the fading flowers, and tomato plants laden. with fruit. There were a lot of huge specimen trees including oaks, redwoods, stone pines and today's feature, a willow tree draped gracefully over the meandering pond which made it's way through the park.

I was just saying to John that this, compared to the fairly recently renovated downtown plaza which is a treeless wasteland of concrete, was the way a park should be. Just then we met a woman with her little dog, Luca, and we started talking to her. She (Molly) and her husband (Martin) have been working to restore the park...liaising with city homeless organizations, finding volunteers, picking up trash early in the mornings and maintaining the rose garden. She said the specimen trees were a result of Juilliard's collaboration with Luther Burbank.

As John said on the way home...'That was a real upper'. God helps those who help themselves seems to be the motto of this city....