For the second year in a row, we’ve had an extraordinary crop of Concord grapes. The weather has held so that the grapes have ripened fully on the vine, and no late spring freeze nipped the buds, so here we have glorious abundance. Which translates into not-so-glorious work. Jelly, of course, and juice, but this year we’ve added something new to our repertoire: grape-apple leather. It’s labor intensive, but I know that all it has in it is grapes and apples, and it’s delicious. I get to live out my childhood fantasies of being incredibly resourceful (ala Laura Ingalls Wilder), with the aid of modern appliances like my food processor and food dehydrator.

Laced through all the grape and apple fun, is talk (endless!) and thoughts of the elections. In order to stifle the number of phone calls coming in, I voted early. Since it took me 20 minutes just to fill in all the little rectangles with the drying-out pen in the booth, I was glad that I’d prepped my choices ahead of time and that I hadn’t waited until election day. There was steady traffic while I was there, and cheerful staff/volunteers.

Of all the issues on the Colorado ballot, the most offensive is Amendment 48, the so-called “personhood” amendment. The mysteries of when exactly spirit enters flesh and life truly begins are beyond me, but to involve the legal system in miscarriages is draconian in the extreme. I’ve known several women, good mothers all, who miscarried early in pregnancy, either before or after, or both, carrying other babies to term. Amendment 48 would open the door for women such as these to be investigated, charged with child abuse or even murder. The women I know who’ve been through a miscarriage had enough grief to deal with without the horrors of politics intruding in their health care. Even the Catholic Conference doesn’t support it.

It’s a free country, so people of all leanings can try to change the laws to suit their own agendas. Thanks to our founding fathers, we have the ability to argue our positions in public and to vote against the policies that would take us down the road away from freedom.

I urge you to vote thoughtfully and carefully, with a view to our country’s future as a free democratic republic.

I just heard from my dear friend, Janet Fogg, that her novel, Soliloquy, had received a contract offer. I’ll wait to divulge details until the deal is done, but I’m too excited to just sit on it. For seventeen and a half years, Janet and I have been part of a critique group together. Once a month, we’ve brought our chapters and our comments, shared our hopes and provided support. And laughs, lots of laughs.

Robert A. Johnson, the Jungian analyst, offers the idea of the”slender threads” that shape our lives. The moments, meetings, and little shifts that may not seem to have much portent at the time, but as we look back in our lives, we see how crucial they’ve been. Meeting Janet, in a Lifelong Learning class on How to Get Published, was one of those pivotal moments. Carol Cail, the instructor, told the class we might want to find or form a critique group in order to help each other along the way. Janet and I agreed to start one, and a couple other students joined in as well. But the group shrunk, and Janet and I added new members, my sister Karen, my best friend’s mom, Shirley, my niece Zhenille, and finally our token male, Paul. And the group coalesced.

Over these seventeen years, I’ve watched Janet’s writing grow, have witnessed the droughts when her “real” job took over all her time, and have leaned heavily on her and the rest of the group when my own disappointments seemed enough to make me want to stop writing altogether. When I was at my lowest ebb, and announced one night at dinner that I intended to quit writing, my husband asked if that meant I was going to stop going to critique group. It was unimaginable to me that I would give it up. That slender thread had become a sturdy safety line.

So Janet’s great news is great news for me, too. Three cheers to success! It’s definitely time to stop and have a party!