In August Chelsea and I got out to Paddy Mountain and spent about 10 wonderful days without anyone around. We listened to a radio station playing only 1950's oldies, and worked on building the foundation for the hot tub. We needed the peace because all hell broke loose at Transy House when I was away in Sweden, and Chelsea was very stressed. We had to send one young person to Portland, Oregon to try to visit her mother and chill out. (When she got there her mother refused to see her. By December she was back in a shelter for battered women in Brooklyn, which soon threw her out, and we felt strong enopugh to take her in again. Along the way we had also taken in a young woman from Japan who had been brutally beaten and made homeless. We keep trying to empty the house, but the phone keeps ringing and various ministers and social workers implore us to take more people in. We feel guilty to retreat alone to Paddy Mountain, but we need the solitude.
Rhona McMahan