Here’s a description from the ScribeFire web site:

ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, upload images, and post to multiple blogs.

You can use it to upload not only images, but audio and video files as well. In addition, ScribeFire runs an ad network… the real “meat” of this free program is that you can join the ad program from within the publishing interface. Nifty. If you’re not interested in this kind of monetization right now, however, no problem. It doesn’t interfere with the the utility of the free tool. You can ignore the ad options forever, if you wish.

I think this tool offers a super-easy shortcut to quickly publish on several blogs. It will work wonderfully if you’re on your home computer, or traveling with your own laptop. But, since it’s a customized installation, it’s useless where it seems as if it could be a most helpful shortcut: if you’re traveling without a laptop, relying on Internet cafes, public libraries, or friends’ computers to update your blogs, you can’t use ScribeFire.

A friend of mine is a California State employee. She’s pretty upset about the inability of the State legislature to come to an agreement about the State budget, because she has an inside view of the disastrous effects that the debacle is having on the lives of employees and ultimately the public. Interestingly, she reported that employees have been instructed not to talk to the press with the threat that they will be fired if they do. Therefore, in the halls of State funded offices, disgruntled workers can only talk among themselves about their frustrations while their futures are held in the hands of a group of politicians who don’t have to worry whether their paychecks will arrive on time to pay their bills. In fact, they even have a three-day weekend since they took today off.

So, my friend is wondering, how can a small group of politicians hold thousands of State employees hostage, while bickering amongst themselves over the conditions of a budget? She calls it hostage, because employees are shut down from talking to anyone about the now miserable working conditions. Miserable because thousands of part-time workers have been laid off and actually shut out of the computer systems — those part-time employees who are crucial to the internal workings of the various State programs. Instead, the work of those part-time employees is being “dumped” onto already overworked and underpaid employees. Apparently, the morale is the worst it has ever been.

My friend says that the public has no idea what State employees are now going through. She said that the average State employee’s pay scale is already extremely low as compared to Federal or County positions. So it’s a real insult when the governor states that employees will receive Federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour in September if the budget is not settled. Supervisors will receive $455 per week, and doctors and lawyers will receive nothing.  As you can guess, the governor is not a popular person these days within the halls of State agencies. And those legislators are going to do everything they can to protect their own paychecks!

My friend is wondering if there is some loophole in the law so that a class-action suit could be filed against the State of California and its legislators, by not only State employees, but also consumers whose very lives are being negatively impacted by the ineptitude of the legislature. She says that what is being delivered to State employees is tantamount to posttraumatic stress, since their financial futures are in the hands of these legislators. Most of the employees she has talked to are so worried that they are not sleeping well, are experiencing somatic complaints, are crying, and are very concerned about the future. Some of these employees have a spouse or child who is disabled and they rely on the one paycheck to live. Some employees themselves are disabled. Others are so burned out by the experience that they are looking for other jobs. The lack of a budget also impacts the ability of many workers to help the consumers obtain the services they need. And for dedicated employees who care about helping others, this is an added stress.

My friend said she is going to continue to write to me and let me know what it’s like being in the invisible prison of State employment, where the legislators are the guards and the governor is the warden. I feel compelled to let people on the outside know what she and other State employees are going through, and will continue posting further installments on this story as long as the impasse lasts. 

When disaster befell me and I suddenly lost my home, the insurance company resettled me here in Richmond temporarily. At first, I hated the very idea of Richmond. Then, I started to explore. And to like it, even love it. And I stayed. Yes, the refinery is still here. Yes, some of the streets are so scary I don’t even like to drive on them… and some are so dangerous you might get shot just walking by. There are murders, drugs, drive-by shootings. Everyday tragedies. Not enough youth programs. Not enough money for schools. Superfund sites, environmental illnesses, high rates of childhood asthma. What one might call crimes against humanity. There are many ways life can be dangerous here.

There are also these things. The best climate in the Bay Area… cool when everyone else swelters, warmer when others freeze, sunny when Berkeley is locked in fog. Astounding, atypical views of Mount Tamalpais, the North Bay hills, the East Bay hills, and San Francisco. Easy access to the Bay Trail. A public library, strapped for cash, but with the best collection of classic and mid-20th-century fiction, including second-tier authors, that I’ve ever seen. People of all backgrounds, ages and colors who are friendly, warm and unpretentious. A progressive mayor and a strong community working hard to offer opportunity to all. An excellent and thriving adult education program. Easy access to public transportation and freeways. Ample parking!

No Bay Area city that I know of has so little–on the surface–to recommend it. Like Oakland, it has severe poverty, and lots of crime that’s gotten lots of publicity. Unlike Oakland, it has no downtown to speak of, no civic life, no sports team, no museum. But surprisingly, one can live here quite happily, in beautiful surroundings, with interesting and kind friends and neighbors–people who don’t seem to have caught Pretention Fever yet. People who want to live a satisfying life and would like everyone else to have that opportunity too.

Here’s to Richmond, hidden treasure of the Bay Area. May all her people thrive.

Recent photos from one of the best San Francisco Bay shore vantage points.

Tree fruits, on the other hand, are a different story. A tree is so much more permanent, enduring through season after season, flowering and fruiting and shedding, year upon year. I love picking apples, peaches, cherries. Enjoying the offerings of the noble tree, which provides beauty, scent, color, shade, tranquility, and sometimes, even drama, throughout the decades of its life.

A tree is always potential. When its limbs are bare, the entire year’s potential is hidden in the roots. When pink apple blossoms cluster on the branch, the round fruit is a delicious possibility hidden in a cloud of fragile petals. And when apples redden in the sun and weigh the branches farther towards the earth each day, autumn’s possibilities lurk: fallen fruit rotting on the ground, fermenting cider, the last of the pies… and finally again, bare branches.

What I really want to say is, that sorrow is all around. A day moves past its zenith, a tomato ripens and shrivels on the vine, a life passes its midway mark and meanders quickly or slowly to a close. I don’t like having to get older. I don’t like my parents, my friends, getting ill and dying. I don’t like seeing long-ago lovers many years later and realizing that they never grew into the potential that I once loved in their youth. I don’t like suspecting that I never grew into mine, either.

Now, at 54, what’s to be done? I see older folks all around me, finishing graduate programs, taking exercise classes, traveling, writing. Goddess, grant me the inspiration to outgrow my disappointments and to continue to become more awake and more alive even as summer slides into autumn. But it feels harder to find joy as the pure potential of my life stretching out before me diminishes.

Over 50? How do you keep going, physically, emotionally, spiritually? How do you deal with diminishing potential?