Sep 1, 2011, LABOR DAY

Well today marks the official end of summer as far as America goes. All resorts, airfares to holiday places and all things to do with "summer" are less expensive now. But it's still 80 degrees today.

I was totally wrong about the effects of hurricane Irene - while we in Manhattan dodged a bullet, others were not nearly so fortunate. And still today, ten days after the event, some still do not have power. So many have had their homes completely ruined as well as all their furnishings and some are still wading around in water because of the crested rivers. Whole towns have been wiped off the map.

A friend traveled up to Vermont this weekend to visit her parents and reported on the destruction there - all these old, old, covered bridges which are such a feature there - gone. She said her parent's property was relatively undamaged because the house is on a sort of hill and high up, but they were trapped in the house for four days because the whole surrounding area was a sea!

I feel so sorry for those people, it must seem like an impossible task to clean up.

Today is Mother Teresa's feast day, it's amazing that it's fourteen years since she died as it is for Princess Diana. I will be going up to the South Bronx later to visit with the Missionaries of Charity.

My health: For the last few days I've been feeling terrible and when I went outside the buildings were all moving about I was so incredibly dizzy. I couldn't walk without holding onto someone. Well then I had an amazing thought, one that had never occurred to me before: I decided to call the doctor! She immediately took me off all my diuretics - I was completely dehydrated even though I was drinking loads of water. Actually, yesterday I had dropped ten pounds from the day before - all fluids, so no wonder I was feeling odd.

I don't feel fantastic but certainly much better.

And tomorrow I'm going swimming - can't wait to sink into the water. I won't be able to dash up and down doing my laps but it will be glorious just to paddle about.

Right now, I'm just waiting for my friend Hilary to arrive She has ended her stint in the Hamptons as a nanny/cook, she's one of the top nannies and the fact that she's a brilliant cook, puts her very much in demand. She's English but lives in Los Angeles so she will stay with me overnight before heading back to LA in the morning.

The US Open is on and although I don't follow tennis that much - I leapt at the opportunity to go when a friend offered me tickets. I went out last week and will go again Wednesday. The whole thing is over this coming weekend so should see some good play on Wednesday.