MaryAlice Musings and More

  Bubbles here, we are 40 minutes from Elkhart Indiana.  We have gone through Massachusetts, New York, (maybe a bit of Pennsylvania I haven't looked at the map) Ohio, and now Indiana.  I woke up this morning thinking about what I might blog about, it is very fun that MaryAlice has turned the keyboard tapping over to me, I might get used to this task.  It is Winster Solstice and I will be spending most of the day on the Lake Shore Limited.  It was really cool early this morning in that soft light at the beginning of the day we were traveling right next to Lake Erie, I mean there was nothing but the railroad track bridge and the water at times.  It was beautiful and a little scary.  I was glad that I was not too close to the window, it made my stomach have little hiccups.  After we got on dry land we went for breakfast, I got to go along with MaryAlice and she took this really nice picture of me at the table.  We had to walk through our sleeper...

  Usually MaryAlice is the one who blogs about whatever she wants to blog about, but she has let me be a "guest blogger" so here goes.  My name is Blogger is I came to live with MaryAlice in 2022 after Myah crocheted me together and sent me to her Grammas house.  I have been living on the dashboard of her car until one day ago, when I was taken out of the and attached to her backpack.  I get to go on a trip with her to the midwest of the USA and I am going to share my stories from this trip that we are taking.  Hang on, it is going to be a ride.   We are just riding through Framingham, Massachusetts right now.  We have a little roomette on the Amtrak Train - The Lakeshore Limited.  It is really fun to see the cars that are stopped on the street and to hear the train whistle as we slowly inch our way through the little town.  We just stopped, this is our first stop out of Boston, we are picking up more passengers, but it doesn't seem like...

    On 1 December WHO joins partners and communities to commemorate World AIDS Day 2024. Under the theme “ Take the rights path: My health, my right! ”, WHO is calling on global leaders and citizens to champion the right to health by addressing the inequalities that hinder progress in ending AIDS.  The first World AIDS Day was December 1, 1988.  It was the first international acknowledgement of AIDS a day to raise awareness of prevention and treatment and to honor those lost to to what was then still a raging lethal public health crisis.  I was the Director of Programs at the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) just finishing my first year in 1988.  This year I enjoyed a wide ranging and deeply connected phone call with Eric, who was the first Executive Director of MAP.  How we each cherish friendships that formed in those earlier days of AIDS and are still alive and vibrant today.  I talked with another friend who has been living with AIDS since thos...

  Last Thursday at this time, I was being "prepped" in my "room with a view".  This Thursday I am giving thanks and have a lot of gratitude.  I have been showered with care and attention.  I have sweet lovely flowers in every room downstairs.  I have good food, what both others and myself have made.  I am being chauffeured to Houlton later this morning to have a Thanksgiving meal with friends, some who I have never sat down at a table with before.  There will be no turkey, I did roast a Keep Ridge Farm chicken earlier in the week, so I am not feeling deprived of poultry, but there is going to be plenty of amazing dishes from all the amazing cooks that are helping to bring this meal together.   I am bringing Hard Tack, this is a recipe from my Great Grandmother Alta Effa Phelps Washington.  I have a copy of the recipe in both my Mother's and my Grandmothers writing.  It is a dish that was made for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I ...

  All is well from inside my little cocoon.  I am on my third day post surgery, and so far so very very good.  I have been cared for,  I have had visitors.  Flowers have been delivered.  I can sleep well.   I have spent time reading my latest Vera Stanhope book and then setting it down and reading more from "Sitting with Sufis".  I have watched a little television.  I did have a very good women's basketball game on yesterday later in the afternoon, Notre Dame beat USC, it was a great game - yay for the Irish.  Both teams have stellar, stand out stars Juju Watkins from USC and Hanna Hidaldo (and Olivia Miles) from Notre Dame.  The Irish took the lead early and held off all of the home court attempts of USC to get back in the lead.  It is going to be a fun season, and I am already dreaming if I might go to Birmingham, Alabama or Spokane, Washington to be a part of March Madness!   Mostly, I am just here, in my litt...

I am home and that not very good gall bladder is gone.  Hats off to the surgical team at Millinocket Regional Hospital (MRH).  As I type this post it was 24 hours ago that Bryan and I were on the way to Millinocket in his almost new Toyota Highlander to drop me off at the hospital on his way to work. It was a rainy very cloudy day, but the temperatures are still mild, especially when you think about what is to come.   I have had a number of tests at the hospital in the last two months and the very kind receptionist knows me by name and after waiting a few minutes she calls me up to check me in for my big day.  I wait just a few more minutes and Tammy comes out to bring me back to the surgical ward.  This is my room with a view.  It is a flurry of activity getting me ready, lots of questions, then someone else comes into the room and they ask lots of questions, many of them the same as what was asked five minutes before.  The nurses keep bringing out th...

I started thinking a few days ago about when and why I started my blog.  I decided to blog as I was preparing for my Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) surgery.  I opted for this surgery which I have not so fondly called "rotor-rooting you throat" .  I had very severe sleep apnea and as I went through the process of deciding whether to have the surgery I thought a lot about "my voice".  My throat was going to be shaved to create a bigger opening, as I type this I wonder how could I have ever said yes, but the other fact was I was going to suffer very severe consequences if I didn't take action, and the other options were just not working.   So I started "MaryAlice Musings and More, Blogging for healing, fun and contemplation".  Since that time I have made 804 blog posts, and my site has been "clicked on" 137,448 times, amazing!   I am now preparing for another surgery, much less dramatic, and I am hoping much less painful, than my UPPP.  I...

 I started writing this blog on the morning after the election.   I am in a stillness, shrouded by a deep sadness, wondering how we mend the wounds of our country.  How we will care for all of those who have been targeted. Wondering how do we co-exist as people continue to dehumanize other human beings. The thing that has been unspeakable or unimaginable has happened.   I am conscious that when i wake in the morning, I have to tend to the spinning anxiety within my heart and soul.  My mind is somehow playing back, remembering the first time, and now this.   I have made a conscious effort to watch the sunrise, I seem to not be able to sleep in like I did last week.  I can sense the hyper-alert already kicking in and I can feel the mood swings and the little bit of snarkiness which is seeping out through my pores.   I have glimpses of being stopped cold during my day.  The amazing green of the parsley that is still growing in the...

            It is 9 a.m. EDT and on FB there was a memory that came up from ten years ago today.  In my house on Benjamin Street in NE Minneapolis, Minnesota I was yep, canning tomatoes.  As I type 7 quarts of tomatoes have been canned and are cooling, and 6 pints of tomato juice are bubbling away in the water bath.  So much has changed in these ten years, and yet here I am still canning in my kitchen in Patten, Maine.  My house is full of jams and salsa's and summer squash and herbs from my container garden.  The past ten days have been gloriously sunny, warm and a reminder that summer had not yet finished its show. Yesterday, the winds changed.  The breeze which has been mostly absent of late returned, and with it more than a hint of fall.   The colors are beginning, and the talk everywhere is if we will have a vibrant fall color season, or if the dry spells we have had will dull out the color.  Whatever it is, the ...

HOPE  FREEDOM  JOY WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!     It is the day after the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.   I was just miles away from the Convention Site in Chicago in 1968.  I had just graduated from college and I did not have big dreams.  My Mother's biggest stated dream for me was graduating from High School, I do believe that both my Grandmother and my Mother had bigger dreams for me, but life circumstances, the times, and their own conflicted hopes and fears could not allow them to say them out loud.  I sat in the living room of my house, watching what was happening outside of the convention.  I had friends that had gone, and in those moments something stirred deeply in me.  I had been slowly opening my eyes and heart to what was happening in my world - the conflicts within our own  country, the conflicts around the world, Vietnam, Civil Rights, who held power, who took it away.  Questioning what sto...