MaryAlice Musings and More

  This picture is the first picture that was on MaryAlice's camera on January 1st 2024.  This next picture is the last one that MaryAlice took for 2024. I am pretty happy to be able to do the "Bubbles Blog" for the last blog of this year.  Usually I live in MaryAlice's car, and that means I have been on a lot of roads, and car ferries, and a few parking lots and a couple of drive-ins.  This trip from Maine to Minnesota on the train (well a bus first) with stops in Chicago and then another train so that we are now in Vernon County Wisconsin has been my first not in the car trip!    So the first picture of this year was driving home from Presque Isle, where there had been a Pride Aroostook New Year's Eve Party.  That was a fun way to start the year.  The next picture is from a window in Marcia's dome home looking out to her long, down the hill driveway.  There is no snow here, and there has been no sun either.   Since getting to Minne...

  MaryAlice, Sasha, "Auntie Kim", Myah and me went to see the Minnesota Frost this afternoon.  We were four of the 8,726 fans that game to watch the game against Montreal Victoire.  Governor Tim Walz was also there with his family, and he got one of the biggest applauses when they showed him on the jumbotron.   It was really fun to be at the game.  The skating was so very good, the game moved very fast, and it was too bad that we fell short.  I would for sure be a season ticket holder if I lived in the Twin Cities, but maybe I will take the bus down to see the Boston Fleet sometime this season.  The fans were great, lots of kids, lots of girls in their hockey uniforms, and lots of girlie music that sounded just right.  MaryAlice is a big hockey fan and she was cheering and making lots of sounds at the near misses and the whiffs that happened every once in awhile.   Amazing to see such support for the team and the league, there were ...

Wow, it was quite the holiday.  This was the biggest tree (the one pictured above) that I have ever seen in a house, it was beautiful and the celebration was even better.  We had a really good time on Christmas Eve.   I loved watching us drive through Stillwater, and seeing the lights reflecting off the St. Croix River. For those of  you who do not know, Stillwater is the "birthplace" of Minnesota, of course that is the colonizers story but we won't go into all of that because it is not the right day.  I just had to remind myself and you of that and also let you know how beautiful it is there.  This is a place where there are very old houses, not as old as in Maine, but pretty darn old and the ones that are standing are cared for and so beautiful.  It was a good night near Marine on St Croix and we came home full and happy.   Oh my, food, family, stories and fun.  Christmas Day we stayed home and people came to see us, Harlow and Myah go...

  I think I took a pretty good "selfie" of myself last night when I hopped into bed.  I did not go on a train or bus or car yesterday.   I didn't even walk out of the house.  I just enjoyed being with my family and friends.  MaryAlice has checked out how the house is doing back home, all is good.  It is a little colder there (by about 20 degrees) and it is snowing well it is almost sleet out there and it is very grey.  The snow is supposed to end soon and I hope all the roads will be good because we are going out for lunch today with Terry.   Having a very quiet morning, James and Sasha are at work, Sasha got called in and James is having his almost last day before retirement from the Tribal police force.  He is looking very very happy.  Myah is still sleeping.  I had a very good sleep and am enjoying just checking everything out, MaryAlice knows this house well, but this is my first time.  I love all the decorations ...

  Bubbles, here!  I am not on a train.  I had a lot of fun on the train,  I really enjoyed looking out the window, and I liked the way the train sways just a little as it goes down the track,  AND I am glad that we are off the train.  We had a long day.  There is almost always something when you that is not quite as scheduled when you ride on the Amtrak, and we had switching problems (that might seem like a global problem but I think it was about who gets to go on what tracks in the railroad world) in Ohio, and we had to stop a lot.  I liked that we were on the train on the Winter Solstice, it was warm and cozy in our little car and we just kept heading west.  I thought that we would not see any more of the great lakes, but we did move along on the tracks very very close to Lake Michigan, and you could see the Chicago skyline for a long long time before we got there.  We rode through miles and miles and miles of industrial parks, the fur...

  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...