October 2019

October 2019

MS, LA, PA, DC, NYC, Canada

The Mighty Mississippi River

1- TU- PA/LA/MS- I was up early and on my way to Mississippi, state #48. I flew in to New Orleans and drove north to the Mississippi Sand hill Crane Refugee.  the website indicated that there were plenty of cranes on the refugee.  They failed to mention that the refugee is so large that the 200 cranes are well hidden from us.  So I saw nothing.  I then drove up to the red Bluff, the Grand Canyon of the Mississippi and it was beautiful.  I made my way to Jackson and spent the night there.  And for the record, there are no craft breweries in Jackson, Mississippi.  I couldn't believe it.

2- W- MS- I spent the morning at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. This was a spectacular museum.  I could have spent the entire day there as there was so much to see.  But after two hours, I was drained and couldn't take any more. I spent the early evening at the Lazy Magnolia Brewery, the  oldest brewery in Mississippi.  I had a southern pecan ale and a few IPAs.

3- TH- MS/LA- I left Mississippi after a late breakfast and headed south to New Orleans.  I walked through the French Quarters for a bit.  Then I took a river cruise down the Mississippi River.  I have wanted to do this for many years and the moment was a bit anti-climatic. Afterwords, I made my way to the NOLA Brewery for a flight and dinner.  I returned the rented car, made my way to my hotel and called it a day.  Now I have to plan for my next two and final state trips: Hawaii and North Dakota.

4- F- LA/PA- I'm home.  It's always nice to come home. And just that quickly, it feels as if I have never been away.

5- SA- PA- It's a gorgeous fall day and a great day for college football.  Penn State is playing and it looks as if they are going to have their 5th straight win this season (5-0).  But they haven't played any tough competition so I am not going to get too cocky, too soon.  Tonight I am meeting Deb Green for the movies.  We are going to see the Linda Ronstadt documentary.  That woman had lots of talent and one powerful voice. Afterwords, we went to the Tin Lizard Brewery for beers and dinner.  And I am not going here again.  The beer is mediocre and the service is lousy.

6- SU- PA- Tricia, Joann and I went to brunch and just sat and talked for the better part of three hours.  It was great fun.  I haven't seen Joann for 6 months now that her mother is so damn ill.  Joanna is mostly housebound as her mother requires her constant attention.  Tricia talked about how demanding her mother-in-law is becoming in her old age.  I just sat and listened to them and felt grateful that I do not have this heavy, sad situation on my hands.

7- M- PA- I made it through the night and the moment was iffy.  I came up from the lounge to my apartment around 1 AM and smelled gas from my stove.  I count tell if I had a leak or if I accidentally turned a knob on the stove.  Rather than call maintenance and pay a $100 fine, I just kept the balcony door opened, kept the exhaust fan on in the bathroom and kept a table fan on in the bedroom.  I went to bed and hoped for the best and this morning I woke up, just fine and no gas smell. The evening gave me another headache as I listened to a two hour webinar on medicare options.  Who knew medicare was so damn complicated.

8- TU- PA- It is Debbie's birthday today so 14 of us went to Lemoncello's for dinner and we had a great time.  As I looked around the table, I was grateful to be in everyone; company.  We all live in Chester Square and all moved here so we could cultivate friends.  It was nice to just sit back and see how we all enjoy each other's company.  The restaurant threw in a few freebies because Debbie and Jeff come here so often. We had appetizers on them and I will full by the time  I ordered dinner.  I had a delicious chicken meal and I took most of it home with me. Then a big, delouse double chocolate cake made its way to the table and my efforts to eliminate sugar from my diet disappears.  I wanted to lick my plate.  Damn, that was a great meal.

9- W- PA- Shelia and Michelle Santoro stopped in to see me and we headed to Iron Hill to spend time catching up with each other.  Mostly Michelle and I talked and Shelia just listened in.  It was fun to see them and I always marvel that I am friends with a mother/daughter team.  And as usual, Michelle had offers to visit her in Tanzania and Italy (when she becomes a citizen).

10- TH- PA- I met Lauren for dinner to pick a cruise to the Caribbean.  She told me she wants to go ASAP because she is so excited.  I love that attitude.  In the evening, I caught up with Tricia and we went to a lecture about a woman who is raising money to put historical makers which honor women.  Her talk was so interesting.


11- F- PA- I booked my trip to the Caribbean in February 2020.  Lauren and I are going for a week.  We take off from Miami and we head to Mexico, Belize and Honduras.  I can't wait and Lauren is so damn excited as well.  I went to Iron Hill with Debbie and Dominic.

12- SA- PA- it was a beautiful sunny day and I volunteered at the Uptown Theatre for the play Cabaret.  What a depressing show.  Afterwords, I went to Deb and Lisa's house as the first leg of my trip to Canada.  We are going to be up very early tomorrow to catch a flight to Nova Scotia.

13- SU- Canada- we drove up to Newark and took a plane to Halifax.  There are 6 of us.  We rented two cars and drove to Cape Benton. We will be here for 6 days for the Celtic Colors International Music Festival. It should be great fun.  I got a text from Debbie S.  A woman in my apartment killed herself last night.  She didn't seem tortured to me.  But some people are masters at masking their problems.

14- M- Canada- Cape Brenton-  Happy Thanksgiving in Canada. We explored all damn day today.  I don't know how many miles we traveled but we were gone 12 hours today.  We started at the Gaelic University and listened to some great musicians play.  Then we headed up the highway and stopped at one artisan store after another.  We had panedkeok for lunch.  It's a dutch crepe and mine had apples, back and lots of ginger.  We made it all the way up to Neil's Harbor and through the national park. The leaves were stunning as they were at the peak of their fall foliage and i took hundreds of photos. I bought a handmade glass bead pin.  On the way home, we took a ferry across a canal and the ride lasted about a minute.  We ended the day at some dive bar and had great fun with the locals.

15- TU- Canada- We had a great day.  We made our way to Judique, about a two hour drive from our AirBnB.  We had lunch at the Celtic Interpretive Center and were treated to a performance by a fiddle player.  From time to time, someone from the audience got up and did a little jig for every one's pleasure. We chatted up the wait staff and turns out they are mostly from the graham family and that pulled at Mary's heart to think that they may be related one way or another. We had tickets to an evening show and the performers were fantastic.  About ten performers entertained us and for a finale, all ten of them came out together and just lit the place on fire with all of their energy.

16- W- Canada- It was a beautiful, beautiful fall day.  The sun was intensely bright.  It was windy and a bit chilly.  We made our way to a peak of the island to see the bluffs and the cliffs of the ocean.   We attempted to do other things today but we got lost which annoyed the hell out of us. We stopped at a famous pub for dinner and then we went to the local theatre for another performance, Close the The Floor.  This performance was better than last night's show.  There was one duo of an other woman in an apron and jeans.  She played the fiddle and jigged as well.  And she had a younger partner who could really dance.  He was so intriguing, it was almost magical.


17- TH- Canada- We went to the Big Spruce Brewery and I loved every moment of our time here.  The beer was great.  The crowd was great fun and the music was wild.  It was a small place and every inch was packed with people who wanted nothing more than to be here.  We wore our ANTI-TRUMP TEE SHIRTS and several people wanted to take our photos.  We were celebrities.  Unfortunately, I got sick on the way to the next brewery, Breton Brewery. I am having a problem with my liver and I sometimes can't process alcohol.  This was one of those days.But I felt better by the time we got to our evening performance:  Women of Song. All of the performers were outstanding but the last woman, the tall old woman brought the house down.  OMG, she was great.  On the way back to our airBnB, I got car sick.  The day beat me up a little bit but it was still a great day.

18- F- Canada- We got up too early for my taste and made our way back to Halifax.  While the others went shopping for the afternoon, I stayed in my hotel room and did nothing.  We met up for dinner at the Gahan Brewery.  The beers were great and the food was wonderful and it was a perfect way to end our trip,

19- SA- Canada/PA- we traveled all damn day and it was good to get home.  I came home to the funeral reception to the woman who killed herself earlier this week.  Apparently, she shot herself and people heard the gun shot but didn't investigate what happened.  she was found the next day.  It must have been awful around there this week.

20- SU- PA- It was a gloomy, rainy day and I spent the whole damn day in bed, listening to podcasts. Then I had to hurry up and shower and get ready for dinner with Sue Descano and the Germans. As usual, it was great fun to see them.

21- M- PA- OMG, I was a lazy ass today. It was cloudy and chilly so the day just begged me yet again to spend the day in bed.  I got up some point in the late afternoon and ran errands.  I did come home and began my packing for my big ass trip to Bangladesh at the end of this month.  So I did make some progress.

22- TU- PA- It's another rainy, rainy day but I got up, got dressed and made my way to Lancaster, PA to see the Central Market.  It's one of the oldest markets in the area and it was a huge disappointment.  It was sterile and uninteresting.  So I made my way to the Spring House Brewing Company for a flight. The flight has 5 beers instead of 4 and now I am worried that I have too much beer. And I don't l really like the beers.  I finished my book, The Winter Over by Matthew Iden.  I am not sure how I feel about it.  I didnt love it even though it was about Antarctica.  But I wanted to listen to the very end so I could learn what happened.  The story was too strange for my taste.

23- W- PA- the sun must come out in the morning.  Four days of cloudy, chilly, rainy days is getting the best of me.  I laid in bed and listened to a whole book today, A Mind of Her Own by Paula McLain.  Its the story of Marie Curie falling in love with Pierre Curie.  Then I got my sorry ass moving and went to the Workhorse Brewery.  Last year, I visited 61 breweries and I started this year with no intention of trying to beat this record.  However, in August, it started to bother me.  And I am going away for the month of December so I will never reach that record.  But recently, I want to come as close as possible,  I think I will make 50. And that will be good enough.

24- TH- PA- the sun came out today and so my energy level improved.  I had to take a cancer patient to her treatment.  She's my age and exhausted by her illness.  She has an MRI next week to see if the brain tumor decreased.  When I dropped her off, I told her that I hoped I didnt have to see her again.  Then I went to the movies to see, Where's My Roy Cohn, a movie about Trump's lawyer.  This movie just showed yet more insight to the despicable behaviors of Cohn and Trump.  They are two men with no moral compass and no empathy but plenty of greed.  My new BOSE headphones came in and I love them.  Now, let's see if I use them.

25- F- PA- It was another beautiful, sunny day.  And I had lunch with Sue Descano and the Germans. I didn't get to see much of the Germans this year.  Our schedules overlapped and they stayed at a different location so it was hard to connect.  I felt too distant from them.  Maybe things will be better next year.  I came back to my apartment and chatted up Jean Walsh, a woman who just moved in a few months ago.  She wants to dress up as trump for Halloween but she is afraid the people in the building will shun her.  I am encouraging her to act up.  Let's see what she does.

26- SA- PA- I wasted the whole damn day.  I got up late and did a few things around the apartment but then I made the big mistake of taking just a little nap.  And then I was out, in deep sleep with lots of dreams.  Then it was 3PM and I had no energy.  I rallied and tried to find someone who wanted to watch the PSU football game with me.  But I had no luck.  So I started listening to a new unsolved murder mystery podcast, Culpable,  and I got sucked in.  I think it was 730PM before I finally, finally got my lazy ass up.

27- SU- PA- Its another damn, rainy day. I had my balcony door open and it rained inside my apartment.  I'm still caught up in my podcast story.  I listen and then I accidentally nod off.  I wandered down to the lounge. Debbie and Jeff just got back form Europe.  I haven't seen Steve and Phylis since I got home.  And Jon was there with Cuban sandwiches for the gang who were watching the Eagles game.  We were having a good time until Debbie and Jon got in to a verbal altercation.  So I went back to my apartment to minimize any pressure to take sides.


28- M- PA/DC-  I got up and out the door by 9 AM to head to the Bangladesh Embassy today n DC in hopes of securing a damn visa for my upcoming trip.  I made it there in time and thought I had everything I needed.  But I didn't and I left in great frustration.  I hate them.  On the way home, I stopped at the Full Tilt Brewery in Baltimore.  I loved the place.  It was filled with pinball machines and I could have spent hours in there. I finished listening to my podcast, Culpable.  It was riveting.

29- TU- PA, NY- It was another early morning for me as I promised Michelle Santoro that I would take her to the JFK airport.  She is headed back to Tanzania by way of Italy.  Shelia came with us and we had a great time.  We were lamenting that none of us had ever been to Coney Island and then all fo the sudden, there was a sign to Coney Island.  It was only a mile away so we veered off course and walked the boardwalk on this chilly, blistery, gray day.  And we had great fun.  I didn't get back until 7 PM which meant I had to forfeit my movie night with Jaye.  We will just have to go another night.  I spent the rest of the evening, chatting up Jill.  She struggles with life and my heart goes out to her.

30- W- PA- It's a dreary day.  I listened to a short book, My Lost Family by Danny Ben-Moshe.  Its the story of his mother's first husband who took their kids and never returned. Some people are shitheads.  I helped Jon with his resume.  He is looking to become a sales person in a cannabis dispensary so I helped him with the bullshit for his resume.  In the evening, I met Trisha for a PSU lecture series talk on homosexuality.  Maybe some day, we will get it right.

31- TH- PA/NJ-  It is another dream, rainy, miserable day.  I need a little sunshine.  I got up and went to the Death of the Fox Brewery and Coffee Shop in NJ.  The place opens at 7 AM.  I wonder if you can get a beer at that time.  Anyway, I liked these beers. I finished the day by going to REI and Target and buying shit I really didn't need.  This was a good month.