The Year of Living Covidly

The youngest member of our birthday club, Mary Walsh, turned 59 on November 22. We had a Club 59 party planned for her the week before, and like so many events, it was cancelled due to COVID. But thanks in large part to Christy Frampton, we were not thwarted. On Sunday, Christy went around to all of our houses and delivered cupcakes. They were delicious and I would show you a picture, but they were eaten in short order. After the cupcake distribution, Christy coordinated a Houseparty for Mary. Here we are all above. Fun to be together and celebrate Mary virtually! We will look forward to a year long series of parties for the big 6-0 when the pandemic is over!

  Got a call from our friend, relative, teacher Sister Pat that she was going to passing by our way from Sinsinawa, Wisconsin (AKA the Mound) to her home in Atlanta, Georgia, and did we have a couch she could sleep on? Of course, we did, and it was so good to see her! We have many connections to the Sinsinawa Dominicans in our family. My mom went to Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin, in the 50's, and was taught by Dominicans. Sister Pat was one of many Sinsinawa Dominicans who taught at St. Mark's (she was my sister Theresa's teacher). Sister Pat is also related to my husband's family (his mother was a Sullivan). We always love when she swooshes through Peoria and we get to see her! She is doing great Catholic social justice work in Atlanta.  Around 2008, Sr. Pat visited Ireland and sent us this photo of Lake Glendalough in Country Wicklow. Eight years later, we went to the home land and tried to replicate the photo.  It was close! We always love when St. Pat is pass...

  The post before this was about us going to Creighton on a college visit. To do this, Luke and I had to drive across what is derisively referred to as flyover. Never mind, we don't mind and the views of this flatland were gorgeous. A wall of clouds.  Luke drove most of the way home.  The wind turbines in Iowa seem a lot closer to the highway than those in Illinois. Such a blue sky and clouds. Not all the corn was in.  The lonely tractor and windmill. Approaching the mighty Mississippi, also known as the Big Muddy and Old Man River.  The Illinois side. Sunset over the Mississippi. The sun goes down. People make fun of flyover, but look at these sunsets! And the fields of waving grain rival the ocean.

  In the time of the pandemic, it's been tricky to schedule college visits. But our second attempt at a visit to Creighton University was successful. We had to postpone our initial plan to travel to Omaha due to COVID exposure in one of our households.  St. John's Church on the campus of Creighton. So on the last weekend of October, Luke and I made the six hour drive, largely across Iowa, to the Jesuit university. My sister Theresa and her son Will flew from Chicago. Here we all are after our campus tour. It's been fun for the boys to make some visits together. Prior to the tour, we were given a presentation in the newly remodeled Harper Center. It was Luke and my second time in the building this year. After never having been to Creighton before, we traveled here in February for a medical conference that our nephew Tommy, a now third year med student, was helping put on.   Here we are, briefly unmasked for the photo, at Mula, a Mexican restaurant.   Our Lady of ...

I thought it would be interesting to take stock of things right now. I'm sitting at the kitchen table on Thursday, November 5 at 9:08 pm. I haven't felt that great the last couple of days with a sore throat and a viraly, achy feeling. I don't think it's COVID, but of course it is until proven otherwise, so I have cancelled a couple of commitments and have been keeping away from people. I've been tested three times since COVID began, all negative, but I don't know if we can really depend on the veracity of the tests. Interestingly, Donald Trump is making a similar, though completely false claim about the veracity of the voting process. "Stop the count!" he tweets. Fraudulent, fake votes have been cast, he wants you to believe. He just made a speech, in which without proof he alleged all kinds of fraud. It was so egregious, that the networks all pulled away from it to point out that he was lying. I guess it shouldn't be a shock as he was babbling abo...

I waited to vote on Election Day in my West Peoria precinct on this historic election. Although we were encouraged to vote early, I had a feeling that this could be the last presidential election when so many people vote on Election Day. In the future, it could be Election Fortnight. So, for posterity's sake, I decided to vote on the the first Tuesday of November.   About 6:30 am, I drove down the hill to my precinct. Construction work on Farmington Road made it a little trickier to get to the polling place.  But I was able to get there. Until I voted for the first time at a West Peoria address, several years ago, I had never been to my precinct neighborhood, which is tucked behind the gravel pit off of Sterling. . . . . . located in a vehicle storage building for West Peoria.  Once inside, I couldn't use my cell phone. Here's what I can tell you: I was 16th in line. They had blue tape marking the floor every six feet. It was silent: no one was talking. As I approach...