My worst fears about this pandemic were realized when “Things Fall Apart” (to borrow a title from the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe) and my husband and I got covid. I’ve had some degree of anxiety throughout these two years. However, I believed…
Both my husband and I contracted Covid-19 from an un-boostered participant at Christmas dinner. At first I panicked. My symptoms have been mild, with no breathing problems and good vital signs. My husband has been more debilitated and had a high fever one day that Tylenol brought down. He’s had no breathing problems. He had the Regeneron monoclonal antibodies infusion via the VA and in 24 hrs. felt better. My four most prominent symptoms: frequent vital signs monitoring, frequent laundering, frequent disinfecting and fatigue…
The power of organized interests to manipulate our minds has never been greater. Recent super-increases in computer speed and memory are providing the opportunity for artificial intelligence to subjugate us to new levels of dependence. These advanced techniques not only manipulate our buying habits, they manipulate our sense of ourselves and of our place in society, and they sell us political alliances and ideologies.
Call it AI, call it robots, or call it big tech. No matter what, we are giving away our souls. But there are ways to keep our souls…
I had trouble finding more cream cheese to supplement the one 8oz. package I had to make a lemon cheesecake for Christmas dinner at a relative’s, for which I needed five packages. The Good Tern had three. The staff told me there is a national paucity of cream cheese and a major producer is paying $25 to customers who forego making cheesecakes…
By Phyllis Merrimann I finally got my act together to store the patio furniture and plant pots in the garden shed. It took no time or effort at all. Why did I procrastinate until early December? Why to I procrastinate about other chores? Because of another...
It is hard to believe I’ve been writing these Random Notes now for 90 weeks. The prolonged virus, its power and variants, homegrown conspiracies, fake news about vaccines, transmissions, masks, social distancing, political divides about all of these topics and Americans’ inabilities to come together as families, political bodies and as a nation to protect one another and find the stamina to sustain the courage to outlast Covid and its variants makes me very anxious.
Many people don’t realize that Midcoast Maine was home to world-famous poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. She lived in Union, Camden and Rockland, Maine and her house in Rockland is being restored.
By Phyllis Merrimann --- The Buzz The Village Soup reported a dozen households severely impacted by the Halloween storm. In actuality, at least two-dozen homes’ basements were damaged with water and mud along with an unknown number of water-damaged vehicles. As we...
Children ages 5 to 11 are now eligible for vaccines. Some parents cannot wait to have their children vaccinated. Others are still leery. Epidemiologists and scientists are urging vaccines for this age group. 750,000 Americans have now died of Covid. Wasn’t it just last week the number was 500,000? Unvaccinated are the hardest hit.
The trenches along the South Main Street RR tracks that rattled every vehicle that had to cross have finally been paved. With apologies to Jerry Lee Lewis:
And More…
By Glen Birbeck --- The Buzz During my time in Ecuador, when escaping the Maine winter, I encountered all sorts of people. Not just nationalities, something that means less and less in our "connected" world. The Asian and the African at home both have dishes pointed...