One of the best things about being on vacation is trying new foods or enjoying old favorites. We try to avoid chain and fast food restaurants, although we do like to see the different options available in other places at McDonald’s, Starbucks, and the like.
My daughter found a place a couple of years ago that is her go-to place when we are in Toronto. It has an extraordinary pop culture/fandom decor and menu, and the food is great! I’ll have a separate post and review of that one next week.
I was born three months after Star Trek premiered in 1966, and today they will celebrate their 60th birthday while mine is still a couple of months off. I don’t imagine that I watched the premiere or the original seasons live, but in my mind I watched it live. I have always had Star Trek in my life, or so it seems. As a child, I have a vague memory of the cartoons, I had Star Trek comic books and a photo-journal episode book for The Trouble with Tribbles that I still have in a box somewhere in my house. I read it over and over again until the cover fell off and some of the pages loosened and slipped away. I always put them back and one day I stopped reading its frail pages, wanting to keep it as intact as it remained, but also having memorized it I could read it in my mind.
As a post-teen/college graduate, I went to many sci-fi conventions, most especially ICON on Long Island, and one or two Creation Cons. I have a vague memory of seeing the big three, but my husband tells me we never did. I would swear though that I saw William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForrest Kelley in Manhattan. I picture it as if it was yesterday, but the mind is a tricky thing. I did see Leonard Nimoy and Patrick Stewart in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. George Takei at ICON. Did I see Walter Koenig? I’d have to check, it’s fuzzy, but I know I’ve seen Nichelle Nichols and Robin Curtis. Some next generation folks or rather DS9 – Nana Visitor, Alexandar el Siddig, Armin Shimmerman, Rene Auberjenois, writer Harlan Ellison, and others. We would watch Next Gen in my husband’s friend’s basement, eating chicken parm subs for dinner each week for each new episode. We continue that tradition when there is a new Star Trek – DS9, Enterprise, Picard. I don’t have fond memories of Voyager – I was a new mother, and my infant son screamed through every episode – I hear ya; I feel the same way, kid.
Two hours north of the New York state capitol is a small town of Ticonderoga, known for its pencils and Revolutionary era fort. There is also a Star Trek Original Series Set Tour created from the original blueprints with the impetus and creative spirit of James Cawley. It is a must for any STar Trek fan. There is a sweet spot that I talk about where the corridors meet and form a ‘T’, and for a split second, a moment in time, you are on the Enterprise. You can’t see the overhanging set lights, you can’t see the behind the scenes areas, in that one space, you are on the Enterprise. It’s magical.
Sadly, I have not found any merch, no pins, stickers, or anything for my collections to celebrate the big 6-0!
How am I spending today?
Re-watching The Voyage Home in my home with a bucket of popcorn and a Diet Coke. How will you celebrate this once in a lifetime anniversary?
DS9 pin that I received for my birthday last December. (c)2026
I watched a video by a pediatrician debunking the nonsense the president and his HHS secretary claimed about the amount of liquid in vaccines that go into a child’s body. Spoiler alert! The President doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The following graphics are the recommended vaccination schedule from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
You may notice that I’m not giving any advice other than what the experts are saying. That is because I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on the Internet. I can tell you what we did with our own kids, what my parents did when I was a kid, and what I do as an adult for myself.
Saturday morning on retreat, and breakfast consists of oatmeal. Hot, solid, healthy, and filling. I add a small amount of butter, brown sugar, and craisins. My tea of choice is Bigelow’s orange spice, and a bowl of cantaloupe and blueberries round off the healthiest meal in my repertoire. I don’t know why, but I almost always take a photo of the first bowl of oatmeal on the weekend. I look forward to it every time, and I never get tired of it. It’s a wonderful start to a weekend of contemplation, inspiration, and learning.
While driving to work yesterday, the sun in my eyes, I saw a person walking on the sidewalk opposite where I was. He (this is presumed) was wearing blue bike shorts and a blue shirt, not too bright, but not navy either, in another timeline, I’d probably describe it as American flag blue, both spandex, made most likely for exercise or biking and a red do-rag on his head. See if you can picture it.
I asked myself, out loud mind you, “Is that Spider-Man?”
I did a double take, and what he was wearing came into better focus, and I laughed. I enjoyed the rest of my drive to work.
I don’t have a photo (I was driving after all), so below are some of the other things I’ve seen this week on my way to and from work:
Today is St. Kateri Tekakwitha’s Feast Day. This year marks the special occasion of the 350th anniversary of St. Kateri’s baptism here in New York. On Thursday, I’ll have a special travel edition with information on visiting her shrine for her feast day weekend happening in a few days.
In the meantime, I’m announcing a new page here on the website called Traveling with St. Kateri Tekakwitha found here. I wanted to celebrate and commemorate her baptismal anniversary while also including some of my visits to her spaces and the Mohawk lands as well as some of my research adventures as I write the book about her and her shrines.
A little something about St. Kateri:
She was born in 1656 in what is known as the Mohawk Valley region of New York State. Her father was a Mohawk chief and her mother an Algonquin Christian.
When she was about four, both of her parents and her younger brother died from smallpox. She contracted smallpox and survived with lifelong health ailments, a frail constitution, and semi-blindness.
She was adopted by her uncle and was raised in the Turtle clan longhouse.
When she was ten, the village moved across the Mohawk River and formed the village of Caughnawaga. This site is the only fully excavated Iroquois site in the world. In 1666/1667, the Jesuits came to convert the Native population. They were allowed into the village as part of the peace treaties signed with the French government.
Kateri was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1676 by Fr. Jacques de Lamberville.
In the fall of that year, she left the Mohawk Valley to live with her sister and brother-in-law in Kahnawake, a Mohawk/Jesuit village along the St. Lawrence River in what was known then as New France and known today as southern Quebec.
At Christmas of that year, she received her First Communion.
Despite being denied joining or forming a religious order, she formed a sisterhood with two other women and in 1679 took a vow of perpetual virginity, consecrating herself to Jesus, the son of Mary.
She died April 17, 1680. Her smallpox scars cleared up and she was in what was called the odor of sanctity.
The sketch below was done from memory by one of her spiritual directors, Fr. Claude Chauchetiere, SJ in 1685, five years after her death. She and her two companions watch as the mission chapel is being built.
The topmost photo is of the statue at the shrine at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Lake George, NY. The simplicity and elegance of the wood carving is an inspiration in my devotion to St. Kateri as well as the spiritual, sacred feeling it evokes when I visit it.
There are hundreds if not thousands of things to criticize the Trump Administration, the Republican Congress, and the Supreme Court about. Seriously. But people, could we get a grip and focus on prioritizing some of them?
I’m talking about the newly vacant Senate seats in South Carolina and almost in Kentucky.
Stephen Colbert is not running for it. He doesn’t live in South Carolina. He doesn’t want the job. There is a perfectly good candidate running right now – Dr. Annie Andrews. Donate and vote for her.
Stop talking about the suggestion that Graham’s sister be appointed to fill out his term. This is a normal suggestion when a congressperson dies in office. This is something that is done. For anyone saying she has no experience as a politician, I thought that was what we wanted from those running for Congress – outsiders?
He’s wearing jeans…..STFU – people wear street clothes in rehab. That’s the least of the questions.
Stop talking about if it’s AI or not AI – you know the picture I’m talking about. If McConnell won’t meet anyone in person, call the special election, and let him call you out on it. Personally, I think he died.
A selection of foods celebrating America’s 250: brownie, firecracker ice cream, star shaped donut, rocket pop float, stars and stripes donut with rocket pop creme, bomb pop, stars & stripes munchkins from DD, Firecracker pop Oreos. (c)2026Coca-Cola chocolate cake with ice cream, red, white, and blue stars and sprinkles, and a cherry on top from Cracker Barrel. (c)2026
Is Mitch McConnell dead? Alive? Somewhere in the middle? I spoke to him for 20 minutes and he said to me, and I quote, “As a doornail.”
Should Thomas Massie be appointed as interim Senator? SPOILERS: NO FUCKING WAY
Being against pedophiles doesn’t make anyone a progressive. Thomas Massie is a ridiculously conservative Republican who likes raw milk and taking governmental services away from the people who need it, and let’s not get into his views on the second amendment.
Not to mention that Kentucky changed the law to prohibit the Democratic governor from appointing anyone. He should call a special election and force TPTB to prove that McConnell is living and recovering. Am I the only one who feels as though Tom Kean of New Jersey was a trial balloon for something like this?
Graham Platner – Misunderstood or Nazi Rapist? Our panel of experts from a diner in Iowa weighs in on Maine’s disaster of a progressive
Vote blue no matter who is null and void when the candidate is a rapist with a Nazi tattoo, neither of which he apologizes for, not that an apology wipes away the heinous actions. We are Democrats. We don’t vote for rapists or Nazis. Ever. If that means Susan Collins gets another term, so be it. Fuck Nazis is the minimum.
The DSA is not a friend of the Democratic party. They don’t even claim to be Democrats. Stop giving them our money.
Did an Olympian athlete vandalize the reflecting pool at the Washington Mall or is Trump the fool that drove his motorcade over the national monument and then hired substandard contractors to fix something that wasn’t broken before the POTUS broke it himself? CNN investigates. Ha! No, they’re not.
If they can’t blame it on Joe Biden, they don’t report it.
Is Jew-hate the new summer trend or have we seen this before?
And how do we protect ourselves and our kids?
Also see previous DSA comments.
A group of friends spends the day on an island. The one Black man doesn’t come home. Am I the only white person seeing this? It sure feels like it.
Tragic and heartbreaking doesn’t begin to cover it.
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Mark Elias and Democracy Docket – he and his team is the only one keeping our voting rights afloat – the Supreme Court certainly isn’t.
