What does what sets Michigan apart from its neighbors, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio?  Since I live in the U.P. and I live in one of the counties that border on Wisconsin. The U.P., you know, we have a distinctive identity, I guess among ourselves and probably among the state of Michigan as Yoopers. We're traditionally kind of used to taking care of ourselves here.  What sets us apart from our neighbors? Actually, we don't, up here where we are. We're a lot like Wisconsin or maybe I should say Wisconsin is a lot like us. You know, we're in the Upper Midwest, the Lake Superior region, we’re a lot like Minnesota in some ways. We're probably more alike than anything else. I think Michigan and the Midwest are -- are different from other parts of the country and the fact that we -- We are like, maybe not all other people aren't, but we are salt-of-the-earth people type thing we're used to doing again, just like the Yoopers, we’re used to doing stuff on our own. We're -- we're kind of just, you know buckle down and get it done by people. Not that other people aren't, just that apparently that seems to be our -- our Thing. I don't know.

So now my father passed away, now coming up on three years ago, and my mother is still quite independent at the age of 89. She likes to go to Florida in the winter and I like to go with her and allow that to happen. She is not really comfortable being down there on her own, but that's fine with me because I am still working and can work from whatever location I might be in remotely. So again, that's a blessing that I feel so fortunate to have a number one a job, and number two to be able to do it from anywhere in the US. Let's see what else, so my mom and I were actually in Florida in the beginning of the year when things started heating up about covid-19. And at that point the news just kept getting worse and worse and scarier and scarier and she did not really feel safe being down in Florida away from her doctors and my other sisters who are also in the vicinity of Michigan where we live near Ann Arbor, and she wanted to go home.  So we were supposed to fly home at the end of April but Plan B became renting a car and driving back to Michigan. And of course, my mother doesn't drive, the responsibility for getting her home safely was on my shoulders. I got the rental car, cleaned it all out, let it sit in the sun for a couple of days. Make sure there were no germs in it before she got in, and then made the drive without an overnight stop. We had food packed, so we wouldn't have to go to any restaurants. I stopped to nap a couple of times, but it was pretty much a straight twenty-four-hour run from Fort Myers, Florida up to Ann Arbor, Michigan to get my mom home. And I will say that drive was a bit surreal. You know people were just starting to wear masks at that point. I used gloves when I had just stopped to fill up the car. Some people were not, I felt strange putting on a rubber glove to touch the gas pump, and use the touch screen and that was also really scary. We used restrooms, public restrooms and you know every surface we touched we wiped before we touched it. We had…

The beginning of the lockdowns was a very significant historical event. Can you remember where you were the first time you heard about another significant event in US history, like 9/11, the moon landing, or JFK's assassination? 9/11, I do remember where I was at when 9/11 [happened].  I was working for an Allergy Center in Okemos and my husband -- my ex-husband who was my husband then, we had just actually moved out of our house in Lansing and we were waiting for our house to be finished in Owasso. We had a two month, about a two month time gap and we had to live with my parents. We had two little kids, my daughter was like four or five and my son was not even a year old and I was at work.  I was working at The Allergy Center in Okemos, and I remember some -- oh, one of the girls called, her husband called and she came up front and told us that a plane had struck the towers and I remember thinking in my head. Oh my gosh. Somebody is so going to get fired for this. This is bad. They hired somebody that was drunk or that was stoned or something and he flew into the building. Oh my gosh, I thought for sure. I was like, oh, this is horrible. You know, I mean I had no idea it was going to get that bad. So I just, that was my first thought and then when it kept going and going and going. I remember we had a patient in the room and she ran out in tears, one of her family members, I want to say maybe it was her brother or her brother in law or something worked in the Trade Center. And when the Trade Center went down, she ran out crying. Oh my gosh. It was awful. I remember watching it. All of us girls staff were in the doctor's office watching it on his TV and I remember thinking you know, what is going on here. So, I don't know it was just scary. It was super scary and it'll be something I remember forever where I was and what I was thinking and everything when it happened. So yeah, that was horrible.

What role, if any does music play in my life? Music has always been a big part of my life. My mother's side of the family specifically is very musical. They played a lot of instruments, got together and sang, and did all sorts of things back in the day. So, music holds a special place for me.  Sometimes it'll inspire you, sometimes it'll bring you to tears, sometimes, you know, a lot of times, you'll hear a song and it will immediately take you to that moment in time when you first heard it or was something special particularly important about that particular song. I've got a song. Every time I hear of Carly Simon sing "You're So Vain", it was playing on every radio I could hear when I was in the Marine Corps boot camp back in the 1973. So every time I hear that song, for many years I was immediately transported back in my mind to boot camp. It still holds a special place in my heart for me because of that.

I'm a veteran firefighter, volunteer firefighter and a UP Volunteer Firefighters Association has held an annual firefighters tournament since 1894, I think it was. It was canceled this year, postponed I should say until next year because obviously there's no way to social distance at this thing. So instead of my normal vacation, which I would take for the firefighters tournament, I had some friends from up in the Keweenaw who we always see at the firefighters tournament every year, they went camping this year. So I stopped in to see them, social distancing, we kept our six feet apart and wore masks even then outside. They are good friends and we just kind of - that was our quote-unquote tournament experience. We've been going together for the tournament reading at the tournament for more than 20 years, and I've been a firefighter, volunteer firefighter since 1982.

It's really difficult being alone and being isolated in these times. I have taken to working out. I used to work out only in my room, but I decided to go out every morning for a quick run. Well, I mostly walk, but then I run for maybe ten minutes and then I returned to my apartment and have breakfast and then work on my proposal.  It's been very interesting to see how people have reacted to this. When you go outside and someone is walking towards you and they instantly you have to, you know, keep away. Inwardly, you feel weird, like okay, I don't have the disease, but understand this is for precaution because you never know who has it and you never know how you're going to get it, if you ever do. So, all this extra care, having to wear the nose mask, having to wash your hands. Well washing hands are sanitary, we should always wash our hands whether it’s COVID or not. But I feel like human beings have been forced to adopt certain behaviors that they ordinarily wouldn't, and it's very interesting to see. I am very excited about how people use social media these days to stay connected. Instagram and Facebook are the two I use the most. I recently discovered Tik-Tok and when I have some free time, I like to create all these videos and send them back home just so my family knows what I’ve been up to.