Four more days from Judy

March 9th (and 10th)

Yesterday was wonderful. sunny warm. I took the lining out of my coat. I had a very long long lunch with Valli the friend that I have not seen in 5 years. We talked about of families and kids (or grand kids) and mostly about our passions for advocacy for women. She has edited a book that is just coming out called " When Priests Prey" and is going to do a book launch and probably come to Toronto. Several of our group went home over the weekend.

Today I traveled by train to Long Island (I had never been there) and had lunch with friends who live there and also got my laundry done....yea...clean underwear.

Joan and Ross are so warm and generous. I hope that they come to Canada some day.

Back to 8 am chapel tomorrow....fill you in later.

March 11th

Monday in New York began in Chapel at 8 am. My normal morning routine here. It grounds me and inspires me and helps the rest of the day go well. Then I met the soroptimists, UN briefing. That takes us to somewhere after 10 am and I am ready for a tea and muffin. Monday I napped for a bit and met the Canadian negotiators. Good news, there is a new draft of the outcome document and there is some beginnings of agreement on the text. For the Commission on the Status of women the outcome document must be agreed to by all nations on the floor, consensus not majority. When you get Arab states, African states, and all over the world, customs and religious ideations are widely divergent and it can be a challenge to get consensus. Last year there was no outcome document because consensus could not be reached.
A highlight of this year seems to be food. Last night I joined Joan and Ross and Harriet from South Soudan and and Florence from Lagos, Nigeria.I learned a lot from these wonderful women and had an amazing chicken dinner.

March 12th

Tuesday in New York starts again at 8 am in Chapel. My home friends would be amazed that I get anywhere at 8 am every day...It is rainy and windy here today. An excellent briefing this morning and a good meeting with the soroptimists. Back to my room for tea and a muffin and to dry off before I went to the UN building to again meet the Canadian negotiators. Progress has been slow as they negotiate sentence by sentence but at least they now have 16 agreed paragraphs. My umbrella died when a gust of wind inverted it for the 3rd time today. Hopefully it won't rain again before I leave.
Back to my room to try and dry off again and then off on the highlight of my day...I got to attend a briefing at the US high Commission. In other years they have met with all US reps at once and not let "foreigners "in. this time they met with just Ecumenical Women and allowed several foreigners to come.. The 3 women were very candid and allowed us to ask questions as well as telling us what they perceive is happening.. We were there about 45 minutes. Then back to dry out and off at 6 to a debrief. My room mate and I decided to treat ourselves and go out for dinner so we went to the Mint on 50th at 3rd...Indian food...not too spicy.