And the Oscar goes to...

It's countdown to the Oscars, and I'm predicting (hoping) Lincoln, Daniel Day Lewis and Jennifer Lawrence, Sally Fields and Tommy Lee Jones.  I know there are others but I it's hard to have an opinion about lighting or song.

The Pittsfield Oscar goes to the 6 trucks I saw yesterday morning on the ice, at the lake.  Or, maybe that would be the Darwin awards.  The Oscar actually goes to the young girl who was helping her father out ice fishing, for acting like she might be enjoying it.  

Mary is off at another swim meet today, and she swears it will be her last.  Wanna bet?  

Last weekend, we drove a thankfully almost snow-free drive westward to Fairport and spent the evening with David and Paula.  Matthew, Tina and Oliver came over for one of Paula's famous dinners and catching up on wedding reminiscing.  Tina is well into her new life as a full-time nursing student and seems to enjoy it.  Oliver is busy with all kinds of activities like martial arts.  Look out.  The next day, it snowed.  Go figure!  We went out to brunch with David and Paula and had an overall wonderful time talking diets, investing, furniture, retirement and history.   

From Fairport, we went to Cornell where I gave a talk on history and memory and foreign relations.  Our host, a neuro biologist, worked with me at the State Department, and the photo shows us with him, in front of his birds who he monitors in experiments on learning and memory.  Very interesting.  

Left over from last week's weekly letter was Margaret's claim that she was the last person to shake Hillary's hand as she left the State Department.  Pretty cool.  She would have gone to see in the new guy the next day, but had a lot of work to do, including writing a memo to that same new guy.  

Good news from colleges:  Claire got into one more college (Cornell of Iowa) and Annie got into NYU.  Congratulations.  Annie also had her last day of work on Friday, so she is set to enjoy the next few months in China.  She's signed up for a Chinese language course.

Spring is around the corner.  I got a fishing rod from Joe this week, and plans are in the offing for a fishing weekend in May.  Anyone care to join?  And, the first spring season baseball games started.  

So is summer.  Mary looked into Mountain Springs, for a possible weekend this summer, but found it is almost all booked.  Must be the spillover from people losing beach houses on the Jersey shore.  We're happy to host a weekend up here, and can look into venues besides Jiminy Peak.  David and Paula also suggested somewhere in the Finger Lakes.  All good. Thoughts?

Hey, one more thing.  I just got a subscription to www.ancestry.com and am happy to share the password if anyone wants to look around that site.  Let me know.

That's all from cold and wet New England.  Love.  

Happy Valentine's Day, weekend

A warm spell, coinciding with the warmth of Valentine's Day.  Still, when the temperature reaches in the 40s, why are there trucks on the lake?  Are they trying get their own entry into the annual Darwin awards?

Anyway, momentarily we head out to Rochester to visit David and Paula, and then over to Ithaca to give a talk at Cornell, at the invitation of a former colleague who is a neuroscientist there.  Hmmm.  This looks like it will be another chapter in my long book, Way out of my League.  Still, it will be wonderful to see the Fairport gang again.

On Valentine's Day, we joined John and Marilyn at MassMOCA, the modern art museum up the road, for dinner and tour through the exhibit space.  They had an exhibit from Canada we'd thought we'd like, and an amazing exhibit from China which was overpowering in size and audacity.  Sounds like China.  Look up Xu Bing for more, and hopefully my pathetic phone picture attached will entice you.  There is a rug is made out of 500,000 cigarettes!  Those are two birds giant birds which John, Marilyn and Mary are looking up at, made out of all kinds of salvaged metal materials.

But, last week was the big storm.  Even though we got about a foot, we were saved from those east and west of us who got much more.  We went to bed Friday night, and there was not much on the ground, but woke up to a healthy snowfall, requiring two plows and a little digging.  We did not have to go anywhere, fortunately, but did get out for snow-shoeing and then really great cross-country skiing the next day.  It could have been much worse, were it not for the good Samaritan who found my car keys and put them in the door of the car for me!

We are plugging away on our new diet, following a week of strict cleansing.  We have re-introduced slowly meat and alcohol, caffeine and small dairy and, of course pizza.  Still the results are rewarding, but we seem to have reached a plateau after fast weight loss initially.  And, after the first couple of irritable days, we find ourselves not really missing things.

We've talked to everyone it seems the last couple of weeks:

The Dundee crowd previewed the storm for the rest of us, a day or more ahead of time.  Thanks!  Peter and Janet got about half a foot in the storm and David says they got over a foot out there.  Nothing in DC, as usual, but we did see a photo of Margaret and Andrew trying out the skating rink near the archives on the mall.  Fun. Margaret went to my old office, as she signed up to help out an upcoming meeting.  Joe is busy, taking classes and learning his new job, which opens a new region for him: East Asia.  They might have some Treasury related matters there.  Annie had a week off for Chinese New Year, but stayed in Beijing, while I think everyone else in the city left.  Smart.  And, Danny is off to Baja California to visit with Timmy.

We are busy and getting busier.  School work and projects there are interesting.  I will be doing a research project on the old woolen mill which is our neighbor here.  Mary has been researching food and the health impact (for our new regimen) as well as keeping up with swimming and yoga and guitar and photo classes.  

Oh, and thanks for all your birthday wishes.  On the last lap before the big 6-0.  Why am I running so fast?  Can't it slow down a little?

Love from snowy New England.  Hope you all are well.