Let's start the new year shouting out "Happy birthday" to Jeffrey and Margaret. Hope you both celebrated in style. Maybe even in Bermuda shorts. It's been so warm.
We did have some cold weather this week, which is actually nice, since the alternative is too scary. It had snowed up here and then it stuck around for a while. Fortunately, it was so warm this weekend, because the heavy rain and winds we encountered on the roads might mean that we'd still be in New Bedford.
New Bedford, you say? What would take us there? Herman Melville. A couple of years ago, we heard that the Whaling Museum in New Bedford hosts a Moby Dick marathon every January. We got there a little late and missed the first six chapters read by Nathaniel Philbrick and the Melville great-great grandchildren. We started in Chapter 7, in the Seamen's Bethel, the chapel across the street where the pulpit is built in the form of a prow of a ship. They assembled 200 or more people sang the anthem that appears in the chapter and afterwards we went back to the museum for more reading. We attended a couple of scholar chats and saw how so many people are drawn to the book and to the author, as am I. I don't feel so weirdly obsessed anymore. We did not sit through the night reading, but listened to probably 4-5 hours of the full 25. And, now I can scratch that off my bucket list.
We had an uneventful New Year's, joined by Cliff and Sheila who came over from Boston area to spend a few days with us. We played dominoes and watched the end of the Lord of the Rings, but didn't really make it to midnight. That was off bucket list a long time ago.
And what are your New Years' resolutions? I had a very ambitious one that had to do with diet but I broke it almost immediately. The I read in the paper yesterday that most do break their resolution in the first week. Nevertheless, Mary and I are trying our quarterly cleanse this week.
We talked to David who was on his way home from meetings in New York City, and he told us that Matthew is now focused on getting back to work. That would be unbelievable from where you were a few weeks ago Matthew, but now seems very realistic.
Out in Dundee, Claire has returned to school, Daniel hurt his foot and is on the injured reserve list for a while. Andrew has found a volunteer gig with a local pet shelter, that sounds right up his alley. On a sad note, he and Lur went to a memorial service for his best man this past weekend.
Speaking of investments, one of the features of Pop's old letters was the occasional article he would cut out and send around. I bet he would have sent this one, that was also one of the most popular e-mailed articles from the New York Times, this past week. It's on personal financial planning but I like the one on retirement that says, "Let go of who you were and focus on who you'll become." Or, what do you want to be when you grow up? Still trying to figure that one out.
Another article that seems to be making the family rounds was in the travel section this weekend of the 52 places to visit in 2016. Mexico City was first on the list, with a great photo taken just a block away from the Embassy. That article sent Johanna to the airlines website to get a ticket for Guadeloupe. Sun and fun. I noticed a few places we had been, but so many more. A few other places in Mexico, including where Margaret and Andrew went for their honeymoon, but neither Gabon nor the Berkshires made the list.
The photo included here was right before Christmas after lunch with John and Marilyn.
Hope you all are well, love from up here.
No comments:
Post a Comment