My bad

Sorry about not doing a letter in a while.  I've been busy.  You're saying, "But you're retired."  True.  But with a nap and exercise, the day is pretty much all gone.  That, and I've been crashing on panels for an exhibit at the local library on the history of Pittsfield.  It opens next week.  You'll see it on Facebook.

The snow has turned to rain, but we watched it come from Chicago, head through Rochester and then hit us this morning.  The Locherys are here as they are waiting for a train to Boston, which has been delayed six hours, and maybe more.  But we're warm, with a fire going and hot tea coursing through our veins.  (We watched Love Actually this weekend, and I noticed how many scenes in that film revolve around tea!  We spared Andrew S. the agony of sitting through it at Christmas, but we missed our annual fix.)

Actually (love, actually) we watched it because John and Marilyn were up here and had never seen it.  So.....  as things happen, they had not planned a winter visit, but Marilyn's older sister passed away, and they drove up from Florida - two days.  John was able to get in one day of skiing, though.  And, it's a function of families that we meet at funerals and weddings, as we saw Johnny's daughters for the first time in years. It was nice to see them and catch up, if under those tough circumstances.  That's why the Poconos is so important.

They were not here for the Super Bowl, but that's okay because neither were we.  They started back early Sunday morning, and we headed to Rhode Island to watch the game at Marj and Lew's basement theater.  I should not have gone.  I realized after that we've only watched one other game there, and the Patriots lost to the Broncos, in the AFC Championships a few years. ago.  Never again, but they may not get to the Super Bowl again.  

It seems I get the most texts from my children during Super Bowls.  Joe and Thomas, in his Patriots outfit, watched at Margaret and Andrew's, and I'm not sure Thomas will ever see a game as exciting as that again.  I'm glad the Philadelphia fans have something to cheer about.  They waited.  Annie was chiming in from San Francisco, but the game ended early and she had to stay awake and ruminate.  The rest of us just went to bed and tried our best to forget.  Right?  Isn't that what everyone did?

Joe and Leonor returned from a good long family visit in Portugal.  They sent a lot of pictures, of different cousins, grandparents, brothers, friends, all holding Thomas.  He's very popular over there.  When they returned, it seemed he picked up something on the plane, as he's had a bout of stomach bug which sent them to the emergency room this week.  Joe had a meeting in Switzerland, and Mary kept thinking he was at Davos, but wouldn't tell us.

News from Dundee is that Andrew and Lur are also getting quality grandchildren time in, as they are on duty a couple of days a week, with Auden and Elliot.  Myles must be in school.  Andrew mentioned that Daniel had a trip to the LA area for a conference.  He had hoped to meet LeBron James, but not sure if that ever materialized.

What else?  We've been taking a couple of classes at the Lifelong Learning Institute (reading Hemingway and Gertrude Stein), Mary's been tutoring and teaching swimming.  We spend our evenings holed up watching a Netflix show called The Killing.  Can't turn it off.  And time flies by.

And we're in the final weeks before we head back to Gabon.  One room is full of stuff - shoes, equipment, clothes - not sure if we'll have space for our clothing.  We went to the travel clinic and stocked up on our meds, including a typhoid live oral vaccine that has pretty much wiped me out. I wonder if they actually give you a little typhoid so your body builds up a defense.  Fake news, probably.

Anyway, life is good up here.  Tomorrow, we head down to Washington for the weekend.  It'll be nice to see everyone.  

The photo of Donald and Oliver shows that some toys are timeless.  I'm pretty sure we head something like that growing up too.

Love from up here.