January 16 - Today was a big day. For Andrew who went into the hospital this morning for bypass surgery. He is having the operation at the hospital where Lur volunteered for many years, close to home. We wish him luck on what is going to be a tough couple of weeks of recovery. Lur actually has a procedure tomorrow as well, an outpatient fix to a nerve issue in her hand. When it snows it pours.
And it has been snowing. Here, there and everywhere. Illinois got clobbered last week, and then they sent their excess towards us. We hit a squall on our way down to DC, that was white-out back in Pittsfield, but we missed that. Or so we thought. It snowed here most of yesterday, dropping 3-4 inches on this ill-prepared city. So schools are closed, and a few children we know don't remember seeing snow or have never seen it, so there's excitement all around. Until they see how painful cold can be. Anyway, there's enough today that schools are called off, and enough to make a snowman, at least. We did make snowballs yesterday when there was just a little, and that was met with awe and wonder.
We came down for the week to help out with Leonor as Joe had a work trip to Japan. We were supposed to see Jeff and Melodie yesterday, but a stomach bug was going through the Joe/Leonor household, so we took a rain date, or a snow date. Everyone seems okay now, and we hope it doesn't spread beyond.
Snow intervened in our plans to go to New Bedford for the annual Moby Dick read-a-thon. We were going to meet a Princeton classmate who had written his senior thesis on Melville, so it would have been a good weekend of like-minded obsessives. But not to be. The forecast scared us off, and good thing as driving home in blizzard-like conditions would have been no fun. We only got a few inches in Pittsfield, but east of us there were places, along the Mass Pike, that saw a foot or so.
No snow in India, unless you count confetti for the festival of Pongal, which "marks the end of the winter solstice and the beginning of spring, which in turn signals the beginning of another harvest season." Annie celebrated with Sankar and his family and sent along some wonderful photos.
We're staying with Margaret and Andrew and they have almost completed some renovations on their house, mostly to give them more storage space inside. Looks really nice and frees up room, more for Simon to run around.
On the way down, we talked with David and Paula, mostly David, as Paula was under the weather. There's a lot of illness going around, and Mary still has a cough, lingering since India. She did go to the doctor who gave her some medicine which seems to be working, albeit slowly. How have I managed to avoid it? No idea.
January 17 – Interrupted for snow day. Full of fun with snowballs, snowmen, shoveling, sledding, and a few tears because of the cold. Mostly mine. Anyway, there's an update from Illinois. Surgery went well and Andrew has begun the long process of healing. The nurses want him up and walking a little today. Wow! Pretty soon he'll be playing in the alumni lacrosse game.
And with that, signing off with love from snowy, cold DC.
