Groundhog Day

I'm channeling Pop tonight. Listening to opera (Wagner's The Flying Dutchman) while writing this letter. Actually, I signed up for an Introduction to Opera class, in order to try to understand what that Brooklyn, Depression boy saw in this form. Our first class featured several pieces that even I had heard of before.  Search for "Nessun Dorma" on your Spotify or YouTube and you'll recognize it.  And be moved by it.

Anyway, it's Groundhog Day, and we learn that there are just a couple of more weeks of winter, since there was no shadow.  Of course, he's only right about 39% of the time, according to NPR, but what's evidence to get in the way of a good story.

We had a first-ever winter occurrence here this week. We had a wet snow, 3-4 inches on Sunday night, and it clung to the branches, a beautiful sight that lasts too short. Except for this week. With no sun, no wind, and cold weather, the snow stay stuck on the branches all week long. Someone should write a song about the frosting on the Berkshires that seemed almost dreamlike, as seen from our backyard or even the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston.

We played host this week to Mary's Boston-era friend, Gerry Shannon, who came up from DC to remember the cold winters of her youth.  I often wonder when these two friends will run out of topics to talk about. If they were two men, it would have taken about 15 minutes. Anyway, we did fall into reminiscence mode, after a morning or cross-country skiing and snow-trekking which reminded us of a 1982 drive through a snowstorm with bald tires trying to find a place to go skiing. There were doughnuts, but not the eating variety, the spin around the road kind. Scary.

Illness still seems to be the curse of winter, and not just here. Mary and I traded colds and stomach bugs, and then she hurt her back. Down in DC, the Joe Dicksons have had strep, ear infections and colds, as well as the Margaret Dicksons. That didn't stop them from getting together last Sunday with Jeff and Melodie to watch the football games. My two teams lost, and now we have a Super Bowl, that I'm not really interested in. Where's Tom Brady when you need him? It was tough to watch Mahomes and Kelce break Brady and Gronk's playoff TD record.

We see Kiernan expertly manipulating a spoon and a drinking cup!  No spills. And Luisa was putting together jigsaw puzzles. Simon assembled a Lego vehicle, and Thomas had a chess outing. Where did they get these talents? We also see Everett carefully checking out an owl.

No snow in India, but more holidays.  Here's Annie's description of "a famous Carnatic music festival called Thyagaraja Aradhana in Thiruvaiyaru dedicated to Saint Thyagaraja, a composer of Carnatic music. I'm told it's one of the largest music festivals in India -- around 20,000 people attended. We went to two of the five days, and scored VIP passes through a friend who joined us. The last day is pretty epic. For this day, they clear out a large area in the audience, stretching from the center of the stage to the very back of the tent, where musicians sit on the ground with the audience on either side. At one end sit percussion and wind instruments, at the other, the flutes and violins. The singers take up the middle. Yes, I did take a few cat naps, but still, it was very cool." Looks like Annie was also channeling Pop, who admitted he rarely made it to the final act in the operas he loved.

Down in Florida, John and Marilyn just got back from a cruise around the Caribbean. They have graciously offered to play hosts for our planned road trip in April down south. Thank you!

Out Illinois way, the patient continues to make slow progress. If you want to know how tough it is, he was prepping himself for a walk in the driveway this week. What we take for granted. 

 Love from out here!