Freezing and Windy

Someone said (Winston Churchill?) "When you are going through hell, keep going." Sound advice, I think, and something that has been occurring to me often lately.

This being Sunday, one should take a little time to reflect. Big picture, all that. Another great leader of the Western World, Bono, gave some other good advice. Woman, be still. I am going to try to follow that one too.

We tried a little skiing this PM. Only two runs, with a cafeteria break inbetween. Kid 1 was not happy for even one minute, well, maybe when I first brought her some hot chocolate.

Be still.

MLK Holiday in Montreal

Actually, I was back at work on MLK day, but this last weekend the family were all up in Montreal at the annual Vermont Bar Association meeting that is held there. A good time was had by all. Pictures above tell some of the story.

The meeting is known as the "January Thaw" but the weather actually got cold for what seemed like the first time in weeks while we were there. After the Friday afternoon seminar the kids and I went book shopping downtown. Kids scored books at Indigo, which is my current favorite downtown bookstore.

On Saturday night it was dinner with the family, including my Dad and Stepmom, at il Cortile, a fabulous little Italian restaurant on Sherbrooke Street next to the Museum of Fine Arts. We were celebrating the birthdays of Woolfoot Kid 1 (9) and the daughter of my friends Brenda and Vitali, who turned 6. Brenda's Mom set the dinner up and we all had a great Olive-garden style time with much-better-than Olive Garden food and wine.

Sunday, breakfast at a patisserie across the street from St. Andrew and St. Paul (see picture and my post on this, my favorite church ever, from February '05 http://www.standrewstpaul.com/). The bells were ringing as we stepped into the patisserie and I felt a pang. Sorry You Know Who. Another failure.

Husband returned to Montreal apt and kids and I went for a ride in Chinatown that turned into a three hour visit to the Montreal Science Center. It's good - not as good as the Montshire Museum in Hanover, NH, but worth the visit. Kids had fun and so did I. It has that certain odd Quebec aesthetic that is difficult to identify but noticeable to anyone who stops to ponder it. If you remember Youppi, the Montreal Expos very odd mascot, that will give you something of the flavor of what I am talking about. The French sense of humor is just off...

Then, back to reality. Kids had no school MLK day and I had to drop $100 on a babysitter - an unemployed lawyer of my acquaintance. Yikes. (Unemployment, that is, and the $100).

Where Were You This Morning?

I was here... Aren't I the lucky one

January Thaw on the Canadian Border

New Year's Resolution

I bet I share this one with a lot of you. No more leaning on the credit cards. I just looked at a couple of balances and assimlated how bad things have gotten. When did this happen. It is going to take years to dig out. I am posting this partly to remind myself as the year goes on that this is for real!

Of course, the post office is closed today (just before some payments are due) in honor of President Ford. How odd to close the federal government to honor a dead president. How about if federal employees would honor him by working extra hard today?

Remind me if you see me flashing that card!

New Year's Eve 2006 - North Troy

The Woolfoot Family has spent New Year's Eve (so far at least) here at the Last House. Just around 3:30 as the sun was headed down on 2006 I snapped this picture (with a telephoto lens, then edited it a bit to tighten the shot) of Owl's Head mountain over in Canada.

The kids had a great time sledding down one of the hills here at the farm today. If I could post a video I would. I got a funny one of Kid 2 tumling off at the bottom while Kid 1 laughed and screamed and yelled "Wicked." I even made a few runs down with Kid 1. It was fun.

Spent early morning yesterday at Jay. I was going to take a walk on the golf course (as per my usual) but found it had become impassable - or at least not pleasantly passable - without snow shoes. I had all my ski gear with me, so I took one run down the mountain. It wasn't as great up there as I had thought it would be, based on the snow down lower. Dinner last night with our Canadian Friends, Vitali and Brenda, whose kids are bookends with ours (same ages as ours, sexes flipped).

Happy 2007 to all and sundry.

"The Subtle Thief "- Hello!

How soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year (or first and fortieth)
(John Milton)

Boxing Day 2006

Highlights of the holiday season this year: iDogs for both kids - definitely the hit for Christmas giving in our house; the drive from Albany, New York to North Troy, Vermont on Christmas Eve - all sun, no snow and the Adirondacks never looked more magical; the Charlie Brown Christmas CD.

Woolfoot made it to Church (sans kids, which turned out to be a good decision from a stress management point of view) on Christmas Eve. I was in Voorheesville, the pleasant old village in Albany County where my Dad and his wife live. I went to the Voorheesville United Methodist Church. They are my tribe, as Woody Allen's sister said of the Jews in Deconstructing Harry while scanning the list of names of dead passengers in a plane crash. (Woody's answer - "They're all your tribe"). The Vville church is a a turn-of-the-century number, white and steepled and with the usual dedications on the stained glass windows; beautiful brass chandelier. Friendly and not too showy. The Methodist way.

From my point of view, however, (and this is going to make me sound like an ingrate), the service suffered from that unfortunate tendency to make church friendly and accessible (i.e., hold the solemnity and any difficult St-James-version vocabulary). (See my previous post from about a year ago "Softly and Tenderly" for more can't miss opinions on modern protestant church services and my churchgoing background).

Only one actual Carol was on the menu for Christmas Eve, "Joy to the World" at the very end. I stumbled politely through a number called "Star Child" from the supplemental hymnal- never heard of it? Well, it's not likely to challenge "Joy to the World" anytime soon ("Star Child" includes the verse "street child, beat child", you get the picture). Minutes into the service we were directed to exchange "the peace of Christ" which is code for stop contemplating and go and shake hands and kiss cheeks. People, can't we save this for coffee afterwards?

The minister was a nice-seeming youngish man who made a couple of jokes and generally beamed at everyone. He had a fine loud voice and a trimmed beard. I confess (I give with one hand and take away with the other - I told you this was going to make me sound like an ingrate)to being put off by his wardrobe choice, which included a sport coat and did not include a collar. The ensemble was set off by a medallion of unknown symbolism mid-chest. The whole style-package reminded me of Dr. Zayuss (sp?) the chief intellectual orangutan in the Planet of the Apes. During the sermon, I started drifting through the said hymnal supplement, which I had not seen before. It included the expected additions of hymns in Spanish and generally reflective of the crunchy-granola branch of modern Methodism. The piece of the Sermon that I did catch involved how all of us could be wombs for God - including six-year-old children who don't know what wombs are and 85 year old men. I think I get the drift but this is not exactly one for the ages. John Milton may rest easy in his grave.

Sorry all you nice peace-kissing Methodists. Really, I was glad to have gone despite all this mean-spirited carping. Everyone was nice.

In other news:

Latest deep thinking has me considering the effects of time on us all. I will be 42 in a few weeks and feel like I am coming apart like a cheap suit. Belly expanding, joints aching. I clutch at bannisters when the wheather is changing to rain (my right knee and ankle protesting). I spent a day in November shampooing rugs at the Burlington condo and my forearm and wrist have not recovered from the day's squeezing of the trigger on the carpet cleaner. I looked around at the old people in church realizing - those people are not "other" those people are me - if I live long enough. I am half deaf, slightly incontinent, name it and its starting to give out.

And so, if we are lucky to live to be old, time will beat us down into a creaking, failing disaster of the flesh. Then, of course, eventually the flesh will fail altogether and we will be nothing but an assemblage of molecules. These will fall apart into dust. Just like it says in the Bible. Someday it will all be incinerated when the sun goes red dwarf, then what's left of these bodies of ours will be space dust. Talk about a downer.

But - but - when you run this scenario in reverse, you have to stop and think - from whence did we come? It's all part of the same picture, right? Here is the brighter aspect. From this same dust, these inert molecules, we have been assembled - almost ex nihilo (Water, dust, electricty, DNA a fabulous elegance - life). I remember seeing a documentary or maybe a 60 minutes piece as a kid where they were interviewing some European eminence - perhaps Franco Zefferelli?- and whoever it was was talking about the achievements of the artists of the Italian Renaissance. He said that their art was the product of their knowledge that they were a part of God. When I think in these terms I understand what he meant. What can be done by a human person with the confidence of being a part of the God that made him? See: Italian Renaissance; Bach, etc. All the glories of our species have their roots somehow in this fact.

In the movie, The Hours, I recall a scene where Virginia Woolf is asked by her little niece "where do we go when we die" and Virgina's answer is "from where we came." I have no way of knowing if this exchange ever took place, of course, but I think it is true - if you know what I mean.

Snow today

We had a green Christmas here at the last house, but this morning a light snow has covered the grass. Hurray! The Green Christmas was nice but this seems more like it should be. Boxing Day blessings on your heads and mine.