Quite a bit of singing

This week we had two singing sessions outdoors at the Westminster-West Church - Tuesday evening we had a River Singers workshop led by John Harrison, a Montpelier-based Gospel Choir leader who has come down to River Singers and led workshops many times over the years; and this evening, we had a Hallowell Rehearsal in the same spot. Since they were outdoors - NO MASKS! - a lot more fun singing! John Harrison is always fun to work with; he has a quirky sense of humor always just under the surface. Tonight, Peter Amidon and Mary Cay Brass both led and we sang a lot of favorites. There was a good group tonight too - over 20, maybe even 25.

Our leaders in River Singers: Mary Cay and John Harrison********************* Today was Savanna Day, and we went to Shutesbury early this morning and Ellen got Savanna to her treatment in plenty of time. I stayed at the house, and did something I have needed to do for some time: download new software for the computor connection with the iPhone. For some time now I have been getting a dialogue box saying I needed to download an upgrade. At the same time, when I have uploaded photos from the phone to the computer, I have always had three, four, five which did not upload. I figured that the upgrade would fix that, so since I had WiFi and a faster connection there, I clicked on INSTALL. It took about 30 minutes. With this upgrade I took about 40 shots of some files I brought with me to archive. Figured that I would get them all into my photo archive, but - what?? - 27 of them failed to upload! The upgrade made the problem WORSE!. Bummer! Not sure what I can do about that! This afternoon I watched the January 6th Hearings - probably the most powerful one yet. It was a very sobering, detailed account of how Trump bullied Mike Pence to subvert the counting of the electoral college vote, even after Trump was repeatedly told by his own staff that what he was doing was illegal. But he refused to listen to that and chose to listen to a crackpot, John Eastman.

Fantastic Planet (1973)

Cynthia sent us a link to a film made back in 1973 called Fantastic Planet. It was produced in a French,Czech collaboration, is animated, a Sci-Fi film. Here is a summary from Wikipedia:

In the distant future, the gargantuan blue humanoid Traags[6] (in French and Czech spelling: Draag[7]) have brought human beings (who are called Oms as a play on the French word for "man", homme) from Earth to the planet Ygam, where they maintain a technologically and spiritually advanced society. The Traags consider Oms animals, and while they keep some as pets, others live in the wilderness and are periodically slaughtered by the Traags to control their population. Traags have much longer lifespans than Oms, but reproduce much less. When an Om mother is teased to death by three Traag children, her orphaned infant is found by Master Sinh, a key Traag leader, and his daughter Tiwa, who keeps the boy as a pet and names him Terr. Tiwa loves Terr and is careful not to hurt him, but, in accordance with her parents' instructions, gives him a collar with which she can pull him in any direction. She brings Terr to sessions in which she receives her education using a headset that transmits knowledge into her mind; a defect in Terr's collar allows him to receive the knowledge too. Around the time that Tiwa grows into her teens and first performs Traag meditation, which allows the species to travel with their minds, she loses some interest in Terr, who has become a young man and acquired much Traag knowledge. He escapes into the wilderness, stealing Tiwa's headset. There he runs into a wild female Om, who cuts off his collar and introduces him to her tribe, which lives in an abandoned Traag park full of strange creatures and landscapes. Terr shows them how to use the headset to acquire Traag knowledge and literacy, winning the right to do so in a duel. The literacy they gain allows them to read a Traag announcement that the park will be purged of Oms, and, when the purge comes, some are slaughtered by Traag technology while others escape, joining forces with another tribe. They are attacked by two Traag passers-by and manage to kill one of them before escaping to an abandoned Traag rocket depot, much to the outrage of Traag leaders. They live there for years, joined by many other Oms. Due to the knowledge acquired from Terr's headset, they manage to replicate Traag technology, including two rockets; they hope to leave Ygam for its moon, the Fantastic Planet, and live there safe from Traags. When a large-scale Traag purge hits the depot and many Oms are slaughtered, a group led by Terr uses the rockets to flee to the Fantastic Planet, where they discover large statues that Traags travel to during meditation and use to meet beings from other galaxies in a strange mating ritual that maintains their species. The Oms destroy some of the statues, threatening the Traags' existence; the genocide of Oms is halted on Ygam, and, facing a crisis, the Traags negotiate for peace. The Oms agree to leave the Fantastic Planet to the Traags for their meditations, and in return, an artificial satellite is put into orbit around Ygam and given to the Oms as a new home. This leads to an era of peaceful coexistence between the two species, who now benefit from each other's way of thinking.

The film won a number of awards and is considered one of the great classic animated films of all time. I had not heard of it before. We watched it after we went to bed last night. It is pretty fascinating! Go to YouTube and search for "Fantastic Planet" if you are interested.

Tiwa names her "pet" (a human baby stolen from earth) "Terr."

Terr is equipped with a collar which Tiwa can manipulate to control his movements. Terr is not happy!

January 6th Hearings

This morning we are watching the televised Hearings of the January 6th House Committee. One key witness, Bill Stepien, Trump's Campaign Manager at the time of the 2020 election, has not appeared as scheduled due to his wife's going into labor. This last-minute change delayed the start of hearings, but they are proceedimg, and they are showing videos of earlier testimony behind closed doors, which has not been seen by the public before. Not as effective as live testimony, but still of interest. Right now they are playimg a video of William Barr, Attorney General, refuting the claims of Trump that the election had been stolen.

Hearings on TV************************************* Yesterday, we went to Guilford Church and we both sang in the Choir. We picked up Calvin along the way. It was "Star Wars" Sunday - a celebration of the whole Star Wars, "The Force-Be-With-You" "Jedi-devoted-to-truth-and-Justice" tradition. I had never heard of this kind of celebration before, but evidently it has been common in some Episcopal churches. It normally takes place on May Fourth ("May the Fourth {Force} be with you."), but it was delayed in Guilford. One of our anthems was a round, not easy to sing, using John Williams' Star Wars theme, and words drawn from the Star Wars tradition. It is titled "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Away," by Caroyn Price. It was quite fun to sing. The service was jointly led by our Pastor, Elisa Lucozzi, and Jin Rankin, a young person who was costumed as a Jedi, who delivered the sermon, "May the Force Be With You." A very unusual and fun service!

Jin Rankin, Jedi in the Guilford Church****************************** After church we came home - Brendon did not come with us to church - and had our traditional Sunday breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast, and then Brendon was ready to be taken back, and we drove to Greenfield where we met Katie and Savanna in the Applebees parking lot. When we came back, we stopped at Pine Heights, where Jerome is now a resident. He was transferred from Concord to Pine Heights, which is in Brattleboro, on Friday. He was sitting up in a wheel chair, was much more lively both physically and mentally than when we last saw him in Concord, is eating more, and all this is encouraging. There is still no clear end game, however, and Jerome himself is coccerned about that. The House Hearings are over. They. presented an entirely Republicam group of witnesses refuting Trump's claim the election was stolen. The problem is that the people who believe Trump probably were not watching the hearings.

A little excursion

Brendon is with us today. Katie and Savanna brought him up to the farmers market in Brattleboro, and Ellen met them there. Then they forgot to bring his backpack, so Katie & Savanna had to bring it up to the house. They had gotten as far as Deerfield, and they had to turn around & come back. Fortunately, Savanna is comfortable sitting in the car for a while. Ellen and Brendon went to a yard sale, and Brendon got an album of old records - 78rpm and LP. I have an old record player that plays both, so we listened to some. The most interesting one is a joint concert by two private schools: Dana Hall and Exeter Academy. Brendon wondered if he could sell it for a good price to an alumnus/a.

An "all-speeds" record player************************************* LATERWe are now on excursion for lunch and Antiques. Lunch was at Allen Bros. - plzza and maple creamees. We ate at a table in the garden area, surrounded by plants and sparrows! It was actually noisy with bird songs.

Looking into the nursery

A garden sculpture

A frog fountain

Brendon feeding the sparrows

A brave, curious sparrow********************** Now we are at The Red Barn Antiques in Bellows Falls. I've never stopped here before. Later. The Red Barn did not prove to be Brendon"s kind of Antique store, but Ellen found some postcards and a teacup.

The Red Barn Antiques store. ********************************** From there, we went up to Exit 5 and over Patch Road to a place where Cynthia said there was a neat swimming hole, just off Patch Road near the intersection with Westminster-West Road. We found the spot and pulled over to park. There was a little path going down into the woods, but Ellen said she thought it was probably too steep for me. So I waited in the car while they explored. They came back in a bit and said that there was indeed a cool little swimming hole and a waterfall. But today it was probably too cool air temperature to try it out. We went from there into Putney and down to Brattleboro, to visit shops there, We went first to Millie's Antiques, which is at the bottom of Union Hill near the Davis's house. We had never gone inside. It was crammed with old things! Nothing that struck Brendon's fancy. I, however, got some pictures of three kinds of collections: little ceramic animals, paper weights, and tea cups.

From Millie's, we drove downtown to Main Street where there is a major Antique Store that Brendon has visited before. I stayed in the car and got an email from Pastor Elisa that said that Jerome had been transferred from Concord Hospital in New Hampshire to Pine Heights, right here in Brattleboro! That is good news! We'll try and see him tomorrow. Earlier in the afternoon, we had seen a sign for the Dummerston Grange Chicken Pie Supper tonight, served as a take-out, so we ordered three and on our way home we picked them up. We took them home and ate them on the deck. They were good - not as good as Ellen would make, but it was nice that she didn't have to make a meal.

What next?

When we came home this evening after having been away from home since noon, we found that our power was out. Not sure when it went off, but when I reported it, I learned that it was a very localized outage - just our road. We were going to fix supper but couldn't, of course, so we gave up on an asparagus omelette, and settled for raw veggies, cottage cheese dip, potato chips and a dessert of ice cream and rhubarb sauce. Not too bad. When we came home, we had just come from a visit to Cliff and Eliza Bergh to see if there had been any developments in their building project, and indeed there had! Forms were all in place for the foundation, and they were expecting the concrete truck to arrive any moment to pour the foundations. So we waited to see the fun! And sure enough, in about five-ten minutes, the concrete arrived! It brought back memories of almost fifty years ago (Summer, 1973) when the truck arrived at our house where I am right now, and poured our foundation. I remember how exciting that was, and I think that's the way Cliff and Eliza were feeling. Their carpemter, Mark Brown, was there, and getting the foundation in means he can get to work! The amazing thing was that those forms were not there at noon today! The workers arrived at noon and put them all in in just 4 hours or so! Cliff and Eliza didn't expect to see the concrete until Monday, but by golly, here it was! They made quick work of pouring it in and there were three workers spreading it out inside the forms. In less than an hour - it was all done!

Here it comes!

Guiding the pour

Nicely spread!

Mark Brown, Eliza and Ellen******************************** Before we went to the Bergh's, we had spent close to three hours sitting by the pond behind the Dummerston Church, talking with David and Wendy Baker, and eating our lunch. This is something we had talked about doing for some time, and we finally did it today. The Bakers live in Dummerston, and we know them primarily through the Dummerston Church choir, although for a time they came to Guilford Church and sang in the choir there. But they feel Dummerston Church feels more like family to them. So they have settled in there. They are an interesting couple. David is a violin seller and repairer. He does not make violins, but he does restore them, and he goes far and wide to find and buy both violins and fiddles, specializing in older instruments. They are both very thoughtful, and often have questions of faith they would like to discuss. Wendy has said some very kind things about me as a minister, and I think they both feel that we are "wise elders." So, there was a lot to talk about, and three hours went by pretty fast. We were so engaged that I forgot to take any pictures. I didn't even think to take out my phone when three men drove up to the pond in a truck, came out with fishing rods, and in short order had pulled 20 trout out of the pond! I didn't even know that there were trout in that pond! But that did not prove to be a big distraction. We had each brought our own lunch, but Wendy had also made rhubarb/banana bread to share (yummy!) and Ellen brought strawberries to share. David raised an interesting theological question - how does one square the preciousness of every individual creature with the seeming waste of creatures in the overabundance of life - just think, e.g., of the number of fish that have to be spawned in order to insure that even one fish survives. David also raised the example of sowing carrots and then having to weed out most of the seedlings to allow a few to grow to full size. I had to confess that I had not really spent a lot of time puzzling over this problem! But it was an interesting issue to discuss.

The Baker's house and shop in Dummerston

David Baker working in his shop******************************** Yesterday, I decided at the last minute to stay at home while Ellen went to Shutesbury to take Savanna to her chemo appointment. I really wanted to put in some time cleaning up my study - something I have procrastinated for weeks. So I stayed home and got sort of distracted by Spelling Bee, but I did put a new belt on the Hoover vacuum cleaner and got it working again, cleared out everything off the rug in my study and vacuumed the rug well - something I had not done for months, literally! It was exhausting, but a job well done, and already I feel better just being in my study. There is a great deal more to do down there, but I can do more bit by bit. So right now, we have our power back, I am in bed listening to the Celtics/Warriors game, which is hotly contested - it's a one-point lead for the Warriors at the end of the third quarter. But the fourth quarter has been good for the Celtics throughout the playoffs, so they may be able to pull out a win. If so, they would go 3-1 back to San Francisco. Life is going on apace, and who knows what will happen next?

Attending to health

Yesterday and today I was attending to health issues - heart and COVID. Yesterday I had an echocardiogram at Brattleboro Cardiology Center (located at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital) and today I got my second COVID booster shot at the Walgreens pharmacy in Bellows Falls. An echocardiogram involves using ultra-sound to form an image of the heart; it is especially useful in seeing how the heart valves are functioning, whether there is any regurgitation of blood back through a leaky valve, and whether there is any problem with the heart muscle function. I was there about an hour in all, but the test itself was probably about a half-hour or a bit more. I could not see the screen easily, but got a glimpse of it if I tilted my head up a bit, and I heard the sound my heart makes now and then - sort of a slurping sound of blood moving through the heart. Kinda weird! The technician who performed the test, I learned, also works at Bay State in Springfield; she is part-time in Brattleboro. That's where Savanna is getting her treatments, and where Julie Feinland works. I will probably get the results of the test when I meet with the cardiologist, Dr. Antoine Soueid, in two weeks. I have never met him before. Today, we drove up to Bellows Falls for an 11a.m. appointment for a booster shot. That all went smoothly. We stopped at Allen Brothers on the way back for cider donuts - our favorites in that category - and then picked up a precription at Walgreens in Brattleboro. I would have gotten the booster in Brattleboro, but Bellows Falls was available today, and Brattleboro was not available until next week. We plan to go to Savanna's tomorrow. I'll listen to the Celtics/Warriors game on the Radio App on the phone tonight - it's pretty late to watch at the Bergh's. We could go to Katie and Savanna's tonight, I guess, and then stay overnight, but I think Ellen prefers to go down first thing in the morning.

Walgreens in Bellows Falls

Vaccination proof!********************************************** I am gradually getting back to having a working wallet after losing mine last week. I have two new cards - debit and credit, and one more should arrive soon. I have temporary duplicste insurance cards; permanent new ones are coming. I have an appointment at the VTDMV for a new Driver's License next week. I am not carrying a wallet in my hip pocket any more. I already had a pouch that goes around the neck; it has two separate, zippered pockets. That's what I'm using, for now at least, as a wallet. I'll see how I like that. It feels safer.

Women’s Chorus

Sunday afternoon we went to a concert of the Brattleboro Woman's Chorus, held on the grounds of the Retreat, the same area as the Thursday Food Truck Roundup. The singers were masked and the audience was fairly well spread out, so it was pretty safe. You brought your own chair or blanket. There was a bit of confusion between Ellen and me - we came in separately and didn't find each other until the concert was over. She dropped me off and then parked. I came in and went to the far side where there was some shade. She came in while I was setting up my chair, and though we both looked for the other, we never could see the other. I was worried, but finally decided she must be there somewhere! It was a pleasant concert but the repertoire was not my favorite kind of music. Sort of bland and uplifting in a vague way. But it was a beautiful day, and sitting there and just letting the music wash over me was very pleasant.

The BWC ****************** We stayed and got supper at a food cart. Then we went to Andy and Robin's for a movie. We watched Lincoln with Daniel Day Lewis, which I had missed when it came out in 2012. It is very gripping; very relevant today. It is focused on the process of getting a positive vote on the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the House of Representatives. It is basically historically accurate. A really good choice!

Lincoln poster***************+++++++++

Before the movie, we watched a video I brought of the debut performance of Tony Barrand's song, Shirley of Giilford on March 10, 1991 at a church event in the old fire house. It is fascinating to see people 31 years ago, many no longer living.