Revels 2020

Other years we have gone to the Revels in Cambridge, MA on December 27th,  but this year, The Revels as a live event in Sanders Theater was cancelled due to the pandemic. But that was not the end of the matter. They produced a video which celebrated the 50th anniversary of The Revels by drawing on archival films of past years, woven into a contemporary story filmed at Sanders with no audience, and a "virtual audience" of heads in the seats at Sanders Theater. singing their hearts out. We set up the computer, with external speakers, at the Dummerston Church and watched it there on the computer screen - using the church WiFi - which was more satisfactory than watching at home on the iPhone screen. It was well done and quite a bit of fun - not up to the live event but fun nonetheless. I didn't think to take a screen shot till near the end but here is one:

A scene from the virtual Revels performance, 2020

Right now, Ellen is at Hannaford's doing some shopping and I'm at the church doing this!

Getting things done

I'm at Pete's Tire Barn in Chesterfield, NH, waiting to have snow tires mounted on our Subaru. We have all-wheel drive, but the tires on the car are not all-weather tires, they are very much summer tires. We got through last winter with them, but there were times we wished we had better traction, so this winter we're putting on snow tires. Not that we are driving that much these days, but you never know when you might need that extra security. They won't be studded - that would be overkill. Pete's allows only two people in the waiting room at a time, and right now there is another person, but we are 12-15 feet apart, both wearing masks, and no one is talking. Should be pretty safe.

Yesterday I made several calls on my TO DO list. One was to make arrangements to change our propane gas supplier. I learned from John a while back that he pays much less per gallon for their propane than we have been paying - about $1.50 less.  That is a big difference. So I called his supplier yesterday and made arrangements to switch over to them. It isn't simple. They have to check out my whole system, then pull out my tank, put in their own tank, and then I have to contact my old supplier, have them come get the old tank and send me a rebate for the gas left in it. I hope there will be no glitches in any of that. But once it's done, I'll save $120 or so every time I have the tank filled. I don't understand why there is such a difference in price. It's not like gasoline, obviously. 

Yesterday I also sent out about 20 Christmas cards and letters. I'm running late, but better late than never, I guess. I still have about ten more to do. I make my own cards by re-cycling old cards - cutting off covers of old cards I really like and gluing them onto card stock. For some reason I really enjoy doing that and find it very satisfying. As my kids used to say when they were young, "You're weird, dad."  They were probably right! Here are two cards I made:

This card is made from a photograph made by Sarah van Keuren - really beautiful!

I love this card!

This morning, before coming to Pete's, I made a bass track video of the Epiphany hymn, Arise and Greet the Morning Star. It took a few attempts to get it acceptable, and there were some technical glitches.This time, Andy Davis used a Dropbox link to send us the scratch tracks we follow when we sing and make the video. We listen with ear buds using the iPhone 4s, and record using the iPhone 6s. Well, the iPhone 4s could not open the Dropbox link. It's operating system isn't recent enough to recognize the Dropbox app. So I had to call Andy and have him send the scratch track attached to an email. The 4s can handle that.

There is more to report, but the tires are ready!

The rather austere waiting-room at Pete's. The other person left. 

A Gallery of Christmas Scenes

Christmas 2020 has been different! And it has been very special in many ways. Here are some scenes:

A wildly decorated house in Dummerston (and this is only part of it!)

Out our back window after last week's storm (all washed away by a Christmas rain)

 

Brendon as Santa Lucia at Katie and Savanna's Solstice Party

A fire pit at the Solstice Party

Ellen's workspace on the dining room table

Max Baker (against the backdrop of a Christmas card on the mantle)

A snowman at the Swedeville Lantern display

More lanterns

Ditto

Ellen's stollen - a Tolles Family Christmas Morning tradition

Our tree

Ellen's flaming plum pudding - a Tolles Tradition. She sent small ones to Jim and Mary and Katie and Savanna, since we couldn't all enjoy it together,

We had a 2 1/2 hour Zoom session with the Tolles/Feinland/Baker clans on Christmas Day afternoon; a two+ hour Zoom session with John and Cynthia Saturday noon and a 1 1/2 hour FaceTime with Katie Shay in Boulder Saturday evening. So we feel very connected even though apart. We did MadLibs and a Yankee Swap with Ellen's family, incorporated a puppet show by Sandglass Theater in Putney into our time with J&C, and heard all about Katie's new job with FlowHub in the cannabis industry.  

Here are the words of a parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas that I wrote and we sang at the T/F/B Zoom party;

The twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 

Twelve cancelled concerts

Eleven virtual choirs 

Ten scratch-trackers 

Nine live-streamers 

Eight muted singers 

Seven tired Zoomers 

Six CDC-ers

FIVE VACCINES

Four socially distanced 

Three face masks,

Two washed hands

And a portrait of Dr. Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci - Happy Birthday! (80 on Christmas Eve)

A Happy, Healthy New Year to All!

Merry Christmas!

A safe and merry Christmas to all and a happy healthy new year!

Lanterns for Christmas in “Swedeville “ in Brattleboro 

Big storm!

We've had our first big snow storm of the season - it started Wednesday night and continued into Thursday, and we got about a foot-and-a-half of snow. It blew a lot during the storm so it is hard to find an accurate measurement. We heard of other places where it was over three feet! It stopped snowing by early afternoon, but we didn't get plowed out until about 2a.m., Friday morning. So we went nowhere on Thursday. I was very grateful that John had come over and cleared stuff off the deck before the storm. 

I put lights on the tree, finished writing my Christmas letter, recorded some tracks for the Guilford Church and studied for a new study group - I've decided to try Torah Study with the local Jewish Community, led by Kate Judd, who is a Cantor and serves as the rabbi, though she is not officially one. She used to sing in the Blanche Moyse Chorale, so I've known her a long time. It will start this Sunday, at 11:30a.m. - right after church. The lesson is roughly Genesis, chapters 44-47 - part of the Joseph story. I'm looking forward to it. 

The snow at the Dummerston Church, where I am parked at the moment. 

cell phone issues

We are having problems with our cell phone. It's storage is full and nothing we can figure out to do seems to solve the problem. It says we have 15.2 gigabytes of photos on it - that's  huge - and I have no idea what  those could be. We deleted everything we can find. So I'm sitting here waiting for a Consumer Cellular rep  to help me. 

Later:  I got Consumer Cellular and they said call Apple Tech Support. I called them and they couldn't help me because the phone needs to be connected to WiFi and I don't know the password here at the church - my computer remembers it but I don't. So I'll have to get that from somebody. 

Later:  I got the password from Carol H and the phone is now backing up to iCloud. We'll see if that does the trick. 

Me on hold

Later:  It's been about 45 minutes and it's still backing up! It says "23 minutes remaining" -- Good Grief!

Later still: I finally had to abort the back-up. It was taking longer than I had to give it. At first I thought that I had done nothing to solve our storage problem, but the next day, when I checked the iPhone storage numbers, that 15.2 gigabytes mentioned above had dropped to 10.3. So I gained almost 5 gigabytes of space on the phone, which essentially solves our problem. We were having the frustrating experience of making a recording for a virtual choir and having the recording interrupted by an announcement that we were out of storage space. Eventually, I'll come back to the church and finish the back-up. But we're fine for now. 

How can this be?

How can it be that in the midst of a pandemic when I can't go anywhere or do anything, I feel so pressured? Right now I feel like I have a TO DO List the length of my arm! Winter chores that need to get done before it snows like getting snow tires on the car, clearing stuff off the deck, hammering in the windows to get them tight, etc. Writing and mailing out a Christmas Letter. Filing financial receipts. Doing  music tracks for a family Christmas Zoom, plus a Mad Libs. Another track for the Concert Choir. Christmas is only 15  days away and there are things to get into the mail. We just got a final load of wood that now needs to be stacked. It goes on and on!  And these days, everything seems to take longer to do! So, OK Larry, just relax and pace yourself. It will all get done!

Meanwhile, Katie Shay has a new job, working for FlowHub. And what is that?  Well, in brief, it is a company that sells software to cannabis dispensaries! That's what Katie will be doing. Here is a page from their Website:

A page from the FlowHub website

Just exactly what this will entail I have yet to learn. She starts next Monday. She can work from home. Five states made cannabis legal on Nov. 3rd, so there is a lot of potential for new dispensaries. Should be interesting! She's excited. I wonder if she can find a photography angle! Betsey was helped a lot by cannabis in the later stages of her illness. Katie and I went together to a dispensary in Boulder to get some edibles for her. Maybe that planted a seed (so to speak). 

An Ingenious Advent Display

I usually come up to the Dummerston Church to do my blog, so that's where I am right now. Just before coming here, I picked up our first CSA at Walker Farm (everything was boxed by them and they put it in the car. Handy!), and then swung by the Brattleboro P.O. to mail some cards and letters - the only place locally you can mail something on Saturday afternoon and still have it go out that day.  

The Dummerston Church has created an Advent Wreath display in the front window so that it can be seen by those driving by the church. It is made of PVC pipe and wired so that a candle can be "lit' each week. The first candle of Hope is lit now (and there is a sign, "Hope," at the base, visible from outside). Another case of a creative response to the pandemic. 

Advent Candle Display, Dummerston Church

There are four candles, one for each Sunday in Advent, and a center "Christ Candle" lit on Christmas Eve. I think the four candles are Hope, Joy, Love and Peace (if memory serves me correctly). 

Today it was supposed to snow, but so far its just rain. Tomorrow the Brattleboro Concert Choir "Stay at Home Sing-Along" is the Faurè Requiem, a favorite of mine. Ellen is enjoying a quiet day at home, reading. Ahhh!

Cookie time

 We have come to the cookie time of the year. Tomorrow is the Guilford Community Church Annual Christmas Bazaar, and every year Ellen has made cookie platters for it -  and I mean like 40-50 platters, some years over a 1000 cookies! This year the in-person bazaar has been cancelled, but in its place the church created a Bazaar Catalog and people pre-ordered items, including cookie platters. Tomorrow, people will come and pick up their orders. So tonight, we are assembling platters. Ellen and Robin Davis are the cookie-makers and they are here. I came along to help and tonight I cut ribbons. Now Ellen and Robin are tying ribbons on the platters. 

Here are the platters!

The was the catalogue page for the cookie platters

Ellen also donated some  felted Christmas ornaments she made (the acorns, pears and baskets are her's)

Some folks made wreaths

Robin tying ribbons

People's orders are all bagged and ready to be picked up

Our church is like a mini-Amazon warehouse!

What else has happened this week? Earlier today we participated in a Zoom lecture from Swarthmore by Prof. Phil Weinstein on Kafka and Subjectivity. Basically it was a defense of the importance of the liberal arts, especially the humanities, especially literature, in higher education. STEM is fine, but we still need to be teaching about the life of the mind and the emotions, the inner life. 

Wednesday was the CTS Reflections Zoom session; Tuesday was River Singers, etc. One day I met for a half-hour with Margaret Holland, Jerome's daughter. A full week!