Will Travel For Winter

It has been quite warm on the East Coast.  But Saturday evening, I flew into Minneapolis to see my friends Robert and Andrea.  Sunday morning I looked out the back door, everything looked white, and the snow was still coming down hard!

I had remembered snow, despite our lack of it last winter.  But I had forgotten how monochromatic everything looks on a snowy day.

By the time we went outside, there was at least 7 inches of snow on the ground.

Robert and Andrea were very brave to squint into the snowstorm for me to take their picture

but mostly we slogged along through the fresh snow, through the local park (another thing I forgot: that Minneapolis has great little parks scattered everywhere).

We walked around a small lake, peering through the mist to the shrouded shapes on the opposite side.

We came back to the warm house

and Robert showed off his tremendous snowblowing skills (despite appearances he was not actually covering his neighbor's car with snow).

Sunday night we went out to a great restaurant downtown, recently opened, as the snow continued to come down.

This morning we woke up to clear blue skies and the temperature at 10 degrees and dropping.  Now I'm sitting at my computer back in Guilford, Connecticut; outside it's foggy and around 50 degrees.  If we don't get some winter on the East, I'm going to have to go back to Minnesota!

Blog e-mail was hacked ... I think I've fixed it.

My apologies.
It appears my blog account was hacked, and you received a spam e-mail about "handcrafts."
I have changed my password, and hope that takes care of it.
If another spam message still comes through, I will discontinue the existing and find a new way to continue distributing my photo blog.... thanks for your patience!

Doubly Thankful

Two Thanksgivings, with two sides of the family, is pretty wonderful.  So much to be thankful for!

Roasted brussels sprouts

A Thanksgiving table waiting for the guests

A brother and his turkey

A bowl of nuts (could be representative of our family??) with a nutcracker from our grandparents

Another brother, and an uncle still willing to make the trip

Beautiful weather, and a beautiful late afternoon moon

a sweet spouse (my beloved companion) and a dear aunt

Sasha, who sometimes waits patiently (and usually not)

The groaning board produced by a family full of good cooks

And a next great day, starting a wonderful brother-in-law roasting another round of brussels sprouts

A mother-in-law still full of songs, stories and the joy of life

The medicines that cure some ills

The expert turkey-carving cousin and the brilliant turkey resulting from collaboration with the aforementioned sprout-roasting brother-in-law (and somehow here I am thinking of the "kooky uncles and crazy antics" referred to by our friend Philip in this essay)

The second beautiful day, perfect for sisters walking to the dam,

The wonderful daughters who made time to share both Thanksgivings with us

The fun-loving families ready to play together ...

In sum:  I am thankful for a life that includes the sweetness of two beautiful days of family gathering.

A Weekend In The Country (with a bit of history)

"When I found the rental on VRBO, it looked like a nice place to stay, in the right location," Miriam told us.  She didn't learn until later that it was the country home of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Once or twice a year, we spend a weekend in rural New York, half way between the part of Connecticut where we (and our friends Miriam and Brett) live, and the part of the Finger Lakes where our friends Amy and Bill live.  Most of us know each other from law school 30 years ago.  We all like cooking and eating good food, and hiking.  After years of unevenly timed long-distance visits, we settled on the current more satisfactory arrangement of meeting in the middle.  Bill couldn't make this visit -- he works for New York State as a park ranger, and was on duty helping with logistics for downstate relief work after Hurricane Sandy.  But the rest of us arrived Friday (or in our case, early Saturday morning) at the Moynihan's former 500-acre country house near Oneonta, New York.

We woke the next morning to a view out the back window, of the pond and hills beyond.

The weekend was cold, and rained, sleeted and snowed in turns.  The view changed accordingly.

The house is wonderful.  It was put on the market and sold by the Moynihans when the Senator left the U.S. Senate, but the current owner has left the house largely as the Moynihans lived in it.  It's an old farmhouse, renovated beautifully under the watchful eye of Liz Moynihan.  The amount of love invested in the place is visible and palpable.

The book left by the Moynihans includes the Senator's notes about the purchase and renovation, and Liz' notes about the grounds, gardens, and their natural denizens.

We didn't spend much time in the formal parlor;

instead, we ate, talked, and played board games in the glassed-in porch

 which the natural denizens still visit.

We did go out each day, for long walks in the surrounding fields and woods.  But the weekend was imbued with the spirit of the Moynihan family, both in the innumerable books and memorabilia scattered throughout the house, and the livable and wonderfully laid-out rooms.

It was a long drive, and a perfect place to visit with friends.  We hope to return.

Braking The Cycle 2012

The last weekend in September, Amy and I biked from Boston to New York on the AIDS charity ride Braking The Cycle.  We are part of Team Sasha; pictured above are Claude Grazia and my brother David, also Team Sasha members; and Solidad Soriano-Kaplan -- we met her on the ride and she became an honorary member of Team Sasha.  My cousin David Muhlbaum rode with us too, and is in pictures down below.  (Sasha, my brother Eric's Vizsla, did not ride.)

The weather this year was ... imperfect.  You may not be able to tell that it was pouring rain when the picture above was taken.  We were only pulled off the road once, for safety, when Friday's flash floods approached, but it was wet enough that I suggested a new road marking sign for riders:

This was Claude's first time on this ride; we had done a one-day New Haven to New London fundraiser years ago, but this was by far his longest ride.  Some time around here, around mile 70 on day 1, he said, "OK, this isn't so much fun anymore."  But he kept on.

Despite the rain that returned on and off all weekend, the ride really was full of beauty.  There are some wonderful northeast landscapes in the fields, farms, woods, rivers and marshes between Boston and New York.

And as always, the people were marvelous.  Or, as these two support crew were, Incredible.

Did I say how amazing the support crew were?

There were amazing riders too.  

• The guy who asked my brother David, "Does that thing on your bike show how far we've gone?" "Yes.."  "So what does it say?"   "15 miles."   "Cool!  this is the furthest I've ever biked!!"  (???!!)
• The woman I biked with who was wearing an ankle support.  "What's with the brace?" I asked.  "Four stress fractures in my left ankle," she said.  "But I'm not going to miss the ride."

But among all the stories, this is the one that meant everything to me:  After dinner in Bridgeport, after two days and 200 miles of biking, and one day still to go, people were taking turns speaking to the 200 riders and crew.  And a guy got up and said, "Last year, I was so impressed by the HIV positive riders.  And this year I'm one of them."  He paused.  "Because I was stupid."  Paused again.  Quietly, "Thank you."

And we all sat there, stunned.  And then, suddenly, he took the mike back, and said, "So here's the thing.  My friends and family mostly don't know that I'm HIV positive.  So I want you to e-mail me every picture you have of me, showing my HIV positive flag on my bike.  And I'm going to post those pictures and come out to my family and friends as HIV positive."  

That kind of courage, living boldly in the face of terrible difficulty, is the face and the purpose of the ride.  So it was with real pride and camaraderie that we rode together to the closing ceremonies on 9th Street in New York City.

It was an honor and pleasure to ride all those miles, through lousy weather and not-so-lousy weather, up and down hills and through cities and fields, with some of the finest people on the planet.  And yeah, by the way, the people who are this ride raised almost $250,000 for Housing Works to support  people living with HIV\AIDS.

Of the three years we've joined Braking The Cycle, I think this year moved me the most.
We'll be back next year.  Want to join us?  Team Sasha is looking for more riders.

My photos at the 2012 Guilford Fair

Foucault's Pendulum, The Pantheon, Paris, France.
Division: Color Enlargement; Class:  Misc.

Every year I enter photos in the Guilford Agricultural Fair's contest (Department R, to be specific).  This year I entered 10 photos.  One or two may look familiar, but in any case here they are (including the one above):

Castle Stairwell, Loire Valley, France
Adult Color Enlargement, Architecture.

Purple Coneflower
Adult Color Enlargement, Flowers and Plants.

Wheat Field, Loire Valley, France
Adult Color Enlargement, Scenic.

Trees in Fog, North Guilford
Adult Color Enlargement, Scenic.

Barn Door, North Guilford
Adult Black and White Enlargement, Architecture

Squirrel at Haverford College, Pennsylvania
Adult Color Enlargement, Wildlife

Field of Sunflowers, Loire Valley, France
Altered or Manipulated Photography, Scenic

Blue Doors, Santorini, Greece
Altered or Manipulated Photography, Architecture

Hay Rolls, Loire Valley, France

Altered or Manipulated Photography, Scenic

Some years I have won a ribbon or two, some years none.  But this year was a bumper crop!  I won four regular ribbons

and Best In Show for adult color enlargement!  (... I'm so excited ....)  Steve