We hope you are coping with the upheavals of the past year in good health and good spirits. We had hoped that the pandemic would be in the rearview mirror by now, but the delta and omicron variants seems to be sending us into another peak this winter. I don't think we will return to the situation that led to the series of "covid cocktails" I posted on Facebook*, but with the cold weather and holidays upon us, I expect we'll see another peak of infections. I'll be interested to see what flu season looks like after the shutdown and other covid-related measures seemed to almost eliminate it last year.
Life started to return to normal but still remains somewhat constrained by pandemic measures. Our church, White Bear Unitarian Universalist, has begun to transition back to in-person services. There are still limitations including the one that I feel most keenly – no singing, which means no in-person choir. We still do some Zoom choir pieces, but there is something elemental about singing together, and I miss it. As such, we continue to attend church remotely, although we did attend in-person a couple of times. My voice lessons, which had been remote during the shut-down have resumed in-person, and has been my main singing outlet.
There was enough normalcy this summer that we were able to hold Mom's memorial service in June. Jonathan and I drove down through Chicago to pick up Devlin, where she was staying with her boyfriend Arman at his parents' house. We gathered in Blacksburg VA Fathers' Day weekend and had a wonderful get together with family to get Mom's ashes settled beside Dad's.
The next weekend was the Thomas Family reunion in Cadiz KY which resumed after the pandemic hiatus. It was so good to see everybody again. We scattered some of Mom's and Dad's ashes in the creek before the festivities got underway.
In July we drove, as usual, to Pine Point. What wasn't usual was totaling the car on the NY Thruway in Utica. Long story short – we hydroplaned in a downpour, lost control, and hit the guardrail three times in a spin. We walked away unscathed except for a few abrasions that Jonathan obtained during his close encounter with the airbags. Cindy drove the 5½ hours from Pine Point to rescue us. Rather than attempt the return trip in one leg, we spent the night in Lenox MA where we found a wonderful wine bar to decompress after an unusually stressful day.
The first week of our time in Pine Point was focused on procuring a replacement vehicle (2021 Honda Accord Hybrid to replace the 2017 Honda Accord Hybrid). My fourth cousin Eric and his husband Sam visited the area to do some genealogy and joined us for numerous cocktail hours and dinners. Devlin and Arman were there almost the whole time leaving a few days before us to attend the Newport RI Jazz Festival. Arman is saxophonist, majored in music at Indiana University where he and Devlin met. Both of them were tutoring others remotely while there, Arman in sax, Devlin in Russian. The rest of the Greene Gals also visited during our time – Harris' time was constrained by her rehearsals for "Mama Mia" where she had the lead role at the theater in Worcester MA. Madison, her boyfriend Andrew, her dog Fable, and his dog Jake camped in the bunk room for a few nights also. Nancy and Ellen dropped by also. I think we could've used another week (or two) there. While there, Devlin and Madison helped me into and (more importantly) out of the kayak that I used to paddle out into the salt marsh and deposit the last portion of Mom's and Dad's ashes.
L: Setting sun reflecting off the boats anchored in the river; R: cousin Eric and Sam.
L: Devlin & Arman | M: also Devlin & Arman | R: Madison & Andrew.
Devlin, Arman, Andrew and Madison (L-R) heading out into the salt marsh.
The August Party – the 30th edition – was a great success, which means that in addition to not being a super-spreader event for the delta variant, everyone had a really good time. As with Mom's memorial, the Thomas Family Reunion, and our time in Pine Point, it was clear the folks had missed being with one another, and there was a lively energy that was quite delightful.
We had planned to travel to Norway in early December, to Tromsø north of the Arctic circle for a cruise to seek out northern lights, but we have postponed those plans for a year as Norway has not yet opened up to tourists from the U.S. And with the emergence of the omicron variant, I think it was an even better thing to postpone.
But because of that shift in travel plans, we had the time to drive to Greene RI to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the Greene Gals and Andrew (Madison's boyfriend). I'm pleased to report that we returned to Saint Paul in the same car that we left in. We packed our crock-pot and the bottle of apple brandy to cook an apple cider braised pork shoulder with apple-thyme gravy for Thanksgiving dinner. Jonathan made latke using golden beets. The meal was rounded off with home-made applesauce with and without horseradish, an apple-gorgonzola salad with maple vinaigrette. Harris provided dessert of peanut butter fudge and a caramel cream pie topped with candied toasted pecans (which was gone before anyone went to bed).
The remaining travel plans this year we are looking forward to traveling to Oakland to spend the holidays with the Lubin clan.
I'm still the Senior Director Research & Development at Rebiotix (a Ferring company). I'm still having an awful lot of fun, and I still really like my coworkers.
When Jonathan's not posing for gnome pictures in the back yard, he maintains his usual habits of mathematics, perusing the New York Times and Washington Post online, but notes that he has been thrown for a loop by the inactivity brought on by the Spring shut-down and the slow return of other activities (i.e. church is still largely remote, and he has not returned to Central HS for tutoring).
The cats are in fine shape – Pippin has even shown some dietary success losing a pound down to 16. And Tillie still wishes she were an "only cat."
Cheers, Mark (with back-seat editing by Jonathan)
* If you'd like to see the entire Covid cocktail series, I kept adding them to last year's Christmas letter up to the last one at week 59.
We hope you are coping with the upheavals of the past year in good health and good spirits. We had hoped that the pandemic would be in the rearview mirror by now, but the delta and omicron variants seems to be sending us into another peak this winter. I don't think we will return to the situation that led to the series of "covid cocktails" I posted on Facebook*, but with the cold weather and holidays upon us, I expect we'll see another peak of infections. I'll be interested to see what flu season looks like after the shutdown and other covid-related measures seemed to almost eliminate it last year.
The next weekend was the Thomas Family reunion in Cadiz KY which resumed after the pandemic hiatus. It was so good to see everybody again. We scattered some of Mom's and Dad's ashes in the creek before the festivities got underway.
