Hello Everyone! We are now just over three weeks away from 2021! I, for one, will welcome the New Year with open arms and a heart full of hope for a better year for us all. For all of the challenges 2020 has brought both to me personally and to us collectively, I continue to be grateful for the blessings in my life and the opportunities that have come along as well. It’s been an amazing experience to spend time with a 2 year-old and a 13 year-old and help them along in whatever way I could this year. I’ve also gotten to spend a lot of time with my folks here in Washington and know that I’m helping keep them safe and vice-versa. I’ve also been grateful to have some time to explore my hometown more than I ever have before which has brought me a lot of joy and contentment. While I’m looking forward to getting a vaccine and getting back on the road as soon as possible in 2021, I will always look back at this year as a time I was able to stop, reflect on the blessings I have in this life and make real plans for the future.
Speaking of a vaccine, there’s definitely been good news this week on that front. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved and the first shots administered in the UK. Approval should be right around the corner here in the US, and then the long and slow process of administering it can begin. I read yesterday morning that the FDA’s initial perusal of the application for approval was extremely positive. I know there are plenty of people out there who have read a lot of whacky things regarding the upcoming vaccine and vaccines in general for that matter. With all the travel I’ve done in my life, I’ve gotten every vaccine available and will gladly step to the front of the line for this one. I have plenty of family and friends in the medical industry and they have their people who they listen to and trust. If they tell me this is a go, I’m in. I simply don’t have time to waste on conspiracy theories and look forward to moving ahead with my life.
This week has been another busy week with my 2 year-old buddy, Mason. I’m happy that he’s continued to want to go outside and play despite the temperatures dropping into the thirties and forties. We bundle up tight but we’ve still been getting outside and going for long walks in neighborhood. He really loves running through the big piles of leaves and spent today sitting in one and just throwing the leaves up and watching them float down. It was a joy to watch him enjoying such a simple pleasure so much, and he’s definitely gotten me to run through more leaf piles than I have in many a year. We continue to look for berries, acorns and pretty colored leaves and he has been good about having me take off his mittens so he can grab these treasures and then letting me put them back on immediately after. We’ve also been having fun watching dead leaves float down the stream in the park as well, which really is pretty cool. He’s enjoying the few Christmas decorations which have sprung up around the neighborhood this week, but is particularly fond of his Christmas tree at home and loves showing me all the different ornaments and the stocking his grandmother sent him. Today we were reading the Night Before Christmas, and he is starting to recognize “Danda” (Santa). In one picture with Santa and his reindeer he was telling me that the reindeer were named Nick and Matt which are his cousin’s names (Nick is the young man I tutor on Mondays). I couldn’t figure it out, and then realized the text talks about “St. Nick” and the only Nick he knows is his cousin. Since he knows who Santa is, the reindeer must be the Nick they keep referring to and since Nick and Matt are twins, his brother must be one of the other reindeer. At least that’s how my mind processed what he said. Either way, he’s enjoying the holiday season so far and I’m enjoying it right alongside him.
Last Friday my folks and I gathered in the basement again to celebrate another week gone by. This week our party celebrated the December 5th, 1933 passage of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution which repealed prohibition in the U.S. Since Friday was the 4th, we celebrated by bottling the last beer we brewed ourselves (an Irish Stout which seems to have turned out really well!). Then we had some 1930s era snacks, listened to some cool big band and jazz music and played some Rummikub (which was invented in the 40s, but c’est la vie). It was an enjoyable night.
Saturday morning my mom cooked up a delicious breakfast casserole and then I got some Christmas shopping done so I could spend the afternoon with Mason and his parents at their place. His dad, James, did a wonderful job smoking some ribs on his back deck and we enjoyed those with some cold beers and lively conversation. We watched some of the Penn State game which was fun as well although I miss watching the games with dozens of fellow alumni at some local bar. It was nice to have some time to spend with them socially and outside of our normal weekly routine since, after all, I knew James for over 30 years before Mason was born.
Sunday I did some reading in the morning (the short story Youth by Joseph Conrad) and then headed out to the grocery store to pick up a few things. In the afternoon we started brewing our next batch of beer, a Holiday Ale which should be an interesting one. As much as we’ve enjoyed using the basement kitchen to brew, we found the upstairs gas stove makes it so much easier to control than the electric one downstairs. We enjoyed a few beers and a chat in the kitchen while we brewed which was really great and then afterwards we watched the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol on the big screen with our dinner.
The new week began with Mason and I back in the woods throwing sticks in the creek and climbing over some cool roots in the forest. In the afternoon I went over to tutor Nick for the last time before his big High School Proficiency Test which he took today. He told me he had made the Honor Roll at school and felt like he was ahead of his class that day with what they were learning. That extra confidence boost was very well timed, and he did really well with everything I threw at him in our session. He’s come a long way over the last few months and I know he’ll do well on his test. It’s been great working with him and putting my years of math teaching to some use in 2020. Who’d have thought?
Tuesday my mom and I went out and did a little bit of exploring around the city with a tour of “the ‘woods”. We started with a roast beef sandwich from MGM Roast Beef which we ate at Langdon Park, both of which are in Brentwood. Langdon Park is a wonderful community park which is also the location of a statue to DC hometown hero Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go music. Go-go is a subgenre of funk which is very local to Washington D.C. although it has had a few brushes with a wider audience over the years. I’ve wanted to photograph the statue for some time and was happy to finally have the opportunity. It's kind of a funky statue, but I guess Chuck was kind of a funky guy so maybe it’s suitable. From there, we headed to Glenwood Cemetery, which is the final resting place of some very interesting people including Constantino Brumidi who painted the U.S. Capitol Dome mural The Apotheosis of Washington. Also buried at Glenwood are Emmanual Leutze, the artist who painted Washington Crossing the Delaware, Clark Mills, the sculptor who cast the statue of Freedom which sits atop the Capitol Dome and the statue of Andrew Jackson across from the White House, and Amos Kendall who founded Gallaudet University. From there we headed through Edgewood to see the Dew Drop Inn, a bar housed in an old stonemason and metal working building by the train tracks which I had been reading about. We only saw it from the outside, but it looked like a cool spot. Then we headed out to Woodbridge to see the Missionaries Charity Convent before popping into the old Franciscan Monastery on the way home. Our tour of “the ‘Woods” took us to Brentwood, Edgewood, Woodbridge and Glenwood Cemetery and definitely to some parts of the city neither of us had been before. It’s fascinating how there’s always something new to discover in a city, something I’ve found everywhere I’ve ever been, but something which still surprises me sometimes here in my own hometown.
Today was pretty quiet, but dawn was magic. I’m not a huge fan of getting up before dark and I’m usually back from my morning walk before sunrise. This morning the clouds were just right and the sky showed beautiful shades of pink and purple. This afternoon I picked up Shadow Catcher at the shop with her new water pump and timing gears. This wasn’t a cheap or easy project, but it needed to be done and hopefully won’t need to be done again for a few years. Then I came home to edit some photos and get this post ready to go for the week. When I’m finished with this post, we’re going to settle in for Dinner and a Movie and watch The Polar Express followed by another new episode of The Amazing Race.
This week I’m trying to get some more photos edited for one or two more big spreads before the end of the year from some of my favorite National Parks. Other than that, I want to play some music, read more than I have been and hopefully get back to doing some writing of my own. I’ve got two books I want to finish writing before I get back on the road, and they’re not going to write themselves. I don’t want to overload myself too much though as I want to savor the holidays while they’re here. For those of you who celebrate Hanukkah, I know it begins this Thursday so I’d like to wish you a very Happy Hanukkah. For all of you though, I wish you a wonderful start to a festive, safe and healthy holiday season and I’ll see you right back here at the same time next week. Thanks for reading and have a great day!
-Mike