Winter Appears

It’s snowing, big soft flakes that melt when they hit the ground. The outside world smells cold and snowy, and the birds are quieter, their calls muted by the flakes. Buds are thickening on a few trees; with the changing climate it is difficult to know whether that is seasonal.

It is noticeably colder today, more or less seasonable. The kitchen is chilly as well, as the door is not set quite right ad cold air spills in from the three season porch. Hopefully that will be fixed tomorrow, Still, we are pleased to report there are no longer rivers of cold flowing across the kitchen.

The forecast is for life threatening cold Friday night and Saturday, with temperatures below zero even here on the coast and forty mph winds. That will feel like winter for sure, then we go back above normal by Sunday. The cold and wind mean freezing sea spray and the likely closure of some bridges and roads. The sea spray may also create some lovely patterns on the shore; we shall see.

This being a house from the eighties, it is not all that well insulated and sealed. When we get cold spells it takes the house a couple of days to acclimate. One strategy we employ is to draw the blinds and curtains, especially in the family room. Nori’s solution to the chill is to sit in front of the gas fireplace until we turn it on, whereupon she climbs into a comfortable nearby chair and goes to sleep. Not a bad strategy, eh?

We saw the surgeon last Friday and learned there is no tear in my knee. just a very painful deep bone bruise, so no surgery. This was a relief. The knee remains somewhat gimpy and given to swelling but is noticeably improved. Saturday we received updated Covid vaccine and were predictably flattened for a couple of days. On the upside, our reactions were not as extreme as they have been in the past.

I continue to slowly learn how to use digital and physical synthesizers which every so often results in feelings of accomplishment. While most folks in the class are working on learning to use synths in performance, I have gone back to my art grad school days and am exploring built sound collage environments. The good news is while back then (forty plus years ago) it used to take me a semester to create seven minutes worth of tape, now takes a week or two, less if I have enough sound bites squirreled away. This yields a strange sense that I am somehow cheating.

Here’s a link to a piece I am working on: