Sources of Entertainment
I was going to take a pass and skip Chris's Column this month, but came up with just a few random and unrelated topics to share.
I don't usually do book recommendations here, but If you're looking for a good read and source of entertainment during these long days of winter, I recommend Scott Kelly's memoir "Endurance:A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery" (published 2017 by Alfred A. Knopf).
You'll recall that, as the title says, Kelly spent just short of a year aboard the International Space Station; at the time it was the record for American astronauts. Kelly writes about his childhood with his twin brother (now Senator from Arizona) Mark Kelly, and how his distracted and unfocused youth took a dramatic turn after reading about the early astronauts in Tom Wolfe's 1979 book "The Right Stuff". Scott Kelly goes on to describe his days as a military fighter pilot as well as his early space missions, his marriages, and his bout with cancer.
Considering the connection that all of you Hamiltonians have to the space program - however remotely - you may find the technical details in the book of interest.
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| Click here for more about the book |
Another source of entertainment, if you wish, is the YouTube video of the Randolph Singers Christmas concert, which went off without a hitch on December 10. Last month, I reported that John and I had our first bout of Covid. Fortunately, they were relatively mild cases and I was all ready to sing by day 11 after testing positive. Even more fortunately, I did not transmit my germs - no one else in the group reported sick afterwards!
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| Click on the picture or HERE to view the Randolph Singers Christmas Concert |
A source of entertainment in our household the last few weeks have been our appliances, a new "smart" one and an old one that might be smarter than we think.
First the "smart": one of the gifts I found under the Christmas tree this year was an iRobot (aka Roomba). Yes, I know that there are some women who don't consider appliances to be acceptable gifts, but I'm not one of those women; I don't need "bling". Anyway, the idea of asking for one came to me one day as I was lugging our vacuum cleaner up the stairs to do the bedrooms: maybe it would be nice to outsource the second floor to an appliance.
It's a new world out there with appliances: my washer and dryer, like many recent inventions, are Wi-Fi compatible, meaning that I theoretically can operate them remotely using an app on my cell phone. (Seriously, have we become so lazy that we can't walk to the laundry room and push a few buttons?).
The Roomba, however, has no on and off buttons, and can only be run via a smart phone app. After a somewhat lengthy set up, I fired up the app and spent the next hour and a half mesmerized by the little disk as it made its way from room to room - negotiating around furniture, avoiding the stairway, and vacuuming under dressers and beds (yay!). Most impressive was how it would occasionally stop in its tracks, resolutely navigate back to the "mother ship" to empty out its contents, then head back to where it had left off. Now that's entertainment!
Speaking of entertainment, our planned entertaining this past weekend hit a temporary bump in the road when our old microwave chose to die on New Years Eve morning, just hours before our houseful of overnight guests were to arrive. The creepy thing was that John and I had actually discussed the need to replace it just the day before - making me wonder if it was perhaps smarter than it let on. With the nearest appliance store about 30 miles away, we considered our options; after all, it was just 40 years ago that we got along without one. The crisis was averted when our neighbors came to our rescue with a temporary loan of their extra microwave. Meanwhile, we've ordered a new one which will be ready for pick up on Friday. I wonder if it will come with an app?
Winter(?)
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| What's wrong with this picture is that this is what Vermont should look like in April, and not the day after Christmas! |
For those of you who have escaped the Northeast to warmer climates, this may not seem particularly upsetting, but the above
picture was taken here in Randolph at 4 PM on December 26, during a
multi-day spell of of heavy fog after record-breaking rain a week earlier.
I know that some of you are thinking "careful what you wish for". I promise that if we get a good dumping of snow, I'll provide an update and some pictures.
In the meantime, I hope that 2024 is off to a good start for all of you, and that the year will bring you many happy times with best friends and family!
