The View from the Hermitage, Day 336

The view out the dining room window of the Hermitage is a wee bit different from what was there yesterday or even this morning. There's less snow. Tree branches have shed the ice that weighed them down this morning. One icicle still lives on the eave outside the basement sun room and appears to be hanging on for dear life. A monotonous dripping announces that what was frozen on the roof is melting rhythmically. I expect tomorrow will show even larger changes. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same here in my week 48 of the pandemic. Xpot is still Xpot and has beaten the rap one more time. The novel coronavirus stays novel; the UK variant has been found locally. Countries do what they think best. Germans has tightened its borders, banning travel from some Czech regions. New Zealand has locked down Auckland while three cases in one family are investigated. One of the cases worked in the laundry department of an airline catering company. Here in the US, most things are still left up to the states. There may be a national mask mandate governing interstate travel, but individual states can follow that but have no other mask regulations. Montana just dropped its mask mandate; the governor told Montanans to be vigilant. How the heck can you be vigilant against something you cannot see or feel until it's too late.

An investigator on the World Health Organization team investigating the start of the coronavirus says that China refused to hand over key data, leading a US national security adviser to say he had "deep concerns" about the initial findings. The WHO investigator said that the team requested raw patient data but was given only a summary. The importance of the raw data stems from the fact that only half of the 174 initial cases had exposure to the Wuhan wet market where China says the virus was initially detected. 

I finally remembered today to ask my mom if the sense of smell she lost during her October bout with covid-19 had ever returned. She said it had not. People in the hall still know when she's snacking on microwave popcorn, but she says she smells nothing. Now I need to remember to ask her if losing her sense of smell has made things taste different. I told her that at least she is not a restaurant critic. I read of one such person who could no longer do his or her job having lost both a sense of smell and a sense of taste. 

I could depress myself by commenting on the impeachment verdict and other things political, but I now have evidence that I have been paying too much attention to political news. A crossword clue this morning was "______ King of Maine." I moved my pen to fill it in, but "Angus" was too short. Okay. What could it be. Several minutes later, I got the letter T from a cross clue and realized the King of the clue was Stephen, not Angus. The Professor said that the same thing had happened to him. I will endeavor to get back to more popular culture than political culture. 

One more snow and ice photo. I love the patterns that branches can make. 

The View from the Hermitage, Day 334

I just went out to go up to the mailbox and retrieve the Valentine present I'd ordered for The Professor. The air had a brisk, wintry tang to it. It felt so good, almost like a soothing cool lotion rubbed on my cheeks. It erased some of the stress of the day trying to help The Professor with some computer issues he's been having. Since it didn't erase all the stress, I'm not going to write about the pandemic or impeachment or other worldly matters. I'm just going to put in some photos taken so far in 2021 and possibly comment on some of them. My blog. My rules.

  

I actually took this shot on New Year's Day when I was thinking I should try to do what I did one year and post a photo a day. Given that no photos were ever posted here or on Instagram, you can see how far that idea went. A naked, leafless tree is a recurring quilt idea that, like the photo a day, hasn't really gone anywhere. 

I took these two shots on the morning walk with Son #1 and The Family Dog. The pine trees make me think I'm in Narnia, and they are helpfully or not pointing in the direction they think I should take. I won't say whether I took their advice.

Some freezing or frozen precipitation is in the forecast for tonight, though I can't say that the air out there smells like incoming precipitation. It is nice to have winter for a couple of days. Once The Sons were no longer in school and my duty to drive was reduced, winter got a lot more welcome. That said, we're coming up on the 8th anniversary of what got me the Mother of the Year award for 2013. I need to figure out the exact date and recount that as the day's post. 

Finally, Lauren owes me big time. Lauren who? Hell if I know. All I know is that I found a voicemail on my cell phone intended for someone named Lauren. It was not just any message either, but the offer of a job. The call originated in New Jersey. I returned the call and explained that I was not Lauren though I had gotten a message intended for her. The man whom I had called was very apologetic and also appreciative of the fact that I had taken the time to clear up the situation. I told him to have a nice weekend and said good-bye. As for his being appreciative, wouldn't  anyone have done that? Or am I just that naive?

Afterthoughts, Icelandic and Wintery

Spring has sprung here, with warmer than usual temperatures the last several days, in the Fahrenheit 70s as opposed to the high 50s normal for this time of year. I shall not complain. A few days ago, on March 17, there was no snow to be seen in our yard (I could see a bit on the neighbor's lot). The last time this was true was December 17, meaning that we spent three months, or the duration of the winter season, with snow. While I remember this happening more than once while I was growing up in Montana, I can't remember its ever happening here in Central Virginia. This morning, the daffodils around the mailbox burst into bloom all at once, celebrating spring in all its finery.

Still, I can't help but feel wistful for the winter solitude of Iceland, a feeling perhaps strengthened by the news this weekend of a volcano's erupting on the Eyjafjallajokull glacier southeast of Reykjavik. We did not actually visit Eyjafjallajokull. Reykjavik was the closest we got, but after hearing our guide talk about the volcano that had erupted near Lake Myvatn, this eruption seems a bit more real than it might have two months ago.

Since I'm feeling wistful for Iceland, it seemed appropriate to offer a few more observations from our time there and perhaps even a photo or two. I am always interested in learning about the local educational system, in particular when students start learning another language. In Iceland, the magic age is around 10, at the end of the fourth of the ten years of compulsory school. This first language learned used to be Danish; now, though, it is English, with Danish coming later. Around the age of 16, or after the 10 years analogous to what we call K-12 education here in the US, students can move on to four years of "college," during which they study their choice of French or German. Depending on the chosen career path, college might be followed by "university," the length of which depends on the chosen career. In other words, by the time most students here start studying their first foreign language, an Icelandic student is working on a third and about to start a fourth. Is it any wonder US students are falling behind their peers abroad?

Completely unrelated to education, Iceland’s climate is not conducive to thunderstorms, and when one does occur it’s probably analogous to genuine snow falling at DisneyWorld. Living in a part of the country very susceptible to thunderstorms (I heard thunder this morning, as a matter of fact), I found it amazing to ponder a country without them. It certainly rains a lot there but without the lightning and thunder we so often have here.

I mentioned in the last post I put up while in Iceland that we had ridden Icelandic horses through a lava field before soaking in the Blue Lagoon as the snow fell. The day after that we went shopping as the snow continued to fall. The next day, the snow was still falling as we went to the airport to head for home. Here’s those three days in photos, starting with the ride through the lava field. That's the husband on the horse right in front of me. And here I am with my horse when we took a break to let the horses graze a bit.
The shots of the Blue Lagoon were less than impressive given that they were taken at night and in the snow. That's me a ways out in the water. They had signs in the locker room advising covering one's hair in a swim cap or hair conditioner, so I opted for the cap, though it's slightly less than fetching when it comes right down to it.
Travel always seems to drive home how attitudes differ in different countries. You'd never see this image advertising a cafe here. I loved the color of the corrugated metal siding on this house. From the central shopping area, you can pretty much orient yourself in respect to this church. I have always loved cemeteries, so walking through this one in the snow was something we just had to do. I loved the color of these flowers on the white snow. If you've read Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, who knows who you might expect to meet walking out of this scene. This scene just seemed so very peaceful. I can only presume that this was planted right atop the grave for a reason, perhaps to make sure the dead person stayed there? Remember the chair built for the world's tallest man? It was big even for the two of us. And the bed designed for him was just as relatively big if you compare the end to where my feet are sticking up.
Note the position of the satellite dish. It really is almost pointed down.
This sign went up in the elevator on the second day of the snow. Finally, a few shots from the airport and on the plane. Here's a sign from a shop at the airport, a blurb for the latest by the Icelandic author I mentioned in an earlier post. There were moments when it stopped snowing and the sun came out. This was one of those. Farewell! Somehow, the name "Iceland" fit the land we left a bit better than it fit the land to which we had arrived a week earlier. Remember the Icelandic language lessons on the seat backs of Icelandair jets? Here are a few more for your education and entertainment.

And on that note, I will file Iceland away with Vietnam, Cambodia, Norway, Italy, and Spain as countries to which I would really like to return. Now to balance those with all the ones I haven't yet been to that I still want to visit. Anyone up for Peru or Egypt?