Where We Both Cross The Stream
Sharing space without presence,
bound by crossing paths and vanishing signs.
Unseen,
unknown,
you are a joy to me.
There Is No Salvation, But There Might Be Respite
Looks like the Nates (Silver, Cohn, etc.) were no where near successful fixing their election prediction models. I'm betting it's the base social assumptions more than the math models. Garbage in, garbage out.
As I wait with this gut punch feeling for Michigan to land, I realize I need to reconfigure my whole relationship with news and politics and switch from trying chiefly to be correct in what I think to being effective in how I live.
Box of Matches
You don’t get to burn down that many houses before people realize you’re not unfortunate and accident prone but, rather, an arsonist.
Wandering Gnomes
Last Friday evening we were able to participate in a live broadcast by Stage Center of a musical based on the movie Amélie. It was a palpable relief to be gathered together watching so many of our familiar favorites perform live. Liesl Cruz, Cade Ostermeyer, Cassidy Giddens, Kezia Pigford, Jared Watson, Seth Taylor: it had the feeling of being reunited with old friends after years of missing them (quarantine is in its 5th year, now, right?).
The highlight was Mary Grace Humphries as the title character. We've only seen her once before, playing Jo in the musical version of Little Women at the Emmett Hook Center, one of the very last things we saw before the shutdown. She's an incredible singer and a joyfully vibrant performer, and we dearly hope to be seeing much more of her.
We enjoyed the performance immensely, though we missed the magic of being in the same room with the performers, especially the intimate setting of the Central Artstation Engine Room. Even so, while I can see why one would want to convert Amélie into something more widely performable, I feel the author wasn't successful at finding a fully functional core of the original work to transplant. As familiar as I am with the movie, there were still a number of places of confusion and trailing plot points. For my mother, who'd never seen the movie before, and who took great pleasure in the singing and seeing familiar faces, she was well lost in regards to the story.
There's so much I miss about sitting wide eyed and smiling in a performance space, but I'm deeply grateful to Jared, Seth, and their amazing cast for reminding me how much better my life is for having them specifically, and so many others like them, as a part of it.
Eden Never Was
While taking our nightly census of fern dragons and dinosaur ghosts last night we were surprised to come across a young wyrm sitting casually high up in the Great Fern Forrest.
We'd seen her and one of her elders before in the orchard, I just didn't realize they were so capable of three dimensional maneuvering. We take so much joy in discovering infant fern dragons tucked into the fronds here and there like miraculous little buds and monitoring them as they grow, and part of that happiness was in feeling they were safe at night when bedding down high above the nocturnal monsters lurking below.
Now we know some of those monsters are quite at home hunting the skyline, and our joy is edged with fear.
Wyrm exits on the left while the fern dragon keeps holding its breath on the right, blood gone a bit colder than normal.
Oh, and Fenne Lily's new album has dropped! No fear marring the joy in that.
Light Inside
I waited with you,
quiet,
through overwhelming night,
Waited until you felt safe
and shared your light again.
When It's Over, pt 304
Pre-COVID, Gordi was going to be opening for Of Monsters and Men in Dallas at some point in the early Spring. I was initially planning to go based mostly on her past work (I don't think she'd released very many singles from her new album yet), but was hesitant to commit as it was a late Wednesday evening show and would've made for a difficult Thursday at work (I'm old, so these things play a greater roll in decision making than they once did).
If I'd known how brillig Our Two Skins was going to be, though, I would've been thrilled to pay the price to see her live. And when this is all over, it's very much my intent to do so.
In the meantime here she is taking a good song and making it better:
Li Po Would Smile
Sitting at my desk this morning watching a Carolina wren hop through one of the smaller orange trees just outside my window. The trees leaves are wet from the sprinklers running this morning, and it's using them to bathe by brushing against the leaves over and over, then shaking and preening. It's been going on for almost 10 minutes and has made my morning.
There Will Be A Tomorrow
I got kicked out of the office when we opened back up a couple months ago. I've been relegated to working from home so my wife can have my office, moving her out of the space she normally shares with her medical assistant, thus allowing the staff to properly practice social distancing as much as possible throughout the work day.
Figuring out how to 'safely' reopen the office for in-person visits was anxiety ridden, but we put together the equipment and supplies needed and hammered out processes in a way we were all eventually satisfied would mostly avoid killing our patients or selves.
That said, a staff member tested positive for COVID last week so we're back in lockdown doing remote only visits this week until we get new clear results back on the rest of the staff.
Luckily(?), it was the staff member who least frequently interacts with patients, is the most conscientious about using PPE, and we caught it pretty quickly with our standard screening. Most importantly, she and her family have so far been symptom free and will hopefully stay that way through the course of the infection.
She almost certainly got it from contacts in her personal life, but it's just an up close and personal reminder how vigilant we need to be until an effective vaccine is widely available.
It's taken me two months of working from home and effectively self quarantining to move through the requisite stages of goofing off, snacking too much, and becoming depressed, but I believe I've finally got a pattern and perspective to bring me back to normal . . . -ish. ( I'm still missing and suffering from a lack of socialization, putting a heavy burden on my wife in the evenings).
I even found an anchor sturdy enough to set up a workout station.
