An absolutely delightful day.

I had an adventure this morning to start the day. Chelsea and I went out for our first walk at 5:45AM (not my idea). It was still dark and I saw something moving at the foot of the street. It was a rabbit running frantically in tight circles. Chelsea got all excited and chased it and knocked it down and it just kept running. (Chelsea is not a bitter or vicious so she didn't hurt it.) I dragged her away from it and we finished our business and went back in. After it was light I went back out but it was gone. I hope it was just disoriented and finally found its way off the road and back into the woods.

Bobbie and I went with Discovery Tours to the Fireside to see their musical revue, The Best of the Bands. It was a perfect day for traveling and there were several people on the bus that I knew. Notably, Stan and Sue, who have traveled with us several times. Kentucky, South Dakota to mention two. They were right in back of us so we had a nice visit.

The meal at the Fireside was again excellent. We had mushroom soup, chicken piccata, a wonderful rice and sausage and fresh snap peas and carrots. Dessert was a delicious apple tart. We were stuffed and content.

Then we enjoyed the Best of the Bands. And it was the best. It was virtually the same band that played for the Fabulous Fifties last year. They are SO talented. The singers and dancers were excellent also. Just before the intermission, they featured the Latin Bands and ended the first half with a Conga Line around the stage and out the door. Guess who were two and three in the conga line. BOBBIE AND ME.

Before the show they gave everybody a form for Stumping the Band. Those who wanted to could put their name and the name of a song that they figured would stump the band. Guess who got called. I wrote Whiskey on a Sunday. The band did not know it. They made some feeble attempt at pretending. (I loved their humor) but they did not know it. So I sang the chorus for everybody and got a $10 gift certificate for my efforts.

The show featured the music of the Big Bands, Country Bands, Jazz Bands, Latin Bands, Rock bands. It was just super.

An uneventful easy trip home followed. It is good to be home. The promised storm is still a promise and has been downgraded from tons of snow to some snow and rain, which is REALLY scary. Nothing more dangerous than rain and then icy cold.

Well, tomorrow CAN be an at home day though I really want to go to church and would like to go out the Rhine to shoot in the afternoon.

I told Bobbie that I would put a copy of the poem St. Kevin and the Blackbird which is what I TRY to think of when Chelsea become the most pesty, as she is old and in need of me. It is by Seamus Heaney.

And then there was St. Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, tut the cell is narrow, so

One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.

Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself liked
Into the network of eternal live,

Is moved to pity: now he must hold his had
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flwon.

And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he:
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labour and not to seek reward.' he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.

Have a nice Sunday and stay warm and safe.

Mary