Sunrise

After a night of wind and gorgeous moonbeams, we were greeted to a sunrise that was bright, warming and welcoming.

When we took our morning "constitutional" so the dog could do his thing, the wind stopped and all became calm; something very welcome at 7am on a rather brisk day.

We noted several boats at anchor, much to our surprise, but with the balmy January, we were please that our stretch of Peconic Bay might have a viewing diversion or two this morning - something other than seagulls.
On our walk back along the low tide beach, the moon was setting but visible and the sun had broken the surface out past Gardiner's Island; all glinty with beams reflecting off every shiny surface.  Just plain nice.
We were thinking of music for the moon and the sunrise. These were the choices.

Did I smell Spring?

Half a century ago one of us spent the Summer at Camp Fairwood on Torch Lake in northern Michigan.  The Lake ran north-south and we were on the eastern bank so at sunset we were treated to the "torch" (hence the name of the lake).  Those of us on the water on the  bay were so treated tonight. Same sun. Same torch.

There isn't much special about a long reflection leading to a setting sun. It is all physics and a strong mix of the Weather Channel. 

The similarities ended a bit with a sniff of the scent in the air.  Golfers know the smell...just as the dew hits in the evening, trudging around after a long round in early spring.  It isn't the freshness or anything to do with stuff greening up.  Impossible to describe but visually I was at Torch Lake in 1958 and sensorially (is that a word) I was walking off the 18th at Pinehurst in early spring.  Same same.

I think we are lucky to have our senses to ping us into memories.  How drab would things be without the association of times past.  Sight and smell are toxic strong sometimes. Like this early evening.

Well, its been a week...

After a couple of days that we, from the Midwest, used to call "blush weather" - because our cheeks, after being outside for a bit, got all rosy and it looked like we were blushing - we settled in this morning to watch the news programs and let the snow do its thing (go away).

It is sad to a degree that we aren't springing out to find some ice on a pond or hoping that the weather would stay cold enough that great stretches of our bay area would freeze solid. No. We want the comforts of Florida on Long Island in January. The older among us remember parents telling of the Sound frozen all the way across and folks driving to Connecticut. We remember 20 years or so ago when the route to Shelter Island was all ice although no one we knew had the courage to try it on foot.

Some of us grew up with iceboat sailing which you could generally do thru April where I lived and there were great races on the lakes and rivers, crowds on the banks, hot chocolate or something stronger in great excess and a good amount of stomping feet.

These sailboats literally flew along; 50 mph not uncommon and 80 not unheard of.  Truly a fast ride in a machine.

Moxie

We think that moms and daughters who venture out into a stiff wind and 20 degree weather display more than a little bit of moxie. For those of you unfamiliar with the word "moxie", it is a slang term of nearly a century ago meaning to face difficulty with courage and spirit".  Dick Tracy, of comic book fame, was particularly full of moxie as was his Tess Trueheart.
Indiana Jones had more than his share and our present day Harry Potter came with a wizard's bag full to the top.

Our two skaters have it too and we are pretty pleased to see this episode at our local rink in Mitchell Park.

Great spirit show here. Great spirit indeed.

Moxie

Where in the world are we?

We watch the moon and sunrise and respectively set and depending on our forward orientation, it is either to our left or right.  Stumbling around the other day, we found a survey marker - a little white square that was put down decades or perhaps a century plus ago and we looked it up finding out that our little village rests about 41degrees north of the equator.

We try and picture our horizontal place on this planet and find that we have a lot more in common with Southern Europeans than the Parisian French, all Germans, certainly England and just about everything north of Central Italy (Rome is almost exactly due east of us!). 

Madrid is just about due east - the first of the big "Euro" cities and we like that a lot.  Spain. Espana. Ferdinand and Isabella. Bull fights, matadors...ahhhhhh.

We think of Spain as to be a red hot place - sun baked, whitewashed, olives and oranges and baked out in the sun. Same sun as ours...same height in the sky...same days, same nights.  Rome nearly likewise. A lot of places in the "----stans" of central Asia, lots of China, North Korea, Japan...endless list of places that are just like us to the right or left.

Knuckle Calendars

We heard a comment last evening about "knuckle calendars" - you know - so you can tell which months have 31 days...just start on one knuckle (either pinkie or pointer) and call that January (31 days) and go across and when you hit July, stay right there and call that knuckle August (another 31 month) and back track.

We are pretty much slaves to this invention it seems and now, with a long winter month ahead (first knuckle) and no snow yet but sure to come, we can think about things like this. We were remembering when our parents brought home calendars that were sent to their businesses by other businesses (fuel oil companies were big on this as were those fruit of the month things from Florida) but it seemed that everywhere you looked there was a calendar hanging on a kitchen wall or as a writing pad on a desktop. Now, not so much, as it seems every phone has a calendar that is linked up to your computer's electronic calendar that is linked up to your Facebook account and that is linked up to Linkedin and someone you hardly know knows when you were born and who you are visiting when and where.

Looking back, it appears that there was a pretty big interest in telling what day of the year it was and Druids and Mayans and all in between figured out how to move big stones around and carve and niche them to tell us what day it is or was. Calendars, simple or not, paper, stones, or electrons, are ubiquitous in our lives - literally couldn't live without them.

The term started probably in old Latin "Kalendae" (kalendarium), the time of year when accounts came due - the new year. One might think that calendars were the invention of the Income Tax folks.  Just might be. 

Back to work. Only January. No time for sluffing off.

Winter is half way here

Tempted as we were to toss a great big thermometer at you, we refrained as not to press our luck.

Last year about this time we had a visit from winter complete with piles of snow and ice.  Street lights came on in the middle of the day due to the darkened skies. Children screamed. Women fainted. Men fled. It was awful.

So, it is now middle morning and the wind has quieted some but the cold lingers and it is black and white photo cold. One of the local weatherpeople on TV made note that due to the fairly gusty winds, the cold was spread evenly across our end of the island and we had to think about that for a minute; imagining a butter knife loaded with Blue Bonnet Margarine, poised above a slice Wonderbread, a nice uniform layer in the offing...see what cold does to one's mind?

Anyway, there isn't any snow or ice to combat but somehow that makes it seem even worse....as in "hey you are just cold...at least you aren't falling on your behind.  buck up!".

Just thought we would spread some winter cheer.

Wow.

Happy New Year.