Welcome to the Working Week

I hope your weekend was as (un)nexpectedly delightful as mine was, though I am powerless to have helped make it so and aside from pausing to simulate thoughtful concern if it weren't there's not much I can actually do to change any of that.

My wife, for reasons not fully explained or even partially understood by me did not have the weekend meticulously organized like that hike the Reichswehr made through Poland all those years ago. There was no synchronization of watches, no loading of stores and no checking to see what phase of the moon we were in at night. Nothing to do but enjoy the weekend.

And the timing was perfect. The trailer of the Tropical Storm Andrea broke and while there was a lot of water-a town near us, Gales Ferry, got over six inches of rain-we got off far luckier than many others elsewhere, not that we didn't bitch about it anyway.

Our daughter, Michelle, is a violist in the New London Community Orchestra and had two concert this past weekend with almost nearly perfect weather for the performance yesterday afternoon at the City Pier in New London, on the banks of the Thames River.

Michelle in the middle with the way-cool shades.

We were joined by Michelle's brother, Patrick, and what looked like close to a hundred people, a not inconsiderable number of watercraft of all shapes and sizes, a truckload of trains all with working whistles and swarms of swallows, seagulls and all manner of avian friend.

This week has me spending some more time with folks with initials behind their names and at least some of the news will be of the kind I will find less than pleasant. It will not deter or delay them from delivering it and I will grimace slightly because from their emotional distance, a smile and a grimace look very much the same.

The roof offered ample shelter from the sun but not so much from the breeze off the water.

This past weekend will rapidly become nothing more than a dim memory but one I hope to hold on to at least in part for some time to come. And when I'm sifting through the rubble, Barney, at some distant point and time, I hope I can smile the way I am at this moment.
-bill kenny