Announcement Announcement Announcement!

My classmates from Miss Burke’s School told me I used to come into class and say that - as if I had a serious thing to say being the class presy... I have no memory of this.
But! I now have an actual announcement!
Charlie will be on 90.5 tomorrow night 8-9 pm New Hampshire time.
Get to your radios people.
Meantime listen to the song ‘Brazil’ I sent you, to get into the tortured teenage mind.

So excited. Love radio. Love. Radio.

Xo from 30,000 feet

testing- now I think it's working....

Indulge me- am experimenting to see if I can finally attach videos to El Blog. Tonight is the Exeter reception...Y'all are invited at 6pm. Yes, there will be a a few type As, but also some truly wonderful type Cs, AND a few teachers- one of them from the physics department (hmm..maybe need to re think the outfit. I do love to talk about the stars while standing under them.)

Attached (inshallah)  is a really good song 'Brazil' the angst filled teenagers played on WPEA.....It makes very little sense.
Or does it?

I'm faithless now though we win
Every time and I don't know how-
'Cause I haven't bought you
And I haven't sold me

But the people are dying to get on TV
I heard he lives down a river somewhere
With six cars and a grizzly bear
He's got eyes, but he can't see
Well, he talks like an angel but he looks like me


Brazil

Oh one last thing...I cannot see who reads this, but I can see the number of hits on each entry. And do you know the all time winner ? The average is maybe 50 views..and one was over 500.
And it was the photograph of Frederick's calculations on why the electoral college was- let's call it suboptimal....Isn't that heartening? It means the Russian robots are checking out the blog!!! xxoxo

WPEA

You guys have to get on this... 90.5 WPEA and it can be heard on your fancy internet radios.
ACB called me on Friday night saying Charlie was on- I was at a restaurant so I missed it, but apparently he was dragged there by two friends who had a gig and needed him to help them with the banter. Duck to water is all I can say- he said the hour went by like it was a minute; and now he might have his own show in the spring! a sports based one I think... (with possibly taciturn German cousins as guests.) Andrew and I are obsessed with radio and we are determined to fulfill all our radio producing fantasies from afar. We speak about all the ideas we have for his time on the air. Here is one- a segment where you "better get to know..." and he can start off with the kids in Math 999- the class offered to kids who have taken everything else, and need another. Each year it is different, it is just whatever they want to teach with whomever is qualified to take it. Frederick speaks in hushed tones about a kid in a trench coat who played guitar and was in that class. The kids suspect it is taught in the middle of the night with blood instead of chalk.

Anyway the station is downright addictive...the kids are so smart and nice to each other; and I love their angst filled music choices. For anyone missing those three knuckleheads like I do (don't know why it's worse at the moment..). it is a salve. I listened for a long time last night as I made my turkey bolognese (excellent) after a nice little 12 mile walk in frigid winds. There were three kids on- one was in a super selective a cappella group and she sang for a while; another was born and raised in Paris; another was...dunno..but all were just so adorable talking about their advisors and then the government shut down and so blessedly free of ranting or heavy opinions. And then the best part- they signed off because even though they sounded like real DJs, they had to get back to the dorm before curfew.

(Charlie with a microphone!!! it's too good..)

photo of an elusive teenager

At the Boston Fine Arts museum, trying to see the depth in the black. 

Happy MLK day.....it's very quiet at the office, so I thought I would put up the only photo we took of F over break. (Thank God for MMB, otherwise we would have very little record of his childhood.) I am procrastinating because PEA wants the parents to write a recommendation for their own children to help the college counselor better know the kid. Thomas is of course ducking, so it's on me. 

Luckily I have at least chosen the musical soundtrack for writing it- Scott Joplin's 'Solace-a Mexican Serenade'. My father would have approved of course- he played Scott Joplin all the time, especially in his car when he took us for drives after dinner in Inverness. He was probably a little tipsy, and Scott Joplin is perfect for nostalgia-  there is just no other music that is so sad and comforting at the same time. But make sure you don't listen to just anyone...it has to be Joshua Rifkin. His version of Solace is the only one that's played slowly enough. 

Writing about Frederick's odyssey is going to be tough-the cushier the journey, the harder it is to make interesting. He thinks he would like to study the stars or maybe just physics, and he wouldn't mind if he never had to take another English class again. He thinks people in general, and his parents in particular, should be doing more for humanity (he tells us this often). He himself doesn't do much in this regard; but his argument is he isn't even allowed to vote, and he has a 9 pm curfew. 

Point taken. 

I think the best thing I can say about Frederick having had an abundant childhood filled with uncles and travel with lots to eat and warm houses to eat in, is he doesn't see the world as a zero sum game. At his core he believes there is enough to go around- so he doles it out, helping other students in class and paying for their hamburgers.  He is a good tipper that kid. 

Might not be enough for MIT; but it's enough for me. 

xx

I heart Canada and Their Goose

Apres le deluge.....

".....one doesn’t pretend to do battle against a blizzard. You submit. Surrender. Hunker down. A snowstorm rewards indolence and punishes the go-getters, which is only one of the many reasons it’s the best natural disaster there is. " In Case of Blizzard, Do Nothing 
David Dudley NYT, January 22 2016

You might have heard we had a little snow storm yesterday. Phillips Exeter Academy cancelled classes (a rarity); and much else-including the Boston airport, basically shut down. The snow was going sideways in sheets of white, piling up while we ate breakfast; then Thomas put on his ski pants and announced he was going jogging.

He really should be studied under a microscope. (I went to the gym in the hotel, and that was cold enough.) To give you an idea of how ridiculous his instinct was, the waiter, a local and total blase about snow, was rendered speechless. "But you will slip on the ice....?" What he doesn't know is Germans do not fear ice unless it is in their drinks; cold drinks on a hot day weaken the character.

The day before the storm, I purchased a jacket from Canada Goose that I had wanted forever- but could never really justify the cost. These coats are famous around here and come in five levels of warmth: numbers one and two are spring in Boston level. Three and four will work for temperatures down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. And five is for the family re union in the Arctic circle. No one has ever actually been seen buying a five. It's just whispered about in the stores in the Back Bay.

I went for the four- and the guy told me it was warm enough to wear with nothing but a t shirt on the storm day. And I said: "Wow", but I was thinking; "thanks for the tip but...I intend to add every single piece of clothing I have brought, including long underwear and the hotel bathrobe with this baby. More is more."  We drove Frederick back to school before the storm hit. (he went back to school for Thursday and Friday, with plans to come back to Boston for movies and dinner over the weekend.) A nice family drive into the country with me so packed in Canada goose down and four seasons terry cloth that it was a challenge to put the seat belt on.
Well you can see where this is going - at first, I kept rolling down the window; with, dare I say it, increasing levels of crabbiness. Then I felt something approaching what Joan of Arc must have felt as they burned her alive. Poor Thomas, I don't know how he could drive with me ranting in Latin and my clothes piled on his head like that..."Hold the cross high so I may see it!!!!!!"

So storm day comes and I have the coat and Thomas has jogged. We are ready, We are pumped. Actually I am not pumped at all, having just read a wonderful article about surrendering to storms and just laying low, (see above). I reference this article and its sound point of view to my husband. Hopeless. Unless it's a Russian winter (sorry had to do it) there is no surrender with these people, so out to lunch I must go.

The coat is a dream- I love it more than any of you, it is my heart and soul, but with the fur hood up I literally can see nothing that is not an inch in front of me. Thomas kept calling me his little u boot  (periscope humor) So here I am an absolute cripple...albeit a warm one- and have to negotiate icy bricks and flying chunks of snow, or maybe they were people, and huge snowdrifts at the curbs and that is not even including the cars which cannot stop and I cannot see.  But because we are Wehlens and this is fairly familiar to anyone who has skied off piste in Lech,  we thought it was all very jolly. hahahaha. And it was kind of fun until we stumble to the restaurant and find it closed, and we have to find another one.

The best visual is a scene from a documentary about Emperor penguins who have to survive the winter months in the South Pole. They are sort of walking forward, but the wind is so strong, it's hard to tell. Thomas has denied this in the inquiry that followed, but he came very close to abandoning me to the elements after it was clear I could not see with the hood up, but was unwilling to take the hood down. We were maybe six blocks from the hotel, and yet I had semi serious concern that we would not make it. Crazy.

The next day the snow stopped and the real cold came, and this is worse. It is f-ing freezing. I am pretty warm in the coat, but my face is exposed, because at some point I have to actually look up.  Thomas keeps going outside...God bless his heart...he thinks maybe his blood will thicken if he just concentrates hard enough. The problem is the homeless- every time I walk by I hand them 20 dollars, but Thomas carries $100s, and these he doles out all the way down Bolyston street. I am not making this up: he left for yet another excursion to the bank and returned with nearly frost bitten hands, and -you guessed it- no money. There are pictures of Thomas circulating around town now...homeless people are naming their pets after him. I don't know how much longer we can afford to stay.

Thomas running outside after the snow stopped to "see what it was like"

Dreaded Sunday is here and I have to send Frederick back.  He seems rather serious about what is facing him work wise; like a small soldier before a long march. 💔

See you Tuesday, I'll be the one kissing the warm California ground.

Blessed coat. It's going in my will. 

new haircut; talking shop with his father. We don't have many years left where Thomas knows more about some things...