Long may you run

It is only the first week in January, and I have already had enough winter! I have not left the house since we came back on Wednesday. I love this house but that does not keep me from feeling a bit stir crazy.

I do not know much about our new mayor, Bill De Blasio, but I have to say I am feeling a bit sorry for the poor guy. He was sworn in on Wednesday and spent his first whole day in office dealing with an approaching storm. Lest you are wondering, it is not that anyone holds the mayor responsible for the weather. It is just that there have been some past storms that have not been handled very well, including one just a few years ago under Mayor Bloomberg, and the criticism was understandably quite harsh. Fortunately, New York seems to have weathered the storm fairly well. But no sooner was that over, this morning a helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in the Bronx, just a short distance from our home. There were some injuries but none fatal. The plane landed on the Major Deegan Expressway, so it has already been dubbed the “Miracle on the Deegan,” a nod to the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson.” In January of that year, a plane carrying 150 passengers and crew struck a flock of Canadian geese shortly after takeoff, lost power, and was forced to land in the Hudson River, miraculously with no fatalities. So you have to feel a bit for Mr. De Blasio for having such a challenging first few days on the new job.

We have tickets to see Neil Young at Carnegie Hall on Monday evening. We have not seen him for many years; the last time we bought tickets to one of his concerts must have been twenty years ago. The best I can say is that it was a memorable evening. He came onto the stage at The Beacon Theater, sat down, and, without saying a word, he started to play his first song; I cannot remember what song it was. Then, still without a word, he started a second song, and midway through he just stopped, arose, said something like “I cannot do this” and walked off the stage. That was it! I remember for years grousing about how it took us longer to retrieve our car from the garage than Mr. Young was on stage performing! We later heard that this was neither the first, nor the last, time he had done this. So we have been understandably reluctant over the years to buy tickets to a solo performance, though we did see him once with Crosby, Stills and Nash. In the past few years we have seen the two Jonathan Demme documentaries on Neil Young, “Heart of Gold” and “Journeys.” Based on these, he seems to be doing much better emotionally now than he may have been in years past. So we are looking forward to, or at least cautiously optimistic about, this concert.

Meanwhile, just stay warm, and have a great week.

  

Love,

Rebecca