An August Weekend of Beauty and Calamity

 

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date."

                      William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

It's the dog-days of summer and the 4th anniversary of my blog. (Post #65 but who's counting?!)  What better way to spend them than a weekend in the country.  The cornfields are, indeed, now as high as an elephant's eye, yielding their sweet kernels.  The farmer across from us, rotating his crops, has put in soy beans where there was corn a year ago.  The frogs in our pond are conversing frantically.  The hops plants are starting to bloom and all our lavender has been harvested. Our daughter's dog, Blanche, lays on the lawn, following the shadows, so she'll remain in the sunlight during the late afternoon.

HOPS!

And, a visit from our son, Marc, up from "the City", is always a special time, catching up over the past few months of the pandemic. It's always exciting for me to hear about the next film he's working on!  It is, indeed, a special time with cool evening breezes save for a torrential thunderstorm.  Poor Blanche did not react well to the thunderous volleys, her heart beating at warp speed and her body shaking as she nestled in my wife's arms!

We attended two performances at the Glimmerglass Festival, one, in which the Young Artists performed their favorite Broadway numbers to orchestral accompaniment, and the other, a flawless performance of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" with fantastic vocal performances, including that of the Met's own Eric Owens. 

Eric Owens singing the role of Sarastro

The Festival has left it's indoor theatre because of Covid and gone outside to the lawn where they constructed an outdoor stage.  For all five performances we attended, we hit it lucky with the weather cooperating! The audience is seated on the lawn in pods, six feet apart, with each pod containing four people, all, presumably, in the same "bubble". 

We shared ours with our good friends, John and Nelson from Cooperstown for all the performances.  The Mozart opera was transcribed to English with a very clever dialogue that was full of humor and, at times, almost slapstick.  Sometimes I found I was the only one laughing! But, I guess, that's me!

The topping on the cake to these opera meet ups is that we get to share a meal with John and Nelson as well as get to play with their three beautiful "girls"...golden retrievers!

Jersey, Savannah, and Dakota!

 I should mention that Nelson, a career Marine for many years, is now a culinary student who has cooked and baked for years, works his magic in the kitchen and serves up a wonderful meal.  John, a former Princeton Professor, is a marvelous sous-chef and they make a great team!  Each meal is different and creative, always beautifully plated.  For some years now, he has known my weakness which is his flan!  Now, our granddaughter has also caught on to it!  Our lunch on Sunday was smoked salmon over a cilantro slaw with walnuts and Nashi pears, pickled onions and goat cheese sprinkled with two different kinds of greek olive oil, one from the Isle of Lesbos. 

This was followed by homemade lavender ice cream, made out of the lavender from our garden.

So, now, after sounding like a Pollyanna, and privileged to enjoy peace, music, good company, food and dogs, I was fully aware of the tragedy happening to so many people today.  I kept getting newsfeeds on my phone, first about the earthquake in Haiti where at least over 1300 people were killed, the forest fires that continue across our West, the rising toll of victims of Covid-19,...  and then the news arrived of the hordes of Afghanis trying to escape the Taliban, numbering in the tens of thousands, many desperate to avoid certain death.  The President of Afghanistan had fled the country with money to where who knows and all I could think of was all those allies of ours, interpreters, office workers, janitors, etc. doomed.  And there will be many victims of women and girls who want the right to get an education or hold a job or profession. There were even people clinging onto the fuselages of the planes as they took off.  

Over 600 Afghanis stuffed into a C-17 Cargo plane headed out of harm's way!

We, the great USA, were blindsided by the rapid takeover of Kabul resulting in the immediate evacuation of our embassy (among others, except China and Russia).  How did we not know that another Saigon would happen after all the warnings?  How did Trump and Pompeo ever think we could negotiate with the Taliban and how did Biden not know our intelligence was deficient.  We had months to prepare our Afghani friends to leave the country but were slow to respond.  So the Republicans will blame Biden and the Democrats will blame Trump...what else is new?  Actually, this all goes back to the last four Administrations starting with George W. Bush.

With our military might and resources, we could do a last dive to rescue all these people.  Whether we do or not remains to be seen.  None of us want to extend this civil war that has raged for 20 years at the loss of many Americans and even more Afghanis!  The next week will be critical.

Rochester has been tapped to be one of 25 American cities to receive the Afghan refugees.  While I am too old to join Medecins sans Frontieres  or any other NGO that will help, I do want to do my share and pitch in somehow.  They will need us...the "huddled masses yearning to be free".