This is a part of the “Outside My Window” series in Our America. No great political observations, just what’s going on – today literally outside my window.
Back to Normal?
Jenn, our son and I went to see a concert in downtown Columbus last night. It was the band Genesis with Phil Collins, on probably their last tour. Collins has a deteriorating nerve condition, and performs from a chair at the front of the stage. He was the original drummer for the band, and taking over the drum set was always a part of his persona. Now he can’t do that. But he can still sing, and his twenty year old son Nic has taken over on the drums. It’s a passing of the torch – the son honoring his father’s skill. And it’s still a really good concert with three of the original Genesis members, old school mates Collins, Tony Banks on the keyboards and Mike Rutherford on guitar.
It’s another part of my “Dahlman Concert Tour”, seeing the great performers of the past before it’s too late. This fall that’s included outdoor concerts with the Rolling Stones and Billy Joel. But Genesis is the first time indoors since the pandemic changed the world. Next up: James Taylor and Jackson Browne.
Going to a concert downtown is such a “normal” thing to do, but it’s been such a long time since we could. There was dinner “downtown”, and walking the streets of the “big city”. Then we were in in the crowd on the floor of Nationwide Arena, taking pictures, drinking beer, with the normal wafting of concert marijuana smoke after the lights went down. We were on our feet for more than two hours for the show: so very normal, and exciting.
Back to the Pack
This meant a late night both for the three of us, and for our pack of friends at home. The five dogs did their sleeping while we were gone. So there was midnight dinner (our Lab Atticus was too nervous to eat), then a romp outside, and a couple of hours of chasing around the house in the middle of the night. They didn’t calm down until two in the morning.
But our elder statesman, Buddy, is the “keeper of the clock” when it comes to breakfast. He was lenient this morning, letting us “sleep in” until 6:45. Then it was time to get up and get breakfast – the late night was my problem, not his! (Buddy, by the way, just went back to bed here at 8 am, the prerogative of an old border collie/shepherd mix I guess).
But I need to thank Buddy later today. He got us up for a beautiful sunrise here in Pataskala, the reddened sky peaking over the Christmas lights of this little town. It was worth the lost sleep to witness it, and it recalls one of my Mom’s old English sayings:
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”
Warning
What should we “be warned” about? That could be quite a list. Maybe it’s the weather, the temperature has been in the twenties, but will hit sixty by Saturday, with rain coming. A mud mess for the “pack” in the backyard, I’m afraid. Or maybe it’s the Omicron variant of Covid, so much more infective than the Delta variant which was more than the “original”. To use another one of Mom’s expression, I feel like we’re waiting for the “other shoe to drop” on Covid. We might be playing with fire when it comes to dinners and concerts – flirting with normalcy in an wholly abnormal world.
Or maybe it’s the economy, or the Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, or any of the other national or world crises we face.
There’s plenty to worry about, as our Lab Atticus can tell you. But there’s good news as well. My ears are still ringing from Phil Collins and the group; I’m glad we’re able to have those experiences again. And there’s plenty of coffee in the house. Other than getting the Christmas tree up (and fortified from the puppy CeCe) there’s not too much on our plate today.
Maybe a red sky in the morning is just a beautiful way to begin a new day.
- The Out My Window Series
- Crisis in a Small Town – (3/16/20)
- St Patrick’s Day – (3/17/20)
- Plagues and Floods – (3/21/20)
- Stories from Lockdown – (4/1/20)
- Out My Front Window – Part One (4/21/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Two (4/23/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Three (4/26/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Four (5/13/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Five (6/3/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Six (7/3/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Seven (7/31/20)
- Outside My Window – Inshallah (8/13/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Eight (9/15/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Nine (9/25/20)
- Outside My Window – Part Ten (10/9/20)
- Outside My Window – Part 11 (11/29/20)
- Outside My Window – Post-Truth World (12/16/20)
- Waiting for the Shot (3/11/21)
- Outside My Window – Part 15 (5/26/21)
- Outside My Window – Part 16 (6/13/21)
- Outside My Window – Part 12 – (8/14/21)
- Sixty Five Doom (9/1/21)
- Red Sky at Morning (12/9/21)
