1) Such chaotic dreams in the night: going through what was basically a crowded labyrinth of white office furniture and finding my mother in the way (!), and then later, running up an escalator after discovering my luggage had been stolen, hearing my name being called out over a public address system, yelling that I was on my way, and then hearing such a long, complicated question for me that I realized I had no idea where in the building that voice over the public address system was coming from . . . and where was my luggage?!
1a) Wouldn’t you rather wake up than deal with all that? I think you would!
2) Now here is a piece of music for a victorious winter holiday season: Rachmaninoff’s Prelude Opus 23, No. 2.
3) This evening I listened in on a Massachusetts Historical Society presentation via Zoom on Penelope Winslow, Plymouth Colony First Lady: Reimagining a Life, because the author, Michelle Marchetti Coughlin, is also the House Administrator at the Gibson House and I wanted to show my support. Well . . . a very interesting program on a seemingly daunting project: determining someone’s life story based not on written or recorded words, but through what is called “material culture:” surviving property, belongings, and archeological discoveries. I feel like I learned a lot.
3a) And as if that wasn’t enough, the program was introduced by the Society’s president, Catherine Allgor. “Catherine Allgor?” I asked myself. “That couldn’t possibly be the author of Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government that I just quoted in a recent column, could it?” Well, yes! Yes, it could be the same Catherine Allgor who wrote Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government! Such an excellent book, and I should reread the whole thing again, but she goes into so much of Dolley Madison’s brilliant strategy to forge a robust society in the new Washington City, and also why there are public galleries in Congress, among other things. So, from an a academic research standpoint, it’s been a VERY exciting Wednesday night.