Serious Weather

It's been raining for 36 hours, the temperatures dropping from 55 to 30 degrees, and now things are starting to ice over. I got home OK yesterday, but no electricity or phone, so I brought some extra clothes in today. I was the only one at the museum most of the day. TR relieved me at the front desk for an hour, but he was sick and when he went to get Meaghan I told him to go on home. Pegi stopped in, but left almost immediately; told me to go ahead and lock the doors, as the only person all day was Chris bringing me my lunch. It's supposed to get nasty tonight, sleet, then snow; then another round on Sunday with the temps never getting above freezing. A layer of ice, then six inches of snow, then another layer of ice. I locked-up, walked over to Kroger, got whiskey, sushi, and a couple of protein drinks. If I get stuck in town, I'll be fine, and if I get stuck on the ridge, I'll be fine. I'd rather have electricity, so I could write, but we're sliding down into survival mode here and I could be reduced to a pencil and paper with a couple of candles. I spent the day with a beautiful, elegant, catalog; an art book, actually, for a retrospective of Andrew Wyeth's work. 2005, Atlanta and Philadelphia. Very good essays and 166 color plates, which, in the case of Wyeth, means a lot of light and dark browns. One of those days in which I totally lose track of time. I hadn't known that Wyeth and Carter had met. Sometime between 1938 and 1944, when Carter was at Carnegie. Wyeth must have been in Carter's studio, because he references "Lady of Shalott". He also thought Carter's "Jane Hunt And Dora Reed" was the strongest painting in a large show called "American Realists And Magic Realists". Well, I did get home and start a fire, got it banked, spent a cold night, then Headed right back to the museum this morning when it started snowing hard. Still no power or phone at the house, and I wanted to write. Went over to Kroger and got cream for my coffee and a few things to eat. With the two Xmas parties coming up this week, I felt it was better to be stranded here, where I'll be needed. Jus Canonicum. Just stumbled on the fact that "Hiawatha" is written in the same form as the "Kalevala" ---unrhymed alliterative trochaic verse--- and also that Jean Sibelius based several pieces of music on K, which is not surprising. I've had a copy of it amongst the 100 or so books that I keep out, often for several years. It's hard reading. Just so you know, I have no control over this formatting. I saved the first part of this, and it reformatted itself in the saving: and the whole point of letting the machine wrap the line was that I didn't want to be concerned with where lines ended. Read more of the Wyeth. Thresholds suggest transformation. The liminal space of thresholds. Which is another similarity with Carter. And, oddly, their relationships with their wives was similar. The women ran everything, so these two guys could paint. At one point today I opened up the galleries and turned on the lights, and took a tour, talking out loud, as if I were docenting. I wormed Wyeth into the presentation. It was a good performance. I'd picked up a good Zinfandel at Kroger, to lubricate the afternoon, and I'd occasionally go back to the reception desk, for a liberal pour. One thing serious weather does, is throw you on your on devices.