It is cold and raining here so I was thinking, where in the world is more suitable for human life than the South of France? Once you get past the fields of lavender, which sound, and look, nicer than they smell. Maybe it was the lavender ice cream that I ate at the olive fair that marked my personal turning point with lavender. It was quite disgusting, tasting as it did more than anything else like dirt. But other than the fields of lavender, the South of France is quite nice. Then I thought, yes, but I was there in the summer. Maybe it sucks in the winter. Then I remembered delivering a harp to Beta this time last year, i.e. winter and before Alpha and I left again, at about 4 in the morning, standing in the kitchen, looking out at the pre-dawn sky, drinking a giant cup of cafe au lait (me drinking), thinking, I AM STANDING IN A THREE HUNDRED YEAR OLD FRENCH FARMHOUSE DRINKING CAFE AU LAIT AND EATING A BAGUETTE! THIS ROCKS!
So I’m thinking, even in winter it could be nice there.
Then I got showered (here, this morning, not in France last year) and dressed and drove into town with Beta sleeping in the passenger seat and Vivaldi on the car stereo and the sun just beginning to brighten the sky and snow melting in flooded muddy fields and that had its own beauty.
And I remembered two days ago, talking to Gamma, trying to explain the story of Rip van Winkle to her.

He meets these dwarves in the woods. They’re bowling and he sees them and they catch him and put him on trial. And he turns out to be a good guy so they spare his life and give him a wish. And before he can make a wish they read his mind and he wants to sleep for twenty years. So they put him to sleep for twenty years and when he wakes up he’s an old man and no one in town recognizes him in his white hair and long white beard. And his wife is old and his kids are grown and he doesn’t know where the time went. And he deals with that in one way or another.