This weekend has been variations of wet and miserable, all the way up to catastrophic and terrifying depending on exactly where you live. The early season Nor’easter sweeping up the Atlantic coast has inundated costal regions with rain, high winds, and tidal flooding driven by the storm winds and a full moon.

Luckily for me and my family, we are over 150 miles inland from both the Metro New York area, and from the Boston area. This has meant for us it has simply been a very rainy weekend with winds between ten and twenty miles per hour; not even torrential rain, but rather just a steady rain interspersed with occasional breaks of no rain. This will continue through the day tomorrow as well - but no flooding, no wind damage, and no power outages. Just a dismal chilly, rainy weekend. The kind that makes you want to sleep in and just lay around the house staying warm and dry all weekend. Which is pretty much exactly what my spouse and I have been doing.

But I decided to get a little motivated this afternoon, as I did yesterday afternoon, shower and get dressed, and fix dinner for the two of us; sweet and sour pork stir fry yesterday, and today we are talking about probably just having a nice breakfast dinner.

Anyway, as is my normal practice, I had the news playing over my Alexa app while I showered, dried off, went through my usual facial and body regimen (moisturizer, etc.), and dressed. When the news finished, I had Alexa play one of my music lists, a mix of songs by The Alan Parsons Project, and although the songs on the list come up randomly, the first song to play was Brother Up In Heaven, one of my all time favorites, and a song which has always had special meaning to me having lost more than a few friends and comrades.

There is a line in the song which seems especially appropriate in these troubled times, especially in light of the headlines and stories on today’s news……..

And though we try to change the world
A flower when it's cut will surely die
So why do men with so much hate
Destroy what they cannot create
While we all stand by

Therein lies the question we all need to ponder, and express to our neighbors.

Yes, brothers up in heaven, please wait up for me. Save me a seat at the bar, for I will be along soon enough - but not just yet. I still have much to do, and too many of our friends and family yet to watch over.