GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Quiet, hopefully sunshine later. There's low pressure passing to the south and high pressure dropping in from Canada, and it looks like the low will have the upper hand this morning, with skies mostly cloudy to start... until the high takes over. Regardless, temps about like yesterday, maybe reaching the low 30s, winds from the north. With mostly clear skies tonight, we'll be getting into the low teens overnight.Full moon rising. Last week's Beaver Moon was cool, wasn't it? It's always hard to capture the effect if you're photographing without a filter, but this view from Enfield, sent in by Sarah Dole, gives you a sense of it. And thank you to everyone else who sent in their photos.DHMC's long Covid clinic: "A good listening ear." There are treatments and approaches that can help patients deal with long Covid symptoms, writes Nora Doyle-Burr in the Valley News, but one key piece of doctoring is sympathy and reassurance. “Patients often say at the end of the hour, (you’re the) first person to really listen to me," the clinic's director, Jeffrey Parsonnet, tells Doyle-Burr, adding, "Most patients do get better over time." In all, the clinic has seen some 1,725 patients since it began, with 50 or 60 more referrals each month. Doyle-Burr also explores the similarities with ME/CFS, or "chronic fatigue syndrome."At DHMC's cardiac training center, a young nurse had a real cardiac emergency; her fellow nurses sprang into action. “I would say I’m your pretty average healthy 23-year-old,” Andy Hoang tells the AP's Kathy McCormack. But as she and her colleagues were training on how to respond to someone in cardiac arrest, she suddenly felt dizzy and had to sit down; she'd gone into cardiac arrest herself. A critical care team training nearby responded, as did a swarm of nurses and doctors. “It worked out, but it was pretty frightening for all of us,” says instructor Lisa Davenport. Hoang now considers the nurses close friends. “We basically went through this whole life-or-death experience,” she says.At Bradford's River Bend Tech Center, students revitalize a flood-damaged mobile home. Though many mobile homes were entirely destroyed in last summer's flooding, reports WCAX's Calvin Cutler, some are salvageable—and one of those is now at River Bend, where students have pulled the interior apart and are now outfitting it with new electrical and plumbing systems, kitchen cabinets, and the like. "It’s been harder to get us out on-site to visit houses," says instructor Brad DeGoosh. "What an opportunity to have the site come to us."SPONSORED: Cookies with Santa & The Snow Maiden at Pentangle this Sunday! Pentangle Arts continues its Sunday tradition of children’s events, beginning with Cookies with Santa from 12:30pm – 1:30pm. Bring the little ones to meet Santa and take a photo with the family on stage. Free, cookies and treats are part of the fun. Then, at 2 pm the fun continues as the No Strings Marionette Company presents The Snow Maiden, with lifelike marionettes that will delight children of all ages—and a chance to go on stage after. Tickets are $10 Adults, Children 16 & under free. Sponsored by Pentangle Arts."Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will find a reason to love the world.” And Tennessee writer Margaret Renkl does—not just generically, but "in precise, evocative language," writes Jared Jenisch in this week's Enthusiasms. Like poet Mary Oliver, who provides an epigraph for the book, Renkl is "a master of attention" and a surpassingly beautiful writer, and in The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, she provides 52 short chapters that chart the course of a year in her half-acre back yard and nearby parks—though, Jared writes, it "sometimes feels cosmic in scope."SPONSORED: Happy Holidays From Wm. Smith Auctioneers! Our incredible Estate Jewelry Auction has the perfect gifts, at the right prices, for your special someone! Engagement rings, eternity bands, earrings, bracelets in diamonds and gold, Rolex, Tiffany, a collection of unused vintage Coach leather bags, and more! Please join us for a festive wine & cheese preview this Friday, Dec. 8 from noon till 6 pm. Our Certified Gemologist Shannon will be available to answer all your questions. Bidding is live online and begins to close Sunday at 5 pm. Sponsored by Wm. Smith Auctioneers & Appraisers.Fisher Cats sold. The Blue Jays' AA team, which is coming up on 20 years in Manchester, was owned for years by Art Solomon, who in 2020 made room for two new partners. Now, reports Andrew Silvia in Manchester Ink Link, the team is passing on to Diamond Baseball Holdings, which owns 26 minor league teams across the continent, including the Portland Sea Dogs and the Salem Red Sox, both Sox affiliates. Tom Silvia, one of the current partners, will stay on as an advisor; all existing staff, including CEO Rick Brenner and General Manager Michael Neis, will stay on, as well.In letter to NH House members, Speaker's office tries to explain lack of action on Merner. As you might remember, the legislature's COO was notified by the AG's office a year ago that Troy Merner, a Republican who represented a seat in Lancaster, appeared to be living in Carroll. But Merner wasn't actually forced to step down until September. In a memo Monday, reports InDepthNH's Nancy West, the speaker's office says that's because the investigation into Merner's residence was ongoing until then. “This memo provides cover for the Speaker, nothing else," responds former Democratic state Sen. Peter Burling."Working in a hardware store is probably my dream job again." And who knows? Former NH Supreme Court Justice Gary Hicks could get the chance—his cousins still own the family store in Colebrook. In the meantime, though, Hicks—who turned 70 last week, the mandatory retirement age for judges in NH—sat down for a wide-ranging conversation on the courts with NHPR's Rick Ganley. They talk about the Court's series of rulings buttressing the state's right-to-know laws, the state's public defender program, and why he thinks NH's state courts have it all over the US Supreme Court on ethics.Irasburg tanker fire could continue for several days. That's per the town's fire chief, whose department has been working to manage and contain the fire since Monday morning, when a tanker truck slid off a bridge over the Black River and burst into flames. As Habib Sabet writes in VTDigger, an inspection conducted by drone Monday afternoon determined the tank had been punctured, easing concerns about a potential explosion. Instead, propane has been venting from the truck and turning into vapor. Even so, says Irasburg's chief, "We’ll probably be here for three or four more days."VT legislature, agencies "inconsistent" when it comes to rulemaking. As the VT auditor's office notes in a new report, turning laws into actual governing may seem arcane, but it's "often the most important aspect of implementing the Legislature's highest policy priorities." However, the report finds, those charged with making it happen aren't always very good at it: the legislative committee charged with following up does so inconsistently, while executive branch agencies regularly ignore legislative mandates. The system needs "additional oversight and improvements in our state’s rulemaking process," it says.If you get your car towed in VT, "you're on your own." So writes Aubrey Weaver for UVM's Community News Service. Unlike most other states, VT offers scant protection against price-gouging and other misbehavior by towing companies: "They can charge any rate to hold it, aren’t required to accept credit cards and don’t have to take a picture before towing. If your vehicle gets damaged in storage, companies don’t have to reimburse you," she reports. The AG's office fields complaints every year—and so far, seven years of effort by one state rep to address the problem have been stymied by the towing lobby.In the basement of a Masonic lodge in Danville, VT, the kind of Chinese and Vietnamese food that cooks and waitstaff "eat in the back for their communal meal." That's how Rhiannon Esposito describes the pho and other dishes she and her husband, Yong Huang, serve up at Huang’s Noodle Shop, which opened in May. The restaurant happened, writes K. Fiegenbaum in VTDigger, after the youngest of their nine kids turned 12 and Esposito got itchy to do something besides stay at home. Huang, who was born in Vietnam and grew up in China, quickly joined in what's now the family business.“I knew immediately this was incredibly rare to see, and it was beautiful.” Let’s say you could compose the perfect night-sky photograph, with all the dazzling wonders the heavens could present. Go on, ask for it all… the Aurora borealis, a shooting star, the Milky Way, and a hot plasma ribbon called STEVE. That is what photographer Stephen Pemberton caught—without even asking—one night in Northumberland, England, writes Jessica Stewart on My Modern Met. Aiming his camera at the Aurora, Pemberton also captured the optical phenomenon STEVE, or Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, as it flashed across the sky.The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak. Give it a try!
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There's a new Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, 252 or 520 pieces, just in time for these long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
At 6 pm today, online, Community Care of Lyme hosts a community conversation with clinical psychologist Bill Hudenko, "Handling Life's Challenges During the Holidays." He'll be talking about managing emotions and stress at a time when pretty much everything competes for attention—and ramps up tension and anxiety during what should be an enjoyable time. Hudenko will both talk about the science of stress and offer practical tips on how to reduce it.
And taking us into today...
We're going to let ourselves be carried along by Chango Spasiuk, whose grandparents immigrated to Argentina from Ukraine in the late 19th century. An accordionist and a composer, Spasiuk has become one of the country's foremost champions of
chamamé,
a style of music that developed in the remote northeast finger of the country that juts between Paraguay and Brazil, melding choir music, Spanish and Portuguese guitar, the strings, accordion, and piano brought over by Eastern European immigrants, African percussion, and the songs of the native Guaraní people.
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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