February 18, 2026

We have a one year old in our midst.

Happy Birthday, Ethan Skye Tilton.

I went back and read my blog from a year ago when Ethan was born.  It was very cold, my driveway wasn't passable, and I didn't have a car.  I think I spent a lot of the last year without a reliable car.  It is so nice to not be in that situation any longer.  A year ago Tom Luck shoveled out my driveway.  Amazing.  AMAZING.  Kinda like this little guy.  He's amazing.  He has a cousin whose first b'day is right around here, whom I'd love to get to know.  His name is Toby.  I'm going to ask Toby's mother for a picture.  

Another "same" from last year was that I had photos of the deli case.  These are from today.  I could have eaten one of everything today.  They were so beautiful and there were cheesecake slices, too, that were very enticing.  I behaved.  So sad.  

photo by David

I don't remember when the article about the Chopin waltz came out.  It was kind of exciting at the time and I was very pleased with the way Javier Hernandez covered the story.  It does not surprise that he  has gone on to do bigger things at the Times.  He's working the Tokyo Bureau.  In this article about his post change, this was written.  

During his time in Culture, Javier reinvented the classical music and dance beat with newsy scoops, multimedia features and creative enterprise. He got one of the world’s biggest stars to join him at the opera, and delivered a scoop on the discovery of a long-lost Chopin waltz, persuading the star pianist Lang Lang to record the piece for The Times. 

You can hear Lang Lang play the piece that hung on my family's wall throughout my childhood.  I really appreciated Javier's desire to follow the life of the manuscript over the past 200 years.  After the article was reported the topic went on to be a small byte flash for about a month. It stopped being an interesting look at a single piece of music and history.  It made me so aware of how news has been ruined and we've been left with small pieces of news with glorified headings, small bite sized pieces of information that become false as they get chopped.  By the time the Chopin waltz article stopped being in the news it had been reported that no one had heard it played for 200 years, and yet I know deep in my bones that many a person played it on my father's black Steinway.  I really did lose faith in reporting at this juncture, but it was nice to know that the article helped Javier move to a job he wanted, Now how do I get him to help me write my oral history project on Music as community development work through interviews with several musicians beginning with Yo Yo  Ma?