But what about all that snow?

Flight alert just received via airport WiFi:

NW 247 February 25 ON TIME departs DTW at 7:26 pm arrives MSN 7:41 pm Gate 4

Okay. I'm taking your word for it! Departing Ithaca at 4 pm and hoping not to spend the night in Detroit.

I could have stayed another day in Ithaca. Northwest has some kind of "winter waiver" that lets you change your flight without a penalty. But I have class on Monday, and you don't wuss out about snow when the flights are listed as on time. But there is so much snow!

No snow yet here in Ithaca, where we had fun last night at "cabaret" -- the law school show. Today, we brunched at Mahogony Grill and had some laughs talking about any number of things including the topic "Is America ready for a Satanist President?"

I contemplate whether that's a good topic for my Tuesday NYT column:



We talk about writing, and I go on at some length about that David Foster Wallace essay about Tracy Austin in "Consider the Lobster." John points this out, right above my head:



I say if I was crazy, I'd freak out right now. I'd think I was doomed... or at least destined for a serious encounter with alcohol.

Afterwards, we take a stroll in Ithaca, and someone makes fun of me for half-remembering things. You called Madeline's Marguerite's, and you called the Mahogony Grill the Magnolia Grill, and now you're calling the Commons the Concourse.

We stop to look at a lot of old album covers:



I surreptitiously do some YouTubing... but I'm having some mystifying "file format" problems, so I'll have to add that later.

ADDED:



[Click here if you have trouble playing it in that window.]

UPDATE: I'm now in Detroit and the flight is scheduled to leave on time. I hope to get home soon. Perhaps my car is buried under two feet of snow, but I'm feeling optimistic.

AND: You have the picture above that John took of me. Here's one that I took from the other side of the table:



And John's father Richard Lawrence Cohen was there too. Here's RLC's blog. It's his voice that you mainly hear along with mine on the video clip above, talking about, among other things, the song "Little Boxes."

IN THE COMMENTS: "Of course, it's Badfinger," says Sippican Cottage, who notes a recent comment on a February 7th post that brought up Badfinger and linked to the very picture we're talking about in the video clip. I don't remember clicking on that, and I'm surprised I had a mental image of Badfinger, but rather pleased with myself for having exactly the nugget of information requested on a particular occasion.