The rain is  my excuse for staying home this morning, although I'm not sure it's even raining–just dark and dreary. Each year I'm finding it a little harder to deal with winter. It doesn't mean I'm off for warmer climes. Just more suffering. I think we are lucky here in Pittsburgh. This storm seems to be all over the country but we are seeing very little of it.

On to better things: the music. Yesterday was my first Osher class for this year, and it was fantastic. The teacher is Jim Cunningham, a host of our classical music station, WQED, who brought three members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to introduce us to the music of Erwin Schulhoff, a Czech composer and pianist. Schulhoff worked between the first and second world wars, was classified as "degenerate" by the Nazis and died in a concentration camp in 1942. Along with many other composers and musicians of the time, his work was essentially lost and only now is slowly being brought to light. Among other works we heard his concertina for flute, viola and double bass. The music was beautiful and there is something very special about listening when you are within 30 feet of the performer.