Bangs to right

We finally got the Boy's hair cut today. As usual, I had trouble making myself understood by a hairdresser. 'Not too much off the bangs (fringe), but layered and short round the back and sides,' was what I asked. Somehow she interpreted this as 'he's growing it long, so barely an inch off all round, please'. She was almost shirty with me when I explained again what he really wanted. Then she went and cut the fringe much shorter than the Boy had planned (after the first chop it wasn't worth saying anything, she wasn't going to glue it back on) and he came out sulking - but not too bad-looking.

Mammo mia

Male readers may prefer to skip this episode. It's about mammograms.

So, today saw installment three of my never-ending routine medical examination. It took place at a local hospital. When I booked it, a few weeks ago, they'd given me some instructions which of course I promptly forgot. So this morning I was wracking my brain: did they say eat a big breakfast? Or don't eat anything? Can I drink coffee? But it turned out all they'd asked me was not to wear deodorant.

I'll spare you the full details, suffice it to say that it wasn't that bad, but they squish the relevant parts of you in a kind of vice so afterwards I felt a bit like I'd done five rounds with a breadmaker. I asked the radiographer how men get checked if they need to be. She said they are mammogrammed in just the same way, but they complain more.

Nuisance Geographic

With email and skype being our main means of communication these days, we don't get a whole lot of use out of our mailbox except for bills and the occasional letter or parcel from home. One guaranteed source of regular correspondence, though, is National Geographic - we hear from them at least three times a week.

It all started when we moved to this house. I guess they got hold of our names through our mortgage provider. Anyway they gave us a free year's subscription to their magazine. Now National Geographic is a nicely produced magazine with lovely pictures etc, but it's strangely unreadable. Is this because of the very thin pages which stick together? Or the tight binding which means you can't open it up properly? Or is it because the articles are a bit... dull? Whatever, the magazines would turn up and lie around sadly neglected, unless put to use by the Boy as a base for a railway layout.

A couple of months ago we started receiving invitations to continue the subscription. They came in shouty envelopes stamped with 'Act now!' and 'Last chance!' Of course, we ignored them, and looked forward to not getting the magazine anymore.

But here's the thing: we've had about sixteen of these 'Last chance!' letters. Seems they're just kidding about the 'last'. We keep ignoring them. And why not - they're still sending us the flaming magazine.

Snow news day

It started snowing overnight, and carried on until early this afternoon. Then it turned to freezing rain. It was officially a snow day.

By mid-afternoon we were all a bit stir crazy. We drove carefully to our local shops. We'd hoped the book/giftshop would be open, but it wasn't. Instead we called in at the small supermarket where I treated the kids to chocolate and we said hi to some friends from school who were also foolishly out in all this weather. Then we bundled ourselves back into the car, which was already coated in a slick of ice, and drove slowly home again.

The kids will be glad to get back to school tomorrow, I should think, with all that fresh snow to sled on and lots of friends to sled on it with them.

Ice pics

Some more images from our day out with the Exiles on Saturday:

Look carefully and you can see tears freezing on baby E5N1's cheeks...

The Boy and Exile #3 polish up an extra-large Fox's Glacier Mint.

Am I destined to become a 'hockey mom'?

Track record

This morning I did the second part of my Five Rivers instructor training - an observation session. I joined a party of 5th graders (10 & 11 year-olds) on a snow-shoeing/tracking expedition. They fell down a lot, which I took to be mucking about on their part, but one of their teachers kept falling over too so perhaps they just genuinely couldn't get the hang of snow-shoes.

Anyway, we saw a great many tracks - deer, squirrel, mouse, skunk - and an actual rabbit, so that was pretty good. We were trekking round for more than an hour, but though the temperature was low the sun was bright and there was no wind, so it was really pleasant to be out.

I skyped with my parents this afternoon. Apparently there are snowdrops in England already. Grrr - it'll be months before we see any flowers here. It looks like there'll be good weather for us tomorrow, but there's a winter weather watch for Wednesday - more snow is on its way.

Material girls

After yesterday's chilly adventure, I for one was more than happy to spend today at home in the warm. The children had friends round in the afternoon. The Boy and his best buddy from school spent three hours down in the basement with the Hornby railway. The Girl and her friend divided their energies between playing, sledding and discussing how much money they'd like to spend on American Girl merchandise ('a lot' seemed to be the consensus).

Can we go now?

We took ourselves along to the Grafton Lakes Winterfest again. It was much like last year's except that more Exiles came too. And it was snowier and colder. I can't tell you exactly how cold it was, but I can say that within two minutes of taking off my gloves to tie up the Girl's skates I had no feeling whatsoever in my fingers. Nevertheless, just like last year a bunch of folk felt the need to strip down to their swimsuits and plunge into an ice hole for charity. There's no accounting for people.


Meanwhile the Girl impressed us very much with her lake skating. She fell down a few times, but considering the 'rink' was so rough and cut-up that it was like skating on cobbles she did incredibly well and proved that she has been learning something during the lessons she attends so nonchalantly.

Unusually on an outdoor activity, our family roles ended up being reversed. It was the shivering parents who moaned plaintively 'Can we go now? Pleeeease?' while the children insisted on staying for more freezing fun with skates and sleds.

Forgetyousaurus

I spent most of yesterday at school helping out with this year's Teacher Appreciation Day. This morning I was there again for a show of work in the Girl's class, on the theme of dinosaurs. I learnt many interesting dino facts, which sadly I immediately forgot.

Then I had my last skating lesson for this session, and the teacher noted that as a class we had come a long way, which is true, though distance is relative of course. I'll keep on practising.

The rest of the day I've mostly been nursing the bad head cold which I brought back as my souvenir of Rhode Island. The weather has been unusually mild today - up into the 40s F - though we're due to plunge back into Arctic conditions again tomorrow.

Food fight

A roomful of Americans told me today that my native food is no good. Outrageous! And all I'd done was ask what Hershey does to its chocolate to make it taste so horrible. I wasn't trying to cause offence, it was an honest enquiry!

The first response to the Hershey question was a slightly defensive 'Some people like Hersheys, ya know...' To which (given the barrage of insults that was soon to come my way) I wish I'd replied, 'Yeah, but only because they don't know any better.' Seriously, even brand new Hersheys Kisses taste like they've been sitting in a musty cupboard for six months past their use-by date. Horrible.

It turned out that a few of the people around me had visited Britain at one time or another, and pretty soon they were all telling me how much they hated the food there. 'But, but, but...' I could have said, 'At least we don't serve cheese with everything. We don't drink flavourless coffee out of buckets. And we haven't given the world chicken McNuggets, Krispie Kreme donuts and the Oreo Cookie dessert pizza! To name but a few of America's food crimes!'


I've a good mind to have them all round for a slap up meal of Marmite sandwiches washed down with milky tea. Then see what they have to say about British cuisine...

Gore blimey, guv'nor

I watched yesterday’s inauguration round at Exile #2’s place. It meant I was able to enjoy the events on a slightly bigger scale than allowed for by the 2x3” internet live stream box on my computer screen.

I’m glad I was able to watch with a fellow Briton. I'd thought of knocking on an American neighbour’s door, and I’m sure I’d have been let in, but I was worried it would seem like gate-crashing a family wedding. Yet when you know you’re going to be watching a little bit of history, it’s nice to have company.

Television commentators are an awesome lot, aren't they? The way they can just keep prattling away without a thought in their heads. We were watching ABC and at one point the camera lingered on Al Gore. 'I bet he's thinking how different this day would be for him if he'd just won that second term...' mused the commentator. Hm, I bet. But having hypothetically won that first term, too, presumably?

Al Gore, eh? Him and his so-called global warming...

Great expectations

I've been remembering a conversation I had with a friend before we moved to the States. We were talking about this bloke, Barack Obama, who reckoned he stood a chance of becoming US President. Well for a start, his name rhymed with Osama. And his middle name was Hussein. Not to mention he was black.

Dream on, we said.

And today I watched Barack Hussein Obama being inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America - the first African-American President in a country where segregation is still a living memory.

Dreams can be realised. God bless America.

I wasn't bowled over by the speech, but the man looks like he's going to take the job seriously - a contrast with the previous incumbent whose ambition, it seems, never reached beyond becoming President. (Mind-boggling statistic: the time spent by President George W Bush holidaying at Camp David or home on the Texas ranch adds up to three years out of his eight in office.)

For all our sakes, let's hope Obama lives up to his own ambition which is clearly to be among the great American Presidents.

State of the Ocean address

I missed out on blogging yesterday not because of any burst pipe issues (thank goodness) but because we managed to get away and visit friends in Providence, Rhode Island (the Ocean State). We had a great time with them - wonderful food, entertaining conversation, and lots of fun in the snow.

Ah, the snow. Providence was under a winter weather advisory as we drove into it, and the city streets had barely been cleared. That made for slightly hairy driving conditions, so it was too bad that we also got completely lost (not, for once, because of my dodgy navigation skills, but because Google Maps gave us wrong directions). But we did find our friends' house eventually, and a warm welcome.

More snow fell overnight, and during the day the temperature rose enough to turn it into ideal fort-building material. A fort was duly built in the backyard, and a snowball battle waged between mixed teams of children and adults, including a neighbour who took deadly aim from a safe position behind the fence.

Cool for cats

We were supposed to be setting off for a couple of days out of town, but the pipe froze again overnight as temperatures dipped below zero F, so after some deliberation we thought it would be safer to stay at home one more night to keep an eye on things.

Both children have gone willingly to bed for once. The Girl worked hard at her skating lesson this afternoon, and tonight the Boy spent hours dancing himself into the ground to Everybody Wants to Be a Cat (from the Aristocats) played at top volume on a seemingly endless loop. Slightly exhausting for everyone, actually.

Pipe nightmares / plane sailing

I've mentioned a few times how cold it is here at the moment. I guess last night it got even colder, because we woke up to a frozen pipe. Strangely, it was the pipe to the kitchen sink's hot tap (fawcet). Unfortunately, most of it is behind plasterboard (sheetrock) so it was impossible to access the frozen section.

So I spent much of the day worrying that the pipe might have cracked and waiting for the flood that would come with the thaw. It did thaw out eventually, at about 3:30pm, perhaps helped by my standing on a ladder in the basement and directing a hairdryer at the spot on the ceiling where I reckoned the frozen bit must be hidden. Happily there was no flood. We'll aim to heat the house a little extra, especially overnight, until this arctic spell passes.

Other news: show of work in the Boy's class today. They have been studying 'Community Workers', and had produced posters and a beautiful class pop-up book. The Boy had concentrated on pilots - shame he missed the chance to include yesterday's story of heroic Chesley Sullenberger and his dramatic landing (rivering?) on the Hudson.

Her indoors

I've been at home all day today. The Man needed the car for work, and it was too cold to walk as far as the YMCA to skate. A few people were out, wrapped to the eyeballs, walking their dogs. But I heeded the advice of the fond-of-his-own-voice official on the radio who warned of the danger out there of frost-bite to 'finger appendages' (I think he just meant 'fingers').

So instead I kept my fingers warm indoors. I started painting another room and did some crafty stuff and that was all good. Baked some blueberry muffins - yum. Looked through the list of local adult education classes on offer this season and wondered if I'll ever persuade the Man to take up ballroom dancing with me, or should I just enrol in Tap Dancing for Fun and Fitness? There's also a course in Vegan Raw 'Un-cooking', but I think I already know enough about that.

If you had all the time in the world, what would you do with it?

UFOs

Although we took down our Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night, the tree remained mainly because we knew it would be such an effort to get it back out of the house. But tonight out it went at last. So now we just have pine-needles to remember it by, and I know I'll be finding these mementos for the next six months, in my shoes, in bed, falling out of my purse when I go shopping - how do they always manage to get everywhere?.

I skated my legs off today. And this evening the Man stubbed his toe badly chasing around the house with his son shouting 'Beep beep beep'. We're both hobbling - it's a wonder we managed to deal with the tree.

We've entered a really cold snap, and it will be even colder by Friday. It's a good time of year to stay in the warm and work on Unfinished Objects: here are a couple I've completed this week. One is a pincushion from a kit Mum brought me in October; the other is the stitching-by-numbers job.

In the Night Garden

I've enjoyed my day. A bit of cooking and cleaning. An hour skating (I'm beginning to get addicted - I find myself watching the clock until it's time for the rink to open). Lunch with Exile #2.

Lately we've been playing games over dinner (in part to distract the children from noticing what they are eating - have I mentioned that they are rather fussy?). Tonight we were playing something called Goober Goat. Someone suggests a farm-related word, the next person says a word related to that, and so on. You can play it to see how far you get from farming, or (as we do) to try and work back to the original word. The Boy has thrown in his own rule which is that on his turn he always says 'frog'. So we make him explain the link each time. Can you likewise link the following:

London/frog
Elephant/frog
Valentine/frog

Extra points if you can link these two deer with the rest of this blog entry.

Learner earner?

I had a long skating practice today. It's very frustrating. It's a lot like learning to drive a manual car, there are so many actions to remember it can kind of jam you up - but every now and then you stop thinking and it all comes right and it's pretty satisfying.

Being a learner at something gave me a lot of sympathy for the checkout woman at the supermarket this afternoon. She was being trained and I may have been her first ever customer. She got just about everything wrong. She looked miserable and I did feel sorry for her.

That could be me soon, mind you. My work permit came through today. My family is very excited at the possibility of me joining the Price Chopper staff and qualifying for a discount on Rice Krispies...

Chilled whine

Snow fell last night, as billed, leaving everything looking very pretty for the morning. Alas the children are no longer much excited by the stuff and didn't venture out sledding. We've had about 33 inches of it so far this winter, though of course it comes and goes to some extent.

The Man and I took a few turns around the ice-rink in the afternoon, but couldn't persuade the children to join us. The Boy grumped and shivered in the bleachers instead. Grumping is one of his hobbies at the moment, he's very good at it. If only they'd introduce it as an Olympic event, he'd be a shoe-in for London 2012.

We ended up at the library, where there were the usual fines to pay. The Girl came out with an armload of books, the Boy with a story on cd, and neither with their winter coats which is a shame given the temperatures we are expecting. I'd better make sure I have them properly clad again before we go below zero F later this week...

Fox News & Weather

It's painfully cold here, and likely to get colder. When we got up this morning it was 3F (-16C), and even in the middle of the day it didn't get above 17F (about -8). So I know readers in the UK think it's cold where you are, but it really isn't, not very. Of course everything is relative. I was listening to a phone-in the other day and someone called in from Antarctica. When asked what the weather was like he said cheerfully 'Well, it's summer here, so quite warm, nearly up to zero degrees [Fahrenheit]...'

Yet another winter storm is due through tonight, with a promise of 5 to 10 inches of fresh snow. Once it has settled it should be great for tracking, say, foxes. As requested in a comment a couple of days ago, I will now explain about how foxes walk in snow:

Dogs and foxes leave completely different snow tracks (I have learnt). Dogs, who know they will eventually go home to a nice warm house where they can dry off in front of a fire, plunge through snow like ploughs, covering their coats in mini snowballs. Foxes, who have to be out for as long as it takes them to find food, conserve their energy and keep their coats as dry as possible by stepping carefully into their own footprints, keeping their fur tucked in from the snow by almost crossing their legs as they walk. Thus the tracks they leave resemble a straight line of small holes in the snow. So foxes genuinely are pretty cunning, though whether one would ever really be appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University is open to question (adds the Man).

Beware of Geeks wearing gifts

The Man writes ...our host on Christmas day had bought her husband a geek's dream T-shirt. It makes you wonder: "How did we ever live without them?" (as an American colleague once said to me about drive-thru ATMs).

Tonight Albaniana is at her Book Group and the Girl has gone to see "Bedtime Stories" at the cinema, while the Boy and I are having a quiet Friday night in. However, I'm not complaining. Earlier this week I was here at Jiminy Peak, having a great time in excellent conditions.

Natural selection

I spent an excellent morning at Five Rivers Environmental Center. I've signed up to become a volunteer instructor, and today was part one of the training in Outdoor Discovery and Snow-shoeing. Eventually I should be able to take small parties of school children round and (hopefully) help them to enjoy getting out and observing nature.

Apparently it's not so much about filling kids with facts (just as well given my hazy knowledge in this area) but more about sharing enthusiasm. The trainers today did a brilliant job of enthusing me. And incidentally I did learn quite a few facts, too, such as that many owls (who are not all that wise and have very small brains) don't know how to build their own nests, so they live in empty squirrel drays. And deers' stomachs adapt in winter so that they can digest stuff like bark and twigs when leaves are in short supply. And I could go on at length about why foxes walk the way they do in snow, and why red squirrels are much fiercer than grey ones and...

'That's interesting,' said my family without conviction, turning their attentions back to the games on the Man's cellphone. I guess I still have some way to go...

Chipmunky business

Another winter storm has been by. All schools were closed for the day, though it seemed to me that, round us at least, conditions weren't so bad. Whatever, the kids had yet another day off.

Among other things they watched Alvin and the Chipmunks again. This resulted in them spending the rest of the day pretending to be Alvin and the chipmunks - ie talking in annoying squeaky voices and calling me Dave (the lead human in the movie).

Now, I vowed this would never happen again, but somehow I got suckered into buying another kit (they were on half-price sale in Jo-Ann's). Actually it was a less emotional building process than last time, mainly because the children let me get on and construct the thing, then were pretty cooperative with each other when it came to the decorating. Et voila, another little architectural wonder to sit around for a year and (rather disturbingly) show no signs at all of decay.

A mug's game?

I was in town today for part two of my routine medical (parts three and four still to come, how exciting!), so met up with the Man for lunch. We went to the nearest Bruegger's, a bagel place.

The sandwiches are a bit...confused. Sun-dried tomato paste and hummous and red onion and (of course) cheese leaves your tastebuds wondering what just happened. Still, I approve of Bruegger's because they serve Fair Trade coffee as their main brew, which is unusual for an American chain.

At the moment they are promoting a special offer: the 'Bottomless Mug Deal'. The Man inevitably made some quip about the dangers of trying to serve coffee in a bottomless mug. But anyhow, the deal is that you spend $149.99 on a reusable mug, and for the rest of the year you can get 'free' coffee in it whenever you bring it to a Bruegger's restaurant.

It could work, if you'd planned on visiting Bruegger's a lot anyway. At $2-ish for a cup of coffee, you could win on the deal if you were dedicated to the effort. But think of all the muffins and cookies and bagels (and weird sandwiches) you'd end up buying to go with the coffee. And if you're at all like me half the time you'd forget to bring the wretched mug with you anyway or else you'd lose it somewhere in the car (because there can be such a thing as too many cup-holders), and find it three months later full of mould.

So I don't know. Would you fall for this one?

Pedestrian cussing

The Man dropped me off at the dentist first thing, on his way to work. After treatment I walked the three miles home. I considered stopping for coffee at one of the numerous cafes en route, but my lip was still numb with anaesthetic so I decided against dribbling a hot beverage down my chin in public.

I marched along in my snowboots, on sidewalk nearly all the way (if I'd walked on the 'pavement' I'd have got run over - it means 'road surface' here). I started out by cursing all the homeowners who hadn’t cleared the snow from the sidewalk in front of their houses – lumpy compacted snow makes for hard walking. But I cursed even more the people who had cleared their stretch of sidewalk, because then I had to contend with treacherous black ice from last night's freezing rain.

Given that in an average week on a main road one stray dental patient is all you are going to see in the way of pedestrians going by, I don’t really blame people for not bothering to keep the sidewalk clear and safe. Though of course it's worth bearing in mind that if the stray dental patient were to slip and chip her expensively remodelled tooth outside your house she would be within her rights to sue the pants off you for negligence.

Degrees of separation

They say there are only six degrees of separation between you and any stranger you might meet. Sometimes it turns out to be a lot fewer...

We were down at Five Rivers this afternoon for some snow-shoeing. The friendly bald guy who was lending out the snow shoes clocked our accents and we had the following exchange:

Snow-shoe guy: So, you're from England? And you live locally? Well, that's funny because back in the Fall I was up at Lake Moreau and I met an English couple who were visiting round here. They were...

Me: ...my parents! You're the kayak guy!

He was indeed the complete stranger who had kindly let my Mum paddle around the lake in his kayak. Mum, Dad, he sends his regards and says if he meets you both again it'll be Dad's turn in the kayak.

Why, whatever could it be, eh?

While the Girl had her skating lesson this afternoon, the Boy and I went swimming. At one point he sank under the water and started blowing bubbles. Then he popped up for air - 'What was I singing?'

I hadn't a clue. He tried it again. I'd probably still be there now guessing if I hadn't realised that he was also waving his hands in a recognisable routine above his submerged head. And now there was no doubt what he was singing!

Any guesses?

When we got home, the Girl and I took some pine cones covered in peanut butter and cracked wheat over to our neighbours opposite. So there's another puzzle for you, what was that about?

Ice-capades

I'm nodding off before I've had my dinner this evening, mainly because of my worn out legs. All I did was take my skating lesson, then follow it up with a bit more skating with the Man. Today for the first time I started to get the hang of things and was using my feet and legs the way they have to be used to move with any speed or control on the ice. I'm not quite doing this yet, still I feel quite satisfied that I'm making some progress. But my muscles ache like I've just walked up a mountain.

By the way, did I mention it's snowy here?

Resolution solution

It has been a cold but beautiful start to the new year. Blue skies, sparkling snow - very pretty. The sledding was good. Both the children had friends round to play so everyone was happy.


I don't know if they offered it this year, but apparently at previous Albany Winterfests the organizers would invite visitors to write down their New Year's resolutions, along with some contact details. A few weeks or months later they'd mail you your resolution, just in case you'd forgotten what it was.

I'd be pleased to offer this service to readers. Is there anything you'd like me to remind you of about six months from now? Or even next week, if you have no will-power whatsoever.