Seeing the Sights (locally)

The Girl was out at a sleepover, and the rest of us got up late-ish.  The weather was good - bright and not too cold.  Some of us fancied visiting the Empire State Building, others thought a trip to Niagara would be fun.  Since we couldn't realistically do both, or even (given the time by then) either, we opted for the closest local equivalents:

Cohoes Falls (impressively frozen)

and the observation deck of Albany's 589 foot high Corning Tower.

With a big enough telescope you could have (almost) seen our house.  It's interesting to view the familiar from a different angle once in a while.

Snow much fun

We're still finding ways to "enjoy" the snow...

or just chill out in it...

And now, as promised, for those library snow-characters.  From the top, left to right:

(Top row) Dorian Grey, Pippi Longstocking, the Cat in the Hat, Hester Prynne, Sherlock Holmes, Lisbeth Salander;

(Bottom row) Captain Ahab, the Invisible Man, Madeline, Hercule Poirot, Miss Haversham, Oedipus.

Slippery slope

It was a little warmer today, more comfortable for doing snowy/icey stuff.

We went sledding down the Hill of Death in the park.  Hop aboard and virtually join us!

 

We also squeezed in a trip to the library, which reminds me, there's still time for you to enter the snowperson quiz.  The Exile has four right - any advances?  Think Dickens, Christie, Melville and Wells for a start...  I'll post the full set of answers tomorrow.

Now, that's what I call winter

At last, we've caught up with Britain and got ourselves a decent amount of snow. Around 13 inches we reckon - it's hard to tell for sure on account of the strong winds and drifting. Plenty enough to get out and jump around in, anyway. Quite a lot for the Man to shovel off the driveway, too. (He would like to point out that this video is in no way speeded up):

It's too cold for making snowmen or effective snowballs - it just turns to powder - but excellent for snow angels.

White on cue

We had the Exiles round for lunch today.  They came bearing mince pies - hooray - and we enjoyed their company, too.

They left mid-afternoon and for the rest of the day we kept eagerly checking for the arrival of snow, promised in all the forecasts.  We've had to wait until after dark, but it's definitely with us now and falling fast. 

Yay!  

Happy Crispmas

It has been a long but happy Christmas Day here in Albaniana-land.  The kids, as they traditionally do, woke us up rather early and opened their stockings in our bed this morning.  Then we all headed downstairs to find more presents under the tree.

It wasn't the paper-ripping frenzy that we've seen some previous years.  Girl and Boy both spent time enjoying each new thing, and made the process last.  Everyone seems pleased with their gifts.

We had no visitors and no-one to visit (though we did enjoy skyping with my parents and the Man's family), so there was no pressure to get anywhere or even (in someone's case) out of pyjamas.  The Man and I made it down to Five Rivers for a brief and bitterly cold hike, leaving the children assembling a cardboard model of Club Penguin.  They've played with it for hours - "live action" turning out to be at least as much fun as the online version.

I cooked salmon for dinner as we're none of us out-and-out vegetarians except for the Boy, whose culinary treat of the day was a bowl of crisps (chips) and a generous amount of fair trade chocolate.  We pulled imaginary crackers (I'd forgotten to buy any) and found that the jokes inside them were just as corny as in the real thing.

So yes, it has been a good day for all of us here.  We hope also for you, wherever you happen to be.

That Santamental feeling

Christmas Eve again - would you believe it?

The kids are full of anticipation.  But after the Girl's little essay last week we can't seriously expect the Guy in Red to visit us this year - well, would you? Nope, it's got to be a do-it-ourselves Christmas. I've been accumulating suitable gifts all week, and this afternoon the Man had a go too, for good measure.

The Man regrets he hasn't had the time (or frankly the skills) to make a nice Christmas video with music, but instead has provided a link to a video which he says is of him as a student in Switzerland in the late eighties.

Presents all wrapped?  Hah!  I wish...  But we'll get there, even if only just in time for everything to be unwrapped again.

At dinner tonight we all drank a toast to our friends and family near and far - especially the far ones.  We wish you a very merry Christmas, or, if you don't celebrate, just a very happy day.

Play on

Last day of school.  I joined the Boy's class for their Holiday Party.  The main activity was a kind of mystery gift distribution game that went on for ages and which everyone thoroughly enjoyed.  There was all sorts of hilarity as the kids guessed what might be in the packages.  Smelly socks?  Rubber duckie?  Money?  A puppy??  ("Careful, don't shake the puppy!")  The reality, when the parcels were finally opened, was a bit less exciting (except for the rubber duckie - that guess turned out to be right).

I then went off and raced around doing last minute pre-Christmas errands, though I tried to get back for the whole-school sing-along in the afternoon.  I did just make it - in time for the last five notes of The Twelve Days of Christmas, which turned out to be the grand finale.  Ah well, perhaps it was for the best that I missed it all.  Though I'm not generally a sentimental soul (fluffy kittens, for example, leave me cold) I'm very susceptible to music, of nearly every kind, and especially when sung by children.  500 kids belting out Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer would have floored me.  Seriously. 

Mariah Carey singing All I Want for Christmas is You for the millionth time on Santa 105.7FM (the kids' station of choice for the last eight weeks) also makes me weep - but for different reasons.

Fantastic "kidnastics"

The Girl and her fellow 5th Graders put on a fine display of gymnastics - billed as "kidnastics" - today in the school gym.  Though the execution was a smidgeon short of Olympic standard, the performers were clearly enjoying themselves as they balanced on beams, forward-rolled, cartwheeled and jumped over things.

The Girl herself looked very confident in a team with three of her friends.  Though their routine didn't go entirely to plan - there were a couple of foot-meets-head near-misses - they carried on regardless and made it to their big finish.  I felt proud of my daughter, and a little envious.  When I was ten I was terribly shy, hated performing in public and would have been mortified if something had gone wrong.  The Girl certainly isn't stage-struck, but she already seems to have a level of self-confidence I didn't even begin to muster until after I turned forty - and I still hate speaking in public.  Lucky her to have a thirty-year headstart.

The local library is running a fun competition this month - Name that Literary Snowperson!   You may want to click on the photo to enlarge it for a closer look.  I haven't identified them all yet - but feel free to offer your suggestions.  By the way, the fellow top left is looking at a picture of a melting snowman, if that helps.

Man on the moon

The Man writes...as promised I got up and went outside at 4am this morning for the lunar eclipse. Unfortunately this wasn't quite the jolly, community event I had hoped for. Everyone else seemed to have stayed in bed, perhaps put off by the temperature of -10C and the 100% cloud cover. Here anyway is my picture of the 2010 lunar eclipse from Albany, New York.

I had an early start on Monday too for a 9am meeting some 120 miles away. It was over by lunchtime, so we found a small, convivial restaurant nearby in the quaintly named town of Fishkill.  The owner regaled us with the story of the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev (plus bodyguards) to his establishment two years ago. This was my local town during my first spell in the US in 1991, and I remember vividly in the August of that year reading about the coup attempt against Gorbachev, which seemed for a while to threaten to reverse all the reforms of the old Soviet Union.

  

So near and yet snow far

In my heart I feel all my Christmas gifts should be "handmade, local or Fair".  However, knowing how little thanks I'd get for that from at least two close family members, I dragged myself off to the mall and the Big Boxes today and was able to cross off a couple of much-desired "factory-made in China" items that way.  Ah well.

Unlike in the UK, the kids are still at school and won't finish until Thursday.  It doesn't look like we'll be getting a snow day anytime soon either (Britain has nicked all the snow, hrrumph) so I do have a few days left in hand to see to the rest of the festive preparations.  Phew - still time to write all those "Happy New Year" cards then.

Meanwhile, the Man had to get up at 5:30am today in order to travel south for a meeting.  And tomorrow morning he reckons he'll be getting up between 1:15 and 5:01 in order to witness a lunar eclipse.  Place your bets now on whether he'll make it or not...  The odds are strong that I won't.

Curtains for NYSTI?

We made a trip to the theatre this afternoon - the New York State Theatre Institute in Troy - to see an excellent production of A Christmas Carol.  Between us our family has enjoyed four or five NYSTI shows.

It was a tear jerker today, not so much on account of the story (well-played though it was) but because it turned out to be NYSTI's final ever performance.  After 36 years bringing theatre to the Capital District, and especially to children and young people, the company has fallen victim to State budget cuts and must close its doors. The damp-eyed cast received a heartfelt standing ovation today.

State-level cuts this year have been alarming, and everyone says there's worse to come.  Some might argue that the loss of a theatre here, a nature centre there is justifiable cost-cutting in these tough times. But State funding makes the Arts, environmental education and museums of history and culture accessible to all, not just a privileged few - and these are all institutions that add immeasurably to our ordinary lives.  They give us a context, stretch our imaginations, inspire us, bring us joy.

Are they just frosting on the cake?  Or are they the ingredients that make the cake worth eating?

All the trimmings

We're still waiting for the snow which seems to be blighting Britain this winter.  There's barely an inch of the stuff round us.  Still, we spent the day doing wintery things - skating, indoors and out, then going off and buying a Christmas tree.

As in previous years we bought as much tree as we could for the one-price-any-size.  This was probably the biggest yet.  The guy at the tree place tossed it onto the top of the car like it was nothing at all, but was more of struggle getting it off again at the other end...  Yet we managed it, and wrangled it indoors and into its stand, and then spend a happy afternoon trimming it.   

A few new ornaments get added each year, and each has a name or a story or a memory attached.  

Helping the kids decorate the tree is probably my favourite thing about Christmas. 

Read all about it!!!!!

December Tabloid Presents:

THE REAL SANTA!!!!

As reported by the Girl

Santa. The jolly fellow in red and white. A kind man who delivers presents made by the elves… or is there another side to Santa?

I have interviewed elf No.36, and this is what he says:

“Santa is not who he claims to be!! Us elves are his slave labour!!! He doesn’t pay us, and we get no breaks!!! And he isn’t really having us make toys! We make him brilliant dinners and serve him cocktails!!!! That’s how he got so fat! We clean his house and run his errands!”

I asked elf 36 where the toys come from, and he told me,

“Santa steals toys from other children, and puts them down chimneys! If the kid has no chimney, he stuffs the presents though the sewage pipes!!”

When I asked this elf if he had anything else he wished to say, he told us:

“SANTA IS EVIL!!!!”

Well, now we know what Santa’s really like, I’m not sure we should look forward to Christmas!!

Tune in next week, for an interview with a sacked elf!!!!!

"It's beginning to look a lot like Swishmas..."

...sings the Girl, tossing her newly trimmed hair.  It's the first time she's had it cut in four years.  She had about an inch and half of split ends snipped off, so of course to her it feels like a crewcut, but she doesn't look too upset about it, does she?

The other big event of the day was the 3rd Graders' Electricity Fair.  I toured the exhibits in the Boy's room - it's fair to say the place was buzzing, metaphorically and also literally.

Cardboard houses with working doorbells, quiz machines, a flashlight made out of two drinks cans, a cunning bedroom security system... The Boy's wasn't the only telegraph machine, but it was the only one with lights and sound, so he achieved some kudos for that.

I was impressed both by the ingenuity of all the projects and the confident delivery of the kids as they described their devices: they were all rightly proud of themselves.  Truly hands-on learning at its best.

My fifteen minutes of lame

For the last few days I've been busily capturing video for that community TV programme.  My (decidedly amateur) footage features quite a few local storekeepers and other fair trade fans of my acquaintance.  But today I had my own turn in front of the camera, being interviewed by the production company.

It wasn't my finest quarter of an hour, I'm sorry to say.  I burbled on, completely forgetting everything I'd filmed and should have been talking about.  At least no future viewer will need to endure the full fifteen-minute serving of waffle - it'll be edited down to a thankfully fleeting sixty seconds or so.

Ah well, another venture crossed off the list.  I can forget all about it now until the first screening next February.  But meanwhile I'm sure there's something else I'm meant to be preparing for, some significant date that's...no, you're kidding me?  Christmas is next week?! 

How does it do that every year?

Current affairs

The Man and Boy spent quite a lot of Sunday building an excellent electricity project mostly using stuff from the train room in the basement.  It has a moving engine, buildings with lights - the works.  Unfortunately, having enjoyed putting it together, the Boy had a change of heart about taking it into school to share with his class.  Oh dear.  This happens sometimes.

But seeing a few of his classmates' projects on Monday inspired him to a different endeavour: Morse.  He and the Man have assembled a machine this evening, and I'm impressed.  The best thing about it is that even though one of their shop-bought switches broke, they managed to make a functional replacement out of cardboard and aluminium foil. 

The machine features two sets of everything, to enable back-and-forth conversation.  Now if a couple of us come down with sore throats we'll have an alternative means of communication - how handy.

Recordered delivery

I've been pining for Linton today.  Back when we last visited in the summer there were plans afoot to form a recorder ensemble.  Well, today Insanely Livid sent me a link to this video of the "Jingle Belles" in concert!  I post it here for the benefit of those of you who don't live in the village and may therefore have missed out on Linton Music Society's "X-mas Factor" event in St Mary's church.  Livid didn't tell me how they/you ranked (as far as I can see, most of my regular Linton readers are in the group).

Oh oh oh!  I want to be a Jingle Belle!

I still miss Linton - "my" community more than any other.  But it's true to say that lately I have a growing sense of community out here, too.  I remember being very excited once when I met someone I knew in the supermarket - a rare event back when we'd only been here a few months and knew hardly anyone.  Well, now it seems like I seldom go into town without seeing a familiar face.  It's taken three years and some legwork on my part, but I can't really complain of being a stranger round here any more, and really people couldn't have been more welcoming.  But will "here" ever be entirely "home"?  Well, that's another question.

Pottering on

We've had horrible weather all day.  Freezing rain first thing, making the roads slick.  And just ordinary cold miserable rain after that.  So, a day for staying in and hunkering down, pretty much.   It's still chucking it down even as I write.

Man and Boy have been working on an electrical project together, which at one point involved a brief trip to Lowes for supplies.  I was surprised when the Man also brought home a set of outdoor Christmas lights - looks like we're embracing an element of the local culture this year!  Now we've just got to decide how to hang them.  Have we got enough to spell out "Bah, Humbug!" I wonder?

Meanwhile the Girl had a sleepover last night, with a family who are off to the Bahamas tomorrow for a vacation (why didn't we think of that?).  Home again, she spent the afternoon hidden in her room continuing her Harrython - she has borrowed her own height in J.K.Rowling CD sets from the library.

Five impossible things before lunch

I spent the morning at the farmers' market, not promoting fair trade but with my Five Rivers hat on, trying to flog gift membership cards.  I wouldn't say they sold like hot cakes, but still my friend and I enjoyed ourselves and spoke to lots of people and it didn't feel like time wasted.

Straight from there to the ice-rink for a skating lesson.  The instructor had me doing all sorts of new things - backwards edges, inside-edge 3-turns, "bunny hops" (more like skipping in skates, really) and, most unlikely of all, mohawks, which is when you have to glide on one foot, turn, and end up skating backwards on the other foot.  Impossible, surely?

I was pretty hopeless at everything, but not downhearted as I know by now that in skating most things that seem impossible at first can be achieved with enough practice.  But I've really got my work cut out for me for the next few weeks.

Made up

Yesterday I had a haircut.  I sat and stared at myself in a mirror, which is not something I often do.  Even with my glasses off, I was aware (blurrily) of looking rather pale and wintery. 

So on a whim I decided to book in for a make-up session.  I don't normally wear make-up and have no idea how to apply it properly - it couldn't hurt to ask an expert.  Also I'm being interviewed for TV next week and would prefer not to look completely pasty. 

I felt apprehensive.  Those make-up people in department stores, the ones in the clincal white uniforms, always wear so much make-up themselves you have no idea what they really look like, which I find a bit disturbing.  But the young woman assigned to me at the salon today looked reassuringly natural.  I asked her to please make me up to look as if I wasn't wearing any make-up.

It took her about half an hour, and involved a bewildering number of lotions and brushes and powders and what-not.  I sat there mentally totting up the potential price list for all this kit, and felt quite alarmed.  Anyway, the end result was....

...okaaaay. To me I looked like Coco-the-clown, with eyes like Cleopatra's.  And yet when the kids, and then my husband, came home they didn't even notice anything different about me.  (Until I took my glasses off, and then everyone agreed that the eyes were just a little scary.)  I guess she had done a good job.

I'm not sure I'm going to add make-up to my daily routine, though I'm glad I now have some know-how.  As I was finishing up at the salon I remarked to the woman how lovely and natural her make-up was, and asked her how she achieved that look.  "Oh, I'm not wearing make-up today," she shrugged, "I didn't have time to put any on this morning."

I see.  Just young and naturally beautiful, then. 

Ah well.

Keeping us regular

Well, it turns out a second car and a TV aren't the topmost requirements, after bacon, to make us a "normal" family.  According to the Boy there's something else that every household needs "in order to be regular."

Fortunately we are the happy owners of the very object, thanks to the Boy's success on the arcade games in the lobby of Zero Gravity, where he attended a laser tag party this evening.  What larks we are all sure to have with his new whoopee cushion!

Speaking of Zero, we are forecast to hit just that tonight: 0 Fahrenheit, that is, which is nearly -18 Celsius.  All day, too, we've had below freezing temperatures.  So no wonder that in the film footage I took outdoors today the buildings appear to be shivering.

Reality TV

I'd been putting off getting started, but today I decided I could delay my movie-making career no longer.  I set out into town with a borrowed camcorder in hand...

I decided to film the fair trade places I know best first, and it was all quite jolly, joking around with store and cafe staff.  It's going to be a terribly arty piece - lots of wobbling, dodgy angles and erratic zooming.  Seriously though, the professional editors will need to use all their skill to make anything at all worth watching out of it:  the true reality of TV, I've discovered, is that it's really difficult to do.  This afternoon I was able to film a few of my Middle School friends pretending to study some of the posters they've made for me over the past months (TV is all fake, you knew that didn't you?).  It'd be fun for the kids to get on telly, so I hope those scenes at least come out ok.

I've realised I haven't yet reported on our takings at the recent Fair Trade Market.  Overall the combined vendors took close to $20,000.  Just imagining the difference that money will make to artisans and their communities in some of the poorest countries of the world makes me and my fellow organisers feel incredibly happy. 

Night at the Waxworks Museum

Every year the 5th Graders at school take part in a "Waxworks Museum" event.  Each of them had chosen a famous person to research, made a poster to display their information, and tonight Matthew, they became that person.

Or at least, a waxwork of that person.  The waxwork came alive only when you dropped a nickel in their tin, then he/she looked you in the eye and gave you a little spiel about their life.

There were rows and rows of celebrities lined up in the crowded cafeteria tonight.  The Man and I were astounded by the variety of subjects the kids had chosen.  Soccer stars a-plenty, from Pele to Wayne Rooney; entertainers from Shirley Temple to Taylor Swift; Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Henry Ford; Michele Obama (two of her, in fact) and Princess Diana; a couple of Beatles; recently appointed US Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor; naturalist James Audubon; Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman; Neil Armstrong; Eva Peron...  Probably my favourite was Manzo Nagano, the first known Japanese immigrant to Canada, who tonight greeted his visitors "Konnichi wa, eh?"

I also had a sneaking regard for this well-known literary millionaire.  She looked the part in repose...

...and (as more than one person noted) she could pull off the accent pretty convincingly, too.  "It's authentic," she explained to those who asked.

Same old same old

"Oh!" cried the Man, as he looked out of the window this morning.   "Yesss!" shouted the Girl.  And "Noooooo!" wailed the Boy.

Snow.  Not very much, but definitely snow.  My son is not a fan.  But it's that time of year again.

So tell me, I asked my neighbour as we waved off her kids and my daughter on the school bus, how come winter has managed to catch us unprepared?  What, did I imagine we'd moved to Florida?  A cursory review of previous years reminds me that this is exactly when the weather usually turns here - and we even had that sneak preview a few weeks ago, nudging us to get ready.  Yet the Girl is woefully underdressed for the conditions, without an adequate coat or snowboots.  Hence she eagerly opted for the short bus-ride this morning, rather than shivering along on foot.

The Boy resisted the temptation of a warm bus and had me trudge round to school with him as usual, through the not-deep-but-slippery snow, and against an icy wind.  I met him for the even colder walk home this afternoon, when even he conceded that the bus might be the way to go from now on.

The temperature has dropped below freezing, and I imagine that's where it's set to stay for a while...

Though why UK readers would care about any of this I don't know - haven't some of you been snowed in for a week already?

Bringing home the bacon

Unbelievably we've already reached the end of the second session of skating lessons this season (and only two more to go).  The Girl and I both received "certificates of completion" and I am very chuffed because apparently I've now graduated from alpha level to beta.  Of course the Girl is already on gamma, but hey, it's not a competition.

This afternoon Man and Boy had their annual appointment with the train show under the Empire State Plaza in Albany.  They came home with a bag of goodies, including a couple of miniature buildings and some tiny lighting equipment which they'd managed to snap up for just a few bucks.  Excellent, as the Boy has to put together an electrical project for school and this will be just the job.  Luckily the seller they chose was minded that this stuff was a load of old junk, rather than "collectable" and worth hundreds of dollars.

The Girl would like it to be known that we are finally on the way to "being a normal family" - I served her bacon for dinner at home tonight.  She has been petitioning for this for a long time, and I finally caved when my friend J offered me a packet of bacon which she assures me (and she cares about these things) is from happy healthy pigs (not so happy or healthy now, obviously) which weren't raised on a diet of antibiotics.  The next steps to "normalcy" naturally involve getting a TV and a second car, so for sure the kids will be upping the ante on those campaigns in the days ahead.

Eureka moments

The Man writes...as you can see, the children practise daily and rigorously for a life in front of a computer screen. Not for them a youth of "jumpers for goalposts", "bucket for stumps" and "an orange for Christmas". (Though lest you are wondering, these are not their own laptops - Albaniana.)

Further preparation for tomorrow's techno world came this week in the form of "Math and Science Family Night" at the Girl's school. This comprised various activities including tossing four coins 32 times and seeing how often heads came up, seeing how many drops of clean and soapy water can be balanced on a penny, and understanding where your centre of mass is by trying to stand up out of a chair without leaning forward. 

Both the Girl and I were coming off tiring days, and inevitably there were times when aimlessly dropping coloured beads into water was more fun than elucidating the details of Archimedes' principle.  And if I'm nitpicking I believe the statement in the Parents' Guide that "The Bernoulli Principal [sic] is the reason airplanes fly" is a common fallacy?  However, in general the evening had been put together with a geat deal of care and imagination and proved to be both diverting and thought provoking

On parade

Once again we joined in the local Holiday Parade in our town, billed as possibly the shortest parade around at just 0.35 of a mile.  It was rather cold, so we processed at a fair lick and very quickly reached the end of it.  This year the entire family joined in, plus my friend J and her daughter, so that was a respectable number of us waving our little "I [heart] Fair Trade" flags (which I'd run up on the sewing machine in the afternoon) and handing out FT chocolate samples.

All the old favourites were in the procession, including the sewer truck ("Because nothing says 'Holidays' more than sewage," murmured J), but we saved our freezing fingers and toes and didn't hang around for Santa.  Instead we followed last year's tradition and went to be entertained by jazz and Christmas music kindly laid on by a local church.  We ran into a few people we knew there, and the kids got themselves a free dinner (if all-you-can-eat popcorn and cookies count as dinner).

Hooked on crafts

For the last week the Girl has spent nearly every spare moment hunched over a project in the far corner of the sitting room.  Today she proudly finished this magnificent hand-hooked rug - just in time to enter it for the annual Albany District 4-H show, held at JoAnn's craft supply store.  It's not a judged show - everyone wins a ribbon.

The Boy is exhibiting the felt candle he made the other week. 

Since we were in JoAnn's, both kids insisted on buying new rug-hooking kits, which they've been working away on this evening.  The Girl is doing hers upstairs this time, while listening to the 17-disc Jim Dale audio version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  We might not see much of her for the next few days...

Floodwatch

The kids crashed in from school in a state of high excitement, and absolutely drenched.  "We came home through a FLOOD!" they explained.

They weren't kidding.  After getting changed out of their wet things and into more appropriate footwear than soggy sneakers, they took me out to see the newly formed local water feature.  What with the Thanksgiving holiday last week, the leaves haven't been cleared for a while and must have been blocking the storm drains.  I couldn't even see where the drains were supposed to be.

We had some fun paddling, examined some working storm drains further along the road that were Niagara-like in their wateriness, and watched while neighbours successfully cleared yet more drains, to save their front yards from being submerged.  

Then we went home, where someone who'd got water in his wellies had to get changed all over again.

Uncommon reader

It's not at all uncommon to see the Girl with her nose in a book...

But here's a rarer sight:

These pictures were taken at the library, where we spent part of a rainy afternoon.  The kids were having a half day off school so that teachers could have "conferences" with parents.  The Man and I met with the Girl's teacher, and were pleased to hear that our daughter is doing fine.  It has been a big transition for her from her old school this year, and we're proud of her for handling it so well.

TV or not TV?

Not content with my radio appearance a while back, I've just signed up tonight for a spot on TV!  Yikes!

WMHT, the public television station, is putting together a series called "Our Town", and the next programme is going to be about...our town.  When I say the TV station is putting the show together, what that actually means is that local residents will be going about with camcorders in the next couple of weeks, taking footage of subjects that interest them around town.   The production team at WMHT will then condense this all down into 1-2 minute segments, and play the video under interviews with the amateur film-makers.  The whole programme will run to about 90 minutes.

I went to the public meeting tonight just to find out more about the project, and suddenly found myself with my hand up promising to do a piece about fair trade.  Oh my - here I go, about to make another giant leap outside my comfort zone...  But then who knows - this year local-interest telly, next year The X-Factor?

I told the Boy about this latest venture and his response was "Yay! Now we'll have to get a TV!"

Stop 'n' shop

After such a busy two days (on top of a busy week running up to them) I was glad not to have too much to do today.  We got up late and generally lounged around.

There was a skating lesson at noon.  The usual teacher was away, so my group was taught by a couple of hockey dudes.  They weren't so much into the graceful, artistic side of skating (you know that old joke about ice hockey, "I went to see a fight and a hockey game broke out") but we did a lot of practice on stopping which is actually quite a useful thing to be able to do well.

We had lunch at Java Jazz, scene of our trivia-nite victory a few weeks ago.  And, ha-ha, there was a photo of our team hanging up, right where anyone serving themselves coffee couldn't fail to bump their noses.  Our fame lives on...

This evening, a family trip to the mall.  The Girl now has her own skates again, so won't miss out on any frozen lake oppportunities this winter.  She also chose a new top, and looks very lovely in it.  She's turning into quite the fashionista.  Don't know where she gets that from - certainly not her parents.

You're faired!

Part two of the Fair Trade Market also went well.  Not quite the huge crowds of yesterday, but nonetheless many visitors happy to spend.  Over the next few days we'll be hearing exactly how well all the vendors did, and then I'll let you know the grand total - I suspect it will be big.  The majority of stallholders run their fair trade enterprises as not-for-profits, so their takings will be going directly back to, for example, a Kenyan slum community, women rescued from prostitution in China and Cambodia, Afghan widows and many many other deserving but disenfranchised groups of people. 

People helping people to help themselves - that's what fair trade is all about, and it's great.

When our organising committee first sat down and started planning this event (was it only two months ago?) we told ourselves, "Let's do something amazing."  I think we succeeded.  Yay!

Yesterday, as a contrast to the day's do-goodery, the Man and I sat and watched a desperate bunch of sharp-suited wannabes stabbing each other in the back.  Of course!  The latest episode of the UK Apprentice, courtesy of You Tube.  Now here's an idea for the next Comic Relief [biennial British comedy telethon] - challenge the Apprentice contestants to set up a fair trade business in which everyone treats each other with respect, a spirit of cooperation breaks out, and much common good is achieved.  Marvellous - but would it make such good telly?

Doing a roaring (fair) trade

The day of the great Fair Trade Market dawned: damp, cold and grey - and I gave a little cheer.  This was exactly the sort of weather we were hoping for, the sort of day when what could be nicer than spending a couple of hours in the Delmar Reformed Church hall looking at lovely fair trade crafts?

And indeed we weren't disappointed with the turnout.  Customers were coming through the doors all day long in a constant steady stream.  They came on foot from the neighbourhood, and by car (and even minibus) from right across the Capital District.  I even spoke to one man who'd come all the way from Texas (though I suppose it's possible he was just there as somebody's Thanksgiving house-guest). 

The atmosphere was great - people were really happy to do their Black Friday shopping with us and know that every purchase they made would benefit artisans and communities in some of the poorest countries of the world.  We're open tomorrow morning, too, and then we can't wait to tally up the takings.  I'm pretty sure this is the biggest fair trade event ever held in our region - and I'm also pretty sure it's only going to grow from here.

I must say a word of thanks to my dear Man (to his slight chagrin one stallholder today greeted him, "Hello [Albaniana]'s husband!") who ferried me to and from the event and put up with the children all day, and was generally very supportive of my endeavours, as he always is.  Without him I couldn't do all these things I so enjoy doing.