Test-or-treat

It was a soggy old night for trick-or-treating - glad I didn't have to go out and do it this year.

The kids reprised their costumes from last week's party at school - the Girl was a blue-haired Japanese boy from some anime or other, and the Boy was - of course - a three-hole punched sheet of paper.  Each teamed up with a friend (the Boy picked the Grim Reaper) and braved the weather, and each dragged home more candy than I can even bear to look at.  Meanwhile I was manning our own front door and handing out little packets of Fair Trade chewing gum (yes, there is such stuff) - which to my surprise was quite well received by our few fancy-dressed callers.

Best-dressed trick-or-treater of the night: the kid disguised as a New York State Grade 7 test paper. What could be scarier?

Scooter

 I've had to scoot around today doing jobs of one kind and another.

Although it's getting seasonably cooler around here, the Boy is also still enjoying scooting around with his friends when he gets the chance.

Moving thoughts

Exile #2 came round for an impromptu cup of coffee this morning - trying to keep out of the way of a posse of realtors at her house, which is on the market.  For the Exile is about to start a new job in Maine - our friends and compatriots will be moving! We're sad for ourselves, but excited for them.

Maybe it was the thought of house-moving that stirred me to action, but I then spent a chunk of the afternoon clearing through drawers and picking through bookshelves - and even managed to get some of my gleanings not only into bags but actually out of the house altogether, so that was good going.

I cooked dinner this evening to a percussion accompaniment from the basement.  You'd think it would be a nightmare to have someone practising drums in the house, but it really isn't bad.  Not soothing, but not at all bad.  Practising the violin as a kid with no aptitude was much worse - for the whole family, I'm sure, but especially for me. That awful noise, and so close to my ear.

Neat and tidy

I hope everyone we know in the south of England is OK after the big storm there.  There's no wild weather brewing here at the moment (unlike last year), though it's definitely chilly.  It was crisp and frosty down at Five Rivers first thing this morning when I met my friend for our regular walk.

And otherwise it has been a quiet day - I saw another friend for lunch, but have mostly been at home. Every time I've looked up from what I'm doing I've been startled by the general tidiness, the result of several days' effort last week ahead of our Saturday event.  It makes me think that we should probably have parties more often.

Albanibanana, part 2

I spent yesterday morning at the farmers' market, promoting Fair Trade bananas again.  It was the last outdoor market day - next Saturday it moves indoors, and just as well as it was perishing cold.  Luckily I had an extra layer to peel on and keep me warm...

In case you're wondering, I'm not pledging allegiance - just trying to stop the suit from riding up.

LOFT house

We had a party today, with a reprise of the LOFT theme we've gone with before.  It was great fun - lots of interesting people and lots of excellent food.  The first guests arrived shortly after 3pm.  The last guests left shortly after 10pm.

We're pleasantly full, and pretty exhausted.

Good on paper

The house is eerily quiet as I write this.  The Man is working late.  The kids are at the Middle School's Halloween Ball.  I had some involvement with their costumes, but thankfully neither was too complicated.  The Girl is disguised as an anime character - don't ask me who, but she's wearing a fetching blue wig and I had to paint red patterns on her face.  The Boy is a wearing a white t-shirt with three circles down the front: he's a...well, can you work it out?

Not included in the service

The other day a chap came round to service the furnace [boiler].  I wasn't expecting him, but he came from the company that usually does this job for us, and he doubled-checked the address on his worksheet and it was definitely mine, so I let him in.

We had quite a long chat down in the basement about the idiosyncrasies of this particular furnace, before he happened to mention the name of the person who had booked him to visit.  At which point we decided that he really ought to be next door, where my neighbour was no doubt waiting in for him.

It's too bad, because the furnace does need to be serviced, so now I shall have to actually book him myself and have him come back.

Unacculturated

Though we don't have a TV, we aren't a TV-free zone. There are a few shows that we watch online. But we don't watch telly randomly - except in public spaces.  Hotel breakfast rooms always have a TV burbling.  So does the place where I get the car serviced.  Today I took a friend to a dental appointment, and discovered that they've installed a TV in the waiting room.  So while my friend had an hour of treatment, I got to watch The First 48 on the A&E Channel.

Well, first of all I couldn't get my head round the idea that there'd be such a thing as an Accident and Emergency Channel - until I remembered that if that did exist, over here it would be called the ER Channel. A&E apparently stands for Arts and Entertainment.  However my original assumption really fitted the bill better, because The First 48 is all about the first 48 hours of a murder investigation.  It's the most horrible concept for an "entertainment" show - cameras following a real life police story, with a breathtaking level of intrusion.  I watched one half-hour episode, feeling like some sort of awful rubber-necker; but I turned away and read a book when the second episode came on.

I realise whenever I accidentally watch TV (in hotels it's usually mind-numbing rolling news; at the car place Deal or No Deal) that day-to-day I'm quite sheltered from popular US culture.  And I'm so glad.

Sign language

The Man and I spent some time at the Town Hall this evening.  Local elections are happening soon, so even though we can't vote (have I mentioned that ever?) we decided to attend the hustings to check out the candidates and find out what issues are of greatest concern to our community right now.

Well, tax levels of course - are they justified?  Predictably, the Democrats think they are, the Republican-endorsed Independents don't. There's a new housing development being considered, so that came under scrutiny, but in the end all sides seemed to agree that the developer's plans need to be improved before the go-ahead is given - so that wasn't very contentious.  How to attract new businesses to the Town?  Well, everyone thinks we should (to reduce the residents' taxes), though I'm not clear that anyone had a specific plan for how to do it (but I support the candidate who wants to ensure that we emphasize Green development - I think he's on the right track). Everyone likes open spaces - another area of agreement.

Really the one thing apart from taxes that the candidates didn't broadly agree on was Signs.  Our Town has strict regulations on temporary signs - you can't put them up randomly along the highway or on roundabouts, or stick them on telegraph poles.  Lawn signs (for example, supporting political candidates or promoting events) can only be stuck in privately-owned, non-commercial lawns.  Even though this creates a bit of a challenge for the non-profits I'm involved with when we try to advertise events, I personally prefer a lack of signs to the proliferation there used to be before the law came in. But others, apparently, feel this law violates their constitutional rights.

All in all I came away feeling that we really do have it pretty easy in our suburban community.  If our biggest worry is where we can put lawn signs (rather than, let's say, crumbling infrastructure, underfunded schools or gun-crime) we can't complain too much, can we?

Leaf of faith

It's well and truly that time of year again - raking season.  The Boy and his buddy worked hard in the backyard yesterday.  The Girl helped a bit too.  But it wasn't all work and no play...

Old geyser in Saratoga

The Man writes...early Saturday morning I was up in Saratoga Springs to take part in the Great Pumpkin Challenge run.

The parking lot was a good fifteen minutes walk from the Start, but this offered an opportunity to see a bit of Saratoga Spa State Park, like Geyser Island spouter. The name has it both ways, but strictly speaking this is a spouter (not a geyser), which means the water is cold and the eruptions are caused by pressurised carbon dioxide, not by heat. The surrounding island is made of hardened minerals from the water.

The rest of the park was still in its Fall colours and looked great on a sunny morning. The run itself was in aid of Saratoga Bridges, a local charity that supports people with developmental disabilities.  Nearly two thousand runners took part, leading to a busy, friendly atmosphere around the Start/Finish area.

It was slightly odd not knowing whether fellow runners were doing 5k or 10k (the 10k runners basically just kept going after the 5k finish). Also, there were no clocks on the course and since I had forgotten to start my watch I had no idea what my pace was. So I was delighted to complete the 5k course with a personal best by 45 seconds. (Later, a fellow runner with a GPS watch told me that she thought the course was a tenth of a mile short, which almost exactly matches my improvement!)

Full results are in the link here.  The top twenty finish was a huge surprise, as was the fact that I came first in my age group (and won a glass). Admittedly, the age groups only cover five years so there are a lot of them, and many of the more serious runners do the 10k.

Everyone who entered got a free raffle ticket. Feeling positive after the run, I threw mine into the basket for the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in the absolutely certain belief that I would win.  And I did.

Albanibanana

I spent the morning at our Farmer's Market, collecting signatures to petition local supermarkets to stock Fair Trade bananas.  It was a quiet day at the market, but I did OK and felt it was worthwhile.  Plus it was a lovely day just to sit outside in the sunshine.

The Man, meanwhile, was up in Saratoga running in another race.  He did OK too, but I'll let him tell you about it another time.

The kids spent the afternoon at the school they attended for their first three years in the US.  It was Fall Fair day, so as well as catching up with some old friends they got to indulge in a few rounds of Instant Raffle which is still - still! - a popular feature at this event (who knew our legacy would last so long?).  They came home with a glorious haul of junk, including a set of decorative dessert forks and a book of photos of people dancing with cats.  Oh, hurrah, just what we needed.

Salad days

Last Friday, ahead of our trip to New York, I found myself at the Middle school serving salad.  It's an annual event - free salad for kids and staff, all ingredients grown in the school's own organic garden.

The Man was skeptical when I told him what I was going to be up to, supposing that I'd be standing around with nothing to do for two hours - after all, how many kids will voluntarily eat salad?  Well, apparently, lots of them (including one of my own!).  Maybe they genuinely love lettuce, carrots and radishes.  Or maybe they were lured by the fact that it was free ('cause everyone likes free stuff). Whatever the reason, the team of volunteers had to rip up a mountain of lettuces and chop a sackload of tomatoes to satisfy demand.  So that was very satisfying.

As a thank you, the teacher who runs the garden presented us all with bags of lettuce, beans and radishes, and fresh flowers - which we're still enjoying a week later.

All Presidential and correct

You never know who you'll to run into in the City...

The rest is silence

I've had, for me, an unusually talky, people-filled day: starting with my early morning walk with a friend at Five Rivers; shortly followed by a meeting to discuss the Black Friday Fair Trade Market, which is only a few weeks away; followed by meeting up with another friend; and this evening a very long Board meeting, back at Five Rivers.

The upshot is, I have nothing to say tonight.  I'm all worded out.

Value judgements

 We saw some cool and valuable things in NYC.

On Saturday we saw the actual Winnie-the-Pooh and some of his stuffed friends, on display in an exhibition about children's literature at the New York Public Library.  If you are not a fan of A.A.Milne, you might dispute the attribution of value to a bunch of shabby old toys.  But I grew up loving our Winnie-the-Pooh books to pieces.  Also, I corresponded for years with a friend who went by the name of Pooh.  His letters, which I was always excited to receive, came in envelopes marked with a red ink-stamped Winnie-the-Pooh...  So seeing that original battered old bear in a glass case was something valuable to me.

On Sunday in the Museum of Natural History we saw Lucy, the 3.2 million year-old skeleton from which scientists have deduced much of what we understand about early human-kind.  You could call her the very first global celebrity (not that she ever knew anything about it). While we were looking at the exhibit we assumed it was the original Lucy skeleton, which seemed very special.  Since then we've discovered that it was actually a cast (the original is - quite reasonably - in Ethiopia where it was found).  I feel a tiny bit let down by the fact that we saw "just" a copy, and I'm not sure why since in the context of an informational museum exhibit, an exact copy is just as valuable as those real, celebrity bones would have been.  But in retrospect the experience doesn't feel as valuable.

Back on Saturday it is highly likely that we passed by some original signed Banksy artworks on a trader's stall - without even noticing them.  Even if we'd seen them, we most likely would have balked at paying $60 (the asking price) for a spray-painting.  But the few people who did choose to buy one this weekend, just because they liked them, now own work valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The thing with the Banksies is that in the context of a roadside stall the original paintings looked like worthless copies...

Strange, isn't it, what we value and why?

Stars on Sunday

We started our day yesterday with a trip on the Staten Island ferry, for the views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.  It's absolutely the best value cruise in town, at $0. The usual practice is to make the crossing then jump straight on the next ferry back to Manhattan, but the Boy was keen to hang around and look for food, so we did.  We happened to arrive towards the end of the Staten Island Half Marathon, so we were able to watch the tail-end of runners coming in, and we checked out a "block party and pizza fest" beyond the finish line.

The almost-completed One World Trade Center building stands out dramatically now in the Lower Manhattan skyline.  Having made our return crossing, we walked over for a closer look. People with pre-booked passes were queueing to view the 9/11 Memorial where the original Twin Towers once stood. The site is fenced in due to building work still going on all around to complete the new World Trade Center.

Next we headed up-town. Destination: the Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium.  In the latter (which is a stunning piece of architecture) we watched an out-of-this-world star-show.  In the Museum proper we enjoyed all sorts of fascinating exhibits - from dinosaurs to giant-squid-fights-whale, to the origins of humankind.

We could easily have spent longer there, but we'd already pushed our return schedule back and back...and anyway, the museum was closing.  So we disappeared ourselves into the Subway (possibly the world's most baffling underground rail system) and eventually worked out how to get to Grand Central (which really is fantastically grand), thence back to Yonkers to pick up the car and begin the drive home.  There we collected our Girl, who had travelled back from NY Comic Con with her friends, exhausted but happy after her own action-packed geek-end.

Manhattan transfer

Quite a day (again), featuring boats, trains and automobiles; views, sights and wonderment.  But also a very long day, ending late with the drive home. So I'll save the details for tomorrow.

Conventional activities in the City

We spent the night in Yonkers (fulfilling a long-held ambition of mine to stay in Yonkers, because it has a cool name) and today in NYC.  Man, Boy and I did touristy things:  Empire State Building, New York Public Library, the Nintendo store, Central Park... We had a fine day out.

The Girl, meanwhile, was with friends attending New York Comic Con - a massive convention for afficionados of all things comics, manga, anime, video games and sci-fi (you get the picture - a geek convention). Apparently it's amazing.

We're back in Yonkers tonight and anticipating a similar split of activities tomorrow before heading back to Albany.

Lost in Yonkers

We're not really lost in Yonkers.  We know exactly where we are in Yonkers - in a hotel.  Why we're here...? Well, that's a whole other question.

More tomorrow.

Getting needled

I had my annual health check-up today.  I seem to be quite fine.  I don't have high blood pressure. Actually the doctor said, "You know that thing doctors tell you about not eating too much salt because it's bad for your blood pressure?  Well, that doesn't apply to you.  In fact, you probably should eat more salt.  Do you faint much?"

I explained that I do faint rather easily, but only in medical-related situations, such as blood-taking.

Later on I needed to have some blood taken.  I let the nurse know that I'm a fainter.  Normally that gets me a little lie-down or at the very least a glass of water on stand-by.

"Sit down over there," he snarled.  "Don't faint.  I got no time for you fainters."

"OK. If you say so," I said, meekly.  I'm a fainter, but I'm also in awe of authority figures.

"Where ya from?" he asked.  I told him England, and he went into one of those routines that some Americans like to do when they meet a European.  "Ha!  I feel sorry for you people, coming over here from those Third World countries..."  And a whole thing about how we have no utilities and hardly ever get to see a doctor and when we do it's in a tent.  Ha ha ha, yes, very droll.  Meanwhile he was wrapping a strap around my arm.  "Make a fist," he said.  "With pleasure!" I thought, but before I got to punch him on the nose, dammit, he'd stuck a needle in my arm.

He continued needling me, both literally and metaphorically, for a couple more minutes.  Then suddenly it was all over.  "There ya go," he said, "You're a survivor.  Now get outta here and have a great day."

And you know what?  I didn't feel like fainting at all.  Not even a little bit wobbly. Oooh, he got me good and proper.

Kneading a new outfit

I've recently taken to going on early morning walks with a friend at Five Rivers several days a week. It's an invigorating way to start the day, this morning especially as it was pretty cold.

I spent the rest of the day at home, and got inspired to make bread again - it's been a while.  This time I made a rather nice flatbread with rosemary and onions which went well with our pasta tonight, and an oat-bread loaf which will do for tomorrow's lunch sandwiches.

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, although the Boy took it upon himself to observe that some people in this family generally prefer it when I make cake...

I have just learned tonight that I've won a banana suit!  So I don't have to buy one, wahoo!  But more on that another day.

Foosball crazy

Oh, er, yeah...we did buy something else at the yard sale on Saturday...

Foosball is a surprisingly fun addition to the household, though I prefer to avoid playing against my husband.

Rainbow magic

Tomorrow the guy is coming to close our pool, and not a moment too soon - in fact about two weeks too late, to be honest.  In the last few days the leaves have started to come down.  Today we had stormy weather (we were under a tornado-watch for half the day) so leaves were falling into the pool faster than I could scoop them out.  All in all quite a thankless task, and I can't wait to get the cover fixed in place.

Late afternoon saw the worst of the weather.  There were no actual tornadoes round us, I'm glad to say, although we had some heavy rain and the sky turned dark.  Then sometime after 6pm the sky became bright in a very odd, ethereal way, and there was a magnificent rainbow - the biggest and brightest I've ever seen.  For a minute or two it was a triple rainbow - two full sets of colour in the main bow, and a lighter bow above that.  Neighbours were running into the street to stare at it.

The Man arrived home just in time to try and capture a photo - it was already beginning to fade, but he did his best.

A Fall Sunday

We stocked up on more apples from Indian Ladder Farms today.  And we went for a walk at Pine Hollow Arboretum, which was wet underfoot after some rain earlier, but very lovely.  And I cooked up a feast of vegetables for dinner, including roasted fingerling potatoes which were as good as the farmer at the Farmers' Market had promised they'd be.

Now, that's Magic!

We haven't escaped from this weekend's yard-sales completely unencumbered.  I am now the proud owner of a closely-typed 400-page volume entitled "Sleight of Hand" by Edwin T. Sachs.  Not because I particularly want to learn magic tricks, but because it has some irresistible chapter and sub-headings, such as:

Tricks with Watches and Livestock

and

How to Make and Cook a Pudding in a Hat

I may or may not spend the long winter evenings cooking puddings in hats.  I somehow doubt it, just as I've never learnt to Build My Own Harpsichord...  But there are some books out there that just cry out to be bought.

And there are also some must-have labour-saving gadgets, like a self-twirling spaghetti fork that - yes - we also now have.

Probably a wise move

I spent some time today dragging stuff up from the basement to take to someone else's yard sale, which is being held tomorrow for a charitable cause.  Exile #2 also had some things to get rid of, so this evening the Man and I loaded up the car at our house, then further packed it with ex-Exile goodies, before emptying it all out again into someone else's garage.  Other friends were also arriving with carloads of clear-out-ables, and there was a dangerous moment when we were almost tempted to purchase some of their stuff to replace the stuff we'd just thrown out (for tell me, who wouldn't seriously consider taking home 50 cuddly owls?) but we thought better of it.

In praise of Honeycrisp

We're getting well into the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and very nice it is, too, this year. The mornings and nights are a little chilly, but the days have been warm and dry, and the Fall colours are a treat.

Also a treat this time of year - Honeycrisp apples.  The new queen of apples: sweet, firm and crunchy.  And rather pricey as apples go, but worth the expense.  They are only available for a short time.  I hadn't realised that people could get actively excited about particular apples, but my own husband and daughter are crazy for Honeycrisps (and I'm pretty keen myself) so there you go.  They are so good, they've even got their own website.

A step up

The Boy had an urgent school supplies need, so we ended up in Staples this evening.  We found what he needed, then we were just browsing around.  I was bemused to come across this that some marketing genius has invented - a set of steps designed specifically to help your dog get onto your bed. Whaaat...?? And why were they selling it in a stationery store?

I'd have taken a photo, only I didn't have a camera on me.  I tell you what would be a cool invention - a handy camera that you always have with you because it's, like, embedded in your phone...  Really?  Other people have those already? Where can I get one?

Written in stone

In addition to the magic brick I reported on yesterday, we found the following on the Hudson River Way bridge: