Fair enough

Usually after the Fair Trade Market I feel exhausted but exhilarated.  This year - more just exhausted, really.  Although the event was reasonably well attended, numbers and overall takings were down somewhat on last year, which was disappointing after so much hard work.

However, it was still a good event - the tables of crafts looked enticing, I met some new people, and interesting conversations went on around the room.  We could all have spent the day at home or at the mall, in which case we'd have raised no money for girls' scholarships in Guatemala, or for kids saved from the sex trade in Vietnam; nothing for women's projects in Kenya, for refugees in Thailand or for the families of Bosnian war widows...the list goes on and on.  So, although I wish we'd been even more successful, I'm still proud of what we achieved today.

I'm also looking forward to a meeting in the New Year with some of the key players at the market to discuss how we can get the numbers up again for next year - a chance to play with ideas and learn some new marketing skills...should be fun!

Market Friday

I had a busy and long day at the much-anticipated Fair Trade Market.  A few panics right at the start - one vendor didn't show up and a couple were late, and then a vendor we weren't expecting did show up... We had to do a bit of judicious table-shuffling, but it all worked out fine.

We had busy hours and slower periods, but there was a steady flow of visitors and people were spending enthusiastically - there were plenty of very lovely things to buy.  Mid-morning our caterers baked muffins in the kitchen, which made the hall smell as well as look particularly welcoming on a very cold day.

This evening I've been out for Japanese dinner with my husband and daughter (the Boy is at a sleepover).  Tonight, early to bed I think.  Tomorrow morning we start all over again with Market: day 2.

Cold turkey

Though of course, NOT a turkey - it's an OWL costume...  Oh, but what's the point?  On Thanksgiving Day, turkey it is.

I was the envy of the other walkers at the Turkey Trot this morning - no, seriously.  It was really cold, below freezing, and a big fat turkey/owl suit was just the ticket.  People asked to take my picture, which was novel for me.  The Man ran his 3 miles in good time, and I walked mine at a brisk pace. The children declined to join either of us.

Unfortunately, the Man then had to go off and spend the rest of the day at work dealing with a machine, so it was a quiet Thanksgiving at home for me and the kids.  But this evening I cooked a vegetarian feast, and then we all played a noisy game of Cranium, and we appreciated each other's company which I think is possibly the point of this day.

Frozen fireworks

It was setting-up day for the Fair Trade Market, which is always fun.  Several vendors will be coming in early on Friday with their stock, but what we have so far is already looking good.

Meanwhile, outside we had all sorts of freezy, rainy, sleety weather.  This evening Man, Boy and I dashed down to Bethlehem Middle School to watch fireworks in the snow - a "warm-up" (ha ha) event ahead of a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot tomorrow morning.  It was a sedately-paced fireworks display...one rocket at a time...until the very end when apparently someone thought, "Oh, what the heck - I'm just going to chuck a match in this box and see what happens..."  And voila, a dramatic finale.

I don't know if this has had any impact in the UK or not, but to Jewish friends celebrating Thanksgiving AND the first day of Chanukkah tomorrow - happy Thanksgivukkah! Truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, this exact convergence of celebratory dates isn't due to happen again until the year 79811.

In the night...

...snow!

It's beginning to look a lot like...nah, not Christmas. We haven't had Thanksgiving yet...

Counting down

I spent the morning doing last minutey stuff towards the Fair Trade Market - sending out final press releases, contributing to online calendars and suchlike.  We're nearing the point when anything that hasn't been done isn't going to get done and it won't have to matter - we can just get stuck into the event...but it always feels a bit uncomfortable and anxious-making until we actually get there.  There are a lot of things I enjoy about event-organizing, but this feeling isn't one of them. Ah well, I'll just have to plug on with it all tomorrow.

Sour puss

I'm not really an animal lover, as I may have mentioned before.  Don't hate 'em, just don't want to live with 'em.  Or have them giving me slobbery "kisses", or shed hairs on my trousers.

Naturally, then, whenever I visit a house with a cat in it, almost without fail the pesky creature will come and jump on my lap. It's quite provoking.

I've always supposed that cats must have a radar for people who don't like them, and that they come and sit on me just to show me how little they care.  However this evening I learned that I've been actively encouraging them all along.  Whereas dogs like you to look them in the eye, cats prefer that you avoid their gaze.  So by ignoring them, it's as if I've been telling them, "Well hi there! Let's be best buddies!"

From now on when I am introduced to a cat I shall know to give it a penetrating stare.

Dr. Huh?

 I was at the Farmers' Market this morning to promote next week's Fair Trade Market.  My friend J and I also took along a box of Fair Trade goodies to raffle off in aid of relief efforts after the terrible typhoon in the Philippines.  She and I had a pleasant morning, raising $130 which will go to Save the Children.

In the afternoon, we invited ourselves en masse to the home of friends who have a big TV and BBC America, and we watched the Day of the Doctor.  Mind-achingly baffling but very entertaining, even for someone like me who more often naps through Dr. Who.  Well done, BBC, nice job.

While we were busy being whirled through space and time, outside the first snow of the season was starting to whirl...  There wasn't much, just a dusting, but it was exciting to see it nevertheless.

Who's (nearly) there...

Today I had more running around tasks, related mainly to the Fair Trade Market which is now (gulp) just a week away.  Where exactly did November go?

I have a table at the Farmers' Market tomorrow morning and I needed to prepare some signage for that, so that's what I spent much of the afternoon doing - really just indulging my penchant for fiddling about with paper, scissors and glue.

Tomorrow afternoon - well, there's an important doctor's appointment to look forward to, isn't there...

Delivery jobs

I've had some buzzing about to do today - picking up some things here, dropping off some other things there; then tonight one child to skating, another to drumming, with the lessons overlapping and each in a completely different part of town.  How did that bit of scheduling happen? Thursday evening is always a drive-fest.

Two flies on some more classroom walls

So, today the Girl got to endure parental presence in some of her classes - not just me, her dad was able to take some time to spy on her, too.

Not that that's what we were doing, really.  It was just genuinely interesting to see how school is taught these days.  We observed a different style of teaching to anything I can remember.

For starters, the super-cool English teacher (technically young enough to be my child - yikes!), leaping round the classroom exuding confidence and energy, enthusing the kids and incidentally teaching quite effectively.  The students clearly think he's awesome, and frankly so did we.

Science was a more static affair, reviewing the process of water transforming from solid to liquid and back again.  More like lessons I've experienced, but incorporating a nifty computerized magic board/projector - no more chalk dust.

French next, where the emphasis is less on grammar and more on communication, which seems like the right approach.  The teacher had the students develop and act out a slightly surreal story to do with Justin Bieber buying himself a new head.  Lots of laughs, but the lesson kept on track, and again the teaching seemed effective.

And our final stop was Engineering Basics.  The students have been designing and building model bridges, and this was a testing day to measure their load-bearing capabilities.  Dramatic splintering and snapping ensued, which was all pretty entertaining - I wish I'd had the chance to do stuff like that back in the day, instead of having to unpick hems and churn out disgusting chicken fricasse in home economics.

Fly on the classroom wall

I spent some time in the Boy's classes today, visiting school for American Education Week.  I was mostly just sitting in the back with other parents, seeing what went on.

I was impressed.  I didn't feel the kids were putting on a show, just getting on as they normally would, behaving well and working hard. They had some interesting tasks to do, including re-creating the formation of the Hawaiian Islands using toothpaste (you'll have to trust me, it made sense at the time); researching candidates to receive micro-loans through Kiva (the school received a donation of funds a couple of years ago for the 6th Graders to invest and reinvest in Kiva projects); writing enticing book reviews for a wall display.

Hard to say if the Boy was pleased to have me there (when he saw me enter the second class he said, "You again?!  When will this torture end??"  Make of that what you will). But I was pleased to be there.

Tomorrow - the Girl's turn...

It's all geek to me

The Amnesiacs were back together tonight, with an additional third couple, for Bethlehem Public Library's "Get Your Geek On" trivia quiz.

Five teams competed, and, spoiler alert: we didn't win.  We did come joint second on points, but lost the tie-breaker.  Before the quiz began, each team was asked to estimate its final score, so that in the case of a tie-break the nearest guess would win. I'm ashamed to admit that we wildly over-estimated our chances.  Well, how were we to know there would be a round exclusively on baseball players' nicknames?  Or another one on really obscure characters from Star Wars?  Thank goodness for general knowledge or we'd have sunk without trace.  But oh, we should have listened to the Man - of course it was Katharine Hepburn, not Meryl Streep.  And FDR, not Teddy Roosevelt.  Of course.

At least we had a good time, and everyone came away with a consolation prize library pencil, sharply sharpened. Which changes colour when you touch it!  Geektastic!

Girl talk

The Girl and I went on an archaelogical dig this afternoon.  We didn't have to travel far, just up to her bedroom...

We got stuck in and dug up several interesting finds, like her vast collection of paper dolls from years gone by; much early artwork and many half-finished craft projects.  Also, buried deep inside an old paper grocery bag, her long-lost Bopit Extreme, bought at a yard sale back in the mists of time and, thankfully (just 30 seconds of the video-link will demonstrate why), missing for many years. 

And - no lie - an actual fossil!  (It was the one she first found in the sea on a trip to Lyme Regis in 2008.)

The Man and I took our own trip back in time, too - though only through the past year, reviewing photographs.  We found this, from our trip to London, which I think needs no further explanation:

Beans and greens

This morning we had the chance to make up packets of bean soup mix again at the Day of Simple Giving at St Sophia's Church, and just like last year it was strangely satisfying.  The Girl and I also got into making necklacey-scarfy things out of knotted lengths of wool.  The Day was very well attended, and many of the activity stations had run out of materials within a couple of hours - it has become one of those events that you have to get to early.

In the afternoon the Man took me to the Polish Community Center in Albany to attend the annual VegFest.  It's a great event,and extremely well attended, but not really for vegetarians, much more for die-hard vegans - so, bean-lover though I am, I felt a little out of place.  The thing with most vegetarians is, we're not too evangelical about it.  It's our own lifestyle choice, but really we're fine with it if you'd rather have a ham sandwich.  For vegans it actually is a whole way of life, not to say a mission to convert the world.  We left feeling a little bit bad about ourselves because...honestly, we rather like milk, eggs and cheese.

It gave me pause, because I suspect I come over a little "vegan" when I'm banging on about Fair Trade.  Fellow converts love me for it, but I suspect there are many people who are impressed by my enthusiasm for ethical consumerism, while also finding it a bit off-putting - I'm that guilt-trip woman.  And of course there are those that think I'm just some crazy socialist...

Language issues

We've lived here in the States for more than six years now. Six years!  I'd say we've pretty much adapted to the lifestyle (although I still don't feel the need to put on Lycra just to go for a walk round the block, and I still feel daunted by ice-cream servings as big as my head). 

Linguistically we manage OK, too - especially now that our Boy can speak authentic American English for us when necessary.  I love lots of things about America English, like the cheery elision of words (Coulda, shoulda, woulda?  You betcha!).  But I'm stuck on just a few vocabulary items:

• The hair over my forehead, which I know as a "fringe", is here called my "bangs".  What's that about?
• Why the silent "h" in "herbal"?  American English is usually so good at saying a word how it looks ("Green-wich"), or spelling it how it sounds ("color", "thruway").  So why the French affectation with "herbal"?  And while we're on the subject of silent letters...
• McDonald's "Filet-o-fish" (with silent "t"). What language even is that?

Poster Girl

I'm Mrs Posters in this town - always doing the rounds of the local shops, cafes, schools, churches, library.  I know where all the community boards are.  Today I was being particularly efficient, pinning up posters for two different events that fall within a few days of each other.

I don't know how many people still look at posters, other than me (I can't help looking at posters, even in towns I'm just passing through).  So these days I do a lot of virtual posting, too - yup, Facebook.  So instant, but actually not as fun as dropping by and saying hello to all my favourite shopkeepers, restaurant owners and librarians.

Making room

I spend the morning visiting a possible venue for a future Friends of Five Rivers event, then dropped by Tea and Tattered Pages (they haven't served tea there in years) to offload a bag of books (Thomas the Tank Engine has definitively left the Boy's bedroom) and to buy a modestly small number of paperbacks in exchange.

I spent the afternoon once again frying my eyes in front of the computer.

And I spent the evening at Delmar Reformed Church with the other Fair Trade Market organizers, trying to work out this year's table plan.  No only do we have some new vendors to fit in, but since Thanksgiving comes very late in the month this year, the church will be putting up its Christmas trees ahead of our event.  It's going to slightly complicate our layout, accommodating at least two large decorated trees, but it'll no doubt add a jolly air of festivity to the occasion.

Clean team

"Mum, can you help me clean the bathroom?"

Well, how's that for a turn up?  Had I mentioned anything about cleaning a bathroom?

It wasn't the Girl, who is not particular about her living space and would be happy enough in a sty (or at any rate a goat pen). Nope, it was the Boy, willingly brandishing a cleaning sponge and an old toothbrush and ready to scrub out the grungier corners of the bath-tub.

He did a good job of it, too, wiping surfaces, weeding out empty shampoo bottles and even gathering up all the bath-towels and taking them downstairs to the wash. Between us we had that bathroom sparkling!  I wonder if I can persuade him to clean the oven next?

Mercy dash

Just got home from the ER - our family is fine, but a friend with not much English had gone in with a sick kid.  Luckily they got a diagnosis and treatment and have been discharged, so all should be well.

Nuclear families

The Man and I have done rather well for company this weekend.  Out last night, and today we had friends round for lunch.

My walking buddy happens to be married to a particle physicist.  As am I!  In celebration of this rare coincidence (which we've known about for a long time, to be honest), we decided to fix a date and enjoy a meal together.  And we really did enjoy ourselves.  The physicists at the table exchanged cheery banter about free quarks and neutrino oscillations, of course, but the conversation covered a range of other topics, from New York history to interpreting the Constitution to reality TV... We ate a lot, laughed a lot and generally had a great time.

We would plan to do it again, only these friends are moving to Philadelphia by the end of the year.

Bother.

Station dining

The Man and I went out for dinner tonight at the Albany Pump Station - a rare treat.  We were meeting two teacher friends and being introduced to some new people.  This being Smallbany, of course it turned out that one of the new people knows our next door neighbour - they work in the same NY State department. His wife works for WMHT (the local public TV station), and it was interesting to hear about some of her many projects.  Also at the table was someone from the Museum of Innovation and Science, MiSci (which we visited a couple of times back when it was just the Schenectady Museum), and someone who creates educational materials for teachers to help them teach about nanoscience.

So it was an interesting gathering, one way and another.  Clearly the Pump Station was having a busy night as they were running out of some of their special beers (and even running short on milk for coffee...).  But the service was otherwise good, and the food abundant and tasty.

I Don't Want to Live on the Moon

I was up before dawn to accompany a friend to the dentist with his small daughter, who needed extensive treatment.  The procedure required semi-sedation and a vast array of sharp instruments - pretty heavy stuff.  The dad was tense, but stayed outwardly calm.  As for me, I was chewing on my knuckles.

I can't say enough in praise of the dentist and his staff at Pediatric Dentistry of Clifton Park - professional to a fault, and also extremely kind. It was all over remarkably quickly.  Even the dentist expressed his awe and appreciation of the techniques and equipment available to him that allowed him to work so efficiently.  I think it's only fair to credit his skill and experience, too.

How much the little patient will remember of what when on this morning I can't say.  Not too much, I hope. But throughout the procedure the dentist sang a song from Sesame Street, and now I for one will never be able to listen to I Don't Want to Live on the Moon without remembering plaintive cries and the whizzing of drills.

Burnt out eyes

Too long on the computer today, updating a website and other such stuff.  And really now it's time to shut my poor red eyes, as I have an early morning dental mission ahead.

Leaf blower

Before we went to bed last night we already knew our preferred candidates had the local election in the bag.  I met one of them today, very happy with the result and looking forward to serving on the Town Board, where I'm sure she'll do a great job.

Other than that, I've been busy working on some of the projects I mentioned the other day - interesting enough to do, but not interesting to write about.

Tonight the wind has got up.  The Man, who went out running in the dark, reports that the huge pile of leaves he and I dumped at the edge of our front lawn this weekend has now rearranged itself all over the road.  Oh dear.

Election special

Election day in our area.  Although I couldn't vote for them, I've had my fingers crossed for a couple of the candidates - I hope the turnout has been good and that they get positive news tonight.  As I write, the polls are due to close in ten minutes.

Otherwise the main impact of local elections in our house today came from the kids having a half day - seemed like they'd hardly got to school before it was time for them to come home again.  The Boy spent the afternoon at a friend's birthday party.  The Girl and I used the time in part baking a cake, and also reading through more than 350 bananagrams which I'll be passing along to the supermarkets tomorrow.

Go-vember!

I've been getting posters printed and delivering lawn signs (which will go up - on private lawns only - after the local election signs come down tomorrow): the annual Black Friday Fair Trade Market is just a few weeks away.  I have work to do for that, plus follow-up on all the bananagrams, plus a couple of Friends of Five Rivers fundraising events to think about, plus...well, anyway, lots to keep me busy this month.

Yardwork and a half

The Boy had friends round this afternoon.  They disappeared into the basement and we didn't see them for three hours.  Can't say we didn't hear them, however.

The Man and I raked leaves and tidied up the backyard, before it turned dark around 5pm (our clocks have changed - booo).

The Girl returned from an overnight trip to Camp Chinchgakook at Lake George, where she'd been on a volunteer work weekend with her Girl Scout troop.  The work involved raking leaves for five hours (before someone showed up with a leaf-blower) - in light of which efforts we let her off yard duties today.

Car Eggspo

 We took Boy and Buddy to a car show.  It was in the concourse, under the Egg.  That's all, really.

Fruitful experience

I had a busy day today, talking bananas.  I'd been invited into the Middle School by my friend who teaches 6th Grade Social Studies to do some presentations on Fair Trade as part of a "Haves and Have-nots" unit.  Six classes in all, spread across the day, so that was quite a lot of talking and brainstorming and dressing kids up as bananas etc.

The students were all very attentive and responsive and generally a pleasure to teach.  At the end of each presentation they each filled out bananagrams like the ones I've been taking to the farmers' market, so now I have huge bunches of bananagrams to send to the local supermarkets - we'll have to see if it encourages any of them to start stocking Fair Trade fruit.

My teacher friend helped me out during the presentations, and I enjoyed seeing how he managed each group of students.  He absolutely loves his job, and you can tell that the kids love him and are more than willing to rise to the high expectations he has of them. Watching him at work really felt like a masterclass in good teaching practices, and I was glad to have the opportunity.