Good things coming to an end

[Written Aug 17th at the airport in Boston, where the WiFi was a little dodgy and wouldn't let me publish the post]

It was ten years yesterday, August 16th, that we moved to the Albany area, and ten years today, local time (we're still - just - in the US) that I first started writing this blog. Of course since then we have moved back to Britain, and the Albaniana blog has become an intermittent enterprise. But here's what we looked like a decade (and also seven years) ago.

Unfortunately our anniversary day began with upsetting news from home. Our cat, out on the prowl overnight, ventured as far as the main road and was hit by a car. RIP Bobo. His life was short but I hope it was happy. We served on his staff for just two years and he seemed to tolerate us pretty well.

The loss cast quite a pall over the rest of the day, but we did our best. The kids as ever had made their own arrangements, so I had the chance to attend Saratoga Race Course with my host, A, in the afternoon, as part of an outing organised by her employer. Racing is certainly a very popular pursuit and the place was packed. But we quickly learnt that there's not a whole lot to the sport if you are not into betting, so we had our share of the included-in-the-ticket-price buffet and watched a race, but did not stay overly long.

Instead we drove all the way back down to Henry Hudson Park and admired the pair of bald eagles that nest there. They put on a fine display of soaring, and it was tranquil sitting by the river. We decided this was much more our sort of thing.

I ended the evening with friend J, a final chance to see her and chew over the latest hair-raising helping of crazy from the White House. We concluded, as A and I had earlier, that these are looking like the end times for Western civilization.

And on that cheery note...

Today (Thursday) has mostly been about packing, saying last farewells, and heading back to Boston. We're waiting to board as I write.

Ms Sociability

Tuesday was packed. The kids were off doing their own thing, leaving me free to catch up with about a million people.

First off, my refugee friends. They took me for brunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant.The eldest girl was just that morning home from seven weeks working as a camp counsellor, and she was full of stories. Soon she'll be in her second year of nursing college, earning money as a homework helper on the side...life is full and good. She and her sisters chatted away in English, breaking into Karen to include their parents. They are all so well settled now, I couldn't be happier for them.

Next, coffee with friend M, who is somewhat of a libertarian disposition and always interesting to talk to. Then I dropped in on the couple who helped us sell our house, for a quick catch-up. From there to a gathering of neighbours, for a a light meal and chat sitting in a screened porch. And from there for one more cup of tea, with M&C, before I collected the kids for the night.

Phew - fun but exhausting.

Cross country hiking

A mixed day - some frustrations over social plans gone awry, which meant a fair bit of time-wasting, but that's just life sometimes. At least both C & J each spent some time with friends.

On the upside, I managed to get in a hike at Pineridge. This is where we used to go cross country skiing. I had driven there many times but never in the summer - but I still managed to find my way there, despite the scenery looking completely different to how it is in winter. The trails, too, of course looked very different. The grass was long in places underfoot, so I tucked my trousers in my socks (against poison ivy and ticks). Hiking the trails, though generally slower than skiing, was much easier up hills and lacked the embarrassment of falling over.

In the evening, while J was running around on a dark field with his mates playing manhunt (hide and seek for teenagers) I caught up with a politically active friend, E, and her family. Of course there was plenty to talk about, but beyond the inevitable hair-on-fire conversation re the present incumbent of the White House, it was also good to chat about the kids and to learn that their son (C's contemporary, and a hugely tall and talented pitcher) is set to get a baseball scholarship for university.

Weekend round-up

Here's what we did on Saturday and Sunday:

J had slept over with a group of friends on Friday. He spent part of the day in the library, re-grouped with his tribe and slept over again Saturday night. Good times had by all. On Sunday I helped him meet up with his buddy and family for the afternoon. I joined the two boys watching a film (The Big Sick) at the Spectrum on Delaware Ave on Sunday evening.

C spent Saturday at our main hosts' house, mostly amusing herself as her friend had work and other commitments. They had fun in the evening though, including a late-night ice-cream excursion. On Sunday we met an inspirational middle school teacher friend and his wife for breakfast, and C interviewed them for a project she's doing. It was great to catch up with them, though like everyone else they are rattled by current US events. In the afternoon I took C to meet our formerly-farm-manager friend, who happened to be at the Russian Orthodox church in Colonie (stunning interiors - it was only built in 2005 but is gradually being decorated in traditional style throughout). I took her on from there to stay again with one of her oldest friends, A, in Delmar.

I met my fair trade friend and partner in projects, M on Saturday morning for an excellent walk at Five Rivers. Halfway round M had a skype call on her phone from family in Turkey, to wish her a happy 70th birthday. Pretty magical to be able to pull her little grandsons out of her pocket like that! I then caught up with a few familiar faces at the farmers' market, and from there called in on my refugee friends. All good news as everything seems to be going well for them at the moment. In the evening I drove my host into Albany. We started strolling around the Corning Preserve, then realised a storm was about to break. We avoided a thorough soaking (I had forgotten about that sort of rain), and when the downpour subsided we managed to find an Indian restaurant.

My Sunday activities mostly involved transporting the kids as detailed above, with a brief run-out to Thacher Park (Indian Ladder Trail currently closed - boo!) between times.

Spanning the area

Yesterday I had to drop C somewhere for a breakfast meet-up, then entertain J until his friends were available (they have summer jobs, studies and sports commitments - or else they sleep in late - which means they are not always around). We did some essential shopping, had brunch at our favourite shiny diner, and checked out the new Five Rivers Visitor Center (I think they are beginning to get bored of seeing me there because I've been turning up every day with someone new in tow each time).

I ended my day having dinner with friends M&V, and I stayed overnight with them. We watched the pundits on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) discussing the Trump's latest pronouncements, and did not feel entirely confident about the future of the US, or indeed the world.

Salvaged

A day with some pleasures (we're gradually working our way through a wishlist of eateries) but also some disappointments. C was due to spend time with a friend, who unfortunately turned out to have had a bout of sickness overnight...so we carefully backed away from her door, promising to come back another time. We decided to head up to Indian Ladder Farms instead, where to our great dismay we learnt that our dear friend the farm manager is no longer working there. We will be looking her up elsewhere, but we left feeling that the farm would never be the same for us.

We managed to fill the next few hours in a slightly less than purposeful way - a trip to shops in town, and some driving back and forth relating to J's arrangements (with the three of us generally wanting to be in different places at different times, and plans constantly morphing, I find I am doing a huge amount of driving out here). Then thank goodness we managed to find friends J&A at home and had some dinner with them, which restored our energy and good spirits just in time.

Impressive

I met friends and took a tour of the new Five Rivers Visitor Center - it's a thing of beauty. It also has many excellent interactive sensory displays - not so many that you need to stay all day, but just enough to make you want to get out and spot the real things in the wild.


I was impressed. And pleased that I got to say hi to several staff and board members who were around, who all seem happy with how things are going. I took a long looping walk around the woods and fields with two friends, followed by lunch.




The next big impression of the day was across the river at Hudson Valley Community College, where NY Senator Kirstin Gillibrand was holding a "town hall" - a meeting for anyone to attend and ask questions. C (future politics student?) came along too.

Questions ranged from healthcare to presidential powers to pension rights, relations with Israel, back to healthcare, the risk of nuclear war, healthcare again... There was also a query about bipartisan accomplishments, which the Senator answered with "I made dinner for Ted Cruz last night..." Senator Gillibrand can handle a crowd and talks sense. She is a hot tip for future President (if, the way things are going, the current incumbent doesn't turn out to be the last).

Finally, an impressive discovery in Cohoes: the most surprising thing I've ever come across in a public library. How did I live in the Capital District for seven years and never hear about this life-size model of a mastodon?

Happy returns

We've been back in the States since, hm let's see, Sunday evening. We being me, C & J (now respectively a young woman and a young man, so no more Girl and Boy, I think).

We spent the first night in Boston, and drove to Albany the next day. The only thing to note about the journey is that Massachusetts has completely gone over to cashless tolls, so there was no queuing for tollbooths, we just drove under a gantry of gadgets which read the E-Z Pass we'd hired with the car - helpful for speed of travel and preventing air pollution, so thumbs up for that.

J had plans with friends. We dropped him in our old suburb and he was off, with barely a "Can I have some cash before you leave...?" C and I went on to our friends' house and settled in to an evening of catching up and cookie-baking.

Tuesday: mostly a day of old haunts and more old friends. Lunch at Panera, where the portions seemed much smaller than I remembered - possibly for the first time ever in America I looked at my plate and thought "That's not very much food". A visit to my favourite public library, tranquil and perfect as ever. I lost C, regained J and joined J's old Buddy and family for dinner in an Irish bar, chased down with treats from Jim's Tastee-Freez.