Familiar territory

I took myself off to Five Rivers today for a nostalgic walkabout. The new visitor centre is under construction so there's a degree of mess and upheaval in that area, but the rest of the place looks the same as ever.

I'd picked up a sandwich from a shop in Delmar, and I munched it as I went round. It's difficult to eat American sandwiches - they are never just a modest slice of cheese and a leaf of lettuce. This was a veggie thing so stuffed with leaves and olives and pickles and whatnot I couldn't fit it in my mouth. It was dripping slightly with dressing, and before too long so was I.

Later I scoped out the street where we used to live. I called on an old neighbour, originally from Switzerland so we talked politics, European and American. She regards the Brexit vote as an ominous sign of terrible things to come in the US in November. Let's hope she's wrong.

In other news, another guest at the friend's house where I'm staying has been an enormous dog, the hugest I've ever met. When upright he looks more like an upholstered side table than a pet. Luckily he's friendly and calm, which is good in a creature the size of a bear.

Stuff

The children needed gear for school so I took them shopping today.  We had some success, either side of lunch at Ruby Tuesdays (the one restaurant they could both agree on - Buffalo minis and salad for the Girl and a side of fries for the Boy).

In the afternoon I set about yet more sorting and discarding: it has become my regular business lately.  Ah, the stuff you can find at the back of drawers and closets - a bag full of used twist ties (sure to come in handy), a dozen bouncy balls, a clockwork dog, a church candle, a plastic duck call... I imagine myself as some future anthropologist, wondering how it all got there and what it all means.

It has not been a hot day, and this evening was positively cool.  Man and Boy went swimming and made themselves even colder - the Man had to put a sweater on for the first time in months.  The Boy briefly tucked himself in bed to warm up.

Dog in our footsteps

It has been hot here today, and though I've tried to get things done it has all been in slow motion. 

I did manage to take 200 empty seltzer cans back to the supermarket, which got me $10 off my shopping. 

And we said goodbye to our furry house-guest when his family came back from their vacation.  Though I'm sure he was glad to go home, I think he had a happy enough stay with us.  But maybe next time he'll decide not to lie at the bottom of the stairs disguised as an extra step, as I think we probably all trod on him at some point over the weekend.

School's out for summer

For the first day of the vacation...

The Boy got up early, the Girl slept in late.

The Boy and I cleaned dusty trains in the basement.

The kids and I took a trip to the Goodwill store to donate some stuff.  They didn't want our jigsaw puzzles, so we proceeded to the Salvation Army store and donated them there (it's where we'd got most of them in the first place),

We then called in at Brits R U.S. and treated ourselves to hula hoops and sherbet lemons.

Next door's dog moved in for a little vacation of his own.

The pool has seen some good use (thank goodness, not by the dog), including late-night family swimming to round off the day.

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?

Mail order

In Linton we heard tales of Dave the Postman, a dedicated fellow who daily braves every crazy barking dog and suffers every inadequately-sized and/or snapping letterbox in the village while on his rounds delivering the mail.  As he is generally on foot, and delivers right to the door I imagine most villagers know him to say hello to.

On our American suburban street, the mail is delivered by a mailman in a white mail van.  Since he doesn't have to get out of his van (he just reaches out of his window) to put the mail into our box at the bottom of the drive (or to take it out if we have the flag up to indicate mail for collecting), it's not often that anyone gets to say hello to him. Today, however, I happened to be standing on the drive when his van came along, so I took my mail directly from him.

"So, you been on vacation?  How was it?"  he asked.  (He hasn't had to stop at our house for the last two weeks because we put our delivery on hold.)

"Very nice, thank you!"

"Where did you go?  England?  Visiting family and friends?"

Whoa! It's a little unnerving when someone you've never spoken to apparently knows all about you. But I daresay the mailman, without ever stopping to chat, knows more than most about everybody on the street - our interests, what we've ordered from Amazon, who shares our surname in a foreign country...all sorts of potentially fascinating details.  Who needs electronic surveillance?

A lot of Bosch

You'll no doubt be wanting the answer to yesterday's challenge.

Not an anti-mosquito device (more's the pity - the bugs are suddenly out in force and I've got bites all over); and no, not a laser pointer or anything to do with a TV.  But Old Dog is smart to remember that I've previously mentioned buying a dishwasher...

Our new Bosch dishwasher is one of those with all the controls hidden along the top edge of the door. It's so quiet, allegedly, that they've added a special light-up-the-floor feature just to let you know that it really is switched on (you might argue that this is a bit of a gimmick).  For the record, it's not some top-of-the-range model, just the one that was on special offer at Lowes. What I most like about it is that, so far, the slide-in racks haven't collapsed while full of glassware; it hasn't yet tried to wash the dishes without any water or, by contrast, overfilled with water and leaked all over the floor- all amusing idiosyncrasies of our previous dishwasher. Oh, and it washes the dishes really well, too.  So, we're very happy with it.

In other news, it rained all day.

Stuff and nonsense

"Careers" has been a bit of a theme of the week at the Girl's school.  She and her fellow 7th Graders were treated to a careers day on Tuesday, when they got to listen to presentations by various parents about their lines of work - everything from medical doctor to "dog butler" (professional poop scooper).  The Girl didn't provide a parent for the occasion (well, one of them was away, and fun though it is "pillar of the community" isn't really a paying career), but she'd managed to rope in her Indian Ladder friend, whose presentation on farming was well received, I believe.

Today the Girl came home and announced that she'd taken a career survey, with...interesting results.  Software programmer or video games designer I can kind of see as possibilities for her future.  But taxidermist??  Where did that come from?

Candyland

The Girl's girl scout troup had organised a gingerbread house-building competition for other local girl scout troups, and it all happened this evening at the Town Hall. 

Wow!  More sugar and sweeties than you could shake a candy cane at!  Five teams entered, and (God bless America - and the Town Supervisor, who was judging) everyone won a prize or got an honorable mention.  Accolade for Most Creative house went to none other than our friend Exile #3 and her team, with special mention going to the dog biscuit wreath on the door (nice touch!).  When I saw there was a Most Architecturally Interesting prize I rather wished someone had thought to re-create a Frank Lloyd-Wright or some such - a gingerbread reproduction of the Guggenheim would have been something to behold.  Or at the very least, a gingerbread eco-house would have been very cool, with a foil-wrapped bar of chocolate as a solar panel... Mmmm, I could be onto something...

Anyway, it was a nice idea and a lot of fun, as all the slightly wild-eyed, sugared-up girls in the room seemed to agree.

Foodfest

On a whim, we went along to a Food Festival tonight on Albany's vast Empire Plaza.  The Boy had arrived earlier with his best buddy's family, and we met everyone there.

There was a pretty wide selection of food on offer, though no surprises that a whole lot of it was fried(including alligator nuggets, a new one on me).  When we caught up with him the Boy had already consumed a "doggie-bowl of fries" - yep, chips served in a (polysterene) dog-bowl - and a bucket of fresh lemonade.  He chased it all down with a huge ("small") chocolate ice-cream by Emack and Bolio.

The Man and I ordered veggie patties from a Caribbean-American stall.   In honour of a Jamaican sprinter, we Bolted them down.  The Girl had more of a contest with her serving of barbecue chicken wings from the same vendor - so hot and spicey she was soon in need of a bucket of lemonade herself.

Eating was accompanied by live music.  By the time we had food in our hands the act on stage was Tonic, a "post-grunge" band from LA.  I liked them, though they were very, VERY loud.  Too loud for the younger members of our party, so with some regret at not trying more food, we ended up finishing our dinner at home.

Runners up

A British friend invited us to his "Runners Up Party" - his annual response to American Independence Day.

We thought the party would be teeming with Brits, but in fact we were the only ones, apart from our host and his dual-nationality kids.  But we enjoyed meeting the other, all-American, guests - none of whom teased us about being on the losing side (sometimes people do around this time of year) so that was nice.  We chatted and ate, and somehow several baking hot hours rolled pleasantly by.

The hosts' 1840s house is only a couple of miles from the city centre but it's in a secluded, well-wooded area. It was interesting discussing the gardening challenges that the neighbours face - deer, of course, which love to munch on lily heads; but there are also woodchucks that merrily dig everything up.  There have been sightings of fishers, a bob-cat, coyotes.. and this year five baby skunks (one of them sprayed someone's dog).  When it comes to garden guests and pests, good old British slugs can't really compete.

An owl by any other name...

A fine spring day here.  Great for observing neighbourhood Nature, such as the noisy woodpecker hammering its favourite tree across the road; huge American robins everywhere looking for worms; the chipmunk, who is once again making tunnels under our patio (grrr), dragging home a dog biscuit (?!?) from next door's yard...

After a run of cold days we are back to warmer temperatures, and I felt more than cosy dressed in my owl costume (ah yes, that again) for an event at the local elementary school this evening.  It was a "camps fair", showcasing various summer offerings: camps for gymnastics, drama, science, art, lego robotics, Harry Potter - you name it, it's out there.  Even camps where you camp.  Of course I was there promoting Five Rivers, which runs a summer Family Program where parents get to hang out with their children and do naturey stuff together.

My kids came along (the Girl was helping out at the Indian Ladder Farms table), but they disowned me on account of my costume.  Other people's children seemed to appreciate me more, although one very small child did point out that I wasn't the "real Aries" (the much-loved half-blind, one-winged, captive owl at Five Rivers Center).  And one person mistook me for a turkey.

Dog tired

The Girl was out at a sleepover last night, not getting any sleep (predictably enough) - apparently she and the six other girls were playing dodge ball in the basement at four in the morning.  Urrrgh.

I went to collect her before lunchtime.  I took care to avoid the large black dog that loped out onto the driveway as I pulled in - it likes to jump up at anything that moves, including cars.  It also throws itself in front of them, especially at night.  In other death-wish moves (I was told today) it eats whole packs of medication whenever it can, and tubes of sunscreen.  And it has twice had to be rescued from a freezing pond having wandered out on the ice and fallen through.  The second time it was touch and go - but he was right back on the ice again the next day.

I was asked when I got inside the house if I wanted a dog.  Every visitor is routinely asked and everyone replies no thanks, especially not that one...  No one wants it, even its real owner, who left it with this family a couple of years ago and has never come back for it.

Haul the deck?

I was in the backyard, doing something or other, enjoying the warm weather etc.  Heading back into the house, as I walked up the steps of the deck I vaguely sensed something fall (out of my pocket?)...but kicked it with my foot before I'd had a chance to see what it was.  When I looked, I couldn't see a thing.  Whatever it was, I'd obviously kicked it through a small gap in the step, right under the deck.

Oh well, I had things to do, places to go.  Off I went and forgot all about it...

Until hours later when I saw myself in a mirror, and realised my rather nice painted bead necklace was no longer round my neck.

So that's what it was.  I tried squinting under the deck from various angles - nope, couldn't spy it.  There's no way I can fit under the deck - what to do?  The Girl suggested inviting round next door's dog - he really likes it under there.  I'm not convinced of his retrieving skills, however.  The most obvious candidate was...the Boy.

It had rained by then, so under-the-deck was all muddy.  No matter.  With a remarkable feat of memory, the Boy recalled where in the basement we'd stowed the waterproof ponchos from our trip on The Maid of the Mist.  Nicely covered in plastic, he got about halfway under...then found a beam in his way.

It's too bad.  I guess the only way we'll actually recover the necklace is by tearing up the deck.

Visitors from another world

One very underslept Girl was returned to us this morning, so I guess that rates as a successful "no-sleepover".  She didn't manage to muster any visible energy for the rest of the day.  I hope she catches up with herself tonight because she has a New Year's Eve sleepover tomorrow.

We had visitors in the afternoon.  Yesterday at the dentist, her son interpreting for her, my refugee friend offered to come and clean my house.  When I told her no, no she didn't need to do that, she admitted that really she just wanted to come and see where I lived.  Fair enough.

So this afternoon I collected her - and several other members of the family - and brought them over for a visit.  It was fun, even though the dog - still on loan from next door - scared the toddler (simply by virtue of being a dog - he didn't do anything scary and he's scarcely bigger than a guinea pig).  We looked through some photos and books about Burma, while the kids played with toys (including the dolls' house and the singing Christmas penguin).  Then we piled back into the car and I drove them home again. 

What people who have spent most of their lives in a refugee camp in Thailand make of an average American suburban home, I can't really imagine.

Dog days of winter

It has been a funny old day, with different combinations of us to-ing and fro-ing, and the Man slightly feeling that he's running an exceedingly cheap taxi service.

The kids were up early - the Boy's buddy had stayed overnight and was spending the day with us. I took the Girl for a skating practice first thing.  Then later in the morning I was called out to take my refugee friend and her son to the dentist.  After lunch the Girl needed a ride across the river to visit a friend, and the Man went on from there to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles for an eye-test to renew his licence ("Would you like to try reading the chart first without your glasses? Go back to the third blue floor tile and no cheating now!").

Soon after getting home from that he went out again to fetch the Girl and get her to her evening skating lesson, and himself to the YMCA for a run.  Then we all scarfed down some dinner before I set off to deliver the Girl to a sleepover (her first teenager's birthday party. Yikes.), calling in on the library on the way home to pay off my final fines of 2011.  And now the Man has gone back to the Y to take the Boy swimming...

The most restful presence in the house today has to be next-door's dog, who is with us again for another overnight stay.  He can hardly be bothered to go out, never mind take a ride in the car.

More furtive than festive?

Although I'm generally pretty busy with things going on here, I do still like to keep up with the hot topics of conversation back in our UK hometown.  So I check in on the forum page of linton.info from time to time (ok, daily), to find out what's goin' down on the mean streets of our favourite South Cambridgeshire village.

Reassuringly, not too terribly much it seems.  There's still occasional sniping about the infant school field being designated a village green; someone recently got very hot under the collar about the signage for this year's Guy Fawkes Night fireworks display; there's been a verbal punch-up going on for weeks about whether or not a junction out of the village onto the A1307 is badly designed or not; and there's endless comparison of the three village pubs (seems like the Wagon and Horses is currently on the ascendant, while the Dog and Duck may have lost its way...).  Well, you get the drift. 

Most of the people who comment do so anonymously.  I do actually know who a couple of them are, and can take a guess at a couple more.  But most of them I can't identify.  They may or may not be people I'd recognise if I ran into them on the High Street.  Anyway, one of them has just suggested online that they all meet up for "festive drinkies". 

It's quite a funny concept, and I'm interested to know how it all works out.  Some of the forum regulars are enthusiastic, but others are more wary - perhaps not wanting to shrug off their anonymity cloaks.  But the latest comment I've read on the thread, which picks up on an earlier comment, suggests a solution (and a potential West End-quality modern farce):

I like Numbnut's idea of loitering in order to check out the suspects before making yourself known. What if most people say they can't make it, but are actually there?

BTW, if there's anyone out there still reading this blog, do feel free to use the Albaniana comment section to organise your own seasonal get-together (and then let me know if you choose to ignore each other or not).

Dowsing for dogs

No, of course we haven't gone and got a dog.  You didn't really believe that, did you?  Seriously, how long have you known me?  What on earth would possess me, or indeed anyone, to want an animal living in the house?

What's that?  You've just got a dog?  And you've got a new cat?  And even you've got your eye on an adorable little puppy/kitten/hamster (delete as applicable)?

Why oh why oh why?

I mean, it's not that I don't like animals - in fact I like them so much I don't even eat them.  I just don't want to live with one and have it chew up my stuff, fart under the table at mealtimes and need its poop picking up whenever it goes for a walk.  And don't tell me it teaches kids nurturing skills.  I know exactly who'd end up doing the "nurturing".

Nope, not for me. 

And BTW if I did, in a moment of madness, get a dog, I wouldn't choose a long-haired variety.  It's not like there aren't enough hairy creatures in our household already, yelping at me whenever I try to comb the knots out.



So, no. We were just looking after next door's old pooch while its owners were away for the weekend.  He's a nice enough, if diffident, little fellow. Well-behaved and no trouble really.  Well, I say that.  He was wandering about in our backyard and managed to get himself stuck under the deck. 

It's a big deck, with only one way under, not humanly accessible.  We had trouble locating him at all at first.  We had to employ ancient technologies...

He eventually appeared, trapped behind the trellis, and gazed at us inscrutably...

To extricate him we tried going state-of-the-art (we asked Siri how to get a dog out from under a deck.  She said she didn't know of any dog breeders near here.  Gee, thanks, Siri).

After twenty minutes or so the Boy, with much coaxing, managed to lure the doggie out with half a biscuit. 

Back in the house he kept an eye out for his owners. When they came to collect him this evening he shot out of our front door without a backward glance.  As a house-guest he was so silent and capable of merging into the background that you could actually trip over him while looking for him, and yet now the Boy is going around sighing and claiming that "The house just feels too quiet without him!"

Market marketing

I spent the morning at the Farmers' Market promoting the Fair Trade event I'm involved with next week.  I'd collected together an assortment of items we'll be selling - bags and beads from Malawi and Uganda, textiles from Guatemala, pottery from Vietnam, a T-shirt from India, etc etc - and set them out in a rather nice arrangement.

The Market manager always lets me (and other not-for-profit groups) have an information table for free, as long as I don't sell anything.  So I just stood there shouting "Curm on, ladies and gents - luverly crafts! Don't get 'em 'ere, they're not for sale."  Next to a sign marked CRAFT'S.

I had a fun time, talking to lots of people and handing out flyers.  About a third of the people I spoke to had our Black Friday Fair Trade sale on their calendars already and were eagerly awaiting it.  Another third had vaguely heard about it and were happy to have more details.  A final third knew nothing about it, but most were pleased to be told.  So it all felt like a positive exercise.

And in other news: today we got ourselves a dog!

Books etc

I had a good meeting this morning (see yesterday's blogpost), followed by a useful conversation with the owner of a new restaurant.  She not only already serves fair trade coffee and bananas but also wants to support Friends of Five Rivers in various ways.

The rest of the day went off as usual - yet more boat-building for the Boy and his buddy, and library-work for the Girl, followed by skating.  Tonight, a toad-rescue from the pool. 

Anyone got any reading recommendations for me?  I recently enjoyed Kate Atkinson's latest, Started Early Took My Dog, and now I'm reading a novel by a local (to here) author, David Klein called Stash - don't know if it's available in the UK but it would probably make a good choice for a book group, if you're in one.  Completely different, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science is very readable and well-worth your time.  But what else should I be reading this summer?