Disarming experience

This evening I had a choice of staying at home with my family or going to a talk on the necessity of nuclear arms abolition. I chose the nuclear option.

Now the Cold War is over we tend to forget that the risk of nuclear annihilation is just as horrifically present as it ever was - possibly more so. As humans I think we probably can't cope with contemplating more than, say, a couple of causes of potential total destruction at a time, so while we get our heads round pandemics and global warming, the nuclear issue sits on the back-burner. Dr Lawrence Wittner, tonight's speaker, suggests we come out of denial and take it a bit more seriously, and gave a convincing (to my mind) argument for nuclear abolition - though of course, he was preaching to the choir.

Not literally the choir, though we were sitting in a church. The lecture had been organised by local Catholics, including my neighbour who had invited me. There's a popular misconception in Britain that American Christianity is all extremely conservative and obsessed with banning Harry Potter and opposing gay rights. But there are also plenty of Christians here with a broader (and more broad-minded) agenda, and although I'm no believer I felt quite comfortable in their environment tonight.

'Tis the season to be poorly

For the last few days I've been feeling throaty and under the weather, so today I took myself off to the doctor's. It turns out it's just a viral infection, and not my annual bout of strep throat/tonsillitis. Which is good news I suppose, except that it means I can't take anything that will make it go away more quickly, and if this is a normal year the strep throat proper is still to come.

In any case, with regret I cancelled my after-school sewing class - but as it turned out more than half my group were off sick themselves anyway. In fact fully two thirds of the Boy's class were absent today with a range of coughs, colds and fevers. I guess the 'flu - H1N1 or otherwise - may have arrived in our corner of the northeast.

I could put in a word here about my own kids' current rude good health, but any parent knows that's just asking for trouble.

Patch of sunlight

After yesterday's torrential rain today has been much milder, and we even saw the sun for a while this afternoon (we've been short on sun this Fall). We made another apple-picking trip to Indian Ladder Farms - still teaming with happily appley customers - and lugged home a bagload. The man in the orchard booth also invited us to help ourselves to a souvenir from amongst the remaining stray pumpkins in the patch. Here I am, stalking one:

Grave error

The Man writes...we've had nearly two inches of rain today. Respect to the four or five stall holders who turned up for the local Famers' Market and stood in heavy rain all morning with undampened spirits. When I went down there were no other discernible customers but plenty of cheerful stoicism on display along with the fudge, cheeses and leafy greens.

In the afternoon I took the ninja Boy and zombie cow-Girl to a fancy dress Halloween party. Having been misinformed, we turned up - rather unfashionably - all of an hour early, so we beat a hasty retreat to the nearest "Stewarts" where the kids warmed-up for the party candy-fest with ice-creams that were (as usual) bigger than their heads.

The party was relatively ghoul free for the time of year. However, there was a large grey tombstone in the living room which read "RIP" and below that, "Your Name Here", which seemed a bit er... near the knuckle.

I was frequently asked if we do Halloween in England. I can't really remember anymore. Do we?

Japanese Boy?

I was running around doing Fair Trade-related errands this morning, then in town investigating curtain fabric at lunchtime for a soft-furnishing project.

I realised I was feeling hungry, and suddenly had a yen (geddit?) for Japanese food, so took myself out to lunch. Pretty good. There are many Japanese restaurants in this part of the world, all entirely staffed by Chinese people as far as I can tell. I do like the presentation of a Japanese lunch, everything arranged in a compartmentalised serving box so that each kind of food is distinct and doesn't interfere with another.

The Boy prefers this style of eating, too, and does not care to mix foodstuffs willy-nilly on a single plate if he has anything to do with it. Perhaps he has some throwback Japanese ancestory - though off the top of my head I can't think of a single item of Japanese cuisine he would ever eat. Well, rice, I suppose - but do Rice Krispies count in this context?

The Invisible Woman

I was waiting outside the local High School this afternoon. It's not a place where I usually loiter, but I was supposed to meet a young Fair Trade friend there. It was turning out time, so I was surrounded by teenagers in their prime. There's nothing like being around teenagers to make you feel really old - much worse than being with smaller kids.

I felt, like, soooooo geriatric?

I might also have felt awkward and conspicuous, but luckily being over forty years old rendered me completely invisible to them all.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I was never really a teenager myself - too square. I tell you, turning forty was such a relief, like reaching a place that deep down I'd always known I belonged.

My High School associate never materialized (though we don't know each other well - perhaps she just didn't see me) so I waited in vain for half an hour, before finally creaking away.

Garden room, deceptively spacious, fully furnished

Hands up if you've ever seen a woodpecker in Britain. I bet you haven't (even if you live there). I've heard them in the woods there often enough, but the British woodpecker is (in my experience) a shy bird and rarely shows itself.

Not so the American woodpecker. They show up all over the place. There were loads of them in the garden this morning, pecking their way up and down our pine tree. Maybe the rise in temperature over the last couple of days had tempted some tasty insects out.

One small woodpecker even spent quite a long time investigating the bird box that the Boy and I made and put up over the summer - only the second bird I've ever seen go near it. The woodpecker spent a long time peeping in the entrance hole, and even popped inside for a bit. I like to think it was admiring the walls, on which (before we nailed the lid down) the Boy had drawn assorted furniture and pictures in frames for the comfort and enjoyment of prospective tenants.