Washed out

The falls at the Huyck Preserve were looking quite dramatic (and strangely monochrome) the other day when we went for our slippery walk.  Not nearly as dramatic as they must have looked back in August when Tropical Storm Irene hit - you can read here (scroll to page 11 for pictures) how the powerful flooding eroded the banks and washed away infrastructure.

The path to the falls higher up the trail is still closed - it may be some time, I suppose, before funds are raised to enable a rebuild.

My funny Valentine

And they say Romance is dead...

I received a Valentine's card in the mail today, from a not-at-all secret and rather surprising source.  The message read:

Roses are red, 

Violets are blue, 

[Your hairdressers] send their Love to you!!

under a photo of them all wearing pink sweaters.

Is it just me, or is that a bit strange?  I mean, I do like my hairdresser, but not really so much that I want a photograph of her and her work colleagues.  It's not even like it's a money-off coupon or anything - it's just a card.  I can't imagine getting such a thing from The Cutting Room in Linton, never mind Boyz2Men.

Oh well.  As the Man has pointed out to me, since I shouldn't assume I'll be getting any other Valentines this year maybe I should simply be grateful for the nice sentiment.

Cold enough for snow

Not that it did snow, of course - this being the winter that just won't happen.  But up at Willard they were making snow like crazy, taking advantage of temperatures well below freezing.  Every cannon was blowing snow all over the place, and very unpleasant it was to ski through, too.  Cold and stinging and messing up your glasses so that you skied off course and nearly fell over - well, maybe that was just me.

Odd piles of soft or wet snow accumulated here and there, in contrast to patches of bald ice elsewhere.  All in all, I found it more challenging skiing today than usual.  But we all had a good time and skied a lot - the Man, the Girl and her ski-buddy were on the slopes until the bitter (bitterly cold, anyway) end and ours was one of the last cars left in the parking lot.

Hazardous Huyck

The Boy was out with his buddy today, and the Girl quickly managed to make her own social arrangements when we threatened her with a hike.  So it was just the Man and me taking a wintery stroll at the Huyck Preserve this afternoon.

For yes!  We found us some winter!  There had been a little snow earlier, which gave everything a fresh white look.  The lake was frozen solid enough for hockey (no, not us playing - but we enjoyed watching a group knocking a puck around out on the ice). 

However, to get as far as the lake we had to negotiate some dangerous trails.  We've seen the Huyck snowier, but never as icy.  Due, I suppose, to recent melting and re-freezing, the paths were slick with the stuff.  The Man fell once, but I was down at least six times. To be honest, it wasn't so much a stroll as a slither, most of the way.  I enjoyed being out, but was relieved to make it back to the car with nothing worse than bruises.

Memory tricks

It's sooo not just the taking part that counts...

The Amnesiacs were back in action tonight in another contest of trivial wits.  One man down (due to ill health), how would we fare in a field of six teams (hmm, bigger turnout than usual)?

Well... We romped home - yay!  Perfect 10 on Art History!  We did well on World Religions, too, and even managed to score respectably on the vexing Vexillology round.  Overall we only dropped about four points (one of those for not knowing whether or not Avril Lavigne had broken up with Brody Jenner - what's your answer? Or, do you know the two countries in the 1936 Olympics that had the same flag?), and on top of that we bagged a bonus five points for getting the nearest guess on the number of lovehearts in a tupperware container.

Personally I was rather pleased with my - surprising - recall of Old Testament details.  Such feats of memory slightly made up for the fact that earlier in the day, out shopping, I'd been warmly greeted by someone I knew I should have recognised but could not for the life of me remember...  Apparently I'm not called an Amnesiac for nothing.  Maybe my hairdresser is onto something after all?

Hair piece

I had my hair cut again this week.  My hairdresser has persuaded me that I probably should get it done a bit more often than once-every-six-months-when-I've-started-looking-like-a-witch (not her exact words, but that's what I infer).

I like my hairdresser, and she does a good job of cutting my hair.  She is, however, a teeny-tiny bit patronising, as only someone at least half my age can be.  She doesn't quite pat me on the head and call me "dear", but she gets perilously close to it sometimes.  The other day she warned me solicitously not to trip over a very obvious foot-rest.  "I'm only forty-bloomin'-five,"  I felt like saying, "I'm in my prime, not my dotage!"

She means well, of course.  And thinking back to my student days, I do recall that all my tutors were hopelessly ancient and past-it - and probably none of them much over 40.  As I realise now, they weren't old at all - I was just idiotically young.

But naturally, much as I may want to, I never do tell my hairdresser that she's being condescending.  After all, she's the one with the scissors and therefore all the power.

A bit of a hoot

"So," asked the Man the other night, home from work and busy fixing himself a snack, "What have you been doing all day?"

"This!" I replied, and waited for him to look my way...

It's an ongoing project (and no, not intended as an accessory to go with a knitted ruff).  Watch this space, there'll be more...