Readers write

A good day: the Girl and I became ladies who lunched (Japanese style) before she hit the ice rink (figuratively speaking), the Boy hung out most of the day with a friend, while the Man as usual applied himself to the huge task of creating something tiny.  Currently, despite a definite hint-of-autumn chill, Man and Boy are having their nightly bedtime swim. I wonder how many more days that will last.  

But beyond all that, with no hilarious anecdotes, daring adventures or dazzling insights to share I hereby hand this blogpost over to you, dear readers.  What have you been up to today?

Mango Tree

After a failed attempt to go roller-skating (Guptills was closed), I found myself driving up Route 9 this afternoon with the kids, not sure where we would end up.

Saratoga Springs, as it turned out.  We stopped off in the State Park, and would have partaken of the spring waters if there hadn't been such long lines at the taps.  Instead we hopped back in the car and moved on to Ballston Spa.

There I finally got to call in on Mango Tree Imports, a fair trade craft store I've been meaning to visit for ages. 

It's a lovely store, beautifully laid out.  Full disclosure, I know the owners (Kim and Chris Anderson) pretty well through numerous fair trade events.  This mostly means that I know what great people they are, how hard they work at their business and how dedicated they are to the whole concept of fair trade.  They are behind Ballston Spa becoming New York State's first (and still only) Fair Trade Town.

I very much enjoyed looking round the shop.  If you happen to be a local reader, or in the area, it's definitely worth making the trip to Mango Tree to check out the huge variety of products - each with an interesting tale of the artisan or community who made it.

How was it for you?

We watched the Olympic closing ceremony as-it-happened on the NBC livestream. 

Personally I could have managed a bit less of it, and fewer resurrected rockstars (though I felt stupidly excited to see the Spice Girls again - that Gerri Halliwell went to my school you know).  It would have been good to see a lot more images of the Games just past - surely that would have stirred all our emotions more than any amount of George Michael, or even Eric Idle looking on the bright side of life. 

But perhaps you just had to be there.

Anyway, there'll no doubt be endless highlights programmes for UK viewers on the BBC now, not to mention Sports Personality of the Year to look forward to.  Whoever are they going to pick?  King Wiggo?  Murray, or Mo?  Sir Chris or amazing Jess?  Or any of the dozens of others.  What a great Games for Great Britain, all around and in every way.  Hey, maybe we should pick Seb Coe (again), as a thank you?

What will you remember most about the last two weeks?

Sports and spots

As you may have done too, we watched some exciting Olympic action today (Go Mo!  And wow, those Jamaicans!).   And then, since it was still only afternoon here, we thought we really should drag ourselves off the couch for a bit of activity ourselves.

It's a while since we've been to the Indian Ladder Trail at Thacher Park, so we headed up there for a very enjoyable post-rainy hike.  There were lots of orange salamadery creatures and frogs to spot, as well as chipmunks and an acrobatic red squirrel.  While the children mucked about in the little streams, the Man and I stood by admiring the escarpment and marvelling that we have somewhere as impressive as this to visit so close to home.

Now as I write the rest of the family is out in the pool, cooling off before bedtime after another humid day.  The Boy will no doubt be practising his diving skills - he has identified this as his potential Olympic sport.  How about you - have the Games inspired you to get sporty, or sportier?  Or in some other way (thanks for the cartoon, Ancestor)?

Remind me to remind you

Over the last couple of days I've been reading a fun book by Joshua Foer - Moonwalking with Einstein. The Art & Science of Remembering Everything.  It sets out to explore what we know and understand about memory, and incidentally provides tips on how you can improve your own memory should you feel like it.  It's a fairly light read but full of interesting facts and ideas to ponder. 

In ancient times, as the book explains, the ability to memorize was a highly prized and necessary art form, a way of ensuring that knowledge could be passed down and built upon.  Special formulae were developed for improving memory skills.  Over time this area of expertise has largely been superceded by "externalised memory" - recording and retrieving information outside of our heads, so that we don't actively have to remember very much at all.  The digitalisation of information is speeding up this trend no end.

For anyone else who, like me, is a bit resistant to new technologies (not totally resistant, but, you know) this anecdote about Socrates is worth a thought.  Several centuries BC, Socrates was a great proponent of memory skills.  He is reported to have been quite averse to the new-fangled technology of writing that was just coming into fashion as he thought it would spell the end of memory.  Not writing as in printing and books, mind you - we're talking handwriting.  Ultimately, I suppose, Socrates was proved right.

Moonwalking with Einstein hangs on a "one year challenge" peg.  In this case the author trains himself in memory techniques for a year in order to compete in a USA Memory Championship.  "Try it for a year" is a popular gimmick for writers these days, I've  noticed - there are books on pursuing happiness; health; Biblical living; cooking like Julia Childs; aspiring to be like Eleanor Roosevelt...all neatly over the course of twelve months.  Maybe I could have a stab?  Can you suggest a year-long project for me?

Bats in the bedroom

The other night a friend of mine and her husband woke up in the middle of the night and found a bat flying around in their bedroom. 

It's possible to be bitten by a bat and not know about it.  Sounds unlikely, but apparently it's true.  And (unlike their UK cousins) bats around here sometimes carry rabies.  So the official advice for anyone who finds a bat in their bedroom when they've been asleep is to get along to the doctor pronto for a rabies shot (actually a course of shots).  My friend will be starting the process tomorrow, and she's not very excited about it.

As a public service, here's a link to everything you might want to know about rabies.  There's also a handy video-link in the left-hand corner of the same page showing you how to catch a bat if you ever find one in your bedroom.

Big bunny

While I was picking berries yesterday the children spent some time visiting their four-legged farm friends.

I mentioned, did I, that Binky (the Boy's bunny-camp rabbit and long-term farm resident) is big? Not all that big for a typical Flemish Giant, apparently (they can end up weighing 30lbs and more), but nevertheless...

...a whole lot of bunny.