He who DAREs...

Not content with inviting the car in for a recall every other month, yesterday I received a call from the Toyota dealership requesting that I bring the car over for a spot check on the last recall...  Something to do with wheel suspension vs Albany potholes.  I duly went in today.  All seems to be well, so it felt like a waste of time, but it least it gave me an excuse to drop in at the Salvation Army store to buy a new old jigsaw.

The other event of the day was the Boy's D.A.R.E. assembly.  You remember DARE - the Girl went through the same school programme a couple of years ago, learning about alcohol, drugs, smoking and bullying.  Judging by the essays read out this morning, the message the kids took away this year seemed to be less on potential alcoholic comas and more about learning to evaluate situations, make reasoned decisions and stick up for yourself - all useful lifeskills, you have to hope. 

Our memories are fried

A while ago I wrote about our family day out at the Big E, and the fact that although we didn't exactly enjoy it, we suspected it would turn out to be a day to remember. 

True, apparently.  When the Boy was recently given a school assignment to write about a special memory for a book called "Our Class Memoirs" what did he choose?  One of our visits to the Air and Space Museum in DC?  Surf-jumping in Cape Cod?  Whale-watching off the coast of Maine?  Nope - he remembered the sign for fried Kool-Aid at the Big E, and how weird and disgusting he thought that sounded.

The kids in the class were all asked to end their memoir with a hope or wish for the future.  Of the Big E the Boy wrote:  "I hope we never have to go there again."  In this case, his wish is my command.

Little women

Scarred but undeterred I returned to school for more set-painting action today.  Finished those steamboat chimneys.  White-washed the backdrop flats - after first dragging them out from where we'd propped them and lying them down on the stage.  It was just me and yesterday's shorter-than-me woman again, hefting vast wood and canvas constructions, many times our size.  I have to say, we were entirely awesome.  Never underestimate the power of really quite small women.

Splinter group

For this go-round of the 5th Grade musical I have volunteered to help paint the set.  The first painting meeting was this afternoon.  Not many people showed up.  Myself and an even shorter woman who is coordinating operations attempted to move a massive backdrop from the stage to the floor of the gym, and I was quite impressed that we managed it without either of us getting crushed.  However in the process I picked up a whopping - whopping - splinter in my finger.  Seriously, it was plank-sized - and I couldn't get it out.

I managed to catch the school nurse just as she was locking up her room.  She kindly sat me down and went at my finger with a pair of tweezers.  It took her about ten minutes to wrangle the thing out, by which time - aaaaagh - I was predictably fainty and useless. The nurse let me lay my head on a table and gave me a wet towel for the back of my neck.  What a lovely nurse.  I'm in awe of nurses.  How would people like me ever survive without them?

Anyway, I recovered enough to help paint primer on the foamboard that will become the covered wagon, and black paint on one of the lengths of drainpipe that will become the steamboat chimneys.  We're on our way to the Wild West - though the journey looks set (geddit) to be hazardous.

Of geeks, guys and pies

So, it seems as if the Girl had a good time at her geekfest yesterday. She was back there for more today, and came home with a souvenir T-shirt.

Meanwhile the Boy invited a bunch of friends round.  Their plans to produce a music video didn't quite work out, but for several hours there was a lot of fun-being-had noise from the basement, plus some loud rampaging in what remains of the snow in the backyard.

I spent an entire afternoon baking a sweet potato pie.  If I'd read Jamie Oliver's recipe more carefully in the first place I might never have embarked on the project - the potatoes had to be pre-baked, the pastry had to rest in the fridge, then rest again in the freezer before being blind-baked...and on and on.  It took for-bloomin'-ever before anything looking like a pie ended up in the oven.

 

However, it is a pretty nice pie after all that - even the Man says so, and he's not much of a one for vegetable-based desserts. 

Geeks invade Troy

The Man is back!  I picked him from the airport around midnight.

While he slept in this morning, I took the Girl to join some friends who were heading over to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy for the annual Genericon - "a weekend-long geek convention" for those who love all things anime and sci-fi.  We'll perhaps be able to give you a review of that tomorrow (the Girl won't be home until late).

Then I went on to an inaugural meeting of refugee mentors - we've agreed it will be useful to get together occasionally to share concerns and advice about this line of volunteering.

The rest of the day has gone by quietly, spent mostly indoors except for when the Man and I slipped out and had a, to be honest, fairly miserable walk in Thacher Park.  It was bitterly cold up there in the wind, and there's still plenty of snow underfoot which we were not shod for.  Brrr.  We didn't stay long.

The Man adds...the Girl returns at midnight, talking excitedly about having spent the evening watching "Cosplay Chess".  Apparently this involved people dressed as various fantasy and sci-fi characters playing live action chess "for survival in a post apocalyptic world".  Which you must admit, you don't see every day of the week.   

Two blues

Two blue whales, in all their glory:

 

The baby is called Baby Blue.  The big whale is called Big Blue.  "Or maybe we should call it Kid Blue," suggested the Boy with a sly smile, "And we'll make another even bigger one!"