HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA

The Man took me out for a meal tonight and I'm now feeling a little woozy after a glass of wine (gosh, I'm a cheap date) so I'll save the other details of today for tomorrow. But I had a happy birthday, thank you to those who sent gifts or cards or good wishes, and thank you Exile for babysitting.

Thompson's travel

Another day hanging out with the Boy. We went to Altamont. I visited the wool shop and the Boy explored the little-used railway track (have I mentioned that he likes railways?).

Then we tried somewhere new - Thompson's Lake, just up the road from Altamont. There's a tiny beach and lots of camping provision - not that the 'campers', in their well-appointed Winnebagos, seemed to need much providing for.

We also checked out a nearby nature centre, and due to being possibly the first visitors they'd had all day were given a personal guided tour including meet-and-greet with a salamander and a garter snake. The Boy was very impressed by bees in a glass hive.

Back to Altamont then for ice-cream at the Home Front Cafe, before returning home in time to pick up the Girl from craft camp. She came out clutching a beautifully wrapped parcel which she has hidden in her room until tomorrow - that couldn't be for me now, could it?

Slide, Charlie Brown, slide!

What little I know about baseball has been learnt almost exclusively from Peanuts cartoons. This still holds true tonight after my first actual experience of a 'ball game' at the Joe (the Joseph L. Bruno stadium near Troy).

What a weird experience. Every ten minutes a rabbit in a car would drive round the stadium throwing t-shirts into the crowd, or Uncle Sam would start a Mexican wave, or three hotdogs would race each other on mopeds. A glee club led us in a chorus of 'God Bless America', followed by 'Take me Out to the Ball Game'. The tannoy blasted out clapping chants and multiple references to a 'famous' Christopher Walken/cow bells sketch and odd snatches of the theme from Zorba the Greek. There was snack food a-plenty, including Santa-sized sacks of popcorn. Oh, and there was a game being played out on the field, but no-one paid much attention to that. Nice knickerbockers, though.

In the very-nearly-a-year we've been here I have never felt so foreign. Not unpleasantly so, but I don't think I've been in an environment here before where absolutely none of the cultural references had any resonance for me at all. Especially the cow bell related ones.

The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly 'Li'l Anthony', a kid about the size of our Boy who stood up and belted out 'New York, New York', note perfect, and left the stadium slack-jawed with admiration. America's got talent!

There were fireworks at the end, and I must admit it was very enjoyable to be watching them on a balmy night for a change instead of in winter woollies and a persistent November drizzle. That's a cultural shift I am prepared to make.

Cold comfort, farm

The Girl is back at camp this week - 'Eco-crafts'. Today they were making masks out of plastic milk bottles and tomorrow they will be melting down old wax crayons and turning them into candles.

Anyway, that left me hanging out with the Boy. We did a bit of shopping in town, then went up to Indian Ladder Farms hoping to pick raspberries, though apparently they're a bit thin at the moment so we need to come back in a couple of weeks. Still, we bought a few things from the farm shop and admired some of the livestock, so it didn't feel like a wasted journey.

This afternoon the Boy got busy on his own eco-craft project - turning a load of old packing boxes into WALL-E and WALL-E's 'house'. When I say he got busy, what I really mean is I was roped into wielding the scissors and tape while the Boy project-managed.

The boxes had most recently been employed as an 'eco-fridge', though we are now proud to introduce our rather more functional refrigerator. It even dispenses ice and water as designed, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a handy-Man.

Soggy froggy

'No new breakdowns in the house' - ha! What kind of a fool writes something like that?

This kind of a fool! Today we found evidence of damp in one of our ceilings, due to an odd roof arrangement. What larks!

It has been another day of rain and thunderstorms, though the kids managed to get out in the pool by early evening. The Girl spends much of her swimming sessions rescuing beetles and grasshoppers which have fallen into the water. She scoops spiders out, too, though with care since one bit her.

Today we had the excitement of fishing out a frog. No, not this one - a tiny little thing. It hopped away into the soggy yard as soon as it had recovered.

The grass is greener...

...on the under side of the tracks.

The Boy's railway was scenically improved today, to everyone's satisfaction.

Other than that, not much news. As far as I know there were no new breakdowns in the house, so that's definitely a plus.

Zen and the Art of Waste Management

At the supermarket pharmacy today I was trying to pick up a prescription for fluoride tablets for the kids (no fluoride in the water in these parts). A simple matter you'd have thought, but of course it turned out not to be and I had to wait forever while they untangled my health insurance details.

I believe Buddhism teaches that the cause of suffering is wrong expectation. Certainly my expectation of things going smoothly in this country causes me much frustration, an admittedly mild version of suffering, on an almost daily basis. So henceforth I am adjusting my expectations to a very low setting in order to avoid future disappointment.

In this spirit I am not going to be upset that we have recently diagnosed yet another water-related problem in our basement. If anyone is planning on sending me a birthday gift via Amazon, this would be very appropriate. Though naturally, in my new Zen-like state, I will try not to be too disappointed if I don't receive one.