New Year's freeze

The weather forecast predicted that 2 to 4 inches of snow might fall today. But we've ended up with more like ten. And the temperature an hour and a quarter before our New Year begins is 8F (about -13C), and falling as fast as the stock exchange.

We've just returned from a New Year's/Rock Band/Wallace and Gromit party with the Exiles and friends. The Boy is set on staying up until midnight, but he might be doing it alone.

We wish you health, happiness and all good things for 2009. Happy New Year!

Play it again, Man

This is the 500th installment of the Albaniana blog. What you make of it all I don't really know, though I hope you generally enjoy being along for the ride. For myself I'm happy rambling away, and like having the opportunity to get things off my chest from time to time. There have been tears and laughter. Some of your entries in the caption competitions have been quite inspired. But feedback suggests that the most popular episode to date has been one involving few words...

I(heart)NY bureaucracy

Good old New York State! Thanks to your bureaucratic incompetence I'm set to make a killing on WALL-E toys!

D'you remember way back when I tried to apply for my state driving licence? I'd been wrongly informed - by the Social Security Office, no less - that I wasn't eligible for a Social Security Number, so I was one point short of the six points of ID needed for the licence application. I was advised to sign up with discount supermarket BJs - the last line of defence in the war on terror, apparently - to obtain definitive photo-evidence of my identity. I wondered at the time if I'd ever recoup the $45+tax sign-up fee.

Well, I could be quids (or is that greenbacks?) in now! Sometime in October I was in BJs failing to shop (I feel obliged occasionally to exercise my membership rights by just going there) and found a boxed set of four small WALL-E action figures. At $17.50 they didn't seem to be giving them away, but I reckoned the Boy would appreciate them for Christmas, so I bought them.

Would you adam-and-eve it - the exact same boxed set is now retailing on Amazon for $130!

So, all I have to do now is prise the little figures back out of my son's loving grasp and e-bay here I come...

Rawsome recipes

My parents-in-law kindly sent us some money for Christmas, and the Man chose a gift to buy with it so that at least one of us would be surprised. He chose a recipe book: The Complete Book of Raw Food, which boasts over 400 recipes from the world's top raw food chefs.

I hadn't realised there were specialist raw food chefs. Anyway, what a great idea! Healthy food, and bound to be quick to prepare since you don't have to cook anything...

Oh, no no no no no no.

Granted, there are plenty of recipes for smoothies and the like that just require you to chuck a load of fruit and/or veg (and garlic!) into a (very expensive) blender. But there are also pages of recipes that start like this:

Advanced prep: 2 to 3 days for sprouting and soaking, + 24 to 36 hours for dehydrating.

That's for 'Grawnola', a version of breakfast cereal. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm prepared to wait four and half days for breakfast. Not to mention the bizarreness of having to spend 3 days hydrating the ingredients and another day and a half drying them out again.

Then there's 'Thai Wild Rice with Spring Vegetables', which starts with you having to soak half a pound of rice for 4 days. For crying out loud! Cook the damn rice - it'll only take 20 minutes!

However, I think once we've got our heads round this different approach to food preparation we're sure to find some real delights in the book. What our absurdly fussy children will make of raw cauliflower soup and sun-dried tomato pesto nut loaf remains to be seen (though I'll take a wild stabbing guess...).

Z-factor

Ever wondered what happens to the contestants who don't win X-Factor or Pop Idol? Today we found out what three also-rans from American Idol 2007 find themselves doing: Albany, on an outdoor stage in late December. And though Albany has its charms, well, it's still... Albany.

We were downtown with some friends for the annual Winterfest on a dampish afternoon. Performances and activities (such as fun-runs and llama-petting) were taking place at various locations, but we concentrated on City Hall where we ended up watching quite a good reptile show. Reptile shows are emerging as a major feature of most public events, parties and museums we attend. We've come to regard them as top entertainment: you see what I mean about Albany?

After the reptiles we wandered outside for the closing ceremony, featuring the aforementioned Z-listers (they weren't bad, actually, though a couple of them did fancy themselves enormously considering), and a firework display. Funny how firework displays always go on about ten minutes longer than strictly necessary when you are standing outside in the cold.

Tonight we have just been watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on DVD, with lots of 'This is a good bit! Oh, this bit is REALLY funny!' from the kids, who had seen it before on an aeroplane. An official notice at the start of the film warned that we might be offended by instances of 'mildly rude humor' - and indeed, there were several 'hilarious' butt jokes.

Walking on the white

The Man writes...today we had our first go at snow-shoeing. The adult snow shoes really do look like large tennis rackets and take a bit of getting used to, but the childrens' versions are pretty nifty and our kids soon got the hang of them...and then wanted to go home.

The Girl then went out for a playdate while the rest of us enjoyed our new toys and books.

On Christmas Eve I listened on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) to "The Shepherd", a short story by Frederick Forsyth. Apparently, it was the thirtieth consecutive year that CBC has broadcast this story on Christmas Eve. Certainly The Shepherd is a good story, but I find it curious how some programs become adopted as firm Christmas fixtures, and how appealing tradition is at this time of year.

Christmas post

I hope you all had a merry Christmas, however you celebrated it. Did Santa bring you good things? We've just got home from a secular Jewish Christmas party. It was fun, and the food was fabulous, just too much of it. I need a long sleep now.

Was anyone given anything particularly notable that they would like to tell us about?

It must be Christmas...

...because we've just had to listen to It Must Be Christmas, a compilation cd of the world's most irritating Christmas songs (and let's face it, that's all of them) sung badly by a bunch of Cockney session singers. The kids think it is the best cd ever, bar none. They sing and dance along to it for hours. Thank you Maths Expert for 'letting us' keep it a few years ago after I'd borrowed it for the playgroup Christmas Fair. I've been thinking of you, all evening.

Strangely, since it is not yet midnight as I write, I have 'dun wrappin'. In fact I had everything prepared and the house in order before dusk (after a whole day of tidying and cleaning). I've never been ready for Christmas so early, and frankly I find it a bit unnerving. What have I forgotten?

Checking in on NORAD Tracks Santa I see that the man in red is currently in New Brunswick, Canada, so he may be with us soon... quick, better get the mince pie and carrot out on the front step!

Insanity Claus

The Girl is out on an extended playdate-and-sleepover with two of her best friends from school - we dropped her off this morning. That gave the Boy a chance to Christmas shop for his sister and then come home and enjoy unimpeded access to the computer while I quietly got on with some wrapping business.

This evening we collected the Man from work and joined the long queues of traffic for the mall. Apparently there is still a recession on, but judging by the hoards out shopping tonight you wouldn't think so. They're probably still there now - the mall is open until midnight, at which magic hour the real die-hards can move on to Walmart which is open all night.

Even late into the evening a long line of children at the mall were waiting to be photographed with Santa, who must be crazy to be wasting his time on such nonsense so close to his biggest night of the year.

Notta lotta bottle

The kids and I went looking for a hot water bottle for the Man today, for Christmas. It's what he especially wants.

Could we find one anywhere? Could we heck. It's very hard to get any device here that doesn't need plugging in (unless it's a kettle - for some reason Americans seem very attached to the whistling stove-top kind). We tried asking in several shops, but were met with mystification and directions either to the flasks section or to the surgical appliances department where we found plug-in heated arthritis pads.

The nearest we got to what we were after did look a lot like a hot water bottle, but turned out to be one of those grain-filled things you heat up in a microwave. Which would have meant us having to buy a microwave, too.

Ah well. On really cold nights the Man and I will just have to resort to our old trick of popping one of the kids in the bed to warm up our sheets for a couple of hours before we turn in for the night.

Snow - more!

It's officially the first day of winter. No kidding!

All white now

About eleven inches of snow had settled by this morning, so the driveway took some shovelling. It continued to snow gently for most of the day so we must have accumulated another three inches. Yet more is expected tomorrow. Snow, it goes on.

The kids rushed out to sled straight after breakfast (oh, it's great, the first major snow, before it's been around so long we're all fed up with it). After lunch we had another long sledding session. The snow was so powdery it felt almost dry.





Then I took the Girl over to the ice rink for her skating lesson. I'd been on the ice myself yesterday, for my own lesson. It's very hard. Skating, I mean. Though so is the ice when you fall over on it, which I did.

We then ummed and ahhed about heading off in the snow to the other side of Albany for a birthday party. In the end, since the route was all on major roads, we decided to chance it. There were sporty activities, followed by food, followed by bouncy castle action.

You'd think the children would be tired after such an active day. You would (sigh) be wrong.

Sledding galore!

So proclaimed the Girl this evening, after several hours of snowfall left us with many inches of whiteness. 'Sledding's the law?' queried the Boy, in amazement.

Everyone was home early today on account of the weather - the kids around lunchtime and the Man mid-afternoon. The three of them sledded on the slope across the road while the snow was still coming down. I stayed inside in the warm.

This morning I was at school again for the annual Peace Assembly. Due to all the unscheduled days off recently the event was a little under-rehearsed. The Girl's class effort, a demonstration of sitting in contemplative silence, looked to me like a fine example of winging it. The Boy's class sang a number called 'We All Sing With One Voice'. That'd be 'all' except the Boy - he refused because the song was 'dumb'.

The Winter Break has officially begun, and we've hit the sled run towards Christmas. We feel pretty confident it's going to be a white one.

Whizzing by

I've spent most of the day doing pre-Christmas jobs, because the holidays are nearly upon us - yikes!

I also made a trip up to school to deliver a big box of t-shirts and sweatshirts which I'd had to sort through matching up shirts to orders, a surprisingly complicated business. I'm glad to have that responsibility over with. We had a fair number of orders and made some profit, and the shirts have come out well (though not according to the Boy, who took one look at the t-shirt I'd ordered for him and cried 'Yuk! I HATE it!' Gee, thanks, Boy).

When the kids got home the Girl was very keen to go sledding down the slope in our-neighbours-opposite's yard. Both kids enjoyed having a go. I'd have taken photos of them, but it was already dark and anyway they were going too fast.

In between times I've been scratching my head over a load of quiz questions emailed by Royal Rockfish - books and their authors, identified by initial letters only. I keep going back to them when really I should be writing Christmas cards. They are driving me quietly crazy.

Snow start

We awoke this morning to that eery silence that can only mean - snow! About three inches thick, so the Man got out there and did his first shovelling of the season. Much more is expected on Friday, so watch this space.

I had a routine medical check up this morning. Though as it turned out, just the first stage of it. I have to go and have blood drawn somewhere else, and a mammogram (standard procedure once you're in your 40s here) and some other tests next month. Lovely.

In the mailbox was a note from my dentist, a 'friendly reminder' that I have an appointment in the New Year - 'It's time for your dental examination. This time is reserved exclusively for you.' So, they're not planning on examining someone else's teeth instead of mine during the appointment, then? That's good, I suppose. The Man reckons they must be feeling the pinch, what with the recession and all, and have been wondering what to do about it. Ah ha! Let's get that Albaniana in - she's always good for a few bucks!

Empty Bowls

Tonight was Empty Bowls night at school, highlighting hunger in the world. Every child in the school had made a pottery bowl in art class, and these were displayed for parents to buy - all monies going to a local homeless shelter. The Eighth Graders gave a presentation of facts they had learnt about world hunger and showed us this video (bear with the blurry opening).

The director of the shelter then spoke about the plight of local homeless people, and the older kids served us soup they'd made themselves.

Coming so soon after the cold and discomfort that many of us experienced during the recent power cut, the evening made us even more keenly aware than usual that generally we want for nothing, and that we can and should do more for those in less fortunate circumstances.

Oh the weather outside is...

...unusually mild, actually. The ice has melted away as temperatures have soared up into the 50s. This must be at least a slight relief for those still enduring the power outage.

The children and I spent the day at home, which was fun - if by fun you mean having to play Monopoly for eight hours only to end up losing to a six year-old. Also we had the neighbours' kids round for a while, which is always slightly dicey as the older of the two (who is five) knows no boundaries when it comes to rearranging the Boy's carefully constructed train layouts. Ah well, everyone lived to play another day.

The Man took the Girl to the library this evening and they were gone so long that the Boy started a stamp collection. So far it features US and UK stamps. If you happen to know our address, feel free to send samples for his album. You could even add a letter or a Christmas card in the envelope, if you like...

The Man was disconcerted to see children and grown women at the library with their noses painted bright red, and wondered what strange religious cult was meeting there. It was only on the way out that he saw a leaflet advertising a "Reindeer family event" tonight. Which went some way (but not all the way) to explaining things.

Ice and easy does it

It's been kid city round at our place today. The Girl had a last minute sleepover guest last night who ended up staying with us 'til midday, and meanwhile the Exiles arrived en masse seeking refuge from their still-cold house. Then more friends appeared in the afternoon - it was a non-stop party.


The Man and the Exile busied themselves doing manly stuff with a chainsaw. Least of our problems during the power outage, the ice storm on Thursday had brought down a tree in our backyard which needed to be dealt with.

Ice - so beautiful, so destructive.


The Exiles' electricity was restored during the afternoon, so they are back in their own home again. School, however, is still without power, so tomorrow will be another unscheduled day off for the kids.

The heat is on!

And oh how good it feels! Thirty-seven and a half hours without power was no laughing matter. Stumbling about by torch and candlelight soon lost its charm, the temperature indoors dropped down to the low 40sF (around 6C), and we couldn't even make a warming cup of tea or slice of toast.

Worst of all was having to crawl out of a cosy sleeping bag several times during the night in order to trek down to the basement and plunge hands into the icey water of the sump as we bailed it out with bottles and a baked bean can. Really not fun. And to make matters even more depressing, we had no way of knowing when it would all end.

After some initial excitement, the kids decided they were not impressed. Luckily friends stepped in and invited them to warmer houses during the daytime. And last night we ate out at our local diner, bringing home takeaway for the Man who stayed home on sump duty.

I'm not ashamed to say that I whooped for joy when at 3:45 this afternoon, just as I was halfway through bailing, the sump pump suddenly churned back into action and the boiler (furnace) hummed with life again.

As I write, friends of ours (including the Exiles) and hundreds of thousands across the Northeast are still minus power, and there are people in more remote areas who might not be reconnected until the middle of the week. We've had a fairly miserable couple of days, but all things considered it looks like we got off lightly.

Ice stops blog

Thursday's ice storm turned out to be the worst to hit the Northeast for twenty-one years. Innocuous looking rain froze up to an inch thick everywhere it landed, bringing down trees, branches and power-lines across the region. Something like a million properties are without power - including ours. I'm blogging from a nice warm cafe, but at home it's freezing for we have no source of heat that doesn't require electricity. But we can't just abandon the house until power is restored (which may not be for some days) because the sump pump in the basement isn't running, but water is and we have to keep bailing out, including through the night, to avoid a flood.

What larks!

So anyway, blogging may be a bit intermittent for a day or two, depending on how things go. Normal service will be resumed in due course.

Weather watch

It has been a day of nervous glances out of the window, waiting to see what the weather would do. A winter storm watch was upgraded to a warning - something was going to hit.

In our immediate area it has mostly been freezy rain today, with snow and ice forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Others in the region are expecting either a foot of snow or lethal ice storms.

Nevertheless I managed to get out for coffee with a friend and to run a few errands before being notified that the kids would be coming home early. And later in the afternoon we were able to get to the library safely, where we admired the icicles forming on car bumpers in the parking lot.

Other news: needles on fire! I'm knitting like a woman possessed! I finished this today - intended for the Boy, but he didn't like it so the Girl has appropriated it instead.

Ho-ho hooray

I have to admit, we were expecting to spend Christmas Day being the original Norm No-Mates family. But we've been invited to a party! Our used-to-be-British friend (she of the annual Hallowe'en/panto parties) is hosting a get-together for the waifs and strays of her acquaintance - or at any rate, others who for whatever reason are not going to be spending the holidays with extended family.

With a bit of luck this year's Christmas will involve less heave and more ho ho ho. And there's a chance of some classier festive fayre than last year, too - although with talk of Marmite appearing on the menu (in our honour...) I may be wrong there.

Can we knit it?

Yes we can!

If this is anything to go by, anyway. Is there anything that cannot be knitted? Suggestions, please.

Here's my latest little effort (actual size!).

Back tracking

The Man writes...it's a little known fact that the gravitational slingshot - the technique by which a deep space probe accelerates as it swings round a planet on its journey into outer space - was invented by a NASA engineer who had been trying for a week to locate the car park below Empire State Plaza in central Albany.

An interstate takes you all the way in, but next moment you find yourself coming out on the opposite side of the road having missed the secret entrance and in the certain knowledge that you won't be able to turn around before you're halfway home again.

Down below the plaza is a vast subterranean mall - although naturally everything apart from McDonalds is closed at weekends - and a large exhibition hall. When I finally found the way in, it was a great pleasure to take the Boy there again yesterday for the annual "Great Train Extravaganza".

There were actually only four model railways on display - far fewer than you would find at Shelford village hall for example - but the layouts were large and fun, and there was plenty of interesting and modestly priced train stuff on sale. When one of his best friends appeared, the Boy was delighted to take him off on a bargain hunt, and found some items that were almost as 'cheap as (McDonalds) chips'.

Fir too big?

Maybe I'd got carried away with yesterday's festive knitting fun, but for some reason I caved in to the kids' request to go out and buy a Christmas tree today. We don't usually do that until much later in December.

Is there an expression along the lines of 'bitten off more than you can chew' pertaining to buying Christmas trees? I feared that's what we'd done as we wrangled the monster fir off the car roof and in through the front door. I guess that's just what happens when you tree-shop at an any-size-the-same-price outfit - it's so tempting to try and really get your money's worth.

Thankfully we'd invested in a proper tree stand last year, so we didn't have to spend two hours precariously balancing a nine foot tree in a too-small bucket stuffed with bricks. We did have to buy an extra string of lights, though, so that the illuminations didn't stop halfway up.

Anyway, here it is all decorated. What d'you think? You have to admit it does spruce up our living room - does it make you pine to be with us?

Stocking up

I'm on a re-skilling roll! Skating yesterday, and this morning I took a knitting class at the wool shop in Altamont. There were about eight of us sitting round for two and half hours with our needles. We were all very quiet - concentrating much too hard for chatting.

I've ended up with this little thing. Yes, it's a somewhat pointless object, but I learnt all sorts of useful code-cracking skills making it (I now understand what 'knit two together from the back' means, for example, and how to do elementary Fair Isle).

Any knitters out there who would like to make a very tiny stocking (as a subtle hint to loved ones not to expect too many presents this Christmas?), you can find the pattern for it (and other silly but nice things) here.

Skating round the issues?

I took my first skating lesson today. I know now what it's like to be the recipient of full-on US-style positivity - 'Good jaaab!' (for falling over correctly) and 'You're some of the best beginners I've ever taught!' (gawd bless you, lady, but I wouldn't want to meet the worst).

But, the upshot is I can now skate backwards (a little bit, and v-e-r-y slowly) and have slightly more sense of how skating works. Tune in over the next five weeks for progress updates.

And tonight I'm feeling pleasantly full and mildly sloshed (which nicely anaesthetises the aches and pains acquired earlier) after a book group meeting. After all, if you're discussing a book about famine you might as well appreciate the refreshments. Or something like that.

The Frogman cometh

The other day we opened the cover of the swimming pool in order to chuck in a winter chlorine boost, and were shocked to discover this:


No, not the frogman (he came along later). The surprise was the unexpectedly low water level. This was not good. Where had the rest of it gone?

It could only mean one thing - we needed an expensive visit from our maintenance guy. And we thought the pool was a hole in the ground you threw money into just in the summer.

So the guy duly turned up today, donned his extra-thick wetsuit and plunged into what remained of our icey-cold water (38-40 degF he reckoned). He found four leaks in the vinyl pool lining (small ones, but significant enough) and managed to get them sealed before his fingers froze off.

I think if I ever decide to be a pool guy I'll be one in Florida.

One fine day

The Man needed the car for work today, leaving me stranded at home. I wanted to get to a post office - what to do? I hung my head in gloom. And saw my feet. Which gave me an idea.

It was a lovely walk to the post office - cold air, bright sunshine. Not the nearest PO as the crow flies, but to get there would have involved either a round-the-houses, up-hill-and-down-dale detour or a hair-raising hike along a dual carriageway. Instead I stomped on beyond the library and into our nearest town, where there is also an excellent cafe, so that was all good. And on the way home I ran into a school-mom-friend and stopped for a chat, and that was good too. Simple pleasures.

The Girl is fit as a fiddle again and was glad to get back to school today to see her friends. Here she is in demure schoolGirl mode.

Ad Nauseam

Still not much to report regarding snow, but that other sure sign of winter has arrived chez nous: the Girl kicked off the chucking up season this morning and had to spend the day at home. She seems to be fine now, and I'm just hoping we're not in for a repeat of last year (refer to pretty much every other day last winter if you don't know what I'm talking about).

Meanwhile the Boy has brought home his school photos. Here he is all twinkly in his individual shot, looking rather suspiciously pleased about something. And surprise surprise, in his class photo he's right there on the front row, eyes closed and gurning. Lovely job.

Super-sized weekend

I mentioned back on Tuesday that it felt like Friday had come early. Well, that being so we've just had the longest weekend ever: the kids have even had today off, on top of the regular Thanksgiving holiday.

The highlight of the day was a visit to the ice-rink, together with one of the Girl's classmates. I was very impressed that the Girl had managed to remember most of the techniques she'd learnt during her skating lessons last season, despite the many months that have passed since then.

Other than that, I did a bit of caulking of minor cracks around the outside of the house. I'm hoping now that when the snow finally comes, then melts, it won't all run directly into our basement.