Rain dance kid

We accompanied a motley crew of witches, zombies and a sumo wrestler on a trick-or-treating expedition tonight. The Girl and most of her classmates hunted in a pack, and managed to drag home a goodly haul of candy treasure. Their spirits were not dampened by a torrential downpour, though their outfits were, and the three girls from the party that we eventually brought back to the house for a sleepover were keen to change straight into their pyjamas even though it was still only 7:30pm. Since then they have enjoyed a candy feeding-frenzy and giggle-fest. The night ahead might be a long one.

The Boy, meanwhile, was out with a different group and had a less successful evening having not managed to set out before the rain. He mournfully asked me why there can't be a back-up Halloween for years when there's bad weather.

We haven't had too many visitors to our own house, though the ones that came soon got through our assorted lollies. Probably the most memorable were the nun-and-gorilla duo.

Has anybody out there seen any particularly original costumes this year?

Rooms with a view

The Man took the day off work today and we decided to visit Olana.

Olana was the home of Frederic Church, a 19th Century landscape artist who enjoyed great fame and fortune in his day. He bought land overlooking the Hudson River, and decided to build a Persian style house inspired by his travels in the Middle East. The result is something quite impressive and unique. Although 'Persian theme' today may suggest TV home-makeover-show-style gimmickry, in fact inside and out the design works and makes for an attractive and comfortable-looking home.

Being an artist Church appreciated light, so the house has many large windows. And as a landscape artist he appreciated his surroundings, too, and he planted trees and built a lake to enhance the spectacular views from the large verandahs. Today's weather was grey and cloudy and we weren't seeing the place at its best, but we could imagine how magnificent it would be to look out on a fine day across the river to the Catskill Mountains.

We had a little time left before hurrying home to meet the school bus, so we dropped in on the historic town of Hudson. It has, we've been told, pulled itself up from hard times, and its attractive main street is now lined with art galleries, antique shops and restaurants. There was also this shop, which might be my Dad's Shangri-la.

On the fence?

I spent most of the day sewing, though as it's a Christmas surprise for someone I can't say any more about that.

Our clocks haven't gone back yet so these days it's pretty dark when we first get up. This morning I peered out across the backyard and thought I saw an ENORMOUS squirrel creeping along the fence. But when I looked again, I realised it was just a deer (and no, it wasn't actually on the fence, it was wandering across the yard beyond ours).

Deer are something of a nuisance here to be honest, eating shrubs and spreading ticks (though who lived round here first? Not humans with decorative garden borders, I think), yet I still feel excited when I see them around the place. There's something magical about such large wild animals sharing 'our' habitat.

Potluck

We've been up at school this evening for a potluck dinner - for the Boy's class and younger years. It was not as well attended as usual due to all the recent illness (though many kids are back at school now, so presumably most have not actually had flu). Still it was a good chance to catch up with a couple of people I haven't talked to for a while.

I was raving on to one of them about TED Talks, a favourite diversion at the moment. I can't remember if I've mentioned it before in this blog, but anyway, if you have an empty twenty minute slot in your day sometime - perhaps when you've just poured yourself a cup of coffee - you could do worse than spend the time watching a short lecture about something amazing or amusing or inspiring - sometimes all three. Have fun picking at random from this intellectually stimulating potluck spread.

Back to the school gathering. I sensed I was not alone in being wary in my food choices. With so many germs around there was a risk that anything homemade might not do a person much good. But you only had to look at the luridly colourful store-bought cookies to know that they were never going to do anyone any good. In the end I took my chances with a couple of salad items (one of which I'd prepared myself). Will I be poorly by morning- who knows? I'll just have to take potluck.

Disarming experience

This evening I had a choice of staying at home with my family or going to a talk on the necessity of nuclear arms abolition. I chose the nuclear option.

Now the Cold War is over we tend to forget that the risk of nuclear annihilation is just as horrifically present as it ever was - possibly more so. As humans I think we probably can't cope with contemplating more than, say, a couple of causes of potential total destruction at a time, so while we get our heads round pandemics and global warming, the nuclear issue sits on the back-burner. Dr Lawrence Wittner, tonight's speaker, suggests we come out of denial and take it a bit more seriously, and gave a convincing (to my mind) argument for nuclear abolition - though of course, he was preaching to the choir.

Not literally the choir, though we were sitting in a church. The lecture had been organised by local Catholics, including my neighbour who had invited me. There's a popular misconception in Britain that American Christianity is all extremely conservative and obsessed with banning Harry Potter and opposing gay rights. But there are also plenty of Christians here with a broader (and more broad-minded) agenda, and although I'm no believer I felt quite comfortable in their environment tonight.

'Tis the season to be poorly

For the last few days I've been feeling throaty and under the weather, so today I took myself off to the doctor's. It turns out it's just a viral infection, and not my annual bout of strep throat/tonsillitis. Which is good news I suppose, except that it means I can't take anything that will make it go away more quickly, and if this is a normal year the strep throat proper is still to come.

In any case, with regret I cancelled my after-school sewing class - but as it turned out more than half my group were off sick themselves anyway. In fact fully two thirds of the Boy's class were absent today with a range of coughs, colds and fevers. I guess the 'flu - H1N1 or otherwise - may have arrived in our corner of the northeast.

I could put in a word here about my own kids' current rude good health, but any parent knows that's just asking for trouble.

Patch of sunlight

After yesterday's torrential rain today has been much milder, and we even saw the sun for a while this afternoon (we've been short on sun this Fall). We made another apple-picking trip to Indian Ladder Farms - still teaming with happily appley customers - and lugged home a bagload. The man in the orchard booth also invited us to help ourselves to a souvenir from amongst the remaining stray pumpkins in the patch. Here I am, stalking one:

Grave error

The Man writes...we've had nearly two inches of rain today. Respect to the four or five stall holders who turned up for the local Famers' Market and stood in heavy rain all morning with undampened spirits. When I went down there were no other discernible customers but plenty of cheerful stoicism on display along with the fudge, cheeses and leafy greens.

In the afternoon I took the ninja Boy and zombie cow-Girl to a fancy dress Halloween party. Having been misinformed, we turned up - rather unfashionably - all of an hour early, so we beat a hasty retreat to the nearest "Stewarts" where the kids warmed-up for the party candy-fest with ice-creams that were (as usual) bigger than their heads.

The party was relatively ghoul free for the time of year. However, there was a large grey tombstone in the living room which read "RIP" and below that, "Your Name Here", which seemed a bit er... near the knuckle.

I was frequently asked if we do Halloween in England. I can't really remember anymore. Do we?

Japanese Boy?

I was running around doing Fair Trade-related errands this morning, then in town investigating curtain fabric at lunchtime for a soft-furnishing project.

I realised I was feeling hungry, and suddenly had a yen (geddit?) for Japanese food, so took myself out to lunch. Pretty good. There are many Japanese restaurants in this part of the world, all entirely staffed by Chinese people as far as I can tell. I do like the presentation of a Japanese lunch, everything arranged in a compartmentalised serving box so that each kind of food is distinct and doesn't interfere with another.

The Boy prefers this style of eating, too, and does not care to mix foodstuffs willy-nilly on a single plate if he has anything to do with it. Perhaps he has some throwback Japanese ancestory - though off the top of my head I can't think of a single item of Japanese cuisine he would ever eat. Well, rice, I suppose - but do Rice Krispies count in this context?

The Invisible Woman

I was waiting outside the local High School this afternoon. It's not a place where I usually loiter, but I was supposed to meet a young Fair Trade friend there. It was turning out time, so I was surrounded by teenagers in their prime. There's nothing like being around teenagers to make you feel really old - much worse than being with smaller kids.

I felt, like, soooooo geriatric?

I might also have felt awkward and conspicuous, but luckily being over forty years old rendered me completely invisible to them all.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I was never really a teenager myself - too square. I tell you, turning forty was such a relief, like reaching a place that deep down I'd always known I belonged.

My High School associate never materialized (though we don't know each other well - perhaps she just didn't see me) so I waited in vain for half an hour, before finally creaking away.

Garden room, deceptively spacious, fully furnished

Hands up if you've ever seen a woodpecker in Britain. I bet you haven't (even if you live there). I've heard them in the woods there often enough, but the British woodpecker is (in my experience) a shy bird and rarely shows itself.

Not so the American woodpecker. They show up all over the place. There were loads of them in the garden this morning, pecking their way up and down our pine tree. Maybe the rise in temperature over the last couple of days had tempted some tasty insects out.

One small woodpecker even spent quite a long time investigating the bird box that the Boy and I made and put up over the summer - only the second bird I've ever seen go near it. The woodpecker spent a long time peeping in the entrance hole, and even popped inside for a bit. I like to think it was admiring the walls, on which (before we nailed the lid down) the Boy had drawn assorted furniture and pictures in frames for the comfort and enjoyment of prospective tenants.

Fraction of the cost

Yesterday at dinnertime the Man was teaching his son fractions through the medium of strawberries.

Man: There are four strawberries in the bowl. If I take away half of them, how many are left? But if I only take away a quarter of them...?

OK. Now, what's a quarter plus a quarter?

Boy (joyfully): Fifty cents!

That's my Boy - always right on the money.

Handmade tales

Today I finished reading The Boy who Harnessed the Wind, the true story of a Malawian boy, William Kamkwamba, who at age 14 saw a picture of a wind turbine in a library book and set about making his own out of what he could find in a scrapyard. His achievement in the face of much adversity is pretty awe-inspiring, and I recommend the book.

Not exactly inspirational, but fun anyway, this afternoon's school sewing project featured my new favourite theme: pumpkins. The kids (in spite of themselves in some cases) all managed to complete one. A very modest accomplishment, maybe, but our own.

A leaf out of their mother's book

It was a day for raking leaves, jumping in piles of leaves and heaping up leaves by the side of the road.

Plus it seems I'm not the only one in this family who likes pressing leaves...

A Fair to Remember

Well, it was another great Fall Fair at school today. Unlike some school fairs, this one isn't run principally as a fundraiser, and although there are nominal charges to play games parents don't have to spend the whole event saying "How much??" and "No, you can't have another go!" to their children - which makes for a happy and relaxed atmosphere all round.

The Instant Raffle was a storming success and was pretty much over in an hour and a half. There were several other equally popular stalls, including the Silly Toss (throwing unlikely objects into unlikely containers) and Squirt the Candle. I was persuaded to help out briefly on the face-painting stall, and achieved a passable Devil and a slightly blurry looking bunny (the little girl I was painting was very sweet but couldn't sit still for the life of her).

And then there was the Fall Fair regular feature: the hired climbing wall. This year the Man shamed me into having a go. It wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be, but it still felt like an achievement, and managing to reach the top was in many senses the high point of my day.

Tat's the way I like it!

A letter went out at school about a week ago requesting donations for the tombola (aka Instant Raffle) that will be part of tomorrow's Fall Fair. This evening I was on hand to help set things out - and my, what a lot of things there are!



And by George, I think this year our American school community has really got it. Although there are some items that are frankly too good for this kind of stall...

...others are absolutely spot on.

The detail is in the Devil

All that talk of pumpkins yesterday - plus the thought of the pumpkin display at the upcoming school Fall Fair - got me in carving mood. So off I went to Indian Ladder Farms to get me some gourds.

First I reprised last year's Peace Pumpkin (see link in the last entry). Then the Girl designed something a little more devilish for me to carve, and insisted on the addition of horns and twisty tail. I think it has come out rather well.

I'm taking a break now, but will work on the Boy's effort tomorrow.

Also today I helped the Girl sew a ragdoll, made pumpkin soup (of course!) and had my hair cut. No-one has said anything complimentary about the latter yet, so perhaps that was also a bit of a carve-up?

Halloween horror story

We're nearly halfway through October, so Halloween fever is setting in. One of the Girl's classmates came round after school today for a sewing lesson - I'm helping her make a Laura Ingalls-Wilder dress as a costume. The Girl is thinking along more ghoulish lines - but more on that, no doubt, at the end of the month.

Halloween is in the headlines, too. It was reported this week that Americans spent $5.7 billion on Halloween last year. That's more than twice the GDP of several developing countries. Even more appallingly, the financial commentator on the radio seemed distressed that, due to the recession, people might decide to spend a bit less this year.

So it's evidently my patriotic duty to go out and buy rubber masks, eyeball candies and death-related lawn ornaments...

Oh go on then, maybe I'll push the boat out and buy myself a pumpkin.

Accentuate the negative

I'm working on getting back my skating legs. Today I had my third go on the ice this season. The first time was a couple of weeks ago, when I fell over twice - well, it had been six months. The last couple of times I've managed to stay upright, but I'm still taking things gingerly, and only slowly trying to remember the manouevres I'd started learning back in March.

It really does feel like skating season already. Tonight temperatures are dropping into the low 30sF, and there's even talk of snow later in the week. Too soon! I want a chance to enjoy the Fall first.

At the party yesterday I learnt that a friend of a friend who was recently in Britain says people there are very unhappy at the moment and that it's not a great place to be - can anyone reading this in the UK confirm or deny? Meanwhile here in the States someone is launching a movement to introduce Americans to negativity, with a book called Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. So there we go, this place could soon really feel like a home from home.

Party animals

Columbus Day, so (yet again) no school.

The best part of the day was spent at a yard party, one of the regular events in our social calendar out here, highly rated for good company, excellent food and bouncy slide. Other features this year were a petting zoo and pony rides, and a huge birthday cake which I ate too much of. The Man was at work, but the rest of us had a great time as usual. I was the envy of the other adults there for remembering to take gloves - we're entering a cold snap. The younger guests, meanwhile, put out so much energy and heat going up and down the slide that they'd have been happy in summer shorts and t-shirts - and indeed many of them were. Brr.

Here are a couple of pictures taken yesterday during a late afternoon hike on the Indian Ladder trail. It was as busy as we'd ever seen it up there with people enjoying the autumn colours, though you'd still hardly have called it crowded.

Melting moments

When we went to Lake Placid a few weeks ago we found that our hotel room had a microwave oven in it. We decided to make use of this facility and self-cater a couple of meals, so we bought a pasta dish to heat up. But the room didn't come with cutlery, so we bought ourselves some of that too, and as it was on special offer we picked a box of biodegrable knives and forks.

They are made out of cornstarch or something, and to look at they appear to be much like any disposable 'silverware'. But as we cheerfully tucked into our steaming pasta we discovered a major distinction:











they can't take the heat.

This little piggy...

The threatened rain held off again this morning, which was good for me as I was back at the market touting my fair trade info. But it was cold, and as the wind picked up I was hard pressed to keep control of my poster display which kept trying to fly away. All the other stall-holders were set up under large gazebos, and around midday a mighty gust of wind caught a couple of them and sent them bouncing across the market. One had been covering the musicians - the accordion-players again (they're growing on me) - but they gamely played on in true Titanic spirit as their shelter scuttered away.

I gave up fighting the weather and packed up soon after that. The Man and the kids had turned up by then, so we did a quick market tour, admired this piglet and then the Girl bought herself a foot-long hotdog with no apparent twinges of conscience.

I spent the afternoon thawing out. Meanwhile the Man and Girl went apple-picking at Indian Ladder Farms, where the trees are still groaning with fruit, in spite of gale-force winds.

Joining the Nobelity

I was dozing this morning with the radio on and dreamt I heard them announce that Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...

OMG, he actually has won it. It's too bizarre. What's got into the Nobel Committee? I mean, I like Obama, and potentially he may turn out to do a great job. When he addressed the UN recently I cheered because he was saying the things I wanted an American President to say. Generally I like what (I think) he stands for. But he hasn't had time to prove himself yet. I hate to sound just like a conservative commentator, but it appears he has been given a Nobel Prize for not being George W. Bush. And laudable though it is not to be Dubya, I don't know that it's enough to merit this level of acclamation, at this stage of the game.

The award is an absolute gift to the rabid far-right-wingers who already accuse Obama of having a Messiah-complex. And it has to be yet another burden of expectation placed on shoulders bearing plenty of that kind of weight already.

The genuinely humble, and politically astute course for Obama would surely have been politely to turn the thing down. To be honest it troubles me a little that he hasn't. Because I think he may find he is accepting a poisoned chalice.

Thanks but no thanks

I've just got in from my book group meeting. I was late arriving there as I'd been at another meeting before that, so I completely missed out on discussing the book (The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein) and instead got to join in the food conversation that often follows on these occasions. We fell to talking about sweet potatoes, and it was revealed that traditionally at Thanksgiving Americans serve sweet potatoes with marshmallows. I must have looked so horrified that everyone laughed, so to be sporting I tried to come up with some equally revolting-sounding British delicacy - but couldn't think of anything. Help me out!

Indefinite leaves to remain

It has been a wild and windy day with sudden squally showers, and tonight it's even wilder and windier. A tree in our backyard which was still quite leafy this morning is now practically bare.

Most of the leaves that were on it are now in our pool, which, sad to say, is not yet closed for the winter - the guy is booked to do that tomorrow. So I foresee a busy morning ahead scooping out as many leaves as possible before we fix the cover down. I'm hoping the weather will have become a bit calmer by then.

Sorted

An ongoing task for me at the moment is the sorting of stuff, and the getting rid of some of it. As an added impetus, there's going to be another tombola (or 'Instant Raffle' as we've renamed it) at the school's Fall Fair. I hadn't realized what a big hit that had been last year - it's actually back by popular demand!! So I need to generate some junk, ahem, desirable things to donate. I'm doing quite well - I've already managed to fill an entire basement closet with items 'to go'.

Here's a picture taken on Sunday morning down at Five Rivers. Fall isn't quite at full throttle yet, though the colours are coming.

We come in pieces

Alien invasion in the after-school sewing class today - we were making little guys like this:

It was the usual chaos. The kids all have the habit of rushing into the task without waiting to find out what they need to do, which demonstrates admirable enthusiasm I suppose but results in quite a lot of unpicking. But they all seemed happy enough, and most managed to take away something finished or nearly finshed at the end of our hour together.

And I was totally finished by then, I don't mind admitting.

Market (fair) trader

I had a fun time down at the market yesterday. In the end it was mercifully dry so I was there for the duration - a full four hours - and managed to catch up with friends, chat to some new people and distribute about a hundred "passports" for our town's Fair Trade Shop Hop (a promotion for local stores carrying fair trade goods). And of course there was plenty of opportunity for classic people-watching, too.

With my display of posters and leaflets, I clearly wasn't at the market to sell vegetables or home-made jam. It's always amusing being on an is-it-religious-or-political-and/or-are-they-after-my-money?-type stall. It's not unlike being one of those annoying charity tin-rattlers on the High Street (and, oh yes, I've done my share of that). A lot of people try to slip by "without noticing" you. You see them coming towards you and you can count them down - 1,2,3 and look away...NOW! They don't even want to know what you're peddling, so sure are they that they don't want any part of it.

I don't really blame them, I know I've done it myself before now. It's just funny to watch. There are others who likewise don't want to know, but at least manage a cheerful "How ya doin?" as they walk (very) briskly past. But yesterday enough paused for long enough (after I'd caught their eyes) to read a poster, pick up a leaflet and find out that I wasn't pushing anything too scary. Quite a few even decided my stall was cool!

Waits and measures

The Man writes...The Boy and I are holding the fort while Albaniana and the Girl are out dancing the night away with Indian friends to celebrate the end of a festival of dance. We've been reading an ancient space book together and have just learnt that tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Luna 3, a Soviet probe which sent the first pictures of the far side of the moon. Which seems like a fairly significant milestone to me.

It's been a day of constant coming and going under leaden skies. Both children had friends round, while Albaniana spent the morning at the Farmer's Market promoting Fair Trade month.

The Girl complained to me a few days ago that she didn't see why she had to learn how many feet there are in a mile. I don't have any evidence that she has actually been asked to learn this, but judging from the newly installed playground at our local elementary school, some people think it's an important number to know. It's a reminder of how embedded "English units" are here still.

The heater's on

Today I spent some time preparing a Fair Trade display to take to the Farmers' Market tomorrow (though the forecast is for rain and more rain, so my nice posters mounted on cardboard may rapidly end up looking like papier mache). For readers this side of the Pond - we're officially in Fair Trade Month! Time to invite your friends round for a fair trade supper, or take FT coffee or chocolate to share at work, or... visit this site for more ideas.

Temperatures seem to be dropping by the day. This afternoon, having added layers to myself to no avail, I put the heating on for the first time in months. Meanwhile the yard is starting to disappear under a blanket of fallen leaves - 'tis raking season again.

Cruise control

So, the choice of activities for today was (a) do the housework or (b) go on a cruise. I hummed and hahhed about that for, oo, maybe thirty seconds, before jumping in the car and getting myself down to the dock.

Now when I say "cruise" that perhaps conjures up images of sunshine, scenic views and general relaxation. But this particular cruise was on the Hudson River in October, out of Albany. With a bunch of school-kids (the Boy and his classmates).

It happened to be overcast today, and extremely cold. So we were shivering on the deck as the boat (the Dutch
Apple cruiser) slipped past the petrochemical plants and car-crushing depots that comprise the main sights along this section of the river. There was a cruise commentary to give us some local history, but the PA system was a little feeble and anyway it was almost impossible to hear over the din of excited seven and eight year-olds taking photos of each other.



But I'm being much too negative. It was actually great fun spotting river-craft and wildlife, and grockling at the multi-million dollar bankside homes once we got beyond the industrial Port of Albany. And the kids all had a blast. Especially when - shiver me timbers cap'n! - they got to steer the boat!