Every time I get out of Port Authority, I am reminded that I live in New Paltz. When I lived in NYC, the smells of the city seemed normal. I picked up the occasional wafts from street vendors or exhaust pipes, but otherwise the scent of The City seemed neutral. But then we moved to New Paltz. Unlike Manhattan, New Paltz still has more trees than cars. A river runs thru it, even. Fresh air abounds. One's nose awakens.
Now when I set foot in Times Square, I'm immediately hit by the scent of a penny held too long in the palm. The entire city is oxidized and gives off a smell of burnt rubber, rust, ozone, and smog. It takes some getting used to.
At least it's not as bad as London. I remember a trip we made in the 1990s. After a couple days, when I blew my nose, I noticed something black in the tissue. Shirra explained that this was from the sooty air. You don't get that in Manhattan. There, it's only brown.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Answering the Call
I live about 5 miles from the firehouse; some members live a block away. For this reason, it's hard for me to get to the station house in time to 'make' a call. That is, I often arrive after the truck has left the building.
That's ok -- it means that a situation, whatever it is, has been handled expediently. But on a personal level, it's a bummer. When little boys dream of being firemen, they imagine sliding down a pole, hopping onto the side of a fire engine, rushing to the fire, and hosing down a burning house. Little boys don't dream of sitting around a card table on donated swivel chairs, leafing thru Fire Engineering Magazine and chatting about the local synagogs, but those are some of my most recent activities. One time I even rushed to a late-night call only to discover that my pager had been on repeat mode -- the 'emergency' had occurred over an hour earlier.
My blue light doesn't allow me to speed to the scene, but it has occasionally suggested, gently, that other motorists kindly move to the side so that I can get downtown a bit faster. But since at least 90% of the calls are false alarms (smoke detectors that picked up a bit of burnt bacon, for example), there is little reason to rush to the station. This is especially true since we have enough volunteers to handle almost any call.
While reading one of the many magazines on the card table, I happened upon a page dedicated to those who had given their lives in the line of duty during the past month. Of the eight who had died, two had perished while attempting to get to the emergency. In one case a freak storm caused a fatal car accident, but in another, the volunteer had driven too fast to the scene of a minor motorcycle accident. He lost control of his car and wound up crashing into a tree. Upon reflection, I decided to slow down a bit while responding to my pager.
I did make it to the scene of a minor car accident on a slippery night last week. Two cars had collided near the Wallkill Bridge, and I soon found myself directing traffic while standing out in the rain for over an hour. It was nice that I could finally help out, and the experience was a positive one...even tho I didn't get to hose down a burning house.
That's ok -- it means that a situation, whatever it is, has been handled expediently. But on a personal level, it's a bummer. When little boys dream of being firemen, they imagine sliding down a pole, hopping onto the side of a fire engine, rushing to the fire, and hosing down a burning house. Little boys don't dream of sitting around a card table on donated swivel chairs, leafing thru Fire Engineering Magazine and chatting about the local synagogs, but those are some of my most recent activities. One time I even rushed to a late-night call only to discover that my pager had been on repeat mode -- the 'emergency' had occurred over an hour earlier.
My blue light doesn't allow me to speed to the scene, but it has occasionally suggested, gently, that other motorists kindly move to the side so that I can get downtown a bit faster. But since at least 90% of the calls are false alarms (smoke detectors that picked up a bit of burnt bacon, for example), there is little reason to rush to the station. This is especially true since we have enough volunteers to handle almost any call.
While reading one of the many magazines on the card table, I happened upon a page dedicated to those who had given their lives in the line of duty during the past month. Of the eight who had died, two had perished while attempting to get to the emergency. In one case a freak storm caused a fatal car accident, but in another, the volunteer had driven too fast to the scene of a minor motorcycle accident. He lost control of his car and wound up crashing into a tree. Upon reflection, I decided to slow down a bit while responding to my pager.
I did make it to the scene of a minor car accident on a slippery night last week. Two cars had collided near the Wallkill Bridge, and I soon found myself directing traffic while standing out in the rain for over an hour. It was nice that I could finally help out, and the experience was a positive one...even tho I didn't get to hose down a burning house.
Monday, December 25, 2006
To Live and Diet in NP
I hit 40 a couple months ago, and on that very day, an article appeared in the Science Times about the Calorie Restriction diet. This involves a balanced regimen of fewer-than-expected calories, and in a wide variety of lesser animals, it's been shown to extend the lifespan by a considerable margin, perhaps even 50%. Because it's so new, the jury is still out for humans, but it could mean that a man of say, 40, who was expected to live to 90 would instead last to 115. The diet has also been shown to increase immunity, thereby reducing chances of getting Alzheimer's, cancer, and so on.
Knowing myself lo these many years, I had come to realize that I thrive with obsession. When I learned to unicycle, I spent three hours a day for three days until I had taught myself to ride. When I started to play Scrabble at the tournament level, I studied word lists for months; in fact, I started going thru the Scrabble dictionary this past summer and have made it thru the Cs. So after failed attempts to take off some of the weight I'd put on this past decade, I decided to do something obsessive about it: calorie counting.
I weighed 165 when I left college, much of it made up by the muscles in my legs from unicycling and other sports. My weight hovered in the 160s until Shirra got pregnant. I put on 10 pounds of sympathy weight (eating with her late at night when she got the munchies, for example), but while she lost her pregnancy pounds by the time Fiona was six months old, I never lost my extra poundage. Then when Emmett and Maeve came along, the same thing happened, and before too long, I'd hit a high of about 197 (tho generally I was in the low 190s). I still felt pretty fit, usually cycling about an hour a day, but I had developed a spare tire that would not fit on my unicycle.
After reading an insufficient amount about the CR diet, I decided to jump on it in conjunction with my birthday. I figured that this date would be easier to remember than most others, and I really didn't want to wait any longer. I decided, against some good advice from fellow-CR dieters, to go down to 1600 calories per day (they usually suggest working your way down to that low a level). My decision was based on a personal need to see some results. Eventually I had a physical, as suggested by the book I was reading, and my 'bio-markers' were all pretty good, so I decided to keep at it.
The results came pretty fast. From 197 late this summer, I'd gotten down to about 192 by Halloween. Here on Christmas, I'm down to about 174, a loss of about 2 pounds a week. At my starting weight, two pounds doesn't make much difference, but when it drops off at that rate every week, the change is noticeable fairly fast. At this point, my gut is gone; abdominal muscles are peeking thru for the first time in a decade, and I feel great. So if all goes well, I can look forward to another 75 happy years. More to follow (or maybe I should say: Less to follow).
Knowing myself lo these many years, I had come to realize that I thrive with obsession. When I learned to unicycle, I spent three hours a day for three days until I had taught myself to ride. When I started to play Scrabble at the tournament level, I studied word lists for months; in fact, I started going thru the Scrabble dictionary this past summer and have made it thru the Cs. So after failed attempts to take off some of the weight I'd put on this past decade, I decided to do something obsessive about it: calorie counting.
I weighed 165 when I left college, much of it made up by the muscles in my legs from unicycling and other sports. My weight hovered in the 160s until Shirra got pregnant. I put on 10 pounds of sympathy weight (eating with her late at night when she got the munchies, for example), but while she lost her pregnancy pounds by the time Fiona was six months old, I never lost my extra poundage. Then when Emmett and Maeve came along, the same thing happened, and before too long, I'd hit a high of about 197 (tho generally I was in the low 190s). I still felt pretty fit, usually cycling about an hour a day, but I had developed a spare tire that would not fit on my unicycle.
After reading an insufficient amount about the CR diet, I decided to jump on it in conjunction with my birthday. I figured that this date would be easier to remember than most others, and I really didn't want to wait any longer. I decided, against some good advice from fellow-CR dieters, to go down to 1600 calories per day (they usually suggest working your way down to that low a level). My decision was based on a personal need to see some results. Eventually I had a physical, as suggested by the book I was reading, and my 'bio-markers' were all pretty good, so I decided to keep at it.
The results came pretty fast. From 197 late this summer, I'd gotten down to about 192 by Halloween. Here on Christmas, I'm down to about 174, a loss of about 2 pounds a week. At my starting weight, two pounds doesn't make much difference, but when it drops off at that rate every week, the change is noticeable fairly fast. At this point, my gut is gone; abdominal muscles are peeking thru for the first time in a decade, and I feel great. So if all goes well, I can look forward to another 75 happy years. More to follow (or maybe I should say: Less to follow).
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Firemen of Diminutive Stature
Fireman Tiny
Emmett came to visit the firehouse, and I had him put on my gear. It's a bit big, but maybe one day he'll have his own stuff.
Fireman Small
There is a 1942 book called Fireman Small, by Lois Leyman, that inadvertently illustrates a few things NOT to do when involved with a fire. I just took my first OSHA class (about fire safety), and while the captain was talking about fire-fighting dangers, I thought about Fireman Small. I had a hunch that the family should not have gone back into the burning house to retrieve their furniture, and it turns out I was right. I also had a feeling that they wouldn't be returning to the house just after the fire was put out (water- and smoke-damage would take their toll), but one thing I didn't know until last week is that the firemen make a basic error in putting out the fire: They chop a hole into the roof (this is standard procedure, in order to let out trapped heat and smoke), but then they shoot water from the hose into the vent they've just created. I don't think Lois Leyman knew too much about fire safety.
Emmett came to visit the firehouse, and I had him put on my gear. It's a bit big, but maybe one day he'll have his own stuff.
Fireman Small
There is a 1942 book called Fireman Small, by Lois Leyman, that inadvertently illustrates a few things NOT to do when involved with a fire. I just took my first OSHA class (about fire safety), and while the captain was talking about fire-fighting dangers, I thought about Fireman Small. I had a hunch that the family should not have gone back into the burning house to retrieve their furniture, and it turns out I was right. I also had a feeling that they wouldn't be returning to the house just after the fire was put out (water- and smoke-damage would take their toll), but one thing I didn't know until last week is that the firemen make a basic error in putting out the fire: They chop a hole into the roof (this is standard procedure, in order to let out trapped heat and smoke), but then they shoot water from the hose into the vent they've just created. I don't think Lois Leyman knew too much about fire safety.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
The View from Saturday's Ride
I happened to be posing for this photo (see the earlier entry about red suspenders) when a call came over my pager. Emmett ran outside to tell me about it, but we didn't know what it was about. Since I had just bought my blue light the day before, I was psyched to use it. I arrived at SUNY's Esopus dorm, the scene of yet another false alarm. The difference was that this one involved a carbon monoxide detector that had erroneously signaled a possible emergency. Because of the holiday break, none of the students was there, but a couple campus security cops helped us out. We were back at the station house in no time.
What starts with F, and ends with U-C-K and involves a lot of screaming? That's right: FIRETRUCK!
Later in the day, I was having the oil changed in my car (the one with the blue light) when another call came over the pager. This one, too, sounded serious. I happened to be riding around town on my unicycle, so I zoomed over to the station house, announcing to the guys that there was no need to fear: "Unicycle Ladder #1 is has arrived!" I stowed the uni and hopped onto a departing truck, changing into some handy fireman clothes en route. Here is a photo I took from inside the truck on my first-ever ride in a pumper.
What lots of people don't know is that there are many different kinds of fire-fighting vehicles. Some have ladders ("ladder trucks"), others have special pumps that can suck up H2O from a nearby pond or lake and deliver it to the scene of the fire ("pumpers"), while still others serve different roles, like "engines." Today I wound up on a pumper, one of three trucks to show up. We rushed to the scene, but before arriving at the would-be fire, the driver stopped us by a lake. We waited for further instructions. It turned out that there was no fire. It was a three-(false)-alarm fire. Still, it was exciting.
Blue-Light Special
When you join the fire department, you get a surprising amount of cool free stuff. Granted, most of it is used in fighting actual fires, but still, who would mind having around a fire-proof coat and pants? There was also a helmet, a couple pairs of gloves, and a pager. I even got a set of red suspenders. [This reminded me of the old joke: Why do firemen wear red suspenders? To hold up their pants.]
But the one thing most of us need to buy is the blue light, the kind that attaches to your car's roof with a strong magnet. It doesn't allow us to go thru red lights or drive faster than the speed limit, but...well, ok, maybe it does, as long as we're careful and don't get caught, and as long as we're responding to an actual emergency rather than one of the daily false alarms that we get from a local university. I believe it's referred to as a courtesy light. In any case, I really wanted one.
I checked out the Galls catalog, but then it turned out that the local Autozone shop was even cheaper. I had to show proof that I work for a local fire company, so I proudly displayed my card and ordered a blue light; it arrived today.
Once on my private road, I tried it out. It's pretty bright, tho apparently it's not too noticeable during daylight hours. A fellow firefighter told me that once the sun sets, it's visible about a half-mile away.
The next items on my list of firefighter must-haves are a patch from the company (occasionally available on eBay for under $10) and a New Paltz Fire Department jacket. But that one is going to have to wait -- it's only for people who've worked for the department for 30 months. I have 29 to go. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to using my blue light while I race, carefully, to a call.
But the one thing most of us need to buy is the blue light, the kind that attaches to your car's roof with a strong magnet. It doesn't allow us to go thru red lights or drive faster than the speed limit, but...well, ok, maybe it does, as long as we're careful and don't get caught, and as long as we're responding to an actual emergency rather than one of the daily false alarms that we get from a local university. I believe it's referred to as a courtesy light. In any case, I really wanted one.
I checked out the Galls catalog, but then it turned out that the local Autozone shop was even cheaper. I had to show proof that I work for a local fire company, so I proudly displayed my card and ordered a blue light; it arrived today.
Once on my private road, I tried it out. It's pretty bright, tho apparently it's not too noticeable during daylight hours. A fellow firefighter told me that once the sun sets, it's visible about a half-mile away.
The next items on my list of firefighter must-haves are a patch from the company (occasionally available on eBay for under $10) and a New Paltz Fire Department jacket. But that one is going to have to wait -- it's only for people who've worked for the department for 30 months. I have 29 to go. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to using my blue light while I race, carefully, to a call.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Oh, Deer!
A family of deer live in the woods either side of our private road. The soft beauty of their appearance is matched only by their grace. I often spot them in the morning as they lope across the road after snacking on our neighbor's flowers. They seem to come out between the time that I take Fiona to the bus and when I return home fifteen minutes later.
I tried to take a photo of them, but they're too fast, so I've only managed to get some shots of where they've just been. These were taken back in October, and you'll note the great abundance of leaves. Back then, we also seemed to have more deer on the property, too.
This first shot shows where one of them had been grazing just seconds before. And if you look closely at the second picture, you can just make out where a deer is no longer standing.
My record for deer spotted at once is 8, on several occasions, apparently from two does and six fawns. It is a bit daunting to drive down the road on my way to the firehouse, knowing that I have to be cautious about the animals. Oh, deer; I had better be careful.
Home-Ec Teacher for a Day
My first ever chances to teach in the New Paltz school system, and I wind up teaching home-ec and Spanish. I've taught English, math, French, Spanish (not that I speak Spanish!), gym, science, and history, and I've taught all levels of students from K-12, but I'd never taught home-ec before.
I didn't even know home-economics was even taught any more, but I'm glad it is, and I enjoyed doing it. Rather than focusing on buying, baking, cooking, and cleaning, the class has diversified a bit and now focuses more on general health and nutrition.
Teachers usually leave videos or worksheets for their substitutes to inflict on their unsuspecting students. I was given videos in home-ec yesterday and worksheets in Spanish today. Matters were made more challenging by the fact that students were about to leave for their holiday breaks. Some of them had a hard time containing their enthusiasm, tho I got the feeling that for many of them, this was an ongoing obstacle.
I really like the kids in this middle school. Meeting them gave me an excellent chance to see just what kinds of people live in my new town. There was a lovely cross-section of religions, ethnicities, and socio-economic groups. Kids tended to segregate themselves by sex rather than any other factor, so there ended up being a boy side and a girl side to my home-ec classes. The Spanish teacher had given students assigned seats, and they mostly stuck to those.
Whenever I sub (and it's been 14 years since I did), I always find areas that I wish the kids had already mastered. I was distressed in 1992 when the kids in my Spanish class were less versant in the language than I was despite having studied it for several months (by coincidence, I'd picked up a Spanish Made Simple a few days before). The group in the New Paltz middle school was far savvier about the language, on the whole, but there were still a few who had little to show for the time they'd spent in class. Similarly, I was happy to learn that some of the Home-Ec kids knew about nutrition, but only one of them on the day was able to define 'calorie' or tell me what a 'serving' of food is.
I try to spice things up when I sub. This has been made easier by the Internet. For Spanish, I used the Web to turn the same paragraph into poorly translated versions, thanks to altavista.com and freetranslation.com. For health class yesterday, I printed out a funny entry from Wikipedia.com about the durian, a really peculiar fruit from southeast Asia. One great quote mentioned that it smells like a mixture of "pig-shit, turpentine, and onions, garnished with a gym sock." I changed "pig-shit" to "pig-excrement" because I think the e-word is far more descriptive.
I didn't even know home-economics was even taught any more, but I'm glad it is, and I enjoyed doing it. Rather than focusing on buying, baking, cooking, and cleaning, the class has diversified a bit and now focuses more on general health and nutrition.
Teachers usually leave videos or worksheets for their substitutes to inflict on their unsuspecting students. I was given videos in home-ec yesterday and worksheets in Spanish today. Matters were made more challenging by the fact that students were about to leave for their holiday breaks. Some of them had a hard time containing their enthusiasm, tho I got the feeling that for many of them, this was an ongoing obstacle.
I really like the kids in this middle school. Meeting them gave me an excellent chance to see just what kinds of people live in my new town. There was a lovely cross-section of religions, ethnicities, and socio-economic groups. Kids tended to segregate themselves by sex rather than any other factor, so there ended up being a boy side and a girl side to my home-ec classes. The Spanish teacher had given students assigned seats, and they mostly stuck to those.
Whenever I sub (and it's been 14 years since I did), I always find areas that I wish the kids had already mastered. I was distressed in 1992 when the kids in my Spanish class were less versant in the language than I was despite having studied it for several months (by coincidence, I'd picked up a Spanish Made Simple a few days before). The group in the New Paltz middle school was far savvier about the language, on the whole, but there were still a few who had little to show for the time they'd spent in class. Similarly, I was happy to learn that some of the Home-Ec kids knew about nutrition, but only one of them on the day was able to define 'calorie' or tell me what a 'serving' of food is.
I try to spice things up when I sub. This has been made easier by the Internet. For Spanish, I used the Web to turn the same paragraph into poorly translated versions, thanks to altavista.com and freetranslation.com. For health class yesterday, I printed out a funny entry from Wikipedia.com about the durian, a really peculiar fruit from southeast Asia. One great quote mentioned that it smells like a mixture of "pig-shit, turpentine, and onions, garnished with a gym sock." I changed "pig-shit" to "pig-excrement" because I think the e-word is far more descriptive.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Cracked Nuts
Each December, Emmett's ballet school puts together a production of the Nutcracker. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the New Paltz Ballet School performing the Nutcracker in Poughkeepsie's famous Bardavon, the oldest theater in New York state.
Emmett was asked to audition for this ballet, and he landed the role of 'party boy.' There weren't many options, tho, because most kids his age are girls, and most of the parts are for girls. Perhaps in future performances he could have a role in the second act, the one with all of the dancing marzipans and other candies. But for next year, he has his sights set on the part of 'rat' or maybe even 'Fritz,' the naughty lad who spitefully breaks the nutcracker in Act I.
The party scene calls for 6 sets of parents (including the hosts) and about 14 or 15 kids, half of whom are boys. Of course, in a school with an underabundance of male participants (as is often the case), many girls end up as party boys, and this year, Emmett is the only one with a Y chromosome in that role. The party moms are played by teenagers from the ballet school, but the party dads are volunteers like me who get roped into being (ok, who are dying to be) onstage for a few minutes. Party dads wear old-style tuxedoes and a few layers of makeup, and we look pretty snazzy except for our hats. These plastic top-hats could have been taken off the heads of New Years revellers at a TGIFridays, but they looked authentic from the audience. In general, the clothes are excellent; it turns out that the director's mother helped with them, which is a good thing because the Nutcracker uses over a hundred costumes.
Party dads don't rehearse much, but as the performance approached, it suddenly occurred to us that we have one objective: Don't mess up. The Bardavon holds over 900 seats, so in our three performances, we're seen by our friends, family, and about 2700 other people. So like all men in tuxedoes, our goal is to fit in. Happily, Saturday's matinee went well, emboldening us to think about making a few little touches to appear more realistic in the roles of Victorian-era men at a party. In my case, this meant taking a fellow party dad's advice to doff my top-hat before kissing the hostess's hand. I managed to remember this for that evening's show but forgot by the next day. Ah well, there's always 2007. Our confidence also allowed us to joke about making up back stories for our 2-dimensional characters.
My back story was this: I had had an affair with the hostess. Upon entering, I kiss her hand just a little too long, raising suspicion in the mind of the host. He glances furtively at my face in time to catch a gleam in my eye that confirms that the crumpled undergarments he found shoved hastily beneath his bed were indeed mine. He spends the rest of the party putting up a good face before the other guests and his children but makes a secret vow to challenge me to a duel as soon as he
can. As we shake hands at the end of the party, he holds mine just a little too long, stifling the urge to throttle me on the spot. I correctly interpret this to mean that he has uncovered my cockoldry and make a secret vow to get out of the country posthaste, as I am a coward of the highest degree. I'm not sure that these back stories were necessary, but they certainly took some of the stress out of a somewhat tense time backstage.
When Sunday's performance ended, I felt that mixture of relief and sorrow familiar to all performers. I was glad that we had all performed our roles admirably, but I was sad to lose the camraderie among the party dads. There is no cast party, but some of us felt the need for one. Next year, Shirra and I plan to host that event ourselves, having already received the blessing of the school's directors. Now we just have to figure out how to shoehorn up to 80 dancers and their families
into our modest home. Methinks the basement will come in handy for that. It will be fun for everyone to celebrate the end of another great run, especially for those of us cracked nuts who only won't be getting together till next year.
Emmett was asked to audition for this ballet, and he landed the role of 'party boy.' There weren't many options, tho, because most kids his age are girls, and most of the parts are for girls. Perhaps in future performances he could have a role in the second act, the one with all of the dancing marzipans and other candies. But for next year, he has his sights set on the part of 'rat' or maybe even 'Fritz,' the naughty lad who spitefully breaks the nutcracker in Act I.
The party scene calls for 6 sets of parents (including the hosts) and about 14 or 15 kids, half of whom are boys. Of course, in a school with an underabundance of male participants (as is often the case), many girls end up as party boys, and this year, Emmett is the only one with a Y chromosome in that role. The party moms are played by teenagers from the ballet school, but the party dads are volunteers like me who get roped into being (ok, who are dying to be) onstage for a few minutes. Party dads wear old-style tuxedoes and a few layers of makeup, and we look pretty snazzy except for our hats. These plastic top-hats could have been taken off the heads of New Years revellers at a TGIFridays, but they looked authentic from the audience. In general, the clothes are excellent; it turns out that the director's mother helped with them, which is a good thing because the Nutcracker uses over a hundred costumes.
Party dads don't rehearse much, but as the performance approached, it suddenly occurred to us that we have one objective: Don't mess up. The Bardavon holds over 900 seats, so in our three performances, we're seen by our friends, family, and about 2700 other people. So like all men in tuxedoes, our goal is to fit in. Happily, Saturday's matinee went well, emboldening us to think about making a few little touches to appear more realistic in the roles of Victorian-era men at a party. In my case, this meant taking a fellow party dad's advice to doff my top-hat before kissing the hostess's hand. I managed to remember this for that evening's show but forgot by the next day. Ah well, there's always 2007. Our confidence also allowed us to joke about making up back stories for our 2-dimensional characters.
My back story was this: I had had an affair with the hostess. Upon entering, I kiss her hand just a little too long, raising suspicion in the mind of the host. He glances furtively at my face in time to catch a gleam in my eye that confirms that the crumpled undergarments he found shoved hastily beneath his bed were indeed mine. He spends the rest of the party putting up a good face before the other guests and his children but makes a secret vow to challenge me to a duel as soon as he
can. As we shake hands at the end of the party, he holds mine just a little too long, stifling the urge to throttle me on the spot. I correctly interpret this to mean that he has uncovered my cockoldry and make a secret vow to get out of the country posthaste, as I am a coward of the highest degree. I'm not sure that these back stories were necessary, but they certainly took some of the stress out of a somewhat tense time backstage.
When Sunday's performance ended, I felt that mixture of relief and sorrow familiar to all performers. I was glad that we had all performed our roles admirably, but I was sad to lose the camraderie among the party dads. There is no cast party, but some of us felt the need for one. Next year, Shirra and I plan to host that event ourselves, having already received the blessing of the school's directors. Now we just have to figure out how to shoehorn up to 80 dancers and their families
into our modest home. Methinks the basement will come in handy for that. It will be fun for everyone to celebrate the end of another great run, especially for those of us cracked nuts who only won't be getting together till next year.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Keeping up with the Jones
SCRABBLE
I have a jones for Scrabble. I play about 10-15 games online each day, having amassaed a total of 4,600 games at ISC (the best internet Scrabble site). I study the Scrabble dictioanry on my rides to and from Manhattan (I just finished the Cs). I even have a Scrabble tattoo on my left arm. So it was frustrating that my move to New Paltz took me away from the NYC Scrabble club where I got my start in tournament Scrabble. I also found myself impossibly removed from the Long Island tournaments where I played as often as I could (tho usually no more than 3 times a year), usually coming in first or second place in the top division. I let my Scrabble News subscription lapse during our move. Since all of my opponents over the past 18 months have names like redsox2 and scrabmom, I started to feel like I was losing touch with real-life play.
A few weeks ago, I finally renewed my Scrabble News subscription (the paper had since become thinner, an apparent money-saver). To my happy surprise, there are monthly tourneys in North Salem, NY, about an hour from me. I was hoping to enter the tournament this weekend until I remembered that it conflicted with the performance of the Nutcracker that Emmett and I are in (more about that soon). I'm looking forward to the one in early January.
At ISC, I mostly play speed games. Under tourney conditions, each person has 25 minutes, but in speed games, it's about 4 minutes to a side. The computer automatically calculates score and keeps track of remaining tiles, but still, that's pretty fast. Not surprisingly, speed games are not as high-scoring as their slower counterparts, but they're still good for keeping my skills up, and they make tournament games much easier...a stroll in the park by comparison. I also like the fact that I can play my real life friends from time to time, and the chat feature means that we get to talk a bit during and after games. It's a nice way to keep up with the Joneses.
I have a jones for Scrabble. I play about 10-15 games online each day, having amassaed a total of 4,600 games at ISC (the best internet Scrabble site). I study the Scrabble dictioanry on my rides to and from Manhattan (I just finished the Cs). I even have a Scrabble tattoo on my left arm. So it was frustrating that my move to New Paltz took me away from the NYC Scrabble club where I got my start in tournament Scrabble. I also found myself impossibly removed from the Long Island tournaments where I played as often as I could (tho usually no more than 3 times a year), usually coming in first or second place in the top division. I let my Scrabble News subscription lapse during our move. Since all of my opponents over the past 18 months have names like redsox2 and scrabmom, I started to feel like I was losing touch with real-life play.
A few weeks ago, I finally renewed my Scrabble News subscription (the paper had since become thinner, an apparent money-saver). To my happy surprise, there are monthly tourneys in North Salem, NY, about an hour from me. I was hoping to enter the tournament this weekend until I remembered that it conflicted with the performance of the Nutcracker that Emmett and I are in (more about that soon). I'm looking forward to the one in early January.
At ISC, I mostly play speed games. Under tourney conditions, each person has 25 minutes, but in speed games, it's about 4 minutes to a side. The computer automatically calculates score and keeps track of remaining tiles, but still, that's pretty fast. Not surprisingly, speed games are not as high-scoring as their slower counterparts, but they're still good for keeping my skills up, and they make tournament games much easier...a stroll in the park by comparison. I also like the fact that I can play my real life friends from time to time, and the chat feature means that we get to talk a bit during and after games. It's a nice way to keep up with the Joneses.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Firehouse Reds
When we moved to New Paltz, I immediately decided to join the volunteer fire department. Back in my Manhattan days, I was an auxiliary cop for 5 years, but that was different. There are zillions of auxies in Manhattan, but there are fewer than 50 fire fighters here. I never figured out exactly why I joined the police force back then, but it certainly makes sense why I joined the NPFD. I've got free time, and I've got three kids. What if it's my house that's on fire one day? And really, what boy doesn't want to be a fireman when he grows up?
In fact, when I was three, my mom read me a Dr Seuss book about growing up that mentioned many jobs. I told her I wanted to be a policeman, a fireman, a doctor, an acrobat, ... finally I announced that I wanted to be an 'everything man.' Well, unicycling is close to acrobatics, and I've been an aux cop. I've tended many booboos, upset tummies, and some croupy throats, earning my daddy degree in doctoring. Firefighter was pretty much all that was left off my resume.
I met pretty much everyone at the fire department yesterday. The guys (and gal -- there is one woman on the force: you go, girl!) are great. The group gets together the first Monday of the month to discuss important issues like fundraisers, equipment, parades, and pizza. I was excited to be shown around the four trucks at the station house (there are more at the other station house, on North Putt Ave). I had the feeling that I'd wake up and be six years old again.
The expectation is that volunteers will show up for 100 to 150 calls a year, or about two or three a week. Since there are almost 900 calls a year, there is plenty to go around. Sure enough, while watching TV at 1:25am, my new pager went off for the first time. I felt the buzz and heard the dispacher announce that a fire alarm had gone off at a SUNY dorm. I rushed into some socks and shoes, threw on my coat, and drove to the station house. It turns out that SUNY fire alarms go off all the time for no good reason, and we never had to leave the building. I sat around chatting with two other volunteers before returning home just after 2 am. It was pretty uneventful, as are many calls, and I was glad that I got it out of the way. Emmett was happy this morning to hear that his dad is officially a fireman, but he does want me to keep my day job.
In fact, when I was three, my mom read me a Dr Seuss book about growing up that mentioned many jobs. I told her I wanted to be a policeman, a fireman, a doctor, an acrobat, ... finally I announced that I wanted to be an 'everything man.' Well, unicycling is close to acrobatics, and I've been an aux cop. I've tended many booboos, upset tummies, and some croupy throats, earning my daddy degree in doctoring. Firefighter was pretty much all that was left off my resume.
I met pretty much everyone at the fire department yesterday. The guys (and gal -- there is one woman on the force: you go, girl!) are great. The group gets together the first Monday of the month to discuss important issues like fundraisers, equipment, parades, and pizza. I was excited to be shown around the four trucks at the station house (there are more at the other station house, on North Putt Ave). I had the feeling that I'd wake up and be six years old again.
The expectation is that volunteers will show up for 100 to 150 calls a year, or about two or three a week. Since there are almost 900 calls a year, there is plenty to go around. Sure enough, while watching TV at 1:25am, my new pager went off for the first time. I felt the buzz and heard the dispacher announce that a fire alarm had gone off at a SUNY dorm. I rushed into some socks and shoes, threw on my coat, and drove to the station house. It turns out that SUNY fire alarms go off all the time for no good reason, and we never had to leave the building. I sat around chatting with two other volunteers before returning home just after 2 am. It was pretty uneventful, as are many calls, and I was glad that I got it out of the way. Emmett was happy this morning to hear that his dad is officially a fireman, but he does want me to keep my day job.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Hard Facts about Soft Water
If you're a city mouse, there are many aspects of life that you probably take for granted compared with your country cousins. City mice worry about parking spaces; country mice leave their cars unlocked. City mice worry about their apartments being robbed while their country cousins fret over flooded basements. City mice don't want to see rats scouring their trash for leftovers; country mice watch out for raccoons.
But water seems like a given. Surely water is water, no? No. Water is dirty and needs to be filtered. Water has microbuggies and needs to go thru special UV lights. Water is hard and needs to be softened.
City mice get their water from pipes, but ours comes from a well, and the well runs about 200' deep. It's pretty safe to drink, untreated, but it's a good idea to get a filter and better still to have a UV filter, but that doesn't take the minerals out of the stuff.
When I was a kid, I never heard mention of hard or soft water. Later I experienced it in Australia, where we had very soft water. Hard water has an overabundance of minerals. It's great for showering unless you're a bowl, in which case you come out of the dishwasher covered in white crystaline gunk.
We recently purchased a shmancy water softener that removes those minerals. Our water is as soft as a baby's bottom. But have you ever tried showering with a baby's bottom? We recently bought some nice soaps in town, but at this rate, they'll last till Maeve is in college. Soft water makes it really hard to remove soap, so we just dab the soap lightly with a fingertip and we're good for the next 5 minutes of scrubbing.
But water seems like a given. Surely water is water, no? No. Water is dirty and needs to be filtered. Water has microbuggies and needs to go thru special UV lights. Water is hard and needs to be softened.
City mice get their water from pipes, but ours comes from a well, and the well runs about 200' deep. It's pretty safe to drink, untreated, but it's a good idea to get a filter and better still to have a UV filter, but that doesn't take the minerals out of the stuff.
When I was a kid, I never heard mention of hard or soft water. Later I experienced it in Australia, where we had very soft water. Hard water has an overabundance of minerals. It's great for showering unless you're a bowl, in which case you come out of the dishwasher covered in white crystaline gunk.
We recently purchased a shmancy water softener that removes those minerals. Our water is as soft as a baby's bottom. But have you ever tried showering with a baby's bottom? We recently bought some nice soaps in town, but at this rate, they'll last till Maeve is in college. Soft water makes it really hard to remove soap, so we just dab the soap lightly with a fingertip and we're good for the next 5 minutes of scrubbing.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The Red Light
We have our own red light district in my house, and it's in our bedroom. And if that doesn't sound sexy enough, I should mention that the red light is meant to warm up my wife's hedgehog. Her actual hedgehog. The hedgehog I bought her at the local pet store as a part of her 40th birthday. THAT hedgehog.
Shirra has always wanted to have a hedgehog. As long as we've been together, she's been into things British, and nothing epitomizes cute and British more than a hedgehog. Never mind that the one in our bedroom is an African hedgehog, or that he hides most of the time, or that you need gardening gloves to hold him, or that he smells like a lavatory, or that Brits also call them 'hedgepigs.' She loves her little hedgehog. She named him Ambrose.
Ambrose is about 10 weeks old and is very cute, even when he's balled up like a little pin cushion beneath the cardboard box in his cage. Hedgies are carnivores, which means that he'll get even cuter when he starts eating crickets in a few weeks (when he's old enough). He'll be cuter still if we can get him a mouse or other creature to chew on.
I got to hold him a few days ago. He uncoiled a bit but mainly stayed in his safe little spiky ball. Shortly after that, Shirra discovered that he opens up if you blow on his spikes. Fiona raved about this, since she'd held him, too. I'll have to don the gloves and give him another try.
As for the red light, Shirra decided that our house is maybe a bit too cool for this African fellow, so she bought a light that sits atop his cage, warming him up. So every night, we go to bed in a room with a red glow illuminating a quiet cage that's housing a shy hedgehog who's lying still beneath a cardboard box.
Shirra has always wanted to have a hedgehog. As long as we've been together, she's been into things British, and nothing epitomizes cute and British more than a hedgehog. Never mind that the one in our bedroom is an African hedgehog, or that he hides most of the time, or that you need gardening gloves to hold him, or that he smells like a lavatory, or that Brits also call them 'hedgepigs.' She loves her little hedgehog. She named him Ambrose.
Ambrose is about 10 weeks old and is very cute, even when he's balled up like a little pin cushion beneath the cardboard box in his cage. Hedgies are carnivores, which means that he'll get even cuter when he starts eating crickets in a few weeks (when he's old enough). He'll be cuter still if we can get him a mouse or other creature to chew on.
I got to hold him a few days ago. He uncoiled a bit but mainly stayed in his safe little spiky ball. Shortly after that, Shirra discovered that he opens up if you blow on his spikes. Fiona raved about this, since she'd held him, too. I'll have to don the gloves and give him another try.
As for the red light, Shirra decided that our house is maybe a bit too cool for this African fellow, so she bought a light that sits atop his cage, warming him up. So every night, we go to bed in a room with a red glow illuminating a quiet cage that's housing a shy hedgehog who's lying still beneath a cardboard box.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
How to Get Public School Certification
When we started contemplating a departure from NYC, the first thing we had to consider was my ability to get a job. Since I never got my public school certification, this meant three possibilities:
1. Get a job in a private school,
2. Find a different job, or
3. Get my certification.
I should have gotten my certification out of the way years ago, but I neglected for over a decade to send in the passing test result of my National Teacher's Exam, taken back in 1992, and in the years since then had never needed the certification. Luckily I held on to my certification file thruout all of our moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn and then to New Paltz.
Since public school jobs seemed unlikely, I looked into private schools, but it turns out that Manhattan and Brooklyn are pretty special in the number of private schools they contain. I expected that there only would be a few privates north of NYC, but it turns out that the number is closer to zero. I managed to find a great school in Pawling called Mizzentop, but the pay wasn't quite what I was looking for. Nonetheless, I figured that I could augment my income thru tutoring, so I accepted a job there as a math teacher, grades 7-8.
I didn't give up my attempt to become certified, however. Every so often I called Albany to see about the application. Amazingly, I got thru to someone during a call back in sept of 2005, and she explained that I was likely to be grandfathered in (the NTE is no longer administered) as long as I sent in an application, a money order for $100, a copy of my exam, and a detailed letter. She warned that the process could take 14-18 weeks.
Sure enough, in week 18 I got a note from the state's bureau of education: I needed to update my fingerprints. By now it was February, but it took me over a month to schedule a time for the fingerprinting. That experience was pretty frustrating (involving, among other things, a mad dash to get a money order for $1), but at last I'd gotten in all of the required parts of the application; now all I had to do was wait.
And wait I did. I called Albany and was bumped from person to person till I talked with someone who told me that the fingerprint checking process, which normally takes 3 weeks, was about 8 weeks behind schedule. So I waited some more.
By now the job at that private school in Pawling had fallen thru and I was getting no nibbles from my public school job applications, so I started looking into some Manhattan private schools. I almost got one job at Nightengale, and I was offered a few others that didn't appeal as much, but in the end I decided simply to tutor in Manhattan, commuting back and forth daily but spending most of my free time in New Paltz with Shirra. This decision came about in June of this year.
A couple months later, I had chance encounter with a great friend of mine who happened to go into politics shortly after college. Some time later, I read about how a local woman had gotten help with her certification by calling her local representative. I thouht it might be worth a try, so I phoned my buddy and mentioned my certification. A few days later, a man from his office called me for a few specifics, and the next day, I was officially certified as a teacher.
I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, but I have a feeling that I don't want to know.
1. Get a job in a private school,
2. Find a different job, or
3. Get my certification.
I should have gotten my certification out of the way years ago, but I neglected for over a decade to send in the passing test result of my National Teacher's Exam, taken back in 1992, and in the years since then had never needed the certification. Luckily I held on to my certification file thruout all of our moves from Manhattan to Brooklyn and then to New Paltz.
Since public school jobs seemed unlikely, I looked into private schools, but it turns out that Manhattan and Brooklyn are pretty special in the number of private schools they contain. I expected that there only would be a few privates north of NYC, but it turns out that the number is closer to zero. I managed to find a great school in Pawling called Mizzentop, but the pay wasn't quite what I was looking for. Nonetheless, I figured that I could augment my income thru tutoring, so I accepted a job there as a math teacher, grades 7-8.
I didn't give up my attempt to become certified, however. Every so often I called Albany to see about the application. Amazingly, I got thru to someone during a call back in sept of 2005, and she explained that I was likely to be grandfathered in (the NTE is no longer administered) as long as I sent in an application, a money order for $100, a copy of my exam, and a detailed letter. She warned that the process could take 14-18 weeks.
Sure enough, in week 18 I got a note from the state's bureau of education: I needed to update my fingerprints. By now it was February, but it took me over a month to schedule a time for the fingerprinting. That experience was pretty frustrating (involving, among other things, a mad dash to get a money order for $1), but at last I'd gotten in all of the required parts of the application; now all I had to do was wait.
And wait I did. I called Albany and was bumped from person to person till I talked with someone who told me that the fingerprint checking process, which normally takes 3 weeks, was about 8 weeks behind schedule. So I waited some more.
By now the job at that private school in Pawling had fallen thru and I was getting no nibbles from my public school job applications, so I started looking into some Manhattan private schools. I almost got one job at Nightengale, and I was offered a few others that didn't appeal as much, but in the end I decided simply to tutor in Manhattan, commuting back and forth daily but spending most of my free time in New Paltz with Shirra. This decision came about in June of this year.
A couple months later, I had chance encounter with a great friend of mine who happened to go into politics shortly after college. Some time later, I read about how a local woman had gotten help with her certification by calling her local representative. I thouht it might be worth a try, so I phoned my buddy and mentioned my certification. A few days later, a man from his office called me for a few specifics, and the next day, I was officially certified as a teacher.
I'm not sure what the moral of this story is, but I have a feeling that I don't want to know.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Halloween in New Paltz
Halloween in New Paltz is similar to that holiday in our old Brooklyn neighborhood but on a larger scale. In Brooklyn, the evening begins with a parade and finishes with trick-or-treating, while New Paltz reverses the order, but in both cases, just about everyone with kids (and many without) can be seen in their costumes. In New Paltz, practically the whole town joins in the fun. The best time to take a quick census of New Paltz is probably October 31st.
One change that I like is that in our old nabe, one parent would stay with the little ones while the other had to race back home in order to hand out the candy. In theory, both parents could've gone trick-or-treating, leaving an empty house, but civic duty prevented this: Had everyone adopted this idea, there would be no way for kids to go door-to-door. This meant that Shirra and I took turns manning (or womaning) the house, a much less fun thing to do than the actual trick-or-treating. Happily, that will never again be the case; our house is too isolated for Halloween revellers. For the first time in nearly a decade, Shirra and I got to spend the whole evening together with the kids.
Fiona had decided at the last moment to eschew her Cartman costume in favor of going headless, wearing one of my shirts buttoned over her head, her eyes peeking out between the buttons. Emmett, who also eschewed his purchased costume (a Ninja Turtle) wore a cat-face mask coupled with a cape and a solitary yellow glove. Maeve, eschewing costumes all together, put aside her princess tutu and simply wore some blue pants and a tee shirt with a cat on it.
In contrast, Shirra and I, who usually wear lame costumesor none at all, had bought a matching set: Gepetto and a marionnette. Shirra's costume had two drawbacks: Firstly, the pants were cut too short, revealing parts of her legs that usually only appear publically at a beach. Secondly, the contraption that created the puppet-on-a-string effect tipped over too easily and strained her shoulders. She looked adorable but was happy to go back to her usual costume of 'mom' as soon as the trick-or-treating ended. I like that costume, too.
We met up with our friends and their friends and all of their daughters and made our way to a road with several houses accepting Halloween revelers. My favorite memory of the night is Maeve knocking on door after door and announcing "fick or feet." She was also good about wishing everyone a happy haween.
After hitting up about 20 houses for candy, we made it back to Main St for the big parade. It's huge, really, rivalling the one in Brooklyn's Park Slope. I had the feeling that more people turn out to trick-or-treat than to vote, and today I learned that this is true. Apparently about 75% of Americans have given or gotten candy on Halloween, while fewer than half regularly particpate in the democratic process. Maybe people should hand out voter registration cards along with the candy...tho these days, that would constitute a lot more of a trick than a treat.
We didn't make it to the haunted house we kept hearing about; apparently the lines are very long. We came back home and watched a bit of a DVD while opening a few chocolates. Then life went back to normal. The kids gave me one more present (a cool wood-and-rope puzzle I have yet to solve) and eventually went to bed. It was a great way to spend my birthday in New Paltz.
One change that I like is that in our old nabe, one parent would stay with the little ones while the other had to race back home in order to hand out the candy. In theory, both parents could've gone trick-or-treating, leaving an empty house, but civic duty prevented this: Had everyone adopted this idea, there would be no way for kids to go door-to-door. This meant that Shirra and I took turns manning (or womaning) the house, a much less fun thing to do than the actual trick-or-treating. Happily, that will never again be the case; our house is too isolated for Halloween revellers. For the first time in nearly a decade, Shirra and I got to spend the whole evening together with the kids.
Fiona had decided at the last moment to eschew her Cartman costume in favor of going headless, wearing one of my shirts buttoned over her head, her eyes peeking out between the buttons. Emmett, who also eschewed his purchased costume (a Ninja Turtle) wore a cat-face mask coupled with a cape and a solitary yellow glove. Maeve, eschewing costumes all together, put aside her princess tutu and simply wore some blue pants and a tee shirt with a cat on it.
In contrast, Shirra and I, who usually wear lame costumesor none at all, had bought a matching set: Gepetto and a marionnette. Shirra's costume had two drawbacks: Firstly, the pants were cut too short, revealing parts of her legs that usually only appear publically at a beach. Secondly, the contraption that created the puppet-on-a-string effect tipped over too easily and strained her shoulders. She looked adorable but was happy to go back to her usual costume of 'mom' as soon as the trick-or-treating ended. I like that costume, too.
We met up with our friends and their friends and all of their daughters and made our way to a road with several houses accepting Halloween revelers. My favorite memory of the night is Maeve knocking on door after door and announcing "fick or feet." She was also good about wishing everyone a happy haween.
After hitting up about 20 houses for candy, we made it back to Main St for the big parade. It's huge, really, rivalling the one in Brooklyn's Park Slope. I had the feeling that more people turn out to trick-or-treat than to vote, and today I learned that this is true. Apparently about 75% of Americans have given or gotten candy on Halloween, while fewer than half regularly particpate in the democratic process. Maybe people should hand out voter registration cards along with the candy...tho these days, that would constitute a lot more of a trick than a treat.
We didn't make it to the haunted house we kept hearing about; apparently the lines are very long. We came back home and watched a bit of a DVD while opening a few chocolates. Then life went back to normal. The kids gave me one more present (a cool wood-and-rope puzzle I have yet to solve) and eventually went to bed. It was a great way to spend my birthday in New Paltz.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Do NOT Do the U
In Manhattan and Brooklyn, unwritten traffic rules dictate that you can make a U-turn pretty much any time you want -- unless you're driving a cab, in which case police will invariably give you a ticket. At least that's what the cab drivers will tell you. If you get into a taxi outside 35 W. 81st St (just down the street from where I grew up) and wanted to go across town, the driver could take you over to Columbus Ave, down to 77th St, back to Central Park West, and back up to 81st St (a half-mile trip) -- or he could just make an 'illegal' Yuwee, and you'd be headed to the East Side just a block later.
But only cabbies have to deal with the cops for U-turns in NYC. In Manhattan and Brooklyn, I used to do U-turns right in front of police cars, sometimes slowing them down as they lazily scanned the nabe for miscreants In New Paltz, things are a bit different.
A few days ago, I was on my way back from Starbucks when a squad car that had been parked nearby suddenly put on its lights behind me. I pulled out of the way, assuming that the officer wanted to get past me in order to respond to a call. Nope. He explained that he'd spotted me doing a U-turn before I'd parked across from the Starbucks. I told him that I was new to New Paltz and that I didn't know about that rule. He let me off with a warning. I guess that's another way that NP is different from NY.
But only cabbies have to deal with the cops for U-turns in NYC. In Manhattan and Brooklyn, I used to do U-turns right in front of police cars, sometimes slowing them down as they lazily scanned the nabe for miscreants In New Paltz, things are a bit different.
A few days ago, I was on my way back from Starbucks when a squad car that had been parked nearby suddenly put on its lights behind me. I pulled out of the way, assuming that the officer wanted to get past me in order to respond to a call. Nope. He explained that he'd spotted me doing a U-turn before I'd parked across from the Starbucks. I told him that I was new to New Paltz and that I didn't know about that rule. He let me off with a warning. I guess that's another way that NP is different from NY.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Who Is the Most Interesting Bus Buddy?
I've now taken about 50 bus rides between New Paltz and New York. Most buses can seat up to 44 but only carry, say, 30, and some of those folks are traveling together. So, to my happy surprise, most of the time I've been able to sit alone.
On occasion I've struck up a convo with a person from the New Paltz area who has given me suggestions about cool places to visit or cool things to do, and it's always encouraging to chat with other commuters who tell me that they have taken the bus for years with no regrets. I've met a really nice tutor named Bill, and yesterday I had a great time talking with a guy who knew all the cool places to hike, but today I had my coolest bus buddy yet. His name is Francisco, and he's a professional wrestler.
I know that I would never have struck up a conversation with this guy had the bus not been 20 minutes late. I started by asking him about the delay, since he'd been on since at least Kingston, and before I knew it, we were comparing tattoos. Francisco's left hand sported an Ace bandage, and he explained that he'd hurt it in a bout several months back; part of his trip today was to see a physical therapist. Wait...his PT session today was for his shoulder, which was injured when his car smashed into a tree at 50 mph when the brakes gave out. Amazingly, his only injuries were two broken toes and a bruised shoulder even tho the car was totalled and the airbag didn't open till 90 seconds after the crash! The very picture of this poor guy sitting dazed in his crumpled second-hand Volvo when the airbag finallly went off; well, I was almost crying from laughing. He went on to say that he's got two suits pending against the garage: one for the air bags that didn't open in time, and the other on account of the mechanic who caused his brake pads to melt off as he sped down a twisting, rural two-laner, nearly plunging to his death off the side of the mountainous road. When he realized that his brakes were shot, he had the presence of mind to say a little prayer and aim for the tree rather than crash into a car ferrying a mom and her kids in the oposite direction. The punchline is that he's being sued by the owner of the tree. And maybe it was his tattoos, his accent, or his bling, but after he crawled to a cop who happened to be talking to a local, he almost got arrested. The officer put him in the back of the car and only hours later took him to his house, dropping him off there and telling his family that he might need medical attention.
I was starting to talk about my near-death occurrence involving my unicycle and a school bus and how it made me appreciate life when he mentioned that this car accident was only the 6th time he'd been touched by death. Some of the earlier brushes involved other people (he lost friends on 9/11), but he has awakened in a hospital bed at least two other times. The more recent one was fairly common and involved being a passenger in a car driven by reckless friends, but the other one was pretty wild: At ten, he'd been struck by an 18-wheeler while on vacation when the drunk truck driver hadn't seen him walking on the side of the road. The force of that impact sent him flying down the road, landing in an ugly heap with his nose near his ear and his arm broken in four places; he spent three years in a wheelchair and went thru the first of what proved to be a lot of physical therapy.
Back to wrestling, I mentioned that a good friend of mine works for Vince McMahon, founder of WWE (one of the wrestling federations). We chatted about wrestling, and I was particularly interested to hear about how some wrestlers cut their heads and faces before a bout so that they'll bleed a lot during the match.
Amidst this discussion, suddenly our coach driver hit the brakes to avoid a truck that had slowed down too fast. Some of our fellow riders screamed, reminding me that in all of my rides, no passenger has ever been carsick. To this, Francisco contributed a story from his upbringing in Brooklyn. He'd been on the school bus when one of the other 6th graders had crapped his pants. The driver had tried to put up with the stench for a long time but finally pulled over. He took the smelly boy, Bob, off the bus, went with him to a store nearby, and bought him some clean clothes with his own money. But the story had a bitter (or should it be 'pungent'?) ending; the boy was teased mercilessly till he graduated high school. Francisco still calls him Bob the Poop.
This reminded me of a similar story from my high school. There had been a nerdy boy who had fallen in love with a girl who was not part of the pretty-girl clique. The affair went noticed only on the fringes of our high school radar until a love letter turned up in which our hapless protagonist professed his love with the unusual statement, "I want to blowtorch your panties off." This comment haunted him till graduation, just like Bob the Poop's nickname, but Blowtorch had the last laugh when he inherited part of his dad's fortune, making him one of the richest people on the planet.
Francisco and I had more in common than wrestling, aching left hands, and moving from Brooklyn to the New Paltz region in search of a better life. It turns out that my companion also has a little girl, and her name also starts with M-A. In fact, Maya was born the exact same day as my little Maeve. Wow. And while I started a unicycle club, he's the founder of a wrestling group. I'm a lapsed Jew, he's a lapsed Catholic. Francisco is my part Italian, part Puerto Rican doppleganger. Who knew?
Best of all was how much Francisco sounded just like my favorite comedian ever. Mitch Hedberg apparently died nearly two years ago, but here he was talking to me about priests who child-molest children and airbags that pop open only after the driver is nealy dead. Francisco and Mitch have the same unusual rhythm and pregnant pauses to their speech and both lace their sentences with the occasional Anglo-Saxon term for fornication or feces.
Francisco said that he was expecting to travel back to Kingston at 7:30, and I was looking forward to chatting with him some more, but he didn't show. I look forward to seeing him next week.
On occasion I've struck up a convo with a person from the New Paltz area who has given me suggestions about cool places to visit or cool things to do, and it's always encouraging to chat with other commuters who tell me that they have taken the bus for years with no regrets. I've met a really nice tutor named Bill, and yesterday I had a great time talking with a guy who knew all the cool places to hike, but today I had my coolest bus buddy yet. His name is Francisco, and he's a professional wrestler.
I know that I would never have struck up a conversation with this guy had the bus not been 20 minutes late. I started by asking him about the delay, since he'd been on since at least Kingston, and before I knew it, we were comparing tattoos. Francisco's left hand sported an Ace bandage, and he explained that he'd hurt it in a bout several months back; part of his trip today was to see a physical therapist. Wait...his PT session today was for his shoulder, which was injured when his car smashed into a tree at 50 mph when the brakes gave out. Amazingly, his only injuries were two broken toes and a bruised shoulder even tho the car was totalled and the airbag didn't open till 90 seconds after the crash! The very picture of this poor guy sitting dazed in his crumpled second-hand Volvo when the airbag finallly went off; well, I was almost crying from laughing. He went on to say that he's got two suits pending against the garage: one for the air bags that didn't open in time, and the other on account of the mechanic who caused his brake pads to melt off as he sped down a twisting, rural two-laner, nearly plunging to his death off the side of the mountainous road. When he realized that his brakes were shot, he had the presence of mind to say a little prayer and aim for the tree rather than crash into a car ferrying a mom and her kids in the oposite direction. The punchline is that he's being sued by the owner of the tree. And maybe it was his tattoos, his accent, or his bling, but after he crawled to a cop who happened to be talking to a local, he almost got arrested. The officer put him in the back of the car and only hours later took him to his house, dropping him off there and telling his family that he might need medical attention.
I was starting to talk about my near-death occurrence involving my unicycle and a school bus and how it made me appreciate life when he mentioned that this car accident was only the 6th time he'd been touched by death. Some of the earlier brushes involved other people (he lost friends on 9/11), but he has awakened in a hospital bed at least two other times. The more recent one was fairly common and involved being a passenger in a car driven by reckless friends, but the other one was pretty wild: At ten, he'd been struck by an 18-wheeler while on vacation when the drunk truck driver hadn't seen him walking on the side of the road. The force of that impact sent him flying down the road, landing in an ugly heap with his nose near his ear and his arm broken in four places; he spent three years in a wheelchair and went thru the first of what proved to be a lot of physical therapy.
Back to wrestling, I mentioned that a good friend of mine works for Vince McMahon, founder of WWE (one of the wrestling federations). We chatted about wrestling, and I was particularly interested to hear about how some wrestlers cut their heads and faces before a bout so that they'll bleed a lot during the match.
Amidst this discussion, suddenly our coach driver hit the brakes to avoid a truck that had slowed down too fast. Some of our fellow riders screamed, reminding me that in all of my rides, no passenger has ever been carsick. To this, Francisco contributed a story from his upbringing in Brooklyn. He'd been on the school bus when one of the other 6th graders had crapped his pants. The driver had tried to put up with the stench for a long time but finally pulled over. He took the smelly boy, Bob, off the bus, went with him to a store nearby, and bought him some clean clothes with his own money. But the story had a bitter (or should it be 'pungent'?) ending; the boy was teased mercilessly till he graduated high school. Francisco still calls him Bob the Poop.
This reminded me of a similar story from my high school. There had been a nerdy boy who had fallen in love with a girl who was not part of the pretty-girl clique. The affair went noticed only on the fringes of our high school radar until a love letter turned up in which our hapless protagonist professed his love with the unusual statement, "I want to blowtorch your panties off." This comment haunted him till graduation, just like Bob the Poop's nickname, but Blowtorch had the last laugh when he inherited part of his dad's fortune, making him one of the richest people on the planet.
Francisco and I had more in common than wrestling, aching left hands, and moving from Brooklyn to the New Paltz region in search of a better life. It turns out that my companion also has a little girl, and her name also starts with M-A. In fact, Maya was born the exact same day as my little Maeve. Wow. And while I started a unicycle club, he's the founder of a wrestling group. I'm a lapsed Jew, he's a lapsed Catholic. Francisco is my part Italian, part Puerto Rican doppleganger. Who knew?
Best of all was how much Francisco sounded just like my favorite comedian ever. Mitch Hedberg apparently died nearly two years ago, but here he was talking to me about priests who child-molest children and airbags that pop open only after the driver is nealy dead. Francisco and Mitch have the same unusual rhythm and pregnant pauses to their speech and both lace their sentences with the occasional Anglo-Saxon term for fornication or feces.
Francisco said that he was expecting to travel back to Kingston at 7:30, and I was looking forward to chatting with him some more, but he didn't show. I look forward to seeing him next week.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Why the Bus Should Always Come Late
Since early September, I've commuted Monday thru Thursday to Manhattan and back. I always get to see the kids off to school, but some nights I get back so late that I don't have a chance to put them to bed. That happened the last two nights.
This morning, I didn't get out of bed till just minutes before Fiona's bus is due to arrive. Now, in her case there is a big difference between the set arrival time (8:20) and the actual time that the bus gets there. Her usual driver is notorious for always being about 17 minutes late (his record is 19). He's remarkably consistent. The problem is that on rare occasions, a substitute driver takes over his route for a day, and she's never more than a few minutes behind schedule.
Most parents hope for a punctual driver, but I'm always hoping the bus doesn't show till at least 8:35. That gives me 15 uninterrupted minutes with Fiona. Sometimes we work on self-defense moves or listen to our favorite Ben Folds Five songs, but most of the time we just chat. I was disappointed, then, to see her bus pull up at just 8:26 today. That substitute driver robbed me of ten precious minutes with my big girl.
The good news is that I'll be home in time for stories and tuck-in...that is, if this bus ever makes it out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
This morning, I didn't get out of bed till just minutes before Fiona's bus is due to arrive. Now, in her case there is a big difference between the set arrival time (8:20) and the actual time that the bus gets there. Her usual driver is notorious for always being about 17 minutes late (his record is 19). He's remarkably consistent. The problem is that on rare occasions, a substitute driver takes over his route for a day, and she's never more than a few minutes behind schedule.
Most parents hope for a punctual driver, but I'm always hoping the bus doesn't show till at least 8:35. That gives me 15 uninterrupted minutes with Fiona. Sometimes we work on self-defense moves or listen to our favorite Ben Folds Five songs, but most of the time we just chat. I was disappointed, then, to see her bus pull up at just 8:26 today. That substitute driver robbed me of ten precious minutes with my big girl.
The good news is that I'll be home in time for stories and tuck-in...that is, if this bus ever makes it out of the Lincoln Tunnel.
Morning Is Definitely Broken
Living in New Paltz puts me in a different mindset for sure. In New York City, I drive like an Israeli cabbie (and if you haven't been to Israel, I can only tell you that a cab ride there is more likely to put the fear of god into you than any visit to the Wailing Wall). In New Paltz, however, I'm a pussycat. I frequently have to check my rear view mirror to ensure that I'm not holding up a line of cars.
This relaxed mentality also shows up in my song choices. In Manhattan, I want to listen to hard-rocking The The or something noisy and boppy by Outkast. In New Paltz on the other hand, I'm all about James Taylor and Cat Stevens. In listening to one of my favorite songs, however, I came up against a problem that took me out of New Paltz and put me thru a weird ride on Web.
"Morning Has Broken" is a religious tune that sounds like a hymn with a catchy jingle, so it comes as little surprise that this is what it is. The song was written not by Mr. Stevens himself but rather by a well-known children's author of the early 20th century who was commissioned to write a few hymns. Cat rightly omitted the other three (clunkier) stanzas and repeated the first one, creating a folk hit, but what exactly was he singing?
Typing "morning has broken" and any other line of the song into a Google search brought up between up to 15,000 'hits.' I noticed, however, that some of the webpages had conflicting lyrics. Further investigation turned up several errors. Since most websites borrow (steal?) from each other, the errors showed up with varying frequency.
Here are the 'correct' lyrics, penned in 1931 and recorded by Cat Stevens several decades later:
Morning has broken, like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven,
Like the first dew fall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning,
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning,
God's re-creation of the new day."
In errant version #1, the last two lines of the first verse are:
Praise for the springing
Fresh from the world.
This makes no sense; after all, what is a springing? But since Stevens didn't publish the lyrics in liner notes, people made guesses, and some of those folks had bad wiring in their accoustic (or neurological) equipment.
There are actually two subvariants here. Some webpages have "the springing fresh from the word," while other have "them springing fresh from the world."
Variant #2 is a substitution of "dew fall" with either "dewfall" or "dew-fall." Both of these show up in dictionaries, but neither is as the author wrote it. Oddly, of the nearly 1,000 hits examined more closely, 772 have "dewfall" as one word while fewer than 200 have it as two words.
The funniest error, variation #3, is the substitution seen in the line:
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
In 44 webpages (many of them connected to some singer named Nona) the line reads incorrectly (and quite bizarrely) as:
Born of the one light Eden so play.
Interestingly, in singing the song, Stevens made an error of his own. The lines are:
God's re-creation
Of that first day.
Stevens sings it not as "re-creation" but instead as if god is entertaining himself. Recreation is akin to hangin' out and havin' fun. Re-creation is a different matter entirely.
Here is a bad idea: Why not borrow the tune (which Stevens borrowed from a Gaelic song) and then write your own words celebrating, say, marriage? Click here to check out some really awful lyrics.
That linked page (above) also highlights a rare variation (#4), substituting "God's feet" for "his feet." This change went against the wishes of the hymn's author, who envisioned the blackbird as the garden walker (as opposed to God); that's why she didn't capitalize 'his' to "His." If you think about it, there is no biblical mention of God walking in the Garden of Eden, so the very idea of it is laughable at best and sacrilege at worst. This variation only appears 40 times, however, so not a whole lot to get worked up about.
For more information, check out this link to the Unitarian Universalist Association forum for a really interesting discussion about the origins of the lyrics and music of this song.
This relaxed mentality also shows up in my song choices. In Manhattan, I want to listen to hard-rocking The The or something noisy and boppy by Outkast. In New Paltz on the other hand, I'm all about James Taylor and Cat Stevens. In listening to one of my favorite songs, however, I came up against a problem that took me out of New Paltz and put me thru a weird ride on Web.
"Morning Has Broken" is a religious tune that sounds like a hymn with a catchy jingle, so it comes as little surprise that this is what it is. The song was written not by Mr. Stevens himself but rather by a well-known children's author of the early 20th century who was commissioned to write a few hymns. Cat rightly omitted the other three (clunkier) stanzas and repeated the first one, creating a folk hit, but what exactly was he singing?
Typing "morning has broken" and any other line of the song into a Google search brought up between up to 15,000 'hits.' I noticed, however, that some of the webpages had conflicting lyrics. Further investigation turned up several errors. Since most websites borrow (steal?) from each other, the errors showed up with varying frequency.
Here are the 'correct' lyrics, penned in 1931 and recorded by Cat Stevens several decades later:
Morning has broken, like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,
Praise for them springing fresh from the Word.
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven,
Like the first dew fall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning,
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning,
God's re-creation of the new day."
In errant version #1, the last two lines of the first verse are:
Praise for the springing
Fresh from the world.
This makes no sense; after all, what is a springing? But since Stevens didn't publish the lyrics in liner notes, people made guesses, and some of those folks had bad wiring in their accoustic (or neurological) equipment.
There are actually two subvariants here. Some webpages have "the springing fresh from the word," while other have "them springing fresh from the world."
Variant #2 is a substitution of "dew fall" with either "dewfall" or "dew-fall." Both of these show up in dictionaries, but neither is as the author wrote it. Oddly, of the nearly 1,000 hits examined more closely, 772 have "dewfall" as one word while fewer than 200 have it as two words.
The funniest error, variation #3, is the substitution seen in the line:
Born of the one light Eden saw play.
In 44 webpages (many of them connected to some singer named Nona) the line reads incorrectly (and quite bizarrely) as:
Born of the one light Eden so play.
Interestingly, in singing the song, Stevens made an error of his own. The lines are:
God's re-creation
Of that first day.
Stevens sings it not as "re-creation" but instead as if god is entertaining himself. Recreation is akin to hangin' out and havin' fun. Re-creation is a different matter entirely.
Here is a bad idea: Why not borrow the tune (which Stevens borrowed from a Gaelic song) and then write your own words celebrating, say, marriage? Click here to check out some really awful lyrics.
That linked page (above) also highlights a rare variation (#4), substituting "God's feet" for "his feet." This change went against the wishes of the hymn's author, who envisioned the blackbird as the garden walker (as opposed to God); that's why she didn't capitalize 'his' to "His." If you think about it, there is no biblical mention of God walking in the Garden of Eden, so the very idea of it is laughable at best and sacrilege at worst. This variation only appears 40 times, however, so not a whole lot to get worked up about.
For more information, check out this link to the Unitarian Universalist Association forum for a really interesting discussion about the origins of the lyrics and music of this song.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Where to Pick Apples
We visited Hurd's Family Farm, five miles south of New Paltz just down the road from the lower school building, Lenape, where our Fiona attends 5th grade. Friends were visitng from Brooklyn, and after showing off the house and then the town, we decided to show off the apple farm.
First on the agenda was the corn maze. Since Maeve was napping, Shirra stayed with her in the car (reversing our roles from when we went to a corn maze in Martha's Vineyard). I went with Emmett and our friends, whose son, Nick, is one of Emmett's best buddies. The two boys had a great time hampered tho they were by our frequent requests of them not to rush off, lest they get lost. Getting lost turns out not to have been much of an issue due to the frequent balding patches caused by the lateness of the season. The maze is usually green and lush, but by October, it's a bit brown and patchy. Still, the boys had a blast, and I think Fiona would have had fun had she not been apple picking with a friend off in Kingston.
After the maze, we headed for some apple picking of our own. Maeve had awakened, and she loved running about looking for trees that had not already been denuded of their fruit. I recommend gala and empire apples for eating, rome for baking.
Following the apples, we decided to head to the pumpkin patch. Maeve prefered to stay with me in the playground, which consisted mainly of a sandbox, a defunct tractor that kids could climb, and a series of tires from small to large that were half buried in the ground. Initially Maeve was quite tentative as she held my hand and traipsed from the small tires to the huge ones at the end. After about ten practice runs, however, our little two-and-a-half-year-old was able to run the course sans assistance despite her overly long hand-me-down dress.
The rest of our party returned eventually with a few pumpkins in hand. The three that Shirra had chosen weighed in at 40 lbs but cost only $20.
The whole afternoon (including the fruit we came home with) cost our family no more than $44.
First on the agenda was the corn maze. Since Maeve was napping, Shirra stayed with her in the car (reversing our roles from when we went to a corn maze in Martha's Vineyard). I went with Emmett and our friends, whose son, Nick, is one of Emmett's best buddies. The two boys had a great time hampered tho they were by our frequent requests of them not to rush off, lest they get lost. Getting lost turns out not to have been much of an issue due to the frequent balding patches caused by the lateness of the season. The maze is usually green and lush, but by October, it's a bit brown and patchy. Still, the boys had a blast, and I think Fiona would have had fun had she not been apple picking with a friend off in Kingston.
After the maze, we headed for some apple picking of our own. Maeve had awakened, and she loved running about looking for trees that had not already been denuded of their fruit. I recommend gala and empire apples for eating, rome for baking.
Following the apples, we decided to head to the pumpkin patch. Maeve prefered to stay with me in the playground, which consisted mainly of a sandbox, a defunct tractor that kids could climb, and a series of tires from small to large that were half buried in the ground. Initially Maeve was quite tentative as she held my hand and traipsed from the small tires to the huge ones at the end. After about ten practice runs, however, our little two-and-a-half-year-old was able to run the course sans assistance despite her overly long hand-me-down dress.
The rest of our party returned eventually with a few pumpkins in hand. The three that Shirra had chosen weighed in at 40 lbs but cost only $20.
The whole afternoon (including the fruit we came home with) cost our family no more than $44.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Natural Marvels
We've seen some gorgeous sights up here during our first two months in New Paltz.
I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd seen a crane coasting across our local lake. It turns out that this majestic soarer was a blue-crested heron. We've also seen a woodchuck watching for predators while standing outside a store, beavers busying themselves as they ran along the road, frogs frolicking across puddles in our playground, and spiders the size of broaches in our basement. And that's just the animals! We've also seen our own trees submit to the shorter (and colder) days, dropping their red and golden coats on our still-green hills...and then there's the moon.
When I was 13 and a half, I bought myself a telescope with a large fraction of my Bar Mitzvah gelt. I stared at the Moon through those powerful lenses and marveled at the craters. What I didn't see is that if you look closely, you can actually see it rotate.
Shirra's folks gave Emmett a telescope for his sixth birthday, and we promptly put it to use in Martha's Vineyard, where we were during this celebration. But when we returned to Brooklyn, we packed it up right away, even before we knew we were moving, because there is too much light pollution in The City, even in our quiet old nabe. New Paltz is different. If we turn out the houselights, the night sky can be almost pitch, and the sky becomes alive with stars.
On a crisp night in mid-September, the moon was low and full, so I decided to take a closer look. To my astonishment, after my eyes adjusted to the intense light of the Moon, I was able to see it rotating slowly. I stared at it for a long time, and when I came in, my eyes needed some 20-30 minutes just to return to mornal. But it was certainly worth it for me to see that slow rotation a bit closer .
I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd seen a crane coasting across our local lake. It turns out that this majestic soarer was a blue-crested heron. We've also seen a woodchuck watching for predators while standing outside a store, beavers busying themselves as they ran along the road, frogs frolicking across puddles in our playground, and spiders the size of broaches in our basement. And that's just the animals! We've also seen our own trees submit to the shorter (and colder) days, dropping their red and golden coats on our still-green hills...and then there's the moon.
When I was 13 and a half, I bought myself a telescope with a large fraction of my Bar Mitzvah gelt. I stared at the Moon through those powerful lenses and marveled at the craters. What I didn't see is that if you look closely, you can actually see it rotate.
Shirra's folks gave Emmett a telescope for his sixth birthday, and we promptly put it to use in Martha's Vineyard, where we were during this celebration. But when we returned to Brooklyn, we packed it up right away, even before we knew we were moving, because there is too much light pollution in The City, even in our quiet old nabe. New Paltz is different. If we turn out the houselights, the night sky can be almost pitch, and the sky becomes alive with stars.
On a crisp night in mid-September, the moon was low and full, so I decided to take a closer look. To my astonishment, after my eyes adjusted to the intense light of the Moon, I was able to see it rotating slowly. I stared at it for a long time, and when I came in, my eyes needed some 20-30 minutes just to return to mornal. But it was certainly worth it for me to see that slow rotation a bit closer .
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Do Not Keep on Truckin'
Earlier during this commute, a truck veered slightly into our lane. As we passed him, some of us noticed that the driver was reading a sheet of paper (directions, no doubt, on how not to drive safely). I leaned forward and whispered to the woman in the front passenger seat, "Not to put the fear of god in you, but that's why I don't sit in the very first row." She smiled but remained unfazed and seated. I suppose that means that the Prozac is working.
And woo hoo, this is my first blog posted from my phone (a web-ready Sidekick II).
One last observation: A gallon of gasoline is about 40¢ cheaper in New Jersey than in New York.
And woo hoo, this is my first blog posted from my phone (a web-ready Sidekick II).
One last observation: A gallon of gasoline is about 40¢ cheaper in New Jersey than in New York.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
I Led the Pigeons
For complicated reasons having to do with McCarthy, the Knights of Columbus, various presidents, and some flag salesmen who wanted to drum up more business, kids in most public schools have been compelled to say (or at least hear) a daily Pledge of Allegiance since 1892. This rubs many of us parents the wrong way, tho apparently not the majority. One reason is obvious while another is so subtle that I feel like I'm the only one who has ever realized it. The third reason has to do with global competition.
Wrong-Way Rub #1
Primarily the Pledge offends me with its deific reference, reinforcing the idea that the sanctity, safety, and success of our country have something to do with a supernatural being. In fact the phrase 'under God' was added as a response to the godless commies of the McCarthy era and under pressure from the Knights of Columbus and other religious types. Without those two words, I'd have only two problems with the Pledge.
Wrong-Way Rub #2
What the hell does it mean? Ok, all of us adults can figure it out, but I remember having to recite it at camp three decades ago and wondering about many of the words. Pledge: Isn't that the stuff you polish wood with? Allegiance? Republic? Indi-something-or-other? What do those mean? And who the hell is Richard Stands?
Rub #3
It only takes 15 seconds to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But since it means nothing to the people reciting it, why not replace it with a quick run thru the 3s and 4s time-tables? For a country so obsessed with test scores, it seems odd to waste time on a daily basis; those meaningless polysyllables weigh in at 45 minutes a year and nearly five hours thruout elementary school. I'd much rather see that time spent memorizing Shakespeare sonnets or Romantic poems.
I dissected the Pledge for my kids, explaining it to them before offering up the version that I recited at camp. They jumped right onto that idea, and now each of them recites our homemade version everyday:
I led the pigeons
To the bag
Of the untidy states of Tomato-ah
And toothy republican Richard Stands,
One ancient wonder-cod,
Individual,
With flibberty and gibbets till Fall.
I'm not entirely sure how Tomato-ah happened, but the kids swear by it (literally). Shirra and I contributed some of the trickier bits like the ancient wonder-cod. The funny thing is that altho the kids mock the Pledge on a daily basis, they could be the only children in both lower-school buildings who know what it's supposed to mean.
One day, Emmett told us that he'd made a new friend; let's call him Richard Stands. He knew Richard was a cool kid when he told him his version of the poem and Richard admitted that his was also a non-Pledge family. A few days later, it fell to Emmett to lead the class in the Pledge. He explained that this involved standing up in front of the class while everyone recited. I asked him if he recited the real version (which he doesn't know), but he told us he'd merely said his usual tribute to the bagged pigeons. His mom and I were so proud! Our little iconoclast!
Wrong-Way Rub #1
Primarily the Pledge offends me with its deific reference, reinforcing the idea that the sanctity, safety, and success of our country have something to do with a supernatural being. In fact the phrase 'under God' was added as a response to the godless commies of the McCarthy era and under pressure from the Knights of Columbus and other religious types. Without those two words, I'd have only two problems with the Pledge.
Wrong-Way Rub #2
What the hell does it mean? Ok, all of us adults can figure it out, but I remember having to recite it at camp three decades ago and wondering about many of the words. Pledge: Isn't that the stuff you polish wood with? Allegiance? Republic? Indi-something-or-other? What do those mean? And who the hell is Richard Stands?
Rub #3
It only takes 15 seconds to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. But since it means nothing to the people reciting it, why not replace it with a quick run thru the 3s and 4s time-tables? For a country so obsessed with test scores, it seems odd to waste time on a daily basis; those meaningless polysyllables weigh in at 45 minutes a year and nearly five hours thruout elementary school. I'd much rather see that time spent memorizing Shakespeare sonnets or Romantic poems.
I dissected the Pledge for my kids, explaining it to them before offering up the version that I recited at camp. They jumped right onto that idea, and now each of them recites our homemade version everyday:
I led the pigeons
To the bag
Of the untidy states of Tomato-ah
And toothy republican Richard Stands,
One ancient wonder-cod,
Individual,
With flibberty and gibbets till Fall.
I'm not entirely sure how Tomato-ah happened, but the kids swear by it (literally). Shirra and I contributed some of the trickier bits like the ancient wonder-cod. The funny thing is that altho the kids mock the Pledge on a daily basis, they could be the only children in both lower-school buildings who know what it's supposed to mean.
One day, Emmett told us that he'd made a new friend; let's call him Richard Stands. He knew Richard was a cool kid when he told him his version of the poem and Richard admitted that his was also a non-Pledge family. A few days later, it fell to Emmett to lead the class in the Pledge. He explained that this involved standing up in front of the class while everyone recited. I asked him if he recited the real version (which he doesn't know), but he told us he'd merely said his usual tribute to the bagged pigeons. His mom and I were so proud! Our little iconoclast!
What is an Acre?
We have just under 8 acres in New Paltz, but what does that mean?
An acre was originally defined as the amount of land that a farmer could plow in a day with a yoke of oxen. Somehow that ended up being a square with sides equal to about 208 feet. And according to an Ozzie farmer I met, acres are measured on a plane. If your land is rolling hills, your 8 acres will truly play out more lile 9 or 10.
To get an idea of an acre, imagine a football field including the endzones (in other words, all the green stuff on the field). That's about two acres. Your typical baseball field? Just under two. In fact, if you can visualize the basepath and everyting inside of it, then a homerun trot encircles nearly a quarter of an acre. But just try to imagine a baseball player mustering a couple of oxen.
For those savvy of Sheep Meadow in Manhattan, that site comprises 17 acres, so cut that in half, give me the smaller piece, and that's about 8 acres. Plus we have a stream.
I've walked the woods surrounding our house, but I still haven't figured out our property lines exactly. I know that there are some Posted signs that mark one of our borders, and that helps, but the rest is a mystery. I do have a vague idea that our parcel somewhat resembles home plate.
What I do know is that when I look outside around the house, it feels like I am the king of all I survey, just like Yurtle the Turtle. Of course, he comes to an unhappy fate when the lowest turtle burps, so I try not to brag about my dominion too much.
An acre was originally defined as the amount of land that a farmer could plow in a day with a yoke of oxen. Somehow that ended up being a square with sides equal to about 208 feet. And according to an Ozzie farmer I met, acres are measured on a plane. If your land is rolling hills, your 8 acres will truly play out more lile 9 or 10.
To get an idea of an acre, imagine a football field including the endzones (in other words, all the green stuff on the field). That's about two acres. Your typical baseball field? Just under two. In fact, if you can visualize the basepath and everyting inside of it, then a homerun trot encircles nearly a quarter of an acre. But just try to imagine a baseball player mustering a couple of oxen.
For those savvy of Sheep Meadow in Manhattan, that site comprises 17 acres, so cut that in half, give me the smaller piece, and that's about 8 acres. Plus we have a stream.
I've walked the woods surrounding our house, but I still haven't figured out our property lines exactly. I know that there are some Posted signs that mark one of our borders, and that helps, but the rest is a mystery. I do have a vague idea that our parcel somewhat resembles home plate.
What I do know is that when I look outside around the house, it feels like I am the king of all I survey, just like Yurtle the Turtle. Of course, he comes to an unhappy fate when the lowest turtle burps, so I try not to brag about my dominion too much.
Monday, October 02, 2006
How to Bury a Loved One
There comes a time when all hermit crabs must crawl down that long beach where the sun never sets. That day came too soon for Potato, Emmett's beloved new pet. Potato and two friends came to us from Sue's Zoo, a local shop where we also purchased Fiona's guinea pigs. We're not sure what happened to this young crab. He had sufficient water and food, his tank was clean, and he had adequate opportunity for exercise. But today, when Shirra went to check in on him, he was not moving. For those of you who know hermit crabs, this lack of movement may not seem unusual, but this little fella was unusually lacking in movement.
Considering their general, well, hermetic existence, I was surprised at Emmett's reaction to the death of Potato. He immediately burst into sobs and tears. He never cuddled with his crabs, and he rarely touched them, but clearly they have made an impression on him (and in him, once, when he tried to pick one of them up). And somehow this cute crab's shell seemed cutest of them all, its tan swirls vaguely reminiscent of latte or, in the uncaffeinated eyes of a seven-year-old, a potato. When his sobbing had subsided somewhat, Emmett acknowledged that he would indeed like to replace his lost crab as soon as possible, and he mentioned a crustacean that had tickled his fancy a few weeks ago in the shop. Potato is dead. Long live Tiger.
Emmett wanted to give Potato a proper internment, but digging in the shale around here is quite dicey, so even after a few minutes I'd only made a small dent in the dirt. With Potato resting comfortably on his bed of earth and grass, we buried the little critter about 6 inches deep. For a headstone, Emmett scratched Potato's name and the date onto a large piece of shale and placed it beside the grave.
I wish I could take back one moment from today. That's when I ordered a sidedish for my veggie burger. Eschewing the salad, I asked the waiter for a mashed potato. Emmett had to excuse himself from the table to cry in the bathroom, and I didn't even realize what I'd done till Shirra told me an hour later. There are few boys as sensitive as my little sweetheart.
Considering their general, well, hermetic existence, I was surprised at Emmett's reaction to the death of Potato. He immediately burst into sobs and tears. He never cuddled with his crabs, and he rarely touched them, but clearly they have made an impression on him (and in him, once, when he tried to pick one of them up). And somehow this cute crab's shell seemed cutest of them all, its tan swirls vaguely reminiscent of latte or, in the uncaffeinated eyes of a seven-year-old, a potato. When his sobbing had subsided somewhat, Emmett acknowledged that he would indeed like to replace his lost crab as soon as possible, and he mentioned a crustacean that had tickled his fancy a few weeks ago in the shop. Potato is dead. Long live Tiger.
Emmett wanted to give Potato a proper internment, but digging in the shale around here is quite dicey, so even after a few minutes I'd only made a small dent in the dirt. With Potato resting comfortably on his bed of earth and grass, we buried the little critter about 6 inches deep. For a headstone, Emmett scratched Potato's name and the date onto a large piece of shale and placed it beside the grave.
I wish I could take back one moment from today. That's when I ordered a sidedish for my veggie burger. Eschewing the salad, I asked the waiter for a mashed potato. Emmett had to excuse himself from the table to cry in the bathroom, and I didn't even realize what I'd done till Shirra told me an hour later. There are few boys as sensitive as my little sweetheart.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Chainsaws, 101
Here are some considerations when contemplating the purchase of a chainsaw:
1. Do you need one? Sometimes an ax will do. I'm still not sure that I need a chainsaw, but I bought one anyway.
2. Electric or gas? Electric (almost?) universally require a cord, so you can't walk deep into the woods with an electric chainsaw. Electric chainsaws are ideal for people who want to do some cutting in their basement or who have all of the wood brought to their shed. If you want to tackle the woods IN the woods, you need a gas-powered chainsaw. Initially I bought an electric, but when I realized my mistake, I switched it for the gas-powered one that costs three times more. I also learned that you can't get a cord long enough to allow you to use the electric saw in the woods; it's a safety issue.
3. Are you adept enough to handle a gas-powered tool? I thought I was, but it was a bit daunting. The second-worst part is getting the gasoline into the machine. The third-worst part is turning it on. The fourth-worst part is keeping it on. (The very worst part would be chopping off a body part, but luckily that didn't happen).
You need ear plugs and goggles. I remembered both but left the plugs in my pocket and the goggles in the basement. You need gloves and steel-toed boots. Gloves came with the saw, but I didn't read about the boots until long after I'd finished chopping. I think I have a pair up in the closet. They're not the kind seen in the hands of the guys on ESPN's Outdoorsman contest; mine were made by Doc Marten, and they're blue. Won't I look dashing?
You need something to chop. I didn't really have any particular NEED to chop, driven mainly by something found on my Y chromosome, but I'd already spent 30 minutes trying to fill the saw with gasoline (not including the time spent washing the gasoline smell off my hands -- ketchup seemed to do the trick), so I was determined to get some chopping done. I went to the outskirts of our woods and found some fallen trees that were begging to be made into logs. We don't have a working fireplace yet, but I guess I could store the logs in our shed for when we do.
1. Do you need one? Sometimes an ax will do. I'm still not sure that I need a chainsaw, but I bought one anyway.
2. Electric or gas? Electric (almost?) universally require a cord, so you can't walk deep into the woods with an electric chainsaw. Electric chainsaws are ideal for people who want to do some cutting in their basement or who have all of the wood brought to their shed. If you want to tackle the woods IN the woods, you need a gas-powered chainsaw. Initially I bought an electric, but when I realized my mistake, I switched it for the gas-powered one that costs three times more. I also learned that you can't get a cord long enough to allow you to use the electric saw in the woods; it's a safety issue.
3. Are you adept enough to handle a gas-powered tool? I thought I was, but it was a bit daunting. The second-worst part is getting the gasoline into the machine. The third-worst part is turning it on. The fourth-worst part is keeping it on. (The very worst part would be chopping off a body part, but luckily that didn't happen).
You need ear plugs and goggles. I remembered both but left the plugs in my pocket and the goggles in the basement. You need gloves and steel-toed boots. Gloves came with the saw, but I didn't read about the boots until long after I'd finished chopping. I think I have a pair up in the closet. They're not the kind seen in the hands of the guys on ESPN's Outdoorsman contest; mine were made by Doc Marten, and they're blue. Won't I look dashing?
You need something to chop. I didn't really have any particular NEED to chop, driven mainly by something found on my Y chromosome, but I'd already spent 30 minutes trying to fill the saw with gasoline (not including the time spent washing the gasoline smell off my hands -- ketchup seemed to do the trick), so I was determined to get some chopping done. I went to the outskirts of our woods and found some fallen trees that were begging to be made into logs. We don't have a working fireplace yet, but I guess I could store the logs in our shed for when we do.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
How to Choose Antiques
How to Buy Every Antique in the Area
Even before we'd closed on our house, we bought a cool antique at a huge antique store (managed by a man named Walter, who represents over two dozen dealers). It's called a low-boy, and it is comprised of 15 deep drawers arranged three across in five rows. We found out later that in the time it sat in the store, many people came in offering more money for it. Shirra is planning to use it for yarn storage (tho it's already been useful in telling a good yarn, haha).
A few weeks later, just after we'd come back from Martha's Vineyard and were settling in, we visited a yarn store that sits next to a different antique store, one we'd never noticed before (and there are a few others in town). What grabbed my attention was a cash register in the window. This huge, heavy thing used to sit on a pedestal in a department store. Built in 1913, it was the largest model put out by the National Cash Register company (NCR), weighing in at 250 pounds! It's in good condition, tho I didn't know that at the time. The owner of the antique store, Jack, didn't know for sure if it worked, tho he strongly suspected that it did since his children had played with it over the years (he had only recently decided to part with it).
Over the next few days, we bought two more items, one each from Walter and Jack. From Jack, who mainly deals in beautiful, rare, and pricey items, we got one of the least expensive pieces in the shop, a Hoosier cabinet that beautifies our dining room. And from Walter's, we bought a cool cabinet that nearly defies description, but I'll try: It stands about four feet high and has four pull out drawers arranged two-atop-two. The "drawers" tilt out (making them "tilters," I guess). It was meant for vending bulk items about 100 years ago, and that's why each tilter has a glass covering (so that the store owner could advertize what was in each). This odd item had sat in the shop for many months; those who liked it couldn't find a use for it, I guess. We got it for half of what the owner had originally wanted. We're using it for storing our laundry.
We still have space for a few more antiques of a medium size or larger, but there is the matter of money. When we have some, maybe we'll go antique shopping again.
Even before we'd closed on our house, we bought a cool antique at a huge antique store (managed by a man named Walter, who represents over two dozen dealers). It's called a low-boy, and it is comprised of 15 deep drawers arranged three across in five rows. We found out later that in the time it sat in the store, many people came in offering more money for it. Shirra is planning to use it for yarn storage (tho it's already been useful in telling a good yarn, haha).
A few weeks later, just after we'd come back from Martha's Vineyard and were settling in, we visited a yarn store that sits next to a different antique store, one we'd never noticed before (and there are a few others in town). What grabbed my attention was a cash register in the window. This huge, heavy thing used to sit on a pedestal in a department store. Built in 1913, it was the largest model put out by the National Cash Register company (NCR), weighing in at 250 pounds! It's in good condition, tho I didn't know that at the time. The owner of the antique store, Jack, didn't know for sure if it worked, tho he strongly suspected that it did since his children had played with it over the years (he had only recently decided to part with it).
Over the next few days, we bought two more items, one each from Walter and Jack. From Jack, who mainly deals in beautiful, rare, and pricey items, we got one of the least expensive pieces in the shop, a Hoosier cabinet that beautifies our dining room. And from Walter's, we bought a cool cabinet that nearly defies description, but I'll try: It stands about four feet high and has four pull out drawers arranged two-atop-two. The "drawers" tilt out (making them "tilters," I guess). It was meant for vending bulk items about 100 years ago, and that's why each tilter has a glass covering (so that the store owner could advertize what was in each). This odd item had sat in the shop for many months; those who liked it couldn't find a use for it, I guess. We got it for half of what the owner had originally wanted. We're using it for storing our laundry.
We still have space for a few more antiques of a medium size or larger, but there is the matter of money. When we have some, maybe we'll go antique shopping again.
Coincidences, Part III
CAMP
While picking up a framed picture, a man named Kevin, who works there part-time, came out to put a face to the voice he was hearing. He looked over the receipt and said, "David Stone.... I knew a David Stone at Camp Laurel." Yup. That was my camp. And Kevin was my brother's counselor! He worked there for three years, starting in 1979, the summer that John was in the Redwoods cabin. The next year, he worked with the older kids in what now would be considered the upper camp (it was then called Bago, short for Kennebago), tho he was never my counselor. He has a phenomenal memory and actually recognized me by my voice, or rather, by some of my vocal qualities (vocabulary, cadence). I never realized just how oddly I must speak.
Kevin also had a 1980 Laurel yearboook that he brought in the next day. In it were photos of many of my friends, favorite counselors, and even a few of my brother. One photo even included my best friend Ben (the one who now lives just down the road here in New Paltz), my brother, and me -- we were all in a production of a play.
As Kevin and I spoke about camp, it turned out that Mark, the owner of the frame shop, was quite familiar with Camp Laurel. It seems that the camp had moved to Maine from around here (the Laurel Mountains), so he knew some of the previous owners. As we chatted about them, a customer came in, and he also reminisced about Laurel, even mentioning that one of the better-known counselors (Heidi, who was the head of the waterfront) came from New Paltz.
UNICYCLES
My son was riding his unicycle at Ben's annual block party a fortnight ago when some people noticed his unusual form of transportation. Thru that, Shirra met three people who ride unicycles. One of them is Joe Haas, a local high school teacher. I emailed him later. I mentioned that two of the members of my unicycle club are from New Paltz (both also named Joe), and it turns out that he taught both of them.
A couple came over to introduce themselves to Shirra. It turns out that they both went to high school with my brother and remembered him fondly.
Having a unicycle is certainly a great way to meet people.
While picking up a framed picture, a man named Kevin, who works there part-time, came out to put a face to the voice he was hearing. He looked over the receipt and said, "David Stone.... I knew a David Stone at Camp Laurel." Yup. That was my camp. And Kevin was my brother's counselor! He worked there for three years, starting in 1979, the summer that John was in the Redwoods cabin. The next year, he worked with the older kids in what now would be considered the upper camp (it was then called Bago, short for Kennebago), tho he was never my counselor. He has a phenomenal memory and actually recognized me by my voice, or rather, by some of my vocal qualities (vocabulary, cadence). I never realized just how oddly I must speak.
Kevin also had a 1980 Laurel yearboook that he brought in the next day. In it were photos of many of my friends, favorite counselors, and even a few of my brother. One photo even included my best friend Ben (the one who now lives just down the road here in New Paltz), my brother, and me -- we were all in a production of a play.
As Kevin and I spoke about camp, it turned out that Mark, the owner of the frame shop, was quite familiar with Camp Laurel. It seems that the camp had moved to Maine from around here (the Laurel Mountains), so he knew some of the previous owners. As we chatted about them, a customer came in, and he also reminisced about Laurel, even mentioning that one of the better-known counselors (Heidi, who was the head of the waterfront) came from New Paltz.
UNICYCLES
My son was riding his unicycle at Ben's annual block party a fortnight ago when some people noticed his unusual form of transportation. Thru that, Shirra met three people who ride unicycles. One of them is Joe Haas, a local high school teacher. I emailed him later. I mentioned that two of the members of my unicycle club are from New Paltz (both also named Joe), and it turns out that he taught both of them.
A couple came over to introduce themselves to Shirra. It turns out that they both went to high school with my brother and remembered him fondly.
Having a unicycle is certainly a great way to meet people.
Coincidences, Part III
CAMP
While picking up a framed picture, a man named Kevin, who works there part-time, came out to put a face to the voice he was hearing. He looked over the receipt and said, "David Stone.... I knew a David Stone at Camp Laurel." Yup. That was my camp. And Kevin was my brother's counselor! He worked there for three years, starting in 1979, the summer that John was in the Redwoods cabin. The next year, he worked with the older kids in what now would be considered the upper camp (it was then called Bago, short for Kennebago), tho he was never my counselor. He has a phenomenal memory and actually recognized me by my voice, or rather, by some of my vocal qualities (vocabulary, cadence). I never realized just how oddly I must speak.
Kevin also had a 1980 Laurel yearboook that he brought in the next day. In it were photos of many of my friends, favorite counselors, and even a few of my brother. One photo even included my best friend Ben (the one who now lives just down the road here in New Paltz), my brother, and me -- we were all in a production of a play.
As Kevin and I spoke about camp, it turned out that Mark, the owner of the frame shop, was quite familiar with Camp Laurel. It seems that the camp had moved to Maine from around here (the Laurel Mountains), so he knew some of the previous owners. As we chatted about them, a customer came in, and he also reminisced about Laurel, even mentioning that one of the better-known counselors (Heidi, who was the head of the waterfront) came from New Paltz.
UNICYCLES
My son was riding his unicycle at Ben's annual block party a fortnight ago when some people noticed his unusual form of transportation. Thru that, Shirra met three people who ride unicycles. One of them is Joe Haas, a local high school teacher. I emailed him later. I mentioned that two of the members of my unicycle club are from New Paltz (both also named Joe), and it turns out that he taught both of them.
A couple came over to introduce themselves to Shirra. It turns out that they both went to high school with my brother and remembered him fondly.
Having a unicycle is certainly a great way to meet people. It seems to make coincidences happen with greater frequency.
While picking up a framed picture, a man named Kevin, who works there part-time, came out to put a face to the voice he was hearing. He looked over the receipt and said, "David Stone.... I knew a David Stone at Camp Laurel." Yup. That was my camp. And Kevin was my brother's counselor! He worked there for three years, starting in 1979, the summer that John was in the Redwoods cabin. The next year, he worked with the older kids in what now would be considered the upper camp (it was then called Bago, short for Kennebago), tho he was never my counselor. He has a phenomenal memory and actually recognized me by my voice, or rather, by some of my vocal qualities (vocabulary, cadence). I never realized just how oddly I must speak.
Kevin also had a 1980 Laurel yearboook that he brought in the next day. In it were photos of many of my friends, favorite counselors, and even a few of my brother. One photo even included my best friend Ben (the one who now lives just down the road here in New Paltz), my brother, and me -- we were all in a production of a play.
As Kevin and I spoke about camp, it turned out that Mark, the owner of the frame shop, was quite familiar with Camp Laurel. It seems that the camp had moved to Maine from around here (the Laurel Mountains), so he knew some of the previous owners. As we chatted about them, a customer came in, and he also reminisced about Laurel, even mentioning that one of the better-known counselors (Heidi, who was the head of the waterfront) came from New Paltz.
UNICYCLES
My son was riding his unicycle at Ben's annual block party a fortnight ago when some people noticed his unusual form of transportation. Thru that, Shirra met three people who ride unicycles. One of them is Joe Haas, a local high school teacher. I emailed him later. I mentioned that two of the members of my unicycle club are from New Paltz (both also named Joe), and it turns out that he taught both of them.
A couple came over to introduce themselves to Shirra. It turns out that they both went to high school with my brother and remembered him fondly.
Having a unicycle is certainly a great way to meet people. It seems to make coincidences happen with greater frequency.
Friday, September 29, 2006
My Commute, So Far
I've taken the bus enough times to have a good idea about the ride. So far, it's been surprisingly good.Trailways Adirondacks has been great thru September, and I'm hoping my run of luck continues. There are many ways a coach-commute could go awry, and as a teacher trained to use multisensory techniques, I guess it makes sense (haha) that I'd contemplate each of the modalities in determining whether I like something:
Sense of SIGHT:
The buses aren't pretty, but that's not why I ride them. And the overhead lights have worked almost perfectly in my 20 rides. A word of warning: The lights in the front seats don't turn on because their reflections would endanger the ride; don't sit in the front seat if you plan to read something at night.
Sense of HEARING:
I always have my iPod, and I make sure to update it frequently so that I can tune in to my favorite podcasts. I like NPR's Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate; both have interesting guests discussing interesting topics. I should probably add a few blogs, tho, so I don't run the risk of having nothing to listen to. Any suggestions?
On one early ride, a young woman had her iPod on too loudly, its tinny sound piercing my quietude for a few minutes before I remembered that I had my own iPod to drown out her noise. Trailways actually mandates that its drivers announce: no loud personal stereos, and NO CELL PHONE CONVERSATIONS. You can answer an important call and chat for a few seconds, but that's about it. On two occasions, I've seen drivers threaten to stop the bus and even dismiss a passenger who kept talking on a mobile.
The buses tend to be well maintained, so they're pretty quiet, too.
Sense of SMELL:
On rare evening rides home, someone has had a potent-smelling dinner that has bothered me. This annoyance is typically brief, and I have learned to combat it by applying lip balm to mask the smell (partly). On one ride, my neighbor had a bad case of intestin-based halitosis, and I went thru a lot of lip balm. Even that ride wasn't so bad -- at least I got some blog material out of it.
Sense of TOUCH:
The seats can be more or less comfortable, but because the ride isn't longer than 90 minutes, so far my feeling about the seats is: No harm, no foul. My back feels the same as it did a month ago. They're wide enough that you won't be bumping elbows with a stranger, and most of the time, riders can have both seats to themselves.
Sense of TIME:
Sometimes I take a little snooze, but most of the time, I busy myself with:
* the Times Magazine crossword and the rest of its contents
* the Scrabble dictionary (I'm more than 100 pages thru it, word for word)
* Discover Magazine
The ride really goes fast when I find myself chatting with a nice stranger; I've met some interesting and fun people, but most of the time we keep to ourselves.
Sense of COST:
I'm not sure if we're born with this sense, but I've certainly developed it over the years. The bus is surprisingly inexpensive. If you buy a month pass ($425), it comes to about $20 roundtrip between New Paltz and NYC. I only travel to The City four days a week, so I guess it's more like $25 a day for me, but still, that's a bargain as far as I'm concerned.
It's also important to note two things. Firstly, the drivers are very kind as well as being safe and experienced behind the wheel, and the buses are in good shape. Secondly, Trailways has a policy that benefits me greatly: You can request a drop-off anywhere along the normal route. In my case, this means that the return bus actually drops me off right at the foot of my private road.
When I started thinking about my bus rides, I was hedging towards a B grade, but I think I'll have to give them an overall A-. There really isn't much room for improvement.
Go Trailways. Go, Trailways!
Sense of SIGHT:
The buses aren't pretty, but that's not why I ride them. And the overhead lights have worked almost perfectly in my 20 rides. A word of warning: The lights in the front seats don't turn on because their reflections would endanger the ride; don't sit in the front seat if you plan to read something at night.
Sense of HEARING:
I always have my iPod, and I make sure to update it frequently so that I can tune in to my favorite podcasts. I like NPR's Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate; both have interesting guests discussing interesting topics. I should probably add a few blogs, tho, so I don't run the risk of having nothing to listen to. Any suggestions?
On one early ride, a young woman had her iPod on too loudly, its tinny sound piercing my quietude for a few minutes before I remembered that I had my own iPod to drown out her noise. Trailways actually mandates that its drivers announce: no loud personal stereos, and NO CELL PHONE CONVERSATIONS. You can answer an important call and chat for a few seconds, but that's about it. On two occasions, I've seen drivers threaten to stop the bus and even dismiss a passenger who kept talking on a mobile.
The buses tend to be well maintained, so they're pretty quiet, too.
Sense of SMELL:
On rare evening rides home, someone has had a potent-smelling dinner that has bothered me. This annoyance is typically brief, and I have learned to combat it by applying lip balm to mask the smell (partly). On one ride, my neighbor had a bad case of intestin-based halitosis, and I went thru a lot of lip balm. Even that ride wasn't so bad -- at least I got some blog material out of it.
Sense of TOUCH:
The seats can be more or less comfortable, but because the ride isn't longer than 90 minutes, so far my feeling about the seats is: No harm, no foul. My back feels the same as it did a month ago. They're wide enough that you won't be bumping elbows with a stranger, and most of the time, riders can have both seats to themselves.
Sense of TIME:
Sometimes I take a little snooze, but most of the time, I busy myself with:
* the Times Magazine crossword and the rest of its contents
* the Scrabble dictionary (I'm more than 100 pages thru it, word for word)
* Discover Magazine
The ride really goes fast when I find myself chatting with a nice stranger; I've met some interesting and fun people, but most of the time we keep to ourselves.
Sense of COST:
I'm not sure if we're born with this sense, but I've certainly developed it over the years. The bus is surprisingly inexpensive. If you buy a month pass ($425), it comes to about $20 roundtrip between New Paltz and NYC. I only travel to The City four days a week, so I guess it's more like $25 a day for me, but still, that's a bargain as far as I'm concerned.
It's also important to note two things. Firstly, the drivers are very kind as well as being safe and experienced behind the wheel, and the buses are in good shape. Secondly, Trailways has a policy that benefits me greatly: You can request a drop-off anywhere along the normal route. In my case, this means that the return bus actually drops me off right at the foot of my private road.
When I started thinking about my bus rides, I was hedging towards a B grade, but I think I'll have to give them an overall A-. There really isn't much room for improvement.
Go Trailways. Go, Trailways!
Coincidences, Part II
In addition to all of the coincidences about Emmett and the 2nd graders of New Paltz, there are two other cool connections that have to do with our move.
For his 7th bday, we got Emmett a trumpet. One day, the mouthpiece got stuck in, so a trumpet player suggested we take it Sam Ash, a well-known music store in midtown Manhattan. As it happens, Shirra's favorite cousin works there. More jawdropping, tho was our discovery that he and his family have recently moved to a town near New Paltz!
The other nice surprise we got came on the ferry to Martha's Vineyard last month. In the car ahead of us, I spotted a man I had only seen once in 20 years, Pat Manning. The last time I saw Pat was 1998, when I ran into him in Albany during a session of the state Assembly. Pat has been an elected assemblyman for Dutchess County since 1990 and has been successful in many enterprises. [I guess he's officially a moderate Republican, but I think he could also be considered a moderate Democrat or even a moderate Independent. Basically he's a great guy, and great pol, whose views are not easily pegged.] Pat was heading to Martha's Vineyard for a week with his sons and his girlfriend. We managed to get together for a fun day at the beach, and it turns out that his girlfriend and Shirra have a lot in common, especially knitting. They don't live in New Paltz, but they're pretty close.
For his 7th bday, we got Emmett a trumpet. One day, the mouthpiece got stuck in, so a trumpet player suggested we take it Sam Ash, a well-known music store in midtown Manhattan. As it happens, Shirra's favorite cousin works there. More jawdropping, tho was our discovery that he and his family have recently moved to a town near New Paltz!
The other nice surprise we got came on the ferry to Martha's Vineyard last month. In the car ahead of us, I spotted a man I had only seen once in 20 years, Pat Manning. The last time I saw Pat was 1998, when I ran into him in Albany during a session of the state Assembly. Pat has been an elected assemblyman for Dutchess County since 1990 and has been successful in many enterprises. [I guess he's officially a moderate Republican, but I think he could also be considered a moderate Democrat or even a moderate Independent. Basically he's a great guy, and great pol, whose views are not easily pegged.] Pat was heading to Martha's Vineyard for a week with his sons and his girlfriend. We managed to get together for a fun day at the beach, and it turns out that his girlfriend and Shirra have a lot in common, especially knitting. They don't live in New Paltz, but they're pretty close.
Land of Amazing Coincidences
Since we began planning the move to New Paltz, we've been the beneficiaries of several amazing coincidences.
Most amazing of all was that the boy right down the road was born the same day as our son in the same hospital, just down the hall from where we were 7 years ago. Considering that there were only a handful of kids born right there and then, I'd have to rate that as one of the all-time unlikely events of our lives, probably on the order of 1 in a million, give or take. Naturally this other little guy takes the same daily bus to the same school, so that gave them quite a cool story for their
friends and teachers!
My little guy, Emmett, was featured alongside me in a photo published in the August 5, 2006 (Sunday) edition of the Poughkeepsie Journal. The accompanying article was about my unicycling and came out days before my unicycle demo at Mohonk Preserve. I'm glad that I agreed to do the demo, because one of the article readers was my long- lost best-friend Ben. We were pretty inseparable from the time we met in pre-nursery until high school, when we began to drift apart at about age 16. It turns out that Ben and his wife decided to settle in New Paltz 7 years ago, just as they were planning to start their family. Like our neighbors, they also have two kids (both boys), and their eldest is also in 2nd grade at the same school! Oh, and Ben lives 5 minutes from our house.
Another lovely coincindence was that our kids' godparents, independent of our decisions, planned to move out of NYC in order to start a family. They decided, like us, to stay close to Manhattan (they're both actors) and settle on Plattekill, 18 minutes door-to-door from us. They close on their house next week. As they love to point out, we couldn't have planned this if we'd tried.
Most amazing of all was that the boy right down the road was born the same day as our son in the same hospital, just down the hall from where we were 7 years ago. Considering that there were only a handful of kids born right there and then, I'd have to rate that as one of the all-time unlikely events of our lives, probably on the order of 1 in a million, give or take. Naturally this other little guy takes the same daily bus to the same school, so that gave them quite a cool story for their
friends and teachers!
My little guy, Emmett, was featured alongside me in a photo published in the August 5, 2006 (Sunday) edition of the Poughkeepsie Journal. The accompanying article was about my unicycling and came out days before my unicycle demo at Mohonk Preserve. I'm glad that I agreed to do the demo, because one of the article readers was my long- lost best-friend Ben. We were pretty inseparable from the time we met in pre-nursery until high school, when we began to drift apart at about age 16. It turns out that Ben and his wife decided to settle in New Paltz 7 years ago, just as they were planning to start their family. Like our neighbors, they also have two kids (both boys), and their eldest is also in 2nd grade at the same school! Oh, and Ben lives 5 minutes from our house.
Another lovely coincindence was that our kids' godparents, independent of our decisions, planned to move out of NYC in order to start a family. They decided, like us, to stay close to Manhattan (they're both actors) and settle on Plattekill, 18 minutes door-to-door from us. They close on their house next week. As they love to point out, we couldn't have planned this if we'd tried.
Monday, September 11, 2006
How to Choose a Place to Live
We had three main criteria in looking outside of NYC for a new home.
1. Proximity to NYC.
The kids have six grandparents and two uncles and their families, all of whom live on the UWS (that's "Upper West Side") of Manhattan. There was also my unicycle club, which meets at Grant's Tomb (UUWS).
2. Strength of School System.
Obviously, we had to take that into account, given that we have three school-aged kids and the fact that I am a teacher and would love someday to teach where I live. For now I'm commuting to Manhattan (see #1 -- another advantage of living near NYC), but one day I'd like to teach here and tutor a bit on the side.
3. Affordability.
We knew we'd be doing well with the sale of our place in Brooklyn but that we'd still have to take out a smallish mortgage. Our goal was to follow the 4-4-4 rule that we invented:
4-4-4 Rule:
4 bedrooms
4 acres
400,000 dollars
We managed to find something in the neighborhood of all three. Our main house is a large 3BR with an extra room currently used as a conservatory (ok, it was the best place to stick the piano). If the kids didn't mind sharing a room between two of them, we'd be all set. As it happens, they continue their practice, brought from Brooklyn, of all sleeping in the same room in adjoining beds, but this time Emmett has a separate room and the girls ostensibly share the other space. We'll see how that plays out in a few years. The house sits on over 7 acres, which is great. The houses on our private road are all separate enough that we can't see each other but we can check in on each other when necessary. We also have nabes on either side of us, but again, we're pretty far spaced. We've met all but one of our neighbors, and they're all really nice. Amazingly, the boy next door was born in the same hospital as Emmett on the exact same day! And we managed to keep the price in the $400,000 range, and that was nice, too.
My commute calls for me to take a bus into Manhattan each day. The ride is only 90 minutes each way, and I can unicycle between each bus depot and home quite easily. Both commutes are five and a half miles, so I get to ride eleven miles a day, which is about what I was doing when I worked at Packer. So far, so good.
1. Proximity to NYC.
The kids have six grandparents and two uncles and their families, all of whom live on the UWS (that's "Upper West Side") of Manhattan. There was also my unicycle club, which meets at Grant's Tomb (UUWS).
2. Strength of School System.
Obviously, we had to take that into account, given that we have three school-aged kids and the fact that I am a teacher and would love someday to teach where I live. For now I'm commuting to Manhattan (see #1 -- another advantage of living near NYC), but one day I'd like to teach here and tutor a bit on the side.
3. Affordability.
We knew we'd be doing well with the sale of our place in Brooklyn but that we'd still have to take out a smallish mortgage. Our goal was to follow the 4-4-4 rule that we invented:
4-4-4 Rule:
4 bedrooms
4 acres
400,000 dollars
We managed to find something in the neighborhood of all three. Our main house is a large 3BR with an extra room currently used as a conservatory (ok, it was the best place to stick the piano). If the kids didn't mind sharing a room between two of them, we'd be all set. As it happens, they continue their practice, brought from Brooklyn, of all sleeping in the same room in adjoining beds, but this time Emmett has a separate room and the girls ostensibly share the other space. We'll see how that plays out in a few years. The house sits on over 7 acres, which is great. The houses on our private road are all separate enough that we can't see each other but we can check in on each other when necessary. We also have nabes on either side of us, but again, we're pretty far spaced. We've met all but one of our neighbors, and they're all really nice. Amazingly, the boy next door was born in the same hospital as Emmett on the exact same day! And we managed to keep the price in the $400,000 range, and that was nice, too.
My commute calls for me to take a bus into Manhattan each day. The ride is only 90 minutes each way, and I can unicycle between each bus depot and home quite easily. Both commutes are five and a half miles, so I get to ride eleven miles a day, which is about what I was doing when I worked at Packer. So far, so good.
Handling Hiccups
Our move has not been as smooth as cream; there have been some chunky bits that the dairymaid could have churned a bit more, and all of them have to do with cats.
Right before the move, we stayed with my mom for two weeks while we waited for the closing on this house. During that time, our two cats stayed in my mom’s studio, a fairly cramped space, and didn’t receive a lot of visitors. They were a bit stressed, and when we finally made the move, things got worse. The poor old cats had to get used to a new space, and to make matters a lot worse, that new space had just the day before been inhabited by a flea-ridden dog. Of course, we didn’t know about the fleas, and before we had a chance to find out, the humans were off to Martha’s Vineyard while the pussycats were left alone again, tended only by our real estate agent and a friend of hers. When we got back, Mocha was lying in a bathtub as tho knocked out. She quickly perked up and spent the next few days a much happier puss. We took her to the vet to rid her of the fleas, but the next day, she got out.
Mocha was not a cat who craved the outdoors. In fact, when given chances to head for the hills in the past, she had always been satisfied merely to stare out the door. I spent three days looking for her and had resigned myself to never seeing her again, figuring that she’d been devoured by coyotes or raccoons. Amazingly, Mocha showed up on our driveway (at the bottom, about a hundred yards from the house) over a hundred hours after her departure. Sadly, she looked a lot worse for the wear. She had lost 20% of her minimal weight, and she was ridden not with fleas but with maggots. A few more trips to the vet also confirmed her failing kidneys, a condition exacerbated by recent stresses, among other things. Mocha died in my arms two nights ago, sixteen-and-a-half years after her birth.
Our beloved black cat, Krishna, also died in my arms, tho this time it was at a vet’s office in Brooklyn just over a month ago. Like Mocha, he was diagnosed with a deadly condition; in his case it was cancer. Since we were about to move and didn’t have too many options, the vet suggested euthanasia, something Shirra and I were both anticipating. Fiona decided to stay home with Shirra and Maeve, but Emmett bravely decided to accompany me. We both sobbed silently as the first dose of medicine made Krishna fall asleep and the second dose stopped his heart. We carefully placed him back on the vet’s table, and I made extra sure that he’d truly stopped breathing before I left the office.
So it was a bit sad this morning on my way to Starbucks for a few treats for the family when I came across a dead black cat in the street. She was so perfect in her outward appearance that it looked as tho she had fallen asleep in the middle of the road; I can only guess that she was bounced by a car as she tried to cross the street, but there was not a hair out of place on her still-warm body. I placed her on the side of the road and called a number on her collar that corresponded to a vet’s office, where I left a message. I was sort of glad not to have found a collar with someone’s home number; I wouldn’t want to be the one to make that phone call.
Right before the move, we stayed with my mom for two weeks while we waited for the closing on this house. During that time, our two cats stayed in my mom’s studio, a fairly cramped space, and didn’t receive a lot of visitors. They were a bit stressed, and when we finally made the move, things got worse. The poor old cats had to get used to a new space, and to make matters a lot worse, that new space had just the day before been inhabited by a flea-ridden dog. Of course, we didn’t know about the fleas, and before we had a chance to find out, the humans were off to Martha’s Vineyard while the pussycats were left alone again, tended only by our real estate agent and a friend of hers. When we got back, Mocha was lying in a bathtub as tho knocked out. She quickly perked up and spent the next few days a much happier puss. We took her to the vet to rid her of the fleas, but the next day, she got out.
Mocha was not a cat who craved the outdoors. In fact, when given chances to head for the hills in the past, she had always been satisfied merely to stare out the door. I spent three days looking for her and had resigned myself to never seeing her again, figuring that she’d been devoured by coyotes or raccoons. Amazingly, Mocha showed up on our driveway (at the bottom, about a hundred yards from the house) over a hundred hours after her departure. Sadly, she looked a lot worse for the wear. She had lost 20% of her minimal weight, and she was ridden not with fleas but with maggots. A few more trips to the vet also confirmed her failing kidneys, a condition exacerbated by recent stresses, among other things. Mocha died in my arms two nights ago, sixteen-and-a-half years after her birth.
Our beloved black cat, Krishna, also died in my arms, tho this time it was at a vet’s office in Brooklyn just over a month ago. Like Mocha, he was diagnosed with a deadly condition; in his case it was cancer. Since we were about to move and didn’t have too many options, the vet suggested euthanasia, something Shirra and I were both anticipating. Fiona decided to stay home with Shirra and Maeve, but Emmett bravely decided to accompany me. We both sobbed silently as the first dose of medicine made Krishna fall asleep and the second dose stopped his heart. We carefully placed him back on the vet’s table, and I made extra sure that he’d truly stopped breathing before I left the office.
So it was a bit sad this morning on my way to Starbucks for a few treats for the family when I came across a dead black cat in the street. She was so perfect in her outward appearance that it looked as tho she had fallen asleep in the middle of the road; I can only guess that she was bounced by a car as she tried to cross the street, but there was not a hair out of place on her still-warm body. I placed her on the side of the road and called a number on her collar that corresponded to a vet’s office, where I left a message. I was sort of glad not to have found a collar with someone’s home number; I wouldn’t want to be the one to make that phone call.
How Banks Work up Here: local vs. national
A friend suggested the Ulster Savings Bank. It’s not the big chain that has a branch right across from Starbucks – that one would have put us in too much danger of calorie-intake at the drop of a deposit. USB is really cute. The tellers all seem to be friends despite their age differences (the older ones all ask the younger ones about their families). The bank seems extremely open, physically, reminiscent of the Savings and Loan from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Opening my account was simply a matter of filling out a form and leaving at least $50 in an account. That entitled me to a big, spiffy cooler pack.
The next day we spotted an ad for KeyBank. They were offering a free iPod Nano for opening an account. The closest local branch is in Stone Ridge, about 30 minutes away. [Our GPS made its first error en route to this place, ordering us to take what has since become a private road.] I arrived ten minutes before closing time, and I was happy to discover that the manager, with the neato name of Kevin B. Cool, didn’t mind staying a bit late just to open a small account, even after I had announced that I had been attracted by the iPod offer. The bank was just as homey, and in fact I found out more about the manager than I’d really hoped to learn. But there was a difference between banks when it came to the Patriot Act.
According to Mr. B Cool, he was required by laws enacted five years ago to ask me certain questions having to do with money laundering. It didn’t seem to be an effective deterrent: It’s not like terrorists aren’t well-versed in the art of answering yes or no questions. The bank manager did call another branch to check on my references or something. I think the difference is that USB is a totally local, unaffiliated bank whereas KeyBank is a national chain. Still, I’ll take that iPod anytime
The next day we spotted an ad for KeyBank. They were offering a free iPod Nano for opening an account. The closest local branch is in Stone Ridge, about 30 minutes away. [Our GPS made its first error en route to this place, ordering us to take what has since become a private road.] I arrived ten minutes before closing time, and I was happy to discover that the manager, with the neato name of Kevin B. Cool, didn’t mind staying a bit late just to open a small account, even after I had announced that I had been attracted by the iPod offer. The bank was just as homey, and in fact I found out more about the manager than I’d really hoped to learn. But there was a difference between banks when it came to the Patriot Act.
According to Mr. B Cool, he was required by laws enacted five years ago to ask me certain questions having to do with money laundering. It didn’t seem to be an effective deterrent: It’s not like terrorists aren’t well-versed in the art of answering yes or no questions. The bank manager did call another branch to check on my references or something. I think the difference is that USB is a totally local, unaffiliated bank whereas KeyBank is a national chain. Still, I’ll take that iPod anytime
How to Deal with Mosquitoes
I still don’t understand the evolutionary point of mozzies. Unless they were the Earth Goddess’s way of keeping human populations in check (thru malaria and the like), it just doesn’t make sense what purpose they serve. Worms aerate the ground, spiders catch little insects, and dragonflies are among the larger insects that feast on mosquitoes, so I can appreciate all of those critters. Even cockroaches serve some purpose, tho I can’t recall what it is other than to freak people out in TV shows and movies. But mozzies are pointless. I know that Buddhists don’t believe in taking the life of any animal, but I’d bet that some of them draw the line at those little blood-sucking enemies of mankind.
Now it happens that I’m one of those people virtually unaffected by mosquitoes. To the mosquito palette, I’m lima beans and Brussels sprouts. Happily, the same is true of Emmett. He and I can walk thru the woods on a muggy night and come back almost unscathed. In fact, when a mosquito alights on my arm, my first reaction isn’t to shoo it away but to stare in amazement while pondering if mosquitoes can have stuffy noses. And if I do fail to react in time, the result is uniformly boring: a tiny red dot, barely raised, that produces only a little bit of itching.
But not the girls! Fiona came back from camp one summer with over 200 bug bites. Shirra is equally attractive to mosquitoes. When Maeve was born, we discovered that deliciousness of blood is carried on the X chromosome in our family: she’s a mozzie-magnet, too.
So what to do? It turns out that bats are just as fond of mosquitoes as I’m not. One small brown bat can eat a hundred of them in ten minutes, or so I’m told. As soon as we heard that, we bought a bat house. We have yet to install it; that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.
Now it happens that I’m one of those people virtually unaffected by mosquitoes. To the mosquito palette, I’m lima beans and Brussels sprouts. Happily, the same is true of Emmett. He and I can walk thru the woods on a muggy night and come back almost unscathed. In fact, when a mosquito alights on my arm, my first reaction isn’t to shoo it away but to stare in amazement while pondering if mosquitoes can have stuffy noses. And if I do fail to react in time, the result is uniformly boring: a tiny red dot, barely raised, that produces only a little bit of itching.
But not the girls! Fiona came back from camp one summer with over 200 bug bites. Shirra is equally attractive to mosquitoes. When Maeve was born, we discovered that deliciousness of blood is carried on the X chromosome in our family: she’s a mozzie-magnet, too.
So what to do? It turns out that bats are just as fond of mosquitoes as I’m not. One small brown bat can eat a hundred of them in ten minutes, or so I’m told. As soon as we heard that, we bought a bat house. We have yet to install it; that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.
Addicted to Weed(ing)
You pull one, you pull them all. I noticed a weed in one of our gardens. The previous owners planted groups of flowers here and there (around the shed, along the house, and so on), but in the last few months, they probably let the weeds accumulate more than usual, focusing more on packing than on gardening (which is understandable).
A week ago, while walking from the cottage to the house, I found a weed and pulled it. It was one of those Frisbee-sized dandelion plants that threatens to spread its seeds all over your lawn if you don’t take care of it. At this time of year, the dandelions are bereft of seed, but they still bug me. I set to it right away.
Before I’d even removed this one, another Frisbee hove into view and was quickly dispatched…and then another. Taking breaks to stand every now and then, I managed to extract enough weeds and weedlings to fill up a wheelbarrow (if only I’d had one at the time). You have to have the attitude that you’re either going to leave all of them alone OR that you’re going to attack them with vengeance usually reserved for mosquitoes.
A week ago, while walking from the cottage to the house, I found a weed and pulled it. It was one of those Frisbee-sized dandelion plants that threatens to spread its seeds all over your lawn if you don’t take care of it. At this time of year, the dandelions are bereft of seed, but they still bug me. I set to it right away.
Before I’d even removed this one, another Frisbee hove into view and was quickly dispatched…and then another. Taking breaks to stand every now and then, I managed to extract enough weeds and weedlings to fill up a wheelbarrow (if only I’d had one at the time). You have to have the attitude that you’re either going to leave all of them alone OR that you’re going to attack them with vengeance usually reserved for mosquitoes.
How to Buy a Wheelbarrow
I bought a wheelbarrow this morning. I liked the way this one works, especially the fact that it has two wheels rather than one, which makes it easier to lug behind me as I walk up our long driveway carrying stones, wood, or whatever. The only problem is that it’s not as hardy as I expected. It was too mild a wheelbarrow to withstand the weight of all the stones I was trying to lug up the hill; I would have needed one of the unicycle-type wheelbarrows for that! This one is apparently better suited for big piles of dirt, weeds, and other light stuff like mulch.
How much you buy? How much you buy? I figured it would cost about $50, give or take a sawbuck. Shirra figured the same, when I asked her later. Nope. It was just over $200 with tax!
How much you buy? How much you buy? I figured it would cost about $50, give or take a sawbuck. Shirra figured the same, when I asked her later. Nope. It was just over $200 with tax!
Thursday, September 07, 2006
How to Move to New Paltz
Moving from Manhattan to Brooklyn was a fairly easy process. We lost Channel 1 (New York One, our favorite news program) and the nearest Starbucks was over two miles away, but otherwise the process was fairly seamless. Moving to New Paltz, on the other hand, required a few more life changes for all of us. This blog will examine those adjustments. It's a step-by-step process.
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