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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.