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.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
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.
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