Super Knitter

If we hadn't moved out of Brooklyn, Shirra might never have opened her knitting store, and if she'd stayed a recreational knitter, rather than a professional one, I most likely would never have felt the need to learn. But here we are in New Paltz, and her store is doing well, and I'm knitting my first scarf. Shirra's been knitting for years and has made every kind of clothing that can be fashioned of yarn. I'm not going to be able to help customers in the store for quite some time, but I figured the sooner I learn, the better. And it's fun.

Super Bowl Knitting Party
Part of the enjoyment I derive from knitting is the shock value. I took my knitting bag to the fire house and brought out my yarn and needles for our Super Bowl party. I love the comaraderie of the fire department, and as a big fan of South Park, I understand how teasing works. If they don't tease you, they don't love you. Or: If they do tease you, it means that they know you can take it. Sociology aside, I enjoyed the barbs and funny looks. My favorite comment was the suggestion that I knit myself a penis.

I was planning to make an all-blue scarf, but Shirra didn't have a second skein of azure blue yarn, so I chose an emerald green for my second color. Then it turned out that the scarf was too short (especially given how fat it was), so I added a third color.

Oops! Have an Ice Day!

As a favor to a blog buddy, Fiona and I picked up a neighbor's son for a carpool to the Middle School this morning. It looked to be a lovely day, with clear skies and temps in the low 40s. We listened to some fun tunes and managed to arrive at the building even earlier than I normally get Fiona there when it's just the two of us. There was one problem, however: Ours was the only car in the lot; school had been canceled.

Fiona called the school hotline just to make sure, but we all had figured it out even before the recording came on: There was obviously an ice storm a few hours away. A few minutes of listening to the radio confirmed this. I took everyone home and got back into bed. Before I got back up, our front steps were covered in ice.

I Hate T*Mobile!

When we put our eldest on our cell phone plan last summer, we extended our contract with T*Mobile another two years from that day. Then we discovered that we hate T*Mobile!

In Manhattan and Brooklyn, it really doesn't matter what carrier you use because they all have brilliant reception. My cell phone even works in the elevator of my mom's building. But around New Paltz, my wife and I noticed that our cell phones cut out in various spots. This is especially true in the outlying areas like Gardiner and Rosendale, where there aren't any local cell phone towers, but more annoying is that my phone loses contact when I'm driving to and from Manhattan on my way to The City. This is especially troublesome because I often lose contact with my students' parents I'm speaking with, so I tend to have difficulty conducting my work. When I took the bus to Manhattan, this issue wasn't quite as irksome because people aren't really allowed to use their cell phones en route. But lately I've been driving, and the problem has become much more apparent.

I wouldn't mind this so much if it weren't for the fact that many other major carriers have better coverage. When I was up in the relatively obscure north western part of the state where the fire academy is located, all of the other would-be fire fighters had fine reception, but I was totally blacked out. In fact, I couldn't use my cell phone until I was miles away from Montour Falls. And the same is true for the highways to NYC. T*Mobile works fine for most of Interstate 87 (not all of it, mind you), but it fares poorly when I break from 87 and take some of the other roads that speed up my trip.

Verizon doesn't have this problem, and one of my friends showed me his cool new Verizon phone. It does everything my Sidekick III does -- AND it works where my stupid phone doesn't.

I called T*Mobile to see if I could get out of my contract, but I don't think it's going to work because they insist that if you have good reception at work and at home (but not necessarily in between), then you're stuck with them. Time ticks (almost) inexorably towards two summers from now -- just 18 months to go....

Two-Hour Delays

When it snows during the night, we often get two-hour school delays the next morning. Normally these are a blessing, since everyone gets to sleep late, but today it was a curse for sure.

To begin with, I was looking forward to subbing for one of the teachers, but the delay caused a change in the schedule that precluded even a half-day of subbing. This wasn't a huge financial hit, but I really do like to sub, and I could have used the money. So it goes. I still had a full day of tutoring to look forward to; in fact, I was starting early on account of a make-up session, so I had to be in The City by 1:45, necessitating a New Paltz departure by 12 at the latest.

EARLY KNITTERS
The next snag was that Shirra's store has a special weekly gathering of Friday morning knitters; Shirra has to be at the store by 9:30. This meant that I had to take all three kids to their respective schools. The hours were rather horrendous: Fiona at 9:30, Maeve an hour later, and Emmett at 11! Then Fiona forgot her homework folder, and the next thing you know, I had to make an extra trip home to pick it up. I had to get something at the doctor's office before heading to Manhattan, too.

TWO DAYS in ONE
I often say that my life, split as it is between Paltz and York, makes it feel like I live two days every 24 hours. This was one such day. By 12, I had made these trips around New Paltz:

9:30 Middle School; also met with one of Fiona's teachers
10:00 Shirra's store; also The Bakery (for the paper)
10:30 Pre-School
11:00 Lenape
11:15 Middle School
11:30 Shirra's store
11:45 Doctor's office

All of this was followed by my 85-mile trips to and from Manhattan and my tutoring, which included 2 miles of unicycling. I didn't get back to New Paltz till 8, and then I had to spend the next half-hour shopping for some groceries.

I'm pooped.

Powerless

Shirra and I awoke on Friday morning to the sound of our eldest walking into the bedroom. She was carrying a flashlight, and the house was eerily dark. Despite my stupor, I realized that we were experiencing a power outage due, no doubt, to downed power lines. I was not at all surprised that 3 seconds later, my fire pager went off. In fact, I was already getting out of bed and putting on my clothes, ready to drive to the scene.

It turned out that a power line had been severed near the Freihoffer's on N. Putt. By 7 am I was crawling back into bed for a few minutes of relaxation; I took Fiona to school a few minutes later and didn't get to take a nap until the other two kids were at school a few hours later. Power came on at 8.

It was strange driving around New Paltz during the power outage. There were whole areas that were blacked out, and then I'd pass a house that must have had a back-up generator because all of their Christmas lights were blazing away merrily. It was also weird trying to walk around my house when it was so dark. The only lights I could see were the tiny battery-operated blinkers of my cell phone and the smoke alarms.

NEWSFLASH: CON ARTIST

Just after reading that last post (below) to the wife, she reported that she'd been hustled by a man about a month ago during a snowstorm. He came by her store and told her a story about how his wife's car had broken down and that she was somehow stranded on the highway. He showed his own car (his 8-year-old son in the back) and explained that he needed $10 for gas so that he could get to her, yadda yadda yadda. Shirra's NYC antennae were down, and she didn't immediately suspect that this was a con. She handed him the money, fully expecting to be repaid when a few days later when the man had a chance to send her a check. She's still waiting for that envelope.

Now, Shirra's no dope, and she never fell for stuff like this back in the Big City, so he must have been a pretty good con artist. Still, she felt ridiculous when she realized that she'd been had. Her only description of the miscreant is that he's an Aftrican-American man in his 40s.

I'm sorry to hear that anyone gets fooled like this anymore, especially my family, but it does help to restore my faith in inhumanity.

PS: My brother had the same con pulled on him (in Manhattan) over a decade ago. He fell for it, too. Then about 6 months later, the same man approached him (on the same street, no less). John heard the same story (about the man's wife being stranded in their car, yadda yadda yadda). My brother has a sneaky streak. He let the man tell the entire woeful tale and kept plugging away with questions and comments until he felt that he'd wasted a good portion of the man's time, at least 15 minutes. Finally, my brother said that he recognized the man (and the story) from before and that he'd be willing to part with another $5 if the man would simply admit that it was a con both times. Interestingly, this schnorrer had too much dignity to fess up to his lie and walked away from the money. There's a moral in there somewhere if you're willing to look for it closely.

I Saw a Man (Begging) about a Dog

For just the 2nd time since I've moved to New Paltz 16 months ago, I came across a person asking for a handout. Both times it happened in the New Paltz Plaza in the Stop and Shop parking lot. The man today was carrying a pooch in one hand and some trinkets in the other. He asked if I would buy a Tibetan keychain to help him feed his dog. A month ago, a young man asked for some money for food.

In NYC, I knew that the 'proper' way to handle such requests was to ignore them. It's a good bet that anyone asking for assistance is a con artist or a ne'er-do-well, and the prevailing wisdom is that everyone would be better served if citizens didn't help out but left the assisting to government agencies and charitable groups like churches, synagogs, and soup kitchens. In theory, this would eventually force the truly needy to seek out proper help rather than relying on the unreliable public. I never liked this 'proper' method. I've come to prefer the way my ancestors handled things in the shtetl.

Back in the days of peasant Jewry, beggars were called schnorrers (or shnorrers). They called upon townsfolk rich and not-so-rich for regular handouts, and the religion (and tradition) called for those better off to give schnorrers a meal and a bed for the night. I like this form of public assistance even more than handing someone a $5 bill and hoping that they have a warm place to sleep.

But I have a feeling that the modern shtetl of New Paltz has already figured out some methods to help those in need. And I'm pretty sure that they don't involve Tibetan keychains. I just wish I knew what they did involve.

Not the Merriest of Xmases

Chrismas started off ok, but it quickly went downhill. We gave the kids a few presents, smiles all around, and cleaned up. At about 1, I got a call over my pager for a fire in a bedroom, and I raced to the scene in time to see some black smoke issuing from an apartment window. Luckily no one was hurt and there was relatively little property damage; still, I felt bad for the man who owned the place.

I got home to discover that Emmett's stomach was achier than usual. He's been having headaches and abdominal cramps, but these were worse than anything he'd had up till now. Shirra called the doctor and we kept giving him fluids, but a few hours later, as he was brushing his teeth, he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. I rubbed his back and told him to let loose if he had to, and sure enough, he puked twice into the sink. His evening only got worse, really, as he woke up several times for more of the same, and by morning he was exhausted from dehydration and lack of sleep. Shirra was exhausted, too, but I wasn't too tired because I'd gone to bed early in order to help Emmett thruout the night. He spent today recovering from the previous 12 hours, and by keeping him on ginger ale and crackers, we kept the vomiting at bay.

It wasn't the happiest Christmas, but at least it was memorable.

Beware the $2 Mouse

Back a year ago, Fiona requested a mouse. It seemed like a nice idea -- they're so small and cute -- and it wasn't like she was asking for a $200 chinchilla. At $2, Ralph seemed like a bargain. Well, there was the cage and other rodent accoutrements, but the over all cost was under $50, and if I recall correctly, Fiona picked up most of that tab. Since we already had 5 guinea pigs, we were buying tons of bedding, so the small amount he needed was about as negligible as his size.

Then Fiona decided she wanted a 2nd mouse. At first, this seemed like aninvestment of just $2 more. But Algernon didn't get along with Ralph, so we had to get a 2nd set of accoutrements, which also meant that Shirra, who was cleaning the cages of all the animals, had one more job each week. Sadly, Ralph died shortly after we got the new mouse. It seemed like Algernon wouldn't last much longer, too, when he started losing fur.

We took him to our wonderful vet, Dr Malamud, and she suggested treating him for mites. This required $22 shots once a week as well as a few tests. We tried some antibiotics, too (we're now on the second round of them). We've also had to change his bedding a bit more often.

Not including the 'human' cost of the time we've spent cleaning his cage and waiting at the vet's office, the actual cost of this $2 mouse is verging on $300, and that's only because the vet has been kind to us in her charges.

Beware, dear reader, the $2 mouse!

Now, I've spent more than that on purebred cats, and Shirra's hedgehog was $200 for a pet you can't hold without gloves or small blisters, so I'm not begrudging the cost. It's just that Fiona rarely plays with Algernon these days. For the most part, it's more like she's the adoptive but neglectful mother of a mouse and 2 guinea pigs who serve the function of unused Christmas presents. Parents enjoy giving them, and children enjoy receiving them, and telling their friends that they have them. But that's pretty much where the joy ends.

Bah, humbug.

Oh, the Weather Outside is...

Well, 'frightful' would be a bit strong. That might have described the forecast, but it certainly didn't describe the actual weather that followed it. Winter storm advisories were calling for a major nor'easter to dump 6-12 inches on New Paltz and the environs. We barely got two inches.

Still, that was enough to trap my family for many hours today. We made the most of it, tho. Shirra trekked down to Route 32, where her employee picked her up. She got to spend the day in her store, knitting, chatting, and watching bootleg tv shows on Cricket's laptop. The kids made it outside for an hour's worth of tramping in the snow and sledding. I got in some quality time with the computer, playing an hour of online Scrabble (isc.ro) before joining the kids for a bit. I got some nice snaps of the kids, including one of Maeve standing next to the snowwoman she made on Thursday with her babysitter (featuring ample snow-boobs). After lunch, it was naptime for Maeve.

STUCK in the SNOW
While she was a-nap, I decided to see if the road was passable. The car got stuck a few times, but clearly it wouldn't be impossible to get to 32 if I could make it up the small incline past our neighbor's house. The only problem is that this same incline begins at a small bridge between two ponds, and the bridge doesn't have guard rails. For me to make it over the incline, I'd have to build up speed, but to do that, I had to back over the bridge (yes, BACK, as in backwards) four or five times; it got less terrify each round. Eventually, I made it to 32 and thence to the fire house.

FIRE CALLS
A call had come in to my pager just before I went outside, and another came in a few minutes later. I figured I'd get to the station as quickly as I could, but the trip that normally takes 6 minutes took more like 30. Still, I made it there in time to answer a third call (a false alarm), clean up the firetrucks and the station, and head to Starbucks, all by 4pm. I got some surprises for the wife and kids and then picked Shirra up at her store.

It was a quiet and relaxing snowy day in the Paltz.

Naming New Paltzers

Cat the Cheese, Ben the Plow, Steve the Fire. These are a few of our favorite names around New Paltz.

When we first moved to the Noop, we knew that we'd be meeting a lot of new people in all areas of our lives. We decided to borrow from one of our favorite movies in order to simplify things. In an early Hugh Grant movie called "The Englishman Who Went up a Hill and Came down a Mountain," some Welsh townsfolk refer to each other as [Name] the [Job]. We decided to adopt that strategy as well. It seems to make the most sense to use this technique under two circumstances:

1. The person has a common name, so we're trying to avoid confusion, or
2. The person doesn't come up in conversation too often, so we're reminding each other about the person in a shorthand way.

[Name] the [Job] has two benefits. It conveys a sentence-worth of information in just three words, and it's fun.

Our favorite names so far:

Cat the Cheese: the lovely young woman who owns the cheese shop in Water Street Market
Dave the Toy: owns Enchanted Toys.
Ben the Plow: the man who saves us from being completely snowed in,
Joe the Plow: the man who saved us when Ben the Plow didn't make it one time last year,
Joe the Phone: a fireman who happens to work for Verizon,
Steve the Fire: another fireman (who happens to be a musician),
Steve the Mail: our usual mailman,

Cars that Go Bump in the Day

SNOW
The snow hit hard this morning, starting just as I was leaving the firehouse following a false alarm. I decided to run a few errands, ending up at Shirra's store. After grabbing some needles that she needed, I put up a sign to announce that the store was closed due to snow, and then I headed home. Since the car was parked on Church, I drove over to Manheim and then made a left. This was a mistake -- that road is fairly steep and rarely plowed.

BOOM
There were two cars ahead of me, and both of them were sliding around a bit; apparently both drivers were turning into a driveway just after my left turn from Church. One of the cars made it, but the other slipped a bit just as I began driving down that road. And then I slipped. My car kept sliding, picking up speed as it headed towards the other car, so I honked to alert the driver to our impending boom. It felt like I hit her pretty hard, but luckily there was no damage to either car. Since I had some sand in my car, I spread some under her car (and another that had shown up a minute later), rescuing both drivers before heading home.

Although the weather in Manhattan wasn't too bad, the roads TO Manhattan were probably slick, so there was a chance I'd get stuck. I decided to cancel my students for the day just to be on the safe side. We made hot chocolate, the kids went sledding and exploring in the snow, and late in the day, our plow guy showed up. At least we won't be stuck home tomorrow.

Think Fast

My First Day of Fasting

The day I turned 40, I decided to limit my caloric intake drastically. I went from about 3000 calories a day (including lots of Starbucks treats) to a diet of less than the recommended daily allowance of 2000 (and no *$$). In two months, I went from 193 lbs to about 168, a loss of 25 pounds. I still ate chocolate and had some ice cream, but I was really careful about avoiding unnecessary (empty) calories, like soda, and I severely cut down on my inveterate late-night snacking tendencies. Then came Martha's Vineyard.

I'd kept my weight at about 168, give or take a few pounds, for the months leading up to the summer, but that Murdick's fudge gets me every time. I found myself eating at least a half pound a day, in addition to frequent trips to Mad Martha's ice cream, and in two weeks, my weight was over 180. I was pretty annoyed.

In the months since that trip, I've managed to stay at around 177, which feels like a comfortable weight, but I've been snacking more, and eating more ice cream, than I should. I decided it was time to do something about this once again, and a few days ago I decided that today I would start a once-a-week abstinence from food. "Wednesdays Without," I guess you could call it. If I'd waited a couple more days, I could have had "Foodless Fridays," but Wednesdays just happened to work out better for my schedule.

It's funny how unconscious we can be around food. While helping Maeve with her lunch today, I opened a container of stringbeans that her mom had packed and found myself munching two of them. Oops. So my fast wasn't totally perfect. I also let Maeve feed me a blueberry, but that was conscious; you have to allow for cutenesses like that. I had also read that many people simply avoid 'food' but don't eschew fruit juices, so I had a few ounces of blueberry juice this morning, a quarter-lemon's worth of juice in my green tea, and later, some sparkling apple cider.

It's also confusing when people talk about fasting for a 'day.' Does that mean you can start eating again 24 hours after your last late-night snack? I don't think so. I decided to interpret 'day' to mean the 30- to 36-hour period from previous meal to next meal. So I have to wait until tomorrow morning before I can eat again.

Fasting is supposed to extend lifespan and generally improve health, which is why I've chosen to do it. It certainly wasn't as hard as I'd expected. It's also said to help reduce sugar cravings, so I'm looking forward to that aspect as well. I'm also really looking forward to breakfast, which in this case is a well-named meal. I'll stick with my honey yogurt (<200 cal), but I'm going to switch from my usual black tea with milk and a whopping tablespoon of sugar to green tea with a bit of lemon.

Slip Slidin' Away

This morning my 11-year-old woke me up with the news that her mom's car was stuck in ice near the lake on our road. Ah, blissful sleep.

20 minutes later (I was slow to awaken) I was pushing our minivan uphill as Shirra gunned the engine. The problem with Honda's Odyssey models is that you really _can't_ gun their engines. They're programmed so that when you put the pedal to the medal, the wheels only turn slowly, never reaching even as fast as 50 mph. Apparently this is some kind of safety measure for when you're driving on icy roads, but when you're stuck on one, it's a real disadvantage. After about 40 minutes of pushing the car after applying sand on the road, we were back home.

Not surprisingly, school had been delayed for two hours due to icy conditions. My wife found this out a bit too late, and by that time, she was stuck half-way down our long hill. Since it took so long to get the car back home, I basically had to get back into my car just a half-hour later so that I could make a second attempt down the road. It was scary going, but we eventually got to Route 32 safely, and after that the trip was a cinch.

The rest of the day was just as eventful. I managed to get both of the other kids to their schools, but Maeve's preschool was only 90 minutes, and with the errands I had to run, it felt like I had to pick her up as soon as I'd dropped her off, and then I had to turn around and head into Manhattan. I saw two students, then rushed back into New Paltz for a mandatory but fairly useless fire fighter class. Shirra, meanwhile, had a great day at the store, where business has been brisk -- in some part due to the upcoming holidays. We were both able to get our cars back home safely, with some difficulty and trepidation. We'll definitely have to call that School Closing Hotline before leaving tomorrow!

Gas Problem

When it comes to my car, I have a gas problem: I'm not gassy enough.

Today marked the 4th time in my life that I hv run out of gas, 3 of them in the past few months. I'd like to say that this time wasn't totally my fault, but of course it was.

TIME the FIRST
The first time happened when I was in college. I drovew a gas guzzler that my parents had insisted I buy, rather than a snazzier model, because it was so large that it might protect me in an accident. I'm not sure that this theory still makes sense. Nowadays, the only people who drive really long cars adorn the dashboards of their vehicles with photos of their grandkids. As for my car, a Ford Granada that I called "The Boat," I do know that the thing sucked down gasoline like a baby
takes to milk. Fortunately, when I did run out of gas, it was while I was on my way to the local 7-11...to get gas. I came up about a mile short and got a push the rest of the way from a nice man who was driving an even larger car. His dashboard was festooned with photos of his grandkids.

EPISODE #2
I was really good about keeping my car filled up for the next 20 years, but then we moved to New Paltz. I began making regular drives into Manhattan, and I realized that I could save about $6 a tankful if I fueled up in New Jersey, which happens to be part of the fastest route. This played right into my intense drive to save money (or to avoid wasting it, to be precise). Rather than filling up in New Paltz, I'd figure out if I could make it into Joisey; if not, I'd load up with no more than a few dollars' gas, just to avoid wasting that extra $4 or $5. Saving money brings me peace of mind, I guess.

But back in September, I was heading out of The City when the car seized up. I had just enough time to pull over before the engine stopped working. Amazingly, I ended up in an actual parking spot. The chance of this happening in Manhattan is right up there with the chance of Reese Witherspoon's character winning her lawsuit in Legally Blonde. If it hadn't happened to me, I might not have believed it. After pinching myself and then apologizing to the kids for the delay, I was able to unicycle to a nearby gas station and get the car back on the road in under 20 minutes.

THIRD TIME'S a CHARM
Last week, I started to feel that seizing sensation as the car ran out of gas just as I pulled into the first gas station in New Jersey. Based on what happened today, I now know that I had less than 1000 feet of 'wiggle room' before the car was totally immobile. I knew I was running low (correction: on fumes), but I kept my speed down to maximize gas milage and just hoped that I had enough to get to the station. Well, I pulled it off by .2 miles that time, but my calculations were off today!

FOURTH TIME'S NOT SO CHARMING
I forgot to fill up in New Paltz, and in fact, I passed the only gas station for the next 30 miles way back on Route 87 before finally remembering that I was really low on gas. I checked the gauge -- not the gas gauge, since that's broken, but the readout that tells me how much gas I've consumed since the last time I hit a certain button that my Aztek is equipped with -- and it told me that I had used 17.3 gallons since refueling. That suggested that I had about a gallon left. My calculations suggested that I could make it to the filling station about 20 miles away, and I slowed down more than usual in order to save gas. This was especially important because the car was struggling into a fierce headwind that cut my gas milage by about 20%. At mile marker 38 or so, I started to feel that sticky feeling as the car seized up, and even tho I 'should' have had enough gas to make it to the filling station, I knew that I had somehow run out. I pulled into the slow lane and then onto the shoulder and let the car glide until gravity and friction slowed it to a stop. It would not restart, but I thought I was close enough that I could run to the gas station and back rather than having to call Triple-A.

A half-mile of running in a fierce, chill wind, I finally came to the turn in the road where I expected to see the pumps not too far ahead. I saw nothing more than road, and that's when it became obvious that the gas station was close to where I had run out of gas only if one is moving 70 miles per hour at the time. I called Triple-A and began to deal with this debacle a second way.

AAA is great if you have car troubles and know exactly where you are, but they seem to lack even the most basic computerized navigation system like the GPS that my wife and I share. I told the operator that I was at mile marker 37.5 on the southbound side of Route 87 in New Jersey and expected her to say that she could see me on a satellite image like on the Show '24.' Instead she asked me what city I was in. City? In? I wasn't in a city. Aren't highways exempt from being IN cities? I thought that they were like the rivers of old, separating and skirting cities but never truly part of them. Apparently this is not the case, and a mere ten minutes later, she had located me on a map (I could hear the folding and unfolding). Another half-hour later a state trooper arrived, and I thought I was thru with my hiccup, but instead, he merely informed me that a gas truck (actually a tow truck) was on its way in about ten more minutes. I'm not sure why a trooper had to ascertain that I was out of gas before calling for the tow truck, and I'm also not sure why troopers don't just carry a gallon of gas.

Amazingly I made it to Manhattan in time for my first student. I even found an ideal parking spot and did some last-minute Hanukkah shopping before our session. So, did I learn my lesson? I'm not so sure.