Posts from — August 2011

I mentioned that on Thursday we were preparing for clothes shopping. At the time, I’d hoped that we’d spend the morning sorting clothes and the afternoon shopping. Alas, the sorting took longer than expected, and we ended up too exhausted for a big shopping trip. We ended up taking one trip to Justice and JC Penney in Clifton Park last week, partly because we needed to get a birthday present, too. Today, the girls and I made our annual back-to-school mall pilgrimage.

—-Update:  Okay, since posting this there’s been a hullabaloo about JC Penney’s crappy misogynist shirts like “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me” (which has been pulled) and “My Best Subjects: Boys, Shopping, Music, Dancing” (still available as of this update). I tried to send an email, but the email wouldn’t go through (hoping that tons of people are complaining, too!). So I called customer service and spoke to a nice lady named Becky who told me that they’d all received a memo so that they could apologize to callers about the pretty homework t-shirt. I said something like, please tell me that you’re pulling all of this stuff, because otherwise I’m going to have to make my daughter return her new favorite. When I told her about the “My Favorite Subjects” tee, I could swear that she made a little gasp of her own when she pulled it up on her computer. She gave me the phone number for the corporate office, which is 972-431-8200. There I spoke with Christine, who was not particularly helpful, but politely told me that everything was being reviewed. Let’s hope so.—–

After taking stock, the “to buy” items were jeans and casual shoes for both girls (they wear jeans constantly), a dressy outfit for M, and something cute for the first day of school. The girls always want to go to Justice, but we rarely find much except their beloved smelly shirts. We often have good luck at The Children’s Place, and today was no exception: $10 Jeans! Yes, please!

Here are some of the highlights:

M begs for a long sweater every year, and then she wears it. A lot. This is in contrast to the sweater dress that she begs for every year, then wears, like, once. This year I made a pre-emptive strike and told her that I would not buy a sweater dress as her dressy think. Pants and a nice shirt instead, because she’ll actually wear that. I hope. Anyway, this sweater’s from Crazy 8.

Here’s M’s dressy shirt, from JC Penney.

Among the ten dollar jeans, J managed to ferret out $22 jeans. But they were so cute that I couldn’t resist. Ditto the shirt.

And then, of course, since the jeans were (mostly) cheap, I bought an adorable scarf for each of them. This is partly because I just love that they can pull off scarf-wearing with such panache. And these are J’s shoes from Payless. We ended up ordering shoes for M from Land’s End. She’d admired them weeks ago, but I’d put her off until today, when I noticed that they’re now half price! Yay!

I linked to a couple of places for hurricane relief, and here are a few more.

A reader wrote me with this:

I am a teacher in the Schalmont School District and many of our families in the Rotterdam Junction area lost everything in the flooding after Irene.  The district has set up a donation center at Jefferson Elementary School (100 Princetown Road, Schenectady, NY 12306).  For more information you can follow this link to the district homepage.

Many of these families have small children and lost everything so we are really hoping the community support will turn this tragedy into something positive.

Here’s a Facebook page for helping Schoharie County with hurricane relief.

Here are a bunch of links that the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. sent out via email:

• The Chamber of Schenectady County will be accepting donations of non-perishable food items, canned goods, diapers and more. Call 518-372-5656 for information.
• The Galesi Group is offering short term warehouse provisions to local businesses for temporary real estate and warehousing needs. Call 518-356-4445.
• 1st National Bank of Scotia is offering special loans for those in our area affected by Tropical Storm Irene. Call 518-370-7200. More…

Last night I said that I’d love to hear about volunteer efforts in the Capital District, and the folks at All Over Albany have some suggestions here. Also, Matt Baumgartner of Friday Puppy/Bombers/Biergarten fame, is asking for donations to help out Jumpin’ Jacks.

Oh, and I forgot: I meant to link to DelSo, who just wrote a review of Zoom Flume in case you’re interest in an end-of-summer outing.

I’m holed up upstairs because Cute W is hosting a Fantasy Football draft tonight–he does two leagues every year. Yowza.

J requested earplugs to drown out all of the testosterone, and M claimed that the earplugs didn’t work and is, as far as I know, still sulking in bed. I advised her to stick a pillow over her head “because that’s what I do when you guys are being to loud when I’m trying to sleep.” Passive aggressive? Yeah, okay, a little. But she needs to suck it up so that I can finish my post and start a chick flick already!

First, I always feel bad for people who have the same name as a disaster. That’s no fun. So if anyone’s in the mood for shopping for stylish, handmade, mostly-silver jewelry, check out my friend Irene’s Etsy site, Irene C Studio.

So, how’s everybody holding up? Do you have power? Is your house dry? Trees mostly still standing?

We were fortunate to continue our disaster tradition, which, you may recall, is:

Nothing that’s seriously threatened life and limb for us (knock on wood), but a couple were serious enough for a bit of adventure.

Yep, that about covers it. We lost power just after Cute W had mixed up a big batch of waffle batter but, alas, before he’d heated the waffle iron. The power was off for several hours, and with no back-up for the sump pump, things started looking ugly down in the basement, which has a large finished room as a playroom and some unfinished storage. Pretty soon we were dragging storage items into the middle of the already-messy playroom.

The girls enjoyed this. For example, they had fun pretending that they were skiing on large wooden blocks:

Still the water kept rising, and we remarked ruefully that we only needed about ten minutes of power for the sump pump to catch up.  We were just about to make an early lunch of burgers before the meat started getting too warm when the power came on. Oh, joy! The sump pump hummed along while we quickly made waffles and whipped cream for lunch.

The girls loved the waffles, but they were confused. They were ready for burgers. No, we explained, you had waffles for lunch. But, they protested, waffles aren’t lunch. They’re breakfast. This conversation went on for way too long. I started getting huffy. “Listen, girls. This is not a normal day. Let’s not get all caught up in labeling what’s lunch and what’s dinner. We might not have lunch at lunchtime or a normal dinner or any of those things, but you are very fortunate, because if you are hungry, you will eat. We have plenty of food, we just have to prioritize a little here.”

Almost as soon as the waffles were finished, the power was out again. Somehow, having the power go on and off really helped us out. Every time things got a bit monotonous, there was a switch up. When the power went out for the second time, M cheerfully advised J: ” Just think, what would Mary & Laura do?” I couldn’t help thinking that Mary & Laura would be sewing clothing for their corn cob dolls out of quilting scraps instead playing with 8 different Polly Pocket dolls, but I still appreciated the sentiment.

We actually had a pretty productive day cleaning and organizing around the house. All the stuff that you don’t bother doing when you can, oh, I don’t know, leave the house, work on your computer, or watch tv. M even cleaned her room and J did some homework.

Anyway, the second power outage was hours-long, too. With everything saturated, the water in the basement inched up over the concrete floor even quicker, and it was just lapping at the edges of our playroom carpet when we were saved again. Hooray! Seriously, we had excellent timing. By late afternoon, beyond little flickers, we were powered up and drying out.

Over dinner (those burgers), Cute W said, “So, what did you girls think of Hurricane Irene?” M answered, “Well, it didn’t really come, did it?” Uhhhh, hello? Did you miss the lack of power? The random sirens? Your dad carrying buckets full of water out of the basement? I guess so.

Oh! And the funniest part! Another piece of conversation at dinner:

J: “So, if the power goes out again, will it get cold tonight?”
Me: “No, it’s still August. It might get a bit chilly, but it won’t get really cold.”
[There's a pause, and both girls look disappointed.]
Me: “Wait a minute. Were you thinking that if the power went out again we might all have to sleep in the living room like the time when there was the ice storm?”
[Both girls grin.]
J: “That would be so cool!“

So, we were unscathed. I hope that all of you were, too.We’d just spent Friday night in Vermont visiting family, and things are really bad there, with businesses flooded and roads and bridges washed out or impassable.

Schenectady isn’t looking good. I’m sure that most of you saw this photo of Jumpin’ Jacks, but if you didn’t, it’s pretty appalling. Those 4 circles between Route 5 and the buildings are the roof-canopy things that provide shade for the tables. There are actually several more (you can see them in photos on the Jumpin’ Jacks site) that are completely submerged. And the big watery space between the tennis courts and the circle of trees is the playground. To compare, you can type “Western Gateway Bridge, Scotia, NY” into Googlemaps satellite and zoom in.

If anyone knows of folks who are trying to gather volunteers to help with clean-up, I’d love to hear about it and spread the word.

I’m posting this week’s events early–and probably incomplete–bargaining that something’s better than nothing. We’ve been getting power off and on (although, alas, mostly off) all day, so I figured I should post this while I can.

Every time the power’s off, the water level in our basement rises, and when we get power the sump pump catches up, but it’s not looking good. So far the water’s only covered the unfinished portion, but the last time it was approaching the playroom carpet when we were saved by the pump.

The kids, at least, are having a marvelous time playing. Knock on wood.

Here’s what I’ve found:

All Week:

• A 3-day Art Camp for ages 6-11 begins on Tuesday at the Albany Institute of History & Art. The theme is Things That Fly. Tuition is $60/non-member for all 3 days.
• The Schaghticoke Fair opens on Wednesday and continues through Labor Day.
• The Columbia County Fair also opens on Wednesday and continues through Labor Day.

Monday, August 29th:

• Go on a Scavenger Hunt starting at 10 am at the nature center at Moreau Lake State Park.
• The Tri-City Valleycats have a 7 pm home game.

Tuesday, August 30th:

• From 8:30-10:30 am, take a Red Oak Ridge Hike at Moreau Lake State Park.
• Take a Spring Overlook Hike from 10 am to 1 pm at Moreau Lake State Park.
• Take a Summer Stroll from 10-11:30 am at Albany Pine Bush. $3/person or $5/family.
• At 2 pm it’s Preschool Naturalists at Saratoga Spa State Park. $3/person or $5/family.
• At 3:30 pm, build a  Mechanical Sculpture at the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology. Ages 5 and up, $2/non-member. Pre-register.
  
• Hair of the Dog are performing at 6:30 pm at Cook Park in Colonie.

Wednesday, August 31st:

• At 9:30 am, kids 4 and up can make Recycle Sculptures at the  Open Door Bookstore. It’s free, but call to register.
• At 10 am, it’s a Game-a-thon at Bethlehem Public Library. Sign-up is required.
• At 10:30 am, Rain or Shine. . . It’s Reading Time at the New York State Museum. Free.

Thursday, September 1st:

• Ginny Martin is hosting free demonstration classes for new students at the Grange Hall on Pashley Road in Glenville.  They’re from 5-5:45 pm for 4- to 6-year-olds and 6-7 for 7- to 10-year-olds.

Friday, September 2nd:

• Take a noon First Friday Hike at Albany Pine Bush and Meet the Oaks. $3/person, $5/family.
• It’s Ballston Spa First Friday  from 6-9 pm. That includes a showing of Tangled in Wiswall Park at about 8:30 pm.
• It’s First Friday Albany  from 5-9 pm.
• Go on a Star Watch at Grafton Lakes State Park at 7:30 pm.

Is everybody ready for some hurricane action?

At our house, we’re pretty glad that we got that new roof. Beyond that, we haven’t done much in preparation for rain and wind. Cute W always keeps us fully stocked in the flashlight-battery department, because he’s Just. That. Handy. I filled our water pitcher and brought all of my houseplants back inside from their summer home in the screen porch.

I must be getting old, because we’ve been through some natural disasters. Nothing that’s seriously threatened life and limb for us (knock on wood), but a couple were serious enough for a bit of adventure.

Right after we got married, we were living in Des Moines, IA for the flood of ’93.  My mother-in-law called us in the middle of the night to tell us that we should start filling up our bathtub and every pot that we had because the water treatment facility had been flooded and everyone’s water was getting shut off.  We leaped into action and stored as much water as we could, then we sat down and realized that with the storm raging, sirens going off everywhere, and our adrenaline pumping, there was no way that we’d be sleeping that night. So we headed to the downtown library. We’d heard on the radio that they were requesting volunteers to help move books upstairs because they expected the lower level to flood.  We joined a long chain of people passing books, and when all the books were passed, someone sent the whole crowd of us to sandbag. Phew! Sandbagging was sweaty, difficult, & discouraging work.  I would love to say that we were so virtuous that we went hither, thither, and yon volunteering for the next several days, but actually, our sandbagging efforts slowed down considerably when we realized that we weren’t going to be able to take a shower anytime soon.

We didn’t have any water for a week or ten days. We lived in an apartment building, and the tenants left their empty buckets and pitchers in the hallway. Whenever it rained, anyone who was home would run outside with everyone’s containers so that we’d have flushing and washing water. Another day I went out in our front yard in a bathing suit with soap and shampoo to shower in a hard rain. During this time of mostly-spongebaths, I was working as a temp. I remember one morning the agency called me to ask if I could be somewhere in an hour, and I sighed, thinking, if only I could take a shower.  Good times!

Speaking of good times, my daughters still have fond memories of the 2008 ice storm. We lost power overnight on Thursday-to-Friday, and power resumed on Sunday morning, and for the most part, the girls thought it was a fabulous adventure.

We have a gas fireplace, so we stretched a sheet across the doorway out of our living room to conserve one heated space (you can see it in the picture below). I don’t remember what we did all day on Friday, but we made our own fun. Here’s a picture of us on Friday night. I’m serving cocoa that we’d cooked on our outdoor grill, and the girls and I are wearing about five layers of clothing. The flash makes it look like normal lighting, but we were actually playing Poppa’s Pizza Topple surrounded by  candles.

At night we all cuddled up in a group bed by the fire. They loved camping out in the living room, and since we’d already decorated (and baked) for Christmas, it was pretty festive.

We spent part of Saturday at Cute W’s office, where we could enjoy heat, the internet, and television, and Saturday night was slightly less festive. Just as we were getting fed up with the situation on Sunday, the electricity came back. The next year, the girls asked if we could please do an ice storm camp-out again. How about you? Did other kids enjoy the ice storm as much as mine did?

Hope that all of you & your families (and your basements!) stay safe and dry.

So, think we’re in for some weather? I just got an email saying that the Schenectady Greenmarket is cancelled on Sunday due to safety concerns with Hurricane Irene. And I only have a ton of events that are supposed to be outdoors. . .

Well, call first. Or maybe stay home and batten down the hatches? We’ll see.

 All Weekend:

• The Saratoga & North Creek Railway are doing their Day Out With Thomas on Saturday and Sunday, this weekend and next. $18/ticket for ages 3 and up. This is a bit of a drive–like an hour and a half–but a friend has taken her kids and had a great time.
• It’s a drive, but the Shakespeare & Company’s The Venetian Twins continues until Saturday.

Friday, August 26th:

• At 3 pm, take the BKFK Sikorsky Helicopter Challenge at the Children’s Museum of Science and Technology. Ages 5 and up, $2/non-member. Pre-register.
• From 5:30-9:30 pm, it’s Movies, Munchies, & More at the Midway Fire Department in Colonie. $10 suggested donation per family benefits Girls, Inc. The movie is Rio.
• From 6-8 pm it’s a Family Game Night at Schodack Island State Park. Pre-registration required; $3 a person.
• Go on a Star Watch at Cherry Plain State Park at 8 pm.

Saturday, August 27th:

• At 10 am kids can make a school locker as part of Lowe’s free Build and Grow program. A reader says her 5-year-old daughter loves doing these activities.
• Try Letterboxing at Mine Kill State Park at 10 am. If you want more information on letterboxing, I wrote a post a while back.
• At 11 am, its Kids Craft Under the Big Tree at Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site. Kids ages 4 to 12 can make their own Tin Punch Lantern for $1.
• They’ll have a Touch ‘n’ Explore Wildlife Display set up from 11 am to 1 pm set up by Long Pond Beach at Grafton Lakes State Park. If you haven’t visited a state park beach yet, you should do it before summer slips away.
• It’s Latinfest at Washington Park in Albany from 11 am to 6 pm. Pony rides, face painting, music, and more.
• From 1-3 pm, learn about Dragonflies and Damselflies at Landis Arboretum. $10/person, $25/family.
• At 2 pm it’s Watchable Wildlife: The Monarch Butterfly at Five Rivers.
  
• Route Fifty 5, a brass quintet are playing at Freedom Park in Scotia at 7 pm.
• Go Stargazing at Thacher Nature Center at 9 pm.

Sunday, August 28th:

• Go on a Back Pond Hike from 9-11 am at Moreau Lake State Park.
• Do some Papermaking at 1 pm at Albany Pine Bush. $3/person, $5/family.
• The Tri-City Valleycats have a 5 pm home game.
• At 6 pm, it’s Not Just for Kids Storytelling at Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site.

The supplies are purchased and ready, and we’re devoting Thursday to clothes. Ugh. Not my favorite. First we spend an inordinate amount of time shopping in the closets for hand-me-downs.

For years we were able to coast almost entirely on hand-me-downs and Grandma’s shopping trips. These days the girls are a bit pickier. I feel like they only actually ever wear about one-third of the items in their bureaus, but when I try to clear out, they’re certain that they’ll want to wear the neglected items any minute. Just not, like, today or tomorrow.

Meanwhile, there are always gaps in the wardrobe to be filled, and since both girls are going through growth spurts, there will be some shopping. It’s not my favorite (in fact, pretty much everyone on my side of the family would prefer to order online). But from an early age it was apparent that the girls take after Grandma.

We spent Saturday night camping at Glimmerglass State Park with folks from our church. I had never been to Glimmerglass–or Cooperstown at all, for that matter–so it was a new adventure.

I wasn’t actually psyched about it. I’m getting lazier as the summer wears on, and the prospect of packing up the car for a long ride was daunting. But we’d wimped out and skipped it last year, and I thought to myself–repeatedly–that we’d been sort of lame-o for not going. Plus the girls love to camp. So I sucked it up, bargaining that it would be fun once we got there.

And indeed it was. In fact, we didn’t even have to pack too much, because dinner was provided, so we threw the makings for s’mores, some granola and protein bars, and a few beers in the cooler and we were good to go.

We camped along the Beaver Pond Loop, which is described as “primitive camping.” What, exactly, is primitive camping? Well, this:

And, alas, these:

That’s okay. We can handle it. Other sections of the park include bathrooms and hot showers, which is pretty luxurious. For our large group, it was excellent because we were able to take over an entire area of our own. There were also two groovy warming huts which some of our friends enjoyed.

Talk about luxury camping!

These were by Beaver Pond, where there’s ice skating in the winter. For summertime, there was catch-and-release fishing. Not my cuppa, but the kids enjoyed it. Cute W decided that we absolutely must come back this winter for a tubing and skating extravaganza. I’m in.

The rest of the site was lovely, with plenty of space and the cushiest, most level grass it’s ever been my pleasure to sleep on. No, really. It was delightful.

It was a not-too-far walk over to the beach on Otsego Lake. I was too busy chitchatting in the water to take pictures, but there’s one here.  Actually, you could even bike or drive over to the lake if you were feeling super-lazy. There was plenty of space, and you’re allowed to canoe or kayak as well. There was plenty of vegetation to try to slow you down, but the arching lakeside trees made it well worth the rowing effort.

There were nature trails right from our campsite, with deer and other nature.

Orange Salamander

The group camping made life easy. After some beach swimming, we headed back to camp where our delightful leader led crafts. If you can believe it, this is the first lanyard that I’ve ever made:

There was a delightful smorgasbord, with our friend who’d shopped confessing that she’d shopped hungry, so there was a ton of food. Yummy, yummy Cedar’s Spinach Dip.  And of course, s’mores.

We even made a keen profit. The next day when I was unpacking, I found that, although we’d brought along a package of 6 Hershey Bars to contribute for s’mores, we somehow managed to come home with 11 Hershey Bars. You’ve got to love the chaos of someone trying to hide the chocolates when sugar-buzzed children are requesting thirds.

On Sunday we packed up and went to the Farmers’ Museum, which you’ll hear about later.

Oh, and while I was looking up links, I found this groovy little Camping This Weekend section, where you can type in a landmark and it will list available nearby campsites. Seemed like a perfect tool for any other procrastinating campers out there.

First, three pieces of business:

Some of you are fans of my friend Pam’s Friday morning story times at the Mohawk Commons Barnes & Noble.  Pam’s left and, as far as I know, they’re stopping story time there, but beginning in mid-September, Pam will be doing Story Time at The Open Door Bookstore on Fridays at 9:30 am. Yay.

Tickets to shows from The Egg’s Family Wonders Series are going on sale tomorrow, Tuesday, August 23rd.  They include Eric Carle stories in puppetry, Dan Zanes, the Golden Dragon Acrobats, and a Zucchini Brothers holiday show.

I’ve gone through the entire What About TODAY? page, eliminating old stuff and double-checking current events. I feel so much better now that I can cross this annoying task off my To Do list. I did not go on a crazy hunt to locate new regularly-scheduled events, so if you know about something that isn’t listed, it would be a favor to all of us if you’d tell me about it, either in the comments for via email. Thank you!

We had a fairly hilarious dinner tonight. Cute W has a quirky sense of humor. He goes with a lot of sarcasm and yanking of people’s chains. He’s well-known for making babies and small children cry, largely because he jokes with them as if they’re adults. He also occasionally drives me crazy. After twenty years, you’d think that I’d be immune, yet I’m not. There are times when I’ll say to him, “I know that you’re just doing this to bug me, but it’s still really bugging me.” And I’ve tried to fight fire with fire and yank his chain right back, but somehow it never works. I’m just too sincere, apparently, to pull it off.  So my attempts to drive him crazy only end up making him chuckle with an equal measure of affection and condescension. And then I get even angrier. I’m resigned to live with this situation for a long time.

But lately I’ve discovered secret weapon. M has it. She’s got the same sense of humor and tonight she battled Cute W like a champ. He’d launched into a long explanation. He often does this, especially at dinner. Out of nowhere there will be discourse on, say, how an electric circuit works or the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. Tonight it was explaining the difference between a free market and fixed pricing (this because of the $1 Wal-Mart watermelon that we were eating–don’t judge me!).  At some point, he tried to use M as an example of one of many consumers and the products that these consumers may or may not crave, and the conversation went something like this:

Cute W: So, say you want American Girl dolls. . .

M (interrupting): I don’t want American Girl dolls!

Cute W: What are you talking about? You love American Girl dolls!

M: But I don’t want them.

Cute W: You’ve got them lined up on your shelf. . .

M (interrupting): Exactly. I don’t need any more.

K (trying to help, not realizing, yet, that M is yanking Cute W’s chain):  So, I think you’re saying that you’d rather have clothes and accessories at this point, right?

M: Yes.

Cute W: Okay, so, but that’s a perfect example, because there was a demand for the dolls, and suddenly that demand has dropped off, and if I’m producing the dolls, I don’t know when you’re going to stop wanting them, so I. . .

M (interrupting again): Of course you know. I just told you.

At which point Cute W began to sputter and I high-fived M, because it was so wonderful to see my husband get smacked down with his own weapon. He created this monster.

Shortly after, we turned to some new entertainment: staring down my throat with a flashlight. I’ve had a sore throat for a couple of days, and when I mentioned it again, Cute W fetched a flashlight and was appalled to see my hideous throat. It was so revolting that the girls gleefully took turns look down everyone’s perfectly normal throats, then looking down into my red-veined, white-spotted monstrosity. I tried to put the camera into my mouth to record it for your entertainment, but my skills do not extend to medical-textbook level photography. You’ll just have to use your imagination.