Day 6.063: Invasion thwarted (at dinner time)

While we were waiting for dinner, a news report came on about the Japanese invasion of this town yesterday. As far as I can work out, the invasion was a little half-hearted and was beaten back by Koreans with antiquated weapons.

Sometimes, not understanding the language makes life more exciting!

Day 5.337: I don't understand at all!

You know that thing when three completely unrelated things happen that make you think of the same phrase and then you have a blog post?

No??

Watch and learn!

We saw this sign in Pittsfield:

I just had this conversation with Exile #2:

"How can I be sick on Saturday, fine on Sunday, sick on Monday, fine on Tuesday and sick today?!"
"..."
"Maybe it's related to whether I get enough sleep?"
"You think...?"

And this is today's xkcd:

Yeah - suffice it to say, "I don't understand at all!"

Day 5.301: Interested bystanders

Image by Flickr user rob.rudloff

I ran past our local polling station this morning soon after it opened. It was cold (22°F/-5°C) but I kept moving of course - no voting for us today.

Four years ago I was pretty sure that whoever won the election would only serve one term - knowing that the terrible economic situation we were in would not be turned around in four years.  We have stayed up late to watch the results come in and are now going to bed with some relief in the apparent result.  Whether a second term President Obama will be any better able to deal with a staunchly (although less-so) right-wing Republican-controlled House of Representatives to get things done remains to be seen, but I'm happy that he will be able to try.

Day 4.284: Geography for expats

When we had been here a few months, we decided it was time for us all to learn a bit about the USA beyond this little corner. Our source material was a mixture of They Might Be Giants, Sufjan Stevens, a list of US presidents (literally on the back of a cereal packet) and these:

We started by learning the states until we could turn over to the white side and successfully place most if not all of them, then the girls took to testing us on the capitals and other cities and eventually challenging us to guess the populations (2009 estimates).

Sometime during this period we realised that we probably had more confidence about the geography of North America than of Europe and certainly the kids had had very little exposure to our other home continent. So, today Exile #2 unveiled these homemade dinnertime learning-aids:

and we surprised ourselves with dredged-up knowledge and surprising ignorance alike. Time to get revising!

Day 4.210: $1 and another world

It's been a busy day here while I was at work. I came home to a lot of signs offering directions to this one. "Sallyland" is the place where Exile #4's imaginary friend comes from. It's been a while since we had an encounter.

While the girls were working on this and playing "Pin the upper-teeth on the three-legged monster" - a game they developed and produced, E5N1 was earning his first wages. We had a contractor around to fix a problem with our deck which was resulting in a chipmunk moving in and probably gaining access to the basement.  Apparently he had a little assistant all day, watching, helping and following him around. At the end of it his new friend gave E5N1 a dollar for his help. He is very proud of it although I suspect he has little knowledge of its buying power. Mind you, after today I'm not sure I have either.

Day 4.166: Truth and justice

There has been a lot of talk this weekend about LGBTQ issues in the church or as one person put it today, the alphabet community. For many people here it is seen as a social justice issue along with poverty and sexism and racism. It is sometimes difficult when surrounded by people who tend towards this opinion - although there is certainly diversity of thought and action here - to understand how the church came to be one of the last bastions of prejudice.

In parallel, today we got the news that our 'home state' of New York has removed the legal prejudice against lesbian and gay couples which has until now prevented them from marrying. I applaud in particular the swing-voter, a Republican Senator who expressed something of the distaste of the religious Right for the thought of gay marriage but said that in the end he could not find a legal reason to deny everyone the same rights he enjoys.

This will be my last campsite post for now. Tomorrow we will be en route back north and probably in the partial civilisation of a hotel room somewhere. Wish us luck with packing our tent back into its bag!

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Day 4.127: Leaves?

I was going to write about taxation without representation today since it was school budget day and we are unenfranchised, but you can read this instead.

Rather than focus on that, here are a couple of signs from Day 4.117 - one is a possibly genuine Shaker sign that is almost certainly always up in the barn and the other was on one of the pottery stall displays.  They were almost next to each other.

I guess people find all sorts of things to do with leaves.

Day 4.044: ...makes seventeen

Exile #4 produced these pictures at school last week during their preparation for Monday's holiday and this week off school.

Do you know who they are...

and what it has to do with the post title?

Day 4.036: Agenda

Exile #4 has been making plans for a packed evening (you may need to read aloud).

Nothing checked-off as yet - although I suspect she accomplished number 1 at least.

Day 3.333: Looking over at the little guy

Exile #2 took this picture yesterday. Either that hawk wasn't hungry or he was too hungry to bother!

Today is a red-letter day. Not because it is Day 3.333 - although that is pretty cool. No, today as we watched the local news on YNN and 'News From Beyond The Capital Region' came on, there was a story from England. Shots of student protesters in London objecting to the increase in student fees from 'approximately $5,000 to approximately $14,000 a year' Now I am not going to talk about UK politics here - that's not really my thing although some of my friends may well be doing so! - rather I am seeing this from a US view where fees are anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 per year already and $5,000 looked like an astonishing bargain. Whatever the rights and wrongs, English Universities are taking a massive step towards the US higher education system today.

Maybe it's time to move to California. The fact that the temperature is going to drop to between 2 and 8°F (-17 to -13°C) tonight (its not even winter yet!) has nothing to do with my thinking at all!

Day 3.296: Nature's plant pot

Another photo from our Saturday morning walk by Vloman Kill. We spotted this tiny plant growing in a natural plant-pot formed inside a damaged tree. I wonder if it has any chance of growing into a big plant in this location. Being pioneering is not always a recipe for easy success I suppose.

Today is election day here and our chance to make 'taxation without representation' jokes.  It was also a day off school for the girls (although E5N1 went to his preschool) and they both had play-dates.  Exile #3 going to her "recess-friend's" house to be bothered by her younger sister and little brother and Exile #4 having a classmate over here this afternoon.  It sounds like it all went well.

In other news, the car is now being repaired - apparently it will cost approximately $10,000 and take a couple of weeks to complete.  Life (like the label list for this post) seems quite full.

Day 3.171: A future President?

As a US citizen born in the USA, E5N1 is eligible to become the US President in 2042 when he is 35 years old. I think he might need a name with a greater letter-to-number ratio though.

Today I walked in on this moment - "Look Dada, I've got my favorite books," (I'm pretty sure he spells it the American way), "Harry [the Dirty Dog], [The Very] Hungry Caterpillar and Charlie and Lola!" As long as he remembers at least one or two of them and doesn't substitute one published in the year he graduates from college he's all set (as they say over here) for the childhood book section of his political career.

Day 3.126: Last chance to see?

We went to do one of our often repeated walks at John Boyd Thacher State Park today. We first went to this part of the park back on Day 101 and have been there many times since including with most of our visitors.  We had a great walk today - I only had to carry E5N1 for two short stretches - apart from that, he walked, stomped and ran with the best of us.

As we were leaving, there were no parking spaces available and a steady stream of soon-to-be disappointed drivers were arriving.  The scenes at the overlook were unlike any we had ever seen (with the possible exception of firework-time on the Fourth of July) with cars parked in every possible place.

Great though it was to see such crowds enjoying the simple outdoor pleasures of the area that we so love, the reasons are not so happy.  The park will close tonight.  The governor has proposed cuts to the park budget that requires the closure of several state parks including this one.  The legislature has passed a bill to hold-back this particular drop in the budget deficit ocean, but has so far failed to pass a budget, so the closures go ahead as planned.

We can only hope that this situation is very short-lived especially if this weekend's frenetic activity on the Helderberg Escarpment has reawakened people's love of the great outdoors.

Day 3.085: Dresses and addresses

This morning, we packed up our very successful little suite at Virginian Suites in Arlington and headed back into D.C. for one last time. We started the day at the National Museum of American History at Exile #3's request. She could happily have spent all day there, but instead, after seeing the First Ladies exhibit, the red slippers from the Wizard of Oz and a few other good exhibits, we retreated to have a picnic lunch in the National Mall and then had a whistle-stop visit to the National Museum of Air and Space.  Pictured (clockwise from top left): Michelle Obama's gown, one of  Martha Washington's dresses, Mary Lincoln's dress (stripes) with a scarily tiny waist! Exile #2 meeting her green hero, the girls with the ruby slippers, Exile #3 feeling the big bang and in the centre, the kids and a spacesuit.

Seeing the changing fashions from the first to the latest First Ladies via Mrs Lincoln reminded me of the fashions in monuments we noticed and in the difference in tone from one end of the reflecting pool to the other.  At the Lincoln Memorial, you can read these words:

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces but let us judge not that we be not judged.  The prayers of both could not be answered - that of neither has been answered fully..."

While at the other end you can read this quote from WWII general George Marshall in the memorial opened during George W Bush's presidency:

"We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other."

What a swing from humility to pride I see there - not to belittle in any way the US armed forces' contribution to WWII which is rightly honoured there - but I do question this quote and especially its presence here as a sign of glorying in the power of one nation over another by force which is hard to take in the modern world.

Tori Amos put it like this:

I salute to you Commander and I sneeze
'cause I have now an allergy to your policies it seems
Where have we gone wrong America?
Mr. Lincoln we can’t seem to find you anywhere...
Is this just the Madness of King George?  Yo George
Well you have the whole Nation on all fours

We've seen the dress that his successor's First Lady has added to the collection - I wonder what tone we will find in his policies at the end of his time in office?

Day 3.032: Betsy Ross meets Betty Crocker

Sometimes I feel inspired to raid my archives for pictures from a while ago that I didn't post here at the time. This was from the summer - I was slightly baffled to see a European flag in the corner of this stars-and-stripes cake on sale on the day before Labor Day last year.

It turns out, of course, that this flag has thirteen stars, not twelve (silly me) and is the "Betty Ross" flag - one of the oldest designs of the US flag rather than a symbol of a new transatlantic super-state.

Day 2.270: Surprise? Surprise!

These pizzas were not only square, but gluten-free (for Exile #2) and cow-dairy-free (for me). Does that surprise you?

No?

Yesterday, Exile #2 and I were looking at a very nice article on Time's website about doctored photographs around the kids' bedtime. Exile #4 wandered over to see what we were talking about. We were looking at this one in which two female cabinet members had been replaced by their male colleagues. The original is here. We started to describe how in some places, at some times, women have not been considered as important as men..."Oh, that doesn't surprise me!" she said.

She went on to surprise us when looking at this picture, completely oblivious to any historical or symbolic impact it may have, she said about the man in the middle, "That looks like [teacher's name] - but he doesn't have a moustache."

Yeah!

Day 2.194: Sign of the times

While I was back at Day 2.174 in my photo collection looking for spot-the-differences opportunities, I happened upon these pictures. I'll let you make your own story of either urban decay or receding nuclear-threat depending on your mood.

Day 2.128: Bird trouble

For a couple of weeks I've been trying to get a decent picture of a male American Goldfinch - this is the best yet by quite a margin. Unfortunately these two males were hanging around in the now rather leafy tree near the bird feeder and showing no interest in coming out into the open to be photographed.

It turns out that they were waiting for a woman to feed them. Eventually a female visited the feeder, took some food, chased one of the males off and fed the seed she'd picked up to the other one. I've no idea if this is well-known Goldfinch behaviour - if not, you read it here first!

Day 2.070: In Valatie 'n' airy

At lunchtime today I took Exile #3 to a birthday party in the wonderfully named Valatie, NY. It's pronounced Val-ay-sha. Meanwhile Exile #4 had a friend over for a play-date. When we got home both Exile #3 and Exile #4 dashed off to play at our next-to-next-door neighbors' house. When they got back we blew bubbles (including some large ones with a fairly successful home-made wand). It's been quite a busy day.

Here is a moving moment from the birthday party.

Day 2.026: OK, but how?

I spent the evening with our church community discussing a decision about renting a property, but also discussing how these decisions are made. There is a definite tension between the 'we need to get things done' and the 'we are all in this together'. I am still looking for a third way. As someone recently said when accepting a high-profile new job: I reject as false the suggestion that we must choose between collaboration and leadership. Well, it was something like that - that's how I feel about this situation anyway.

The model was made by Exile #3 and me - she actually originally made concentric squares, but the inner one had a gap in it, so it looked to me like a maze - so we made it into one. Unlike our situation, it's not very complicated. Importantly however it does have somewhere to sit down in the middle - she knows that's what she's aiming for. She may take some wrong turns on the way.