Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Perhaps this post would be better titled, “Photos not to show my mother on her birthday when she’s in the middle of a big snowstorm in Maine…”

Sorry, Mum.

And sorry to everyone else dealing with snow. But look! Spring is on its way!

We had torrential rain overnight and through the morning. At noon it was still as dark as early morning. It’s also a very blustery day.

By 4 pm, the rain had broken but the wind remained. The snow? Pretty much all gone.

Taking photos of the bulbs coming in the garden made me wonder if I should get some ruby slippers just in case I needed to get home from Oz. The wind did not blow me over though, but it sure tried! The sprouting bulbs are definitely getting taller by the day. I can’t wait to see how the new irises look when they come up. They’re double-blooming too, so there will be purple in early summer then again early fall!

The sun wasn’t out much today, but when it was, Miss Abby put herself in the perfect place on the back of the chair. She really has a talent for finding the best position to light herself beautifully for photos. She’s our little supermodel cat.

It’s been a long week, despite the holiday Monday. Productive, but long. I’m very enthusiastic for the weekend. I’m twitchy to get things done that don’t involve my job. This tells me that Spring is indeed waiting to blow in. At least I got my last bit of snow before the end.

garden, spring, weather, wind

Spring is definitely trying down here. The daffodils, crocus and a couple tulips appear to be ready already. I blame the super-warm weather last week confusing their little green brains. They will persevere, I’m sure… or at least I’m reassured by my mother that they’ll be fine. Given how fast the snow is melting, I really shouldn’t worry at all, right?

I spent 40 minutes on the elliptical machine at the gym today. It felt great. I’m pleased to discover that the iPad is perfect for reading on the elliptical too – bright, high contrast and adjustable letter sizes. I’m sure another eReader would probably work too, but the iPad is what I’ve got and I like it. Of course, spending 40 minutes reading about Starbucks’ business and marketing approach makes it really tempting to stop for coffee on the way home. (I resisted, not because my usual plain latte is bad but because I’d already caffeinated for the day.)

I have a new trainer I’m starting with next week. His name is Steve and I didn’t giggle at the name.* For those keeping score at home, that’s Trainer #6 in the year I’ve been working out at this gym. All previous trainers have left the gym. Needless to say, I’ve canceled my training contract and don’t expect to renew even after I’ve used up my surplus sessions. Which is a pity… if they’d been able to keep my original trainer around (he left for a better job at a better gym), I’d probably be gung-ho to continue with this gym until the end of time. Seriously, he rocked that hard. I’ve considered going into his new gym, but it’s in the city which will only serve as an excuse not to go. I may need to reevaluate that sometime in the near future.

*”Steve” has long been my default name when I need an example. I tend to forget sometimes that Steves actually exist.

exercise, gardening, snow, spring, training

My Winter is apparently a series of photographs of my car under snow. We got 4 or 5 inches of snow last night which I find delightful. There’s just enough to make the world bright and shiny for a day or two before the warmer weather melts it off again. Spring is definitely coming but Winter isn’t through fighting yet. Before the snow, I had bulbs starting to come up. I’ve been assured that they’ll be fine with a little snow on them, which makes sense, but they do make me start looking forward to Spring and seeing the results of the planting I did in the Fall.

In random photography news, I’m considering getting an Eye-Fi card for my camera. (These are cards with built in wireless networking that can send image files directly to your computer via your wireless network.) They’ve come down significantly in price and, ultimately, yes, I am lazy. My biggest concern is that I will be constantly reconnecting it to the network or that it will be finicky about when it does or does not connect. Have any of you used an Eye-Fi card extensively? In the meantime, I have a practically-new-but-old Polaroid SX-70 to play with, thanks to a visit with Lisa this weekend.

A mere hour and forty-five minutes later than the top picture, the sun is doing an excellent job of clearing the snow off my car for me. It’s still below freezing outside, but we always get amazing afternoon sun on the front of the house. If only my car would stay that shiny and clean-looking.

Speaking of weekends, I had a great weekend visiting with Lisa in NY. There’s something fabulous about looking at killer traffic and saying, “Well, handily we’re not in a hurry and it’s not like we’ll get bored talking as we inch through the construction zone.” There was shopping, eating, closet-cleaning and general conversational glee.

See, truth in titling: this was a post of little content.

gardening, photography, snow, travel, weekend

It’s been a crazy busy month! Here it is, almost my birthday, and I feel like New Year’s was last weekend. Work has been busy, life has been busy, and I’ve been slacking off on exercise so I’d much prefer to pretend that a month hasn’t passed since last I was at the gym.

This week has been wonderful for snow. The top photo is of my Mini Clubman Wednesday morning. We got a bunch of wet, sticky, heavy snow, maybe 3-4 inches total. I dutifully shoveled the walks for myself and our fabulous neighbors before it got even wetter with rain and then froze solid. Then last night, the snow started again. The bottom photo is of the Clubman this morning. Notice that it’s flipped around? That’s because I cleaned it off to go out yesterday afternoon. And then it got subsumed by the snow again. We got another 7-8 inches over night. This morning, our fabulous neighbor used his snow blower to clear most of our walkways because he is the best neighbor ever. I do enjoy shoveling (except when the plows push the snowbanks back onto the sidewalks) but I’m just as happy to let the machines do it.

Last week was a whirlwind of all-day meetings, driving, more driving and an SCA event up north. I still need to post the photos, but the videos I took of the finals for King’s & Queen’s Rapier are here. I’m impressed with the quality of the video from the new camera… now I just need to get the focus right. The Fop is the King’s Rapier Champion again. Hurray for him! His schedule just got more exciting.

There’s also been black tea gelato and cardamom gelato, a haircut that took 5 inches off my hair (not that anyone could tell), a crazy road trip with Tadcaster rife with silliness, 2 rather impressive bruises and a spectacular fall caused by a cat toy. Ice is nice.

All in all, a whirlwind month!
fencing, rapier champions, sca, snow, work

I’ll admit it: I’ve made more intelligent travel plans.

The photos here are from the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday afternoon around 2 p.m. I can attest to the fact that the Turnpike was like this all afternoon because what should have been less than an hour turned into a multi-hour ordeal of messy snow and slow driving.

Maine:
The Fop and I were in Maine, at my parents’ house, for Christmas. Christmas was lovely, with a surprise guest star and amazing food and wonderful gifts all around. However, looming down the coast was a snowstorm that was paralyzing the Southeast U.S. and heading our way in all its snowy glory. Many meteorological sources were consulted over the course of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, rather constantly to the point of me getting mocked for my obsession. But, it became obvious on Christmas Day that we had two options: leave early Sunday morning and drive straight at the storm and hope to get home before it got too bad or stay in New England until Tuesday.

We opted to get on the road early Sunday morning. A long shot, perhaps, and somewhat risky since you can see by the dash picture that we were in the Mini Clubman. We packed the car Christmas night, went to bed early (for us at least) and I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m.*

Remarkably, I woke up with the alarm, hit snooze but didn’t bother to wait for the snooze to go off again before I was back on my iPad looking at the weather for various points between Maine and Philadelphia. The forecasts looked good. The worst of the storm, wind and snow and all, was going to start around 3 p.m. in Philly and Nyack, NY. We could totally make it home at a reasonable hour, maybe in 9 hours, if the storm started that late. I started getting ready, complete with making a big pot of super strong coffee, most of which I left my parents to drink. (Sorry about that… but you have to admit it was really tasty!) Last bits of stuff got packed, the Fop was mobile if not fully conscious, we piled into the Clubman and we were off at 7 a.m. on the dot.

Yes, we were off to play chicken with a blizzard.

For the record, this feat of departure on time and at that hour should win major and prestigious awards. Who knew blizzards could be so motivating?

Perhaps I should also point out here that before this day I hadn’t driven my Clubman in any serious amount of snow or ice. Sure, it handles well and its a heavy, little, low to the ground car. However, usually we take out the Fop’s Durango in adverse weather.

We had a minor gas station failure on the way to the Maine Turnpike – the station closest to the highway was out of gas. After a quick flip back to another gas station, we were off!

The easy part – cruise control set to “felony”:
Getting out of Maine and through New Hampshire was easy. We hit the first flurries on 495 in Massachusetts. By the time we got to I84, snow was light and fine but steady. We were still making good time! I was fully in denial that this might be the leading edge of the storm because the leading edge was going to come in from the Atlantic and hit the whole coast at once. This couldn’t possibly be that snow! It had to be snow from the small system ahead of the big storm! Even I95 in Connecticut was reasonably tolerable. It’s usually the worst part of the drive but it was actually pretty decent for a change.

New Jersey or “WTF were we thinking?”:
I’d like to start by stating, again, for the record: I hate driving in New Jersey.

We got over the Tappen Zee bridge and stopped at the top of the Garden State Parkway for a quick break and gas. Like a good daughter, I checked in with my parents to let them know where we were and how things were going. The snow was getting heavier but, at that time, 1 p.m., I was still cautiously optimistic that we’d get home before dark.

Foolishly, I underestimated the NJ Turnpike.

The Turnpike backed up shortly after we got on it. It hadn’t been pre-treated well enough and snow was falling quickly. We spent hours staring at break lights and going between 2 and 12 miles per hour. We got as high as 30 once. My traction control warning light only came on a couple times. This was quite comforting.

One problem with such slow traffic is that there’s no chance of a plow truck getting through to clear the road. As we crawled in traffic, the accumulation started to increase and the road got worse. The hours were boring, uneventful and generally demoralizing as I contemplated the PA Turnpike, the bridge and the hours between me and not driving anymore.

A Yellow Bug in the snow:
The VW Beetle was actually quite comforting to see. “Hey look! At least we’re not driving that in the snow!” Its PA plates gave it away as probably having just as far left to drive adventure as we did. This didn’t fully counter the, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be driving the Durango now?” sentiment but it did help.

Pennsylvania or “Well, we can’t stop now, we’re nearly there”:
At some point after we got off the NJ Turnpike and before we got through the PA Turnpike tolls, we stopped and the Fop cleared the ice from the wipers, lights and windshield. That bridge into PA that I was worried about? The one high over the river and perpetually under construction, too narrow and too exposed to winds? I actually had to ask the Fop to confirm that we were on the bridge because visibility was so low I couldn’t tell for sure while focusing on driving.

Somewhere in there I had a despondent moment of “I don’t think I can drive anymore” as well. I was fried and tense and ready to break. Always fun but it passed as the roads improved. The PA Turnpike was bad for a bit, though not as bad as the NJ Turnpike, we pulled over again and the Fop cleared the ice again, and then it improved. By the time we got off the Turnpike onto 476, the roads were in much better shape.

The last leg of the drive, once we got off the highway, was relatively messy but mellow. Other than a woman completely unable to control her SUV, everyone was being rather sensible.

At 6:20 p.m. we pulled into our driveway, I turned off the car and called my parents to let them know we’d made it. My right heel was very unhappy and sensitive last night thanks to gently playing the accelerator for hours. It’s better today, thankfully. I slept for 11+ hours, which seemed appropriate for recovery from an 11+ hour drive.

Lessons learned:
- If you’re going to play chicken with a blizzard, leave earlier.
- Fog lights light up snow roads quite well.
- The Clubman is really quite the trooper in snow.
- The Clubman does not like to crawl in 1st gear and much prefers 2nd gear.
- Sometimes it’s ok to make your own lane but keep an eye out for others doing the same thing in different parts of the road.
- I miss my Subaru.

*5:45 alarms have a special chant that to go along with them in my head thanks to the Dartmouth Outing Club: 5:45! 5:45! We’re going to wake you up at 5:45! And by “special” I mean annoying.

blizzard, driving, mini clubman, snow, travel

Northern Vermont was gorgeous.

Lake Champlain looked chilly.

The trees were amazing.

And the full moon was fabulous.

And I slept really well.

The North Hero In was comfy, cozy and lovely.

It was a great trip with friends in the car, friends at the Inn, and friends at the event.

Eight hours driving up.

Eight hours driving back.

It was a great weekend.

autumn, lake champlain, photography, travel, vermont

So, in addition to an idyllic weekend in Massachusetts on top of a mountain out of technology’s reach, we also went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival. We wandered around for 6 hours, had some warm cider and cider donuts, and generally enjoyed all the awesome sights to be had on a gorgeous autumn day. There was also kettle corn (which sustained us as we tried to get out of the parking lot) and maple cotton candy (which is an amazing invention). I came home with a couple skeins of fun yarn and lofty project plans, of course, as well as some local wine and super-tasty hot sauces.

The hour sitting in the parking lot was spent calling stores looking for pumpkin Woodchuck cider. We eventually caved and reserved some at a store that was not on the way home. Pumpkin Woodchuck is very yummy but not what I’d expected. It’s fruity and bright and lacks the cinnamon and other spices of the pumpkin beers. Yum!

autumn, ny, photographs, rhinebeck sheep and wool, travel

Last weekend I visited autumn, the season not the person, and J & t up on their mountain in Mt. Washington, Massachusetts. Autumn is my favorite season to begin with so I was giddy to get up into New England in mid-October. There are some pictures of pretty colors and trees here. The colors and trees aren’t as spectacular as they could be since a blustery storm came through Thursday evening and Friday before I arrived. And the colors aren’t quite as spectacular as the colors in the photos my mother keeps sending me from Maine.

Driving up the mountain, my driving lights on the Mini paid for themselves once again. Fog lights, headlights on high beams, and driving lights make for a much easier drive when you’re heading up an unfamiliar mountain on unlit roads late at night. With all the lights on, I can light up the tops of the trees in front of me and half the planet in front of me!

J & T have a great house, no cell coverage and no high speed internet. It was an ideal spot to spend a weekend AND they cooked me dinner and breakfast all weekend. Pancakes! Two mornings in a row!!! It was a glorious weekend!

autumn, colors, fall, photographs, travel

My spooky and fun Halloween poppets have gathered together to make my desk more festive. They’re really quite friendly, I promise.

I got the bulbs planted today – lots of daffodils and crocus, some tulips and alliums, the irises that will replace the dead bush at the corner of the house, and 3 poppy plants. My hands hurt and tomorrow I’m likely to be more sore. But the front garden will be amazing next spring and summer! I also put some daffodils in along the hedge separating our driveway from the neighbor’s. We’ll see if those come up. There are a few more out back. I got all but a handful of the 100 daffodil bulbs planted. I have approximately the same number of mosquito bites for my efforts.

Of course, I’m sitting here procrastinating. Work has been busy and life-sapping lately so this weekend needs to be productive. So far, so good… can’t lose momentum now… Zoom!

bulbs, daffodils, gardening, halloween, poppets, weekend

I don’t even know where to begin. Things have been busy, the world has been a little out of control and chaos has been a close companion. In the interest of being more amusing though, here’s the progress report without any of the causes, goals or even context in some cases.

Health and exercise:
- I still love the gym and see my trainer a lot.
- I’m still feeling better than ever and still shrinking.
- It’s entirely possible I’ll miss working out when we are at Pennsic. Handily there’s a big hill and a lot of walking.

House and home:
- The ceiling in my office and many of the cracks in the plaster walls have been fixed. My office is a different shade of green and my desk is setup again after a week and a half of working from less desk-like areas.
- The ceilings in the living room and porch are also repaired and repainted multiple times and the archway has had its plaster repaired.
- The house has been cleaned thoroughly to try to mitigate the mess the workmen made.
- Many of the broken windows have been fixed. (The windows were broken by hail, not the workmen. The workmen only broke a door to my stereo cabinet as far as I can tell.)
- There are roofing supplies (albeit the incorrect ones) in the driveway to replace the roof post-hailstorm. There will also be siding.

The Mini Clubman and cars:
- The Clubman is in the shop getting $4000 of damage fixed, also post-hailstorm. Paintless dent removal is an amazing thing but there are still dents to be removed with body work.
- The Mercury Grand Marquis has been returned to Enterprise because, despite how novel I found the feeling of driving my living room, it smelled pungently of cheap air fresheners over cheap cigarettes.
- The HHR is sitting in the driveway pretending to have the allure of the Clubman but without the appealing gas mileage or zip of the Clubman.

Pennsic prep:
- We are not certain where all the garb is but we do have hunches.
- Cute Project: supplies achieved. Construction likely.
- Fun Project: may bring supplies to Pennsic and do it there.
- Sewing: HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!
- Packing: Do we even need to go there? I bought a new basket in Media as well as some toiletries that landed in that basket, does that count?

Work stuff:
- Work has eaten my life lately.
- I’m going on vacation in a week.

Miscellaneous:
- I have wonderful, awesome, greatest of the greats friends and I love them dearly because they really are just that superlative.
- I want to spend more time reading.
- I bought Bejewled for my iPad which means time I would spend reading is actually spent playing Bejeweled. This was an error.
- If I owe you responses to email, voicemail or snail mail, I apologize. I’ve been terrible with that stuff this summer due to work eating my life.

cars, clubman, exercise, health, home, pennsic, work