Winter Wednesday - Oh Owego O Tannenbaum

Back in November, we visited Owego, the "Coolest Small Town in America", which was devastated in the floods caused byTropical Storm Lee in early September.  Owego is about 20 miles west of Binghamton and is noted for a number of things - historical homes, a lovely town square, some pretty cool gift shops, and just plain friendly people.

At the Tioga County Historical Society, there is a yearly display and auction of Christmas trees in an event called O Tannenbaum.  This is a silent auction of donated trees, wreaths and more.  (This year, due to the flood, only the tree decorations were supposed to be auctioned-not the trees themselves-although that is not what the website is now saying, so maybe that has changed.)

This year the auction closes on Saturday, December 17, and proceeds will go towards the museum's flood recovery.

Some of my pictures are a bit blurry, because I didn't want to use my flash inside the building.

How would you like to win this tree?

Or these?

Or this.

(the one wreath picture I took was just too blurry-sorry about that.)

Many people volunteered in the flood recovery and their hard work made it possible to have the auction this year.  As far as salvaging the museum contents, a lot of hard decisions had to be made and, quite honestly, a lot of items were lost.

But with this auction, flood recovery will continue - and, it is not too late to put in your own bid.

Happy holidays!

Recovery and the Seeds of Renewal

Our flood here in upstate NY vs.....the tsunami in Japan.

No comparison.

I read this article in the Wall Street Journal with total disbelief and awe....and admiration.  And a few other feelings.  Read this article and see greatness in action.  Love, sacrifice, trust, unbelievable hard work, faith, and a comeback against unbelievable odds.  If someone had written this story as a novel, no one would have believed it.

And, on another level, I connected with this mayor's children.  I lost my mother when I was 12 (and not from a horrible disaster, either.)  My heart goes out to them.  I want to reassure them that things will be better one day.

So much work left to do.  But, Mr. Toba, you have a fan in Westover.

Land of the Midnight Dark

We are almost at the winter solstice.  We have about 4 more minutes to lose here in upstate NY.  But thankfully, we have an actual day - a sunrise, sunshine (sometimes) and finally the sun goes down.

I've always wondered what it is like to have no sunlight at all, for perhaps months on end.  I don't think the 24 hour days of late spring and early summer would ever make up for it.

And what about the native people in these areas?  What are their lives like?  What are their hardships, their joys?  How does the long winter, the swing between lots of sun and lots of dark, color their lives?

In August, I got a small glimmer of that life, in a YA book Blessing's Bead by Debbie Dahl Edwards. 

This is where a post that started out talking about the midnight dark turns....much darker.

The author of Blessing's Bead has now written a YA sequel called My Name is Not Easy.  The story, which has some biographical elements from her husband's life, takes place in the early 1960's.  The book shows that coping with the long dark is the least of the worries of a teenaged boy growing up in Alaska torn between two cultures.  Some of his experiences are harrowing and others are hard for us to understand.   But they all happened to natives of Alaska during that time period, a shameful period in our country's history.

The dark of their lives was not caused by the midnight dark.

What happens, for example, when a growing boy is prohibited from speaking his native language during the school year at his boarding school (beaten if he is found speaking his native language) and then goes home for the summer?  What happens when his younger brother is taken from his family by those same school authorities and sent to Texas to live with a white family?  What happens when the boy is the unwitting subject of a medical experiment performed by our government?

The story ends before the boy is grown, but a quick search of the Internet gives a peak into what happened to those men and women as adults.  It isn't pretty.

Once again, a YA book tackles a subject that deserves to be more well-known.

I will never think of the midnight sun in the same way again.

Civil War Sunday - Soldier Monuments

So many towns and cities in the United States have these monuments - the Binghamton, NY area of upstate NY is no exception.  Our local paper ran an interesting article on local monuments today.  So, inspired by that....

I don't have a good photo of the Binghamton Soldiers and Sailors monument on the lawn of the Broome County Courthouse so instead I will link to someone who does.

In Owego, NY, about 15 miles west of Binghamton, is one of the better known monuments.

This is another angle of the Tioga County Civil War memorial.

This is part of the Civil War monument in downtown Portland, Maine at 1 Monument Square.

Another angle of the Portland monument.

I plan to expand my collection of Civil War monument pictures in the coming years.  Stay tuned.....

The Buying Dilemma

It's a very popular thing right now to "Buy American":  we must maintain our manufacturing base, and save jobs for Americans.  Most of us, in this Christmas shopping season, have received email pleas from friends and relatives.  I've been trying to "buy local" (or at least "Made in the U.S.A.") for several years now.

But sometimes the choice is hard.

When we visited the State of Maine back in September, we were impressed by the pains the people of Maine took to promote items "made in Maine".  There were a number of stores in the Portland and Brunswick, ME areas specializing in Maine-made merchandise:  everything from mustard to Poland Springs water and vodka to blankets to balsam pillows to toothpaste.  Supermarkets featured local foods and beverages in special displays.

But we also found that enough of the merchandise in a Maine institution, Renys, was not made in the U.S.A.

Too many times now, people who want to do right by their fellow Americans face a choice:

Buy merchandise not made in the United States from a local business?

Or buy American from a national chain?

I've wanted to "buy local" in light of the devastating floods that hit our part of upstate NY in September but I am finding that choice isn't so simple.

On Black Friday, we found an area rug in our local Kohl's, on a great sale, and proudly made by Mohawk in the U.S.A.

But in a local gift store in nearby Owego, a town hard hit by the flood, we tried our best to replace Christmas ornaments destroyed in the flood - and found that the majority of the ornaments - and all the patriotic ornaments - were made in China.

Should we have skipped the rug because it was being sold by a large national chain? (no, we bought it.)

Should we have passed on the China-made Christmas ornaments? (this one was harder but we did buy some.)

What about the local Home Depot?  National chain, blocks from our house, hit hard by the flood of September 8, reopened the day before Thanksgiving.  On Black Friday we were there at 5:05 a.m., passing under a sign saying "Welcome Back, Friends!".  The store was mobbed, and I would bet that some of those employees welcoming us had lost their homes in the flood.  They would have lost their jobs, too, if Home Depot had "hung it up".  (we still try to buy in a locally owned hardware store when possible but some of those Black Friday specials were irresistible.)

These decisions come nearly every day.  Today, I needed a new dish drainboard - and I ended up buying a made in U.S.A. product from Sterlite, in a national chain store (Target). The price was slightly higher than the Rubbermaid (made in China) but I gladly paid it.  But still, it wasn't from a small business. 

In other words, this decision - like so much in life - isn't that simple.  All I can hope is that I make the right decisions with my hard earned shopping dollars.

The Berlin Boxing Club

More and more, as the years pass, I find myself gravitating to young adult fiction.

It just isn't the stories of boys and girls "coming of age".  It's that I find an amazing range of literature, from the now-popular dystopias, to historical fiction.

I usually don't do "book reports" in my blog but when a book really moves me, I have to write about it.

Right now I am reading a historical fiction piece called "The Berlin Boxing Club" by Robert Sharenow.  Once I finish this book, I am going to hunt down other books by this author.

"The Berlin Boxing Club" works on so many levels.  The amount of research the author did is obvious.

On one level, this is the coming-of-age story of a teenaged Jewish boy growing up in 1930's Berlin.  Hitler has consolidated his power, and every day comes new horrors and new challenges for the Jews of Nazi Germany.  As a student of history, I know what is going to happen, and can hardly restrain myself from jumping to the end of the book and seeing if the boy and his family survive.

The teenager finds himself thriving in the world of amateur boxing (although he wisely hides his Jewish identity) he entered after a bullying incident.  Again, the author has done his homework.  All the details of the boxing world ring (no pun intended) with authenticity.  A historical figure, Max Schmeling, moves in and out of the book as one of the characters.

On still another level - the boy is a talented cartoonist, and the book features his illustrations and cartoons.  He keeps detailed notes on the boxers he fights against, and draws their moves.  He also draws cartoons to keep the spirits of his younger sister high.  But his father, an art dealer, does not approve of this "low" form of art.

On a final level, the book deals with prejudice within the world of hated minorities, as the Jewish boy must work through the hatred of homosexuals he has picked up through the attitudes of society around him.  To his disgust, he finds that one of his father's best customers is a homosexual - and must face the possibility that his father is one, too.  Or is he?

I have confidence that however this book ends, I am going to enjoy every minute of the experience.

National Brownie Day!

Today's thank you is to the blog Depression Cookies, and a post about brownies and National Brownie Day.

Did you know December 8 is National Brownie Day?  I didn't.

Brownies are my favorite baked good.  I am not noted for my cooking or my pastry chef skills. But I can whip up a pretty mean brownie.  So can you.

Brownies forgive almost everything except overbaking.  You can sneak whole wheat flower in and no one will ever know.  You can substitute applesauce for some of the butter.  You can add walnuts, pecans or almonds.  Or, you can add chips.  Both chocolate chips and peanut butter chips will work.  Add some pureed banana?  Sure!  Mint?  White Chocolate?  Why not?  Either frosted or non-frosted works (I prefer unfrosted).

(and, of course, you can even use a ......mix!)

I treasure memories I have of baking brownies with my son, who is now a young adult.  Years ago, I was able to send away for a paperback of kid-friendly recipes from Gold Medal Flour. (I seem to remember it was free with some proofs of purchase).  I latched right onto the easy brownie recipe.  It's been years since I've made it but I seem to recall that all you had to do is melt chocolate chips and butter in the microwave.  You added your flour (I used 1/2 white unbleached and 1/2 whole wheat) and an egg, some vanilla, a pinch of salt.  You mixed, and then poured into an 8 x 8 cake pan and baked at 350 degrees.

It was a one bowl recipe, which I appreciated even more.

When he was really young , my son would do the measuring with my help (and, of course, try to steal chocolate chips behind my back.)  As he grew older, he was able to make this with little help. 

And, he still does some baking - although, he does use mixes.

I've lost the cookbook and I can't seem to find the recipe online.  But what I did find was this:

There are thousands of brownie recipes.  And even blogs devoted to brownies.

Does anyone remember this Gold Medal kids cookbook?  Does anyone have a treasured brownie recipe they used to make with their young children?  Or for their families?  Please feel welcome to post them in the comments.  Let's all celebrate.

Happy Brownie Day!

Learning About History and the 70th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor Attack

I have blogged before about my belief that it is vital that our young people learn history.  For too many students, history is dead text in a deadly boring textbook.

It doesn't have to be that way.

One of the best ways to learn history is visiting the actual site, walking it, and listening to well-educated tour guides if they are provided.  Another "one of the best ways" is to talk to people who experienced the event.  Putting the two together is golden.

When I grew up, it was common for our fathers to be World War II veterans (my Dad was one).  Today, I can barely go a day without seeing a World War II vet's obituary in the newspaper.

Too soon, the last veteran will pass on, as will the last survivor of the Holocaust.  We are running a race against time.  Too many young people will never talk to an eyewitness of World War II. 

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the event that caused the United States to enter World War II and shifted our foreign policy, perhaps forever. 

I've never been to Hawaii but a number of college students are getting that opportunity-traveling with veterans in a program that has been matching students with World War II and letting them visit battlefields together.

What a wonderful opportunity to experience history first hand.  These students will be some of the final ones who will be able to take advantage of this opportunity.  And the veterans benefit greatly too.

I know a couple of people who have been to Pearl Harbor, and visiting the memorials there have been a highlight of their lives.

Observe this anniversary well.   It will be one of the last where we can honor members of our "Greatest Generation".

A Change in Wildflower Wednesday

As we are out of our wildflower season here in upstate NY, I had several choices of what to do during the winter months for my Wednesday feature.  It's been fun taking the pictures that highlight each Wednesday post, but I think my readers are going to get awfully sick of pictures of bare trees and shriveled berries. (My photography skills aren't up to bird and mammal photography - not quite yet, anyway.)

What I've decided to do is change Wildflower Wednesday to Winter Wednesday.  In this way I can concentrate on anything that is related to Winter - including Christmas and other seasonal holidays of the winter.  Topics could include decorated trees, snow, blooming witch hazel, essays about nature or anything else that strikes my fancy and is related to winter.

The new format will be effective with next week's Wednesday post.  Tomorrow, I will write a post about the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  As someone with an interest in history, I just can't resist.


Come spring I may (or may not) return to wildflowers.

Happy winter (to us in the Northern Hemisphere).

We Can Run from Nature But We Can't Hide

In the Northeast United States, we now have another consequence of climate to deal with.

We try to insulate ourselves against Nature.  But we can't.  Try as we might, we are still a part of the natural world, even as we hunker down for winter in our (hopefully) well-heated homes.

Something that seems so insignificant to us - a terrible acorn crop - actually may end up having some pretty dire consequences to us living in the Northeast U.S. - and the newspaper sounding the alarm is the newspaper of the most urban city of the Northeast, the New York Times.

Get ready for an epidemic of Lyme Disease.

I've met two people (and the husband of another person) who have battled Lyme Disease.  It is amazing (and extremely frightening) to consider the havoc one tiny tick bite can cause.  One of these people, a former nurse, had to give up her profession and go on disability because of Lyme Disease.  Lyme Disease is no joke.

And if you think you are immune to ticks because you live in an urban environment - well, those people did, too.  If you are in the suburbs, or small cities like we are here in upstate NY, you are even in more danger.

My mother in law's lawn, in suburban NYC, is visited all the time by deer, as their visible droppings show.  And your yard may be, too.

Deer, hungry for food, may wander close to roads.  Some experts are fearful of increased deer/car collisions.  This is a concern for us when we travel NY 17 to and from my mother in law.  As winter draws to an end, we always see fair number of deer up on hillsides, trying to browse on what is left from the winter.  This year, it will be worse.   Hopefully we won't have to go down there too often, or at night.

Danger does not mean panic.  But, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Everything is interconnected in nature.  Even the human beings who try to insulate themselves from her.

Civil War Sunday - Lincoln's First "State of the Union" Address

150 years ago yesterday, December 3, 1861, was the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's first Annual Message.

The term "State of the Union Address" was not yet used.  And, the address came at the end of the year, which, in a way, is more logical than the way we do it now.  (How can you review something at its beginning?)

The actual contents of the speech can be viewed here.  Unlike the Gettysburg Address of November, 1863, this speech is rather long and rambling.

What did Lincoln talk about?

Well, the state of the Union was pretty dire.
11 states had seceeded and formed the Confederate States of America.
These states were at war with what was left of the Union.
The rebels had won a major victory back in July at Manassas, Virginia and another victory at nearby Ball's Bluff, VA in October. 
Jefferson Davis, a native of Kentucky (like Lincoln), and a former Secretary of War of the United States, had been elected the President of the Confederacy on November 6 of that year (although he had given his inaugural address back in February, it took him until November to be officially elected.) and on November 18, had issued his own President's Address. 
The Trent Affair brought the remaining United States to the brink of war with Great Britain (although it was resolved peacefully late that December.)

If sometimes the challenges of our present day seem overwhelming, we need only go back in time to 1861.  This NY Times blog (who also provided a couple of the links above) has a wonderful analysis of Lincoln's Annual Message.

What did I find impressive about this address?  The fact that Lincoln continued to look forward even as the Union was in great peril of staying divided.  We needed a Department of Agriculture and Lincoln proposed one.  Our judical system had outgrown our country, and circuit courts either needed to be provided to all, or abolished all together.

The Union budget was balanced (in fact, there was a surplus.).

Lincoln had some interesting comments regarding labor and capital, comments that have relevance today.

Lincoln also proposed a solution to the slavery problem which will surprise some.

What Lincoln was fighting for was a future where the population of the reunited United States had reached 250 million people (noting that Lincoln believed that event would happen in the lifetimes of some in the audience.)  This didn't happen until sometime in 1991

Regardless of your political views (and I try to remain neutral in my writings although I am a Northerner) one must ask:  How many of our present day politicians can look forward that far ahead with that type of vision?

We count ourselves fortunate that Americans of the 1860's could.

Dear Gardens in Winter

May Dreams Gardens gave me the inspiration for this open letter to my gardens as we head towards winter here in upstate NY.

Dear Gardens (both my flower garden at home and spouse's veggie garden at the Otsiningo Community Garden) in Winter:

This has been the strangest, mildest November and now December I've experienced in some 25 years of living in the Binghamton, NY area.  The outside beckons with frosty mornings, followed by (sometimes) sunshine.  And then....the sun goes down at 4:30 pm.  Darkness.  At least in December we have the Christmas lights to brighten those nights. 

Don't you feel the strangeness of the weather, too, in some way?  Things just aren't right.  And I hope that we can weather this together.

It is so tempting to plant something but I know it is the time for my gardens to hibernate.  At least it is according to the calendar. 

Please be gentle to my sleeping plants, Winter.  If really cold weather comes, please cover my gardens with a blanket of snow first.  Let that cold also keep the insects that feed on my plants from multiplying too rapidly.  The ecology in this area demands snow, although I personally would be most happy if I didn't have any to shovel or to walk/slide in.

And no ice.  Please.  My sister in law fell on the ice last year and hit her head.  I fell and hurt my back.  Ice is beautiful and deadly.  It hurts my garden plants.  Please, no ice.

Please do not allow my shrubs and trees to wake up too early from their winter sleeps.  Don't let their tender buds be frozen.  We need those flowers and leaves to brighten our spring.

Please let the Old Farmer's Almanac be wrong about our coming spring.  If it is right, we are going to have a cold, miserable spring.  Please do what you can, Gardens in Winter, to make sure that doesn't happen.

Preserve my tulip bulbs from the rabbits, too.

And finally, Gardens in Winter, please send many seed catalogs my way. (I know that isn't part of your job but please help me out here.)  In the dead of winter, before the later sunsets start to kick in, and when the wind blows and the snow swirls, those seed catalogs will keep me going with their promise of spring.

Yours truly,
RamblinGarden

Recovery, Westover Style

Recovery lifts the spirit.  Slowly but surely, recovery in my neighborhood hit by Tropical Storm Lee September 8 progresses.  I feel so much for those in California and elsewhere being struck by weather disaster this week; my heart goes out to them because I know how much work is ahead of them.

To them I say:  it will be hard, but many people are pulling for you - and trust me, many people here know so much better than I do.

When your neighborhood is no longer filled with closed businesses, it makes the holiday season brighter.

Last Wednesday, the Home Depot in my neighborhood of Westover near Johnson City, NY reopened.

Wednesday, the Greek House restaurant in my neighborhood reopened.  For three months a sign reading "Sam Will Be Back!" was in the front window.  Sam is back, and the parking lot is crowded.

Yesterday, the Number 5 restaurant in nearby Binghamton, in a historic building, reopened.  The Advance Auto Parks near the Vestal Rail Trail, where I exercise walk, has also reopened.

This, of course, isn't to say all is rosy.  For example, close to the Wegmans supermarket in Johnson City (about a mile from the Greek House), there was a lot of flooding.  One of the casualties was a storage facility.  (This picture was taken a month or so after the flood, which is a sign of just how bad the damage was.)

Today I found out some of the units (not necessarily the ones I took a picture of from the Wegmans parking lot) were rented by Binghamton's Toys for Tots, and some $20,000. worth of toys were destroyed in addition to $10,000. in other supplies.

Tomorrow, there will be a benefit concert for our local Toys For Tots.   The bar the concert is being held in is located in one of the worst hit areas of Binghamton.

And finally, there is a tiny mystery at the former BAE plant across the street from the Greek House restaurant in my Westover neighborhood.  In November, BAE announced they would not be returning to the flood stricken facility that employed some 1300 people..  But in the past several days, people are obviously working there again.   One end of the building has some activity, there are cars parked in one of the parking lots, and yesterday I saw (on my way to work) a Pepsi truck parked in front of the building, with a man unloading cases of something.

In my November post, I called the BAE "recovery" the Long Goodbye that started September 8.  Looks like, although there is no permanent recovery, that particular goodbye is not yet final.

Life goes on.

Adventures in Spam

Sometimes depending on my mood, I just plain enjoy spam-email spam, that is.  If it is safely caught in my spam folder, that is.  I use a "junk" mail free address for anything where I have a suspicion spammers will get hold of it.  So, I check in there every several days just in case something legit is in the spam folder. 

So, shall we check into today's spam folder catch?

Let's see.  Amazingly, no "male enhancement" type emails.  Since I'm not a male, I have no idea why spammers, for years, have thought I'm a "he".  Or, the invitations to join Facebook, but the "a" is a different vowel and the "e" is a "k".

6 spams hawking Swiss replica watches.
1 spam specifically hawking Rolexes.
(must be holiday time).

Someone wants me to "Escape to Cancun!"  In another month, I may want to.....

Still another email implores me to "Burn Away Fats!"

There's an invite for me to join a senior dating community.  OK, my age may contain a "6" (and I don't mean the second digit)  soon, but I am not ready for Seniorhood.

And, last but not least: There's a  "Money Transfer Notice" beginning "Dear Beneficiary".  That's so 1996!  Better try harder!

But, what I am NOT enjoying is blogging spam.  I'm not hit that hard by commenting spam - knock on wood, Blogger right now is doing a pretty good job on the obvious ones.  For less obvious ones, this blog post has a collection that will bring tears to your eyes if you don't blog, and knowing nods if you do. I don't seem to get too much of that, either, but I may have accidentally deleted a genuine comment or two that seemed to be that kind of spam.  If one of those was your comment, I apologize.

But even worse is a relatively recent development - referrer spam.

I never click on links in my stats - and you shouldn't either.  Ever.

This type of spam isn't funny at all.

Are you having problems with referrer spam?  Or have any email spams that have tickled your funnybone?

Wildflower Wednesday - The Transition into Winter

Wildflower season may be basically over in upstate NY, but there is still a lot of color.

Rose hips remain on the now bare rugosa rose bushes.

Where fall asters once bloomed, now seed puffs remain.

And where the bright yellow of goldenrod once shone, now there is only dead white.

The only thing missing is snow.  This is probably the only November in my 25 or so years here I can remember without measurable snow at our house and without a high temperature lower than 40 degrees. 

This weekend was so gorgeous it was a shame that we had to travel.  We even tied a record temperature yesterday (63 degrees).

But it is over now.  The chilly winds of November are finally blowing.  Today the high was right after midnight.  During the day the temperature dropped and the daytime high at our house was 44 and we had a burst of ice pellets in the late afternoon.  We may have some wet snow showers tomorrow.

But this is the edge of the snowbelt, and the snow won't hold off forever.

Brrrr.

Eternal Sunsets of the Spotting Mind (An Encore Post)

At this time of year, we are close to our earliest sunset here in upstate NY.  Commuting home from work in the almost-dark reminded me of this post from 2009.  I haven't discussed this particular obsession for a while, but I have always been fascinated by the "midnight sun". I've always wanted to visit - oh, Alaska, or Iceland, or Norway, or somewhere with 24 hour light.  Or even, in the winter, 24 hour dark.  That wouldn't have been as much fun, perhaps...except if I could see the Northern (or Southern) lights.

Ironically, the one time I visited Alaska, it was in September when sunrise/sunset is pretty even no matter where on Earth you are. So I have never come close to 24 hour day.  Or 24 hour night.

I really did have the dreams I describe in my youth, and I have no idea why they sometimes frightened me.

One day.....I will experience in person....

Eternal Sunsets of the Spotting Mind

Back to my favorite website. And my childhood obsession with the 24 hour day.

When I was growing up in the Bronx,I used to have dreams about living in a place where the sun never set. In these dreams, sometimes the sun would set, but it would be very late at night. I would gaze out my window at 11pm (in my dream) and it would still be light. Sometimes, though, it was dark all the time. I would look at the stars, and they were different. This would, for some reason, frighten me.

When I found out that there were, indeed places which had 24 hour light and 24 hour dark, I began to wonder about what it would truly be like to see the sun at midnight, or experience total darkness.

As an adult, I haven't had that opportunity (either way) except through the Internet.

Last year, through Eternal Sunset, I tracked a location in Antarctica and a location in Fairbanks, AK for an entire year. However, neither location has the true 24 hour swing - Fairbanks, for example, has a maximum daylight time of 21 hrs and 45 minutes (approximately.) They do have 24 hour "light"on the day of the summer solstice but the sun does set.

Now, I have, again through Eternal Sunset, found an actual 24 hour web cam location - in Norway. Svalbard & Longyearbyen, to be exact. Right now, as I write this, it is almost midnight. The sun is right on the horizon. The web cam is pointed at it. It is 28 degrees above zero, snow on the ground, and several people on snowmobiles are clearly visible. I wish I could be allowed to post a picture from this website. This is a childhood dream come true. What is it like to live there?

There are photos of this area, and stunning would not begin to describe it. What does the person who runs this website do for a living? Does he sleep at all during the arctic day? Has he ever been to more temporate climes? If so do our days and nights seem weird to him?

One day I will sign his guestbook, although I'd better not tell him about my obsession with the Eternal Sunset. Some things are better left unsaid.

Not Your Typical YMCA

In the fitness center, men and women pedal stationery bicycles, stride on treadmills, and use other exercise machines.  In the pool, aquatic exercise classes alternate with lap swim. 

Such is a typical evening at the Johnson City YMCA.

But that is where any similarities to a typical YMCA end.

Half of the building is dark. The gym is unusable.  Throughout the building, the smell of smoke from an October fire still lingers.  The ceilings, missing since October, are slowly being replaced but duct work is still quite visible.  Electrical wires still hang down in places. The front lobby still doesn't have a finished floor- it has been stripped to the bare concrete since the floods caused by Tropical Storm Lee of the first week of September.  Entering the locker rooms, you dodge painters on ladders.  The locker rooms have no lockers.  We wear flip-flops because signs warn us to wear shoes throughout the building.

But no one seems to care. 

One day, our Y will be restored.  (right now, I understand, there is still a dispute among insurance companies regarding who will pay for what, which is delaying the full recovery.)  The porta-potties in the front will be gone.  The gym will be full of volleyball and basketball leagues once again. 

And just think.  People in big cities pay big money to be entertained in warehouses with visible ductwork and partially painted walls.  We are getting the same experience at no extra charge, we in this small village of Johnson City, in upstate NY.

You don't need a fancy building to exercise in.  What you need is a caring staff.  The Y has that.

Who could ask for anything more.

Civil War Sunday - The First Civil War Thanksgiving

Have you wondered how the first Civil War Thanksgiving (our first year at war with each other) was celebrated by the troops on both sides?

Keep in mind that in 1861 there was no national Thanksgiving, as I explained in my blog post of last week.  Every state set its own date.

Thanks to a blog I've just discovered, we have a good description of how Thanksgiving was celebrated by the troops in 1861.  I love it when someone does my research for me! Some of the foods are those we would gobble (pun intended) down today. 

The troops had a lot to be thankful about.  Similar to the Thanksgiving dinner our troops get today (if at all possible, according to location) the troops on the designated Thanksgiving Day for their locality got special rations, and the chance to eat "real food":  turkey, potatoes, and even oysters.

If you are interested in Civil War food in general, this site will give you a good selection of foods to choose from and experiment with.

Me - I'm grateful for the pre-slaughtered, defeathered, and gutted turkey of today.

More Ramblings on Aging

As people approach their 60's, they tend to dwell a lot on aging.

On the one hand, I have some role models for "how one should age".  For example, I had blogged recently about a restaurant in a neighborhood a handful of miles from where I live.  That restaurant, Pete's Legacy Diner, is owned by a man who turned 80 in September.  He has spent his life establishing restaurants, selling them, and going on to the next restaurant challenge.  All but one of the restaurants he founded are still operating.

We ate at Pete's today and, as usual, he was there, seating customers, getting them coffee, making sure everything was running smoothly - without missing a beat.

How wonderful that must be. But on the other hand....
  
It's been a hard week for some people I know, or used to have an association with.

In the past two weeks, four people I know have lost a parent.  One lost an in-law.  We do expect the elderly to pass on.  But not all of them were old.

One person (only in his early 50's) who co-founded a business I had an association with years ago, and was at the time of his death a co-worker of my son's, passed on.  And, last but not least, a man who graduated from my spouse's high school three years after my husband passed on, again, just in his 50's.


More and more, death and aging are on my mind.  Not that I dwell on it, but I have to notice, and I do think about it. And about the people who never got there, who died too young.

I want to be able to age with grace.  Now I have to figure out just now to do it.

Any ideas?

The Butterflies of Black Friday

I remember a number of Black Fridays here in upstate NY with snow on the ground.  I don't remember a whole lot that were partly sunny with temperatures close to 60 degrees. 

Nor do I remember a lot of Black Fridays where I saw butterflies.  But, I saw butterflies today.  Three of them, to be exact.

Two of them are in this picture.  It will be almost impossible for you to see them. They are perched, wings closed, on either side of a dandelion and they blended into the yellow flower.   My guess is that one was a male and one was a female.  One had a couple of visible black spots.  the other seemed to have a border around its wings.

I took this one on maximum zoom (my camera has only a 3x optical zoom ) and then tried to get closer.  My attempt was unsucessful as I'm not exactly light on my feet - they were scared off and went flying away.

Speaking of camouflage, later in the walk I saw a rabbit.  Try to find the rabbit.  It (he? she?) is in the lower left hand corner.

Still later, I saw a large brown butterfly.  And when I got home and tried to sit in the back yard, I was buzzed by mosquitoes. 


What an unusual Black Friday. We didn't even know if we would be able to get to the Rail Trail with the Black Friday traffic, but we didn't have any problems.  I'm glad I was off of work to enjoy the day.


Tomorrow - it is supposed to be as mild as today.  Unbelievable.


Does anyone have a guess as to what these butterflies are?  Or what a "large brown butterfly" in late fall in Upstate NY may have been?