Dragon Tales

Hi all,

Happy St. Michaelmas day!

Yes, it was a crazy-long "festival day" = more work! Got to sleep a bit later but made up for it with pie baking and organizing things. Everything got done, although it was weird. We were told it would be a community meal, but each house just ended up eating the food they brought. How community-minded...not.

Anyhow, the play went well, with the kids stealing the show as the forces of evil. The teen girls enjoyed themselves immensely, apparently. We got to sneak peeks through the curtain, as we'd never rehearsed everything. We had one miscue, but it turned out fine. I almost wish there was a video, as I'm sure it was quite amusing and cult-ish seeming. Eurythmy and the whole nine yards. But it was a relief to have done it well and to a receptive audience.

Now, the boys played a "dragon" and this caused lots of questions later on.

Maria: "Do dragons bite?"
Me: "Maria do dragons bit-"
Maria: "If you stick your finger in their mouth they'll bite!"
Yup.

Then the 4 year old (who had missed this conversation) also brought it up:
"Mommy, why didn't the dragon bite the people?"
Hum: "Well, maybe he was a good dragon" (he was pretty much Satan...so no...)
"Why wasn't he hungry?!"
"He just wasn't?"
"What do dragons eat?"
-Everyone chimed in with "Ham, sheep, etc"

His dad then wandered in and was asked (he's German...)
"Dragons eat knights"

"What is knights??"

He was then told he would find out in Kindergarten this year. Priceless.

Hum then related a conversation from the falls, where they were high above another group of people:
"Mommy, look! Little People!"
"Yes, I see them..."
"...Are they - real?!?"
"Yes..."
"...Do they live in Gnomey houses?!"

Obviously a Waldorf child!



That's all. We had to eat on hay bales, which made me itch and now I'm totally stuffed up and ready to call it a night...

Hope all is well,
Steph

I'm Getting Terrible, Aren't I?

Hi all,

I know, I know, 6 days. I could make the usual excuses (ie, I'm holding the house, going to practices and basically hoarding sleep as a precious commodity), but I'm just going to get on with it!

Notably, I was asked by D'Artagnan to drop him off at a retreat center that his gf is working at. It was about 9:30 by the time we left (the house went out for dinner and a movie - the owl one - Legend of the Guardians, the Owls of Ga'hoole - in 3D!), and it took about 40 minutes to get there. We went down a back road, which was twisty, but seemed simple how to get home.

It wasn't.

After a half an hour of driving lost, I drove into North Park...a town I'd never heard of. There was no map in the car, and so I tried calling Calvin. No answer. Then Schmee. No answer. So I'm afraid I left slightly-hysterical messages on their phones. I hate being lost - especially alone and in the dark! If I'm not driving, I become the logical one and I'm usually ok. But it was almost 11 and I just had to succumb to a few tears. 5 minutes later I determined which way was north, and continued on a road I'd at least heard of. A few minutes later I saw a "Taconic Parkway" sign, and knew I'd be ok. A very concerned Schmee called me soon thereafter and googled my location and said I should be ok as well. I hit an accident area (and was helped by a policeman to find the right route back onto the road...think I might've once again sounded a bit hysterical...should probably work on that...) but was soon on the Taconic. It took me 1.5 hours to get home...

The next morning took the cake, however, as Slick, the 17 year old German doing a "Practicum", which is like an internship that Waldorf students do, asked how drunk I'd been the night before. Apparently Yeshe had poor reception and played the message at a large gathering and had decided that I must've been drunk and lost. Obviously I wasn't pleased. I'd told him where I was going, and even if I was lost and drunk, a friend should still try to find you! Even more so! But he's young and hasn't had a lot of experience in that area, and promised to rectify that rumor. We'll see...

Saturday we did a bunch of cleaning and I had play rehearsal. I also did the flowers in the hall. Totally not my thing...but they didn't look horrible. Then I covered dinner so the family could get out. They got back late, and the almost 4 year old only made it 2 steps up the stairs. His mother was a little frustrated (the baby had cried the entire time...and she was already carrying the 1.5 year old) and so I swooped him up. I think the cuteness of sleeping kids is probably the only thing that keeps their parents from murdering them...

Sunday I was in Hudson in the morning and then stayed in the house the entire day. I worked on the last necklace and made TONS of phone calls. I probably spent 4-5 hours on the phone catching up with some people. And still didn't connect with everyone! But it was a really great way to spend my day...out in the hammock at times! Those days are drawing nearer to an end, as the leaves are quickly changing and fluttering down. My poor tomato plants are practically dead...

Today I was busy doing the order in the morning and ended up having an Americorps meeting that lasted through a lunch provided. It was fine, but I felt bad dumping on the co-worker that's in the co-op now. I really need to find a name for her too...sigh. Anyhow, I took Slick (who spent part of Saturday in the ER, as he'd sliced his thumb open trying to cut a pumpkin: 14 stitches... = new workplace...) with me to Hudson to pick up stuff from 2 of our smaller suppliers. It was nice to have company for the ride, although his taste in music conflicts terribly with mine. He likes "experimental techno beat" or something like that. So that was interesting.

We made it back to the co-op by 4 and got a little work in before going home. And that was pretty much my day...

Hope all is well,
Steph

NYC Chaos

Hi all,

So, after all the chaos of home, the chaos of NY was perfect.

The 6 am wakeup, however, was not. But I made it into Hudson with another person where we joined up with Schmee, Carey and one of Carey's friends who was visiting. We drove to Schmee's parent's house for a quick visit and then hopped on the train to the city. We made it about twenty minutes before 11. We met up with another previous co-worker and a friend of one of the new Germans who was with us. He'll get a name eventually...yup.

We wandered to Bryant Park, and then decided to split off for a while. My group of Schmee, Carey and her friend - later to be joined by a friend of that friend (complicated, I know, but we were a pretty great group!) at the MET. I'd never been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before, although it was familiar to the Museum in Boston that I'd been at. I had trouble getting in at first, as they found my bottle of ginger brew. So I had to sit outside and drink it.

When I came back in (and for another bag-search), I got sucked into conversation about my "Dune" - Frank Herbert - book.

"Hey. That looks old"
"It is old..."
"First edition?"
"Um, no idea...it says it was printed in 1965 and doesn't list previous printings..."
"...You interested in selling it?"
"You interested in buying it??"
"Ah. Uh, I only got 12 dollars on me...don't suppose that would do it?"
"Nah, but thanks anyway..."
"Ok, worth a try. Check your bag around the corner please"

Now, I've since discovered that it is not a first printing, but hey, I haven't finished it yet! Had he offered me more money, I might of considered it, but once again...I haven't read it yet...

A girl has to keep her priorities in check...

We were really close to Central Park, so we had lunch there - picnic packed. It was a good time, sitting in the grass and discussing things beyond village life. The friend of the friend even let out a shriek, which was hilarious. A kid had gotten clocked by the base ball glove his dad had tried to toss to him (he was like 3, and it knocked him right over), I'm pretty sure everyone in the little field heard! We then wandered around the park for over and hour, and I suddenly realized that this was the best part of NYC. I could literally move to the city and have a once-weekly blog entitled "Saturday in Central Park". People watching was awesome, and where else could you find an association for dancing on skates?

We went down to Broadway and enjoyed the street fest going on there, swinging by Daffy's. We had fun browsing and all ended up with a pashmina. Have I ever mentioned my love of pashmina's before? Yup.

Then we went to Chinatown, but steered clear of an extremely packed Little Italy. We picked a Thai/Malaysian/Chinese restaurant for dinner which was both reasonable and tasty. We then did a quick trip to Time Square (where Carey traded a hug for a CD with a rapper claiming to be going on tour with Kanye and Justin Timberlake...although he may need more than 39 seconds on his demo...yup) and got turned around getting back to Grand Central Station to ride home. But we made it...with a whole 2 minutes to spare...

We got home late, but luckily I got to sleep in the next morning even though I was working - since I was doing brunch.

But that was my great day in NYC. I'll try to get photos to stream at some point...

Hope all is well,
Steph

Smokey Plum Jam

Hi all,

It sure sounds better than: "I burned the crap out of the plums-jam" right? Unfortunately, you can definitely taste it. So that's about 15 pounds of plum jam no one is going to enjoy. Sigh.

So, yeah, been almost a week since I last posted. Sad, right? It was a horribly hectic week. Chaos at the workplace and disorder at home. It really starts to get to you. It's exhausting to get up at 6:55, do breakfast, have a quick rest after breakfast, but do teeth and send off, go to work, come back and finish up lunch (Calvin's still got a lot to learn, but at least he's willing!), rush off to play practice, go to work again, come home, make dinner, and then put to bed about 1.5 hours later. Or, make jam. At any rate, it's pretty crazy.

Work was really frustrating this past week. The apples I ordered through a local farm didn't get delivered correctly and so it took about 5 phone calls to figure out a maybe. I finally got them 4 days later, mostly by accident. MESS! I spent the rest of that afternoon on the phone talking to suppliers. One had been giving us consistently crappy produce and had made a costly substitution, so I really laid it out for them about our expectations. Well, something like that. Then we had a call from the bakery - one of their flour bags had bugs in it. A call to another supplier. Finally, the gouda that we cut into had mold: a third supplier. So, nothing actually even got done that I had on my list and I felt pretty useless afterward.

But someone had to do it!

The next day someone came in to help show me how to do profit/loss reports. His example worked out beautifully, but when I tried to do the next month's it was completely off! He came back today to ask how things were going, and I was somewhat relieved to find out that something was wrong in the system, so it wasn't actually that I was too stupid to do it. So that was somewhat reassuring.

And I'm not even going into the craziness of Calvin Friday night...I was majorly peeved!

So, need I say how happy I was to have Saturday off?

So, after all that chaos, I went into NYC for some more. I decided one could have a blog called "Saturday in Central Park" and probably get a million hits.

However, I will hold you in suspense about my day off until tomorrow.

I need sleep.

But it was awesome*

Hope all is well,
Steph


*OOoooooh, a cliff-hanger!!!