The T Show

Janneke spent most of her time with T today, and I spent most of mine with Q, due to various circumstances. And Mami had the camera:



T helps make cupcakes.



T has a nice dog in the house for a change.



T sings along with the music in her head.



T sits with a sheet of paper and pretends to read the music as she sings "The Twelve Days of Christmas". (The cardboard on the floor is from the box that the subject of the next paragraph came in.)

Speaking of politics, we had the Saga of the Ping Pong Table yesterday. Called Sears the day before and were assured they had six in stock, right there, in the store, of various levels of quality. So Q and I drove down and walked in, snapping our fingers and shouting "Garcon! Bring on the tables, and be lively!" Only to find out that the person on the phone yesterday thinks that "in stock" means "at a warehouse in Poughkeepsie". So we gave them the finger, took a leak in a remote corner of the store, and headed to Dick's Sporting Goods.

Where there was absolutely no one working the floor. I rang the doorbell that calls someone to open the changing room for you, and had to all but tackle the lackey who slumped over, drooling, to make use of his key. The guy never so much as made eye contact with me until I'd said "Excuse me" three times, each time increasing the urgency. He listened, bored, to my request, then paged a sub-lackey, who never came, and then when I caught the original lackey peeking back to see if the sub-lackey had showed, I grabbed him and he himself, reluctantly, answered my questions. They turned out to have a table that was to our liking, so we bought it, thus rewarding them for their excellent inventory despite their shoddy customer service. Next problem: How to get it home.

We could think of no one we knew, or knew well enough to ask, anyway, who owned a pick-up truck or a large van. Which probably says something about the circle of friends we run in. So we got a U-Haul, which is a fly-by-night company of sheisters and con men. But they were available, on short notice. And we're going to have a New Year's Eve slumber party with three to four families all coming over, so we had to have it that same day.

As I backed the U-Haul in at our house to take the ping-pong table out of the back, our neighbor Sam Crane, three houses down across the street, drove by and waved out the window of the huge van he has, about which Janneke and I had both completely forgotten. "How 'bout them Packers!", he hollered. I waved weakly back and sighed. Ah well.

The table is installed, the guest rooms are clean, the bathrooms are clean, and tomorrow the rest of the house will be clean. And then we will have kids and adults sleeping over (it removes the need for babysitters, you see) for late-night revelry and goofiness. It's kind of turning into the fourth or fifth "Janneke Got Tenure" party. First party we've ever had where we've bought so much hooch that the guy at the liquor store gave us a box.

State of the Joints: Plantar fasciitis in both feet seems to be under control - no pain lately, despite long marches in the forest. Right knee swollen and stiff today, reason unknown; currently icinig. Left shoulder sticking and clicking and sore. Have resumed shoulder exercises I remember from physical therapy some three or four years ago. Right wrist still sore from falling on the ice while hunting.

If I were a car, you'd be able to track me around town by the dribs and drabs of oil and all the rusty bits and pieces of me I'd be leaving behind.

Christmas and All That

Why bore you with narrative? Here's the Christmas scene:



I swear every year I'm not going to throw out the paper as the kids unwrap, to make this picture a little more extreme. But I just can't help myself. The one day of the year that I'm a neat freak...



This box stands no chance whatsoever.



There is, after all, a My Little Pony inside.



Receiving Bionicles = Excitement



Building Bionicles = Happiness

Y'know what doesn't = happiness? Not shooting a deer. That = frustration.

But of a very nice sort. I'm finding that hunting is like writing, or making art - I like "having hunted" a lot more than I like "hunting". When I'm out there, as I was today, trudging around, every so often I look up and am greeted with a sight like this:



That's a beaver pond, with Mount Greylock disappearing into the clouds above. What a gorgeous spot. Of course, I was in the midst of a chase of two deer, doubtless a doe and a fawn, that had left the feeding area and gone through the Greylock Glen (troubled history of that property readily available to all who search for it online - but here's a helpful link) to their beds this morning. I followed them and kicked them out of their beds - I didn't see or hear them jump, but when I got to where they'd spent the night, they were very recently up, and had run away. Which they don't do for the fun of it. I was right behind them. Up and up and up they went, to the crest of Ragged Mountain, waaaay the hell up. And I followed, and was rewarded with tremendous views. Not too photogenic, due to the screen of trees, but I should have taken some pictures. I did get one of this strange little item when I was chasing the deer: a derelict, never-completed ski lift, from when the Glen was slated to become a ski area:



That climb was long and hard, and I hated it. But I was very glad I had done it, even though the deer, once they got to the top, or near it, skittered along for another three hundred yards and then went downhill, straight back to where they'd first started. I never caught up with them, and when they got back to the thick stuff where all the deer are feeding these days, their tracks disappeared into the confusing mess of deer tracks that seem to disappear into each other and into nothing, with no deer appearing at their ends. The deer just go "poof" in clouds of purple, while the tiny bell-like giggling of pixies and sprites rings in the air around you. The damned animals hear you coming a mile away - you have to be able to drive a place like that in order to have any luck, and there's just one of me. So I got home around noon, having spent five vigorous hours walking in the woods, and I'm glad to have done it. But at the time, I was really hating it. Looks like no deer this year, but I'm still glad I went. I feel like a better woodsman than I was three weeks ago.

There's other news, I suppose, but I'm too tired to write it. Hasta pronto!

On the Second Day of Christmas...

We beat the rain yesterday and did some early-morning sledding. This is the view we were treated to at the top of Sheep Hill in Billtown:



Not bad, eh? Hey: Did I tell you? Janneke got tenure. They're gonna frickin' BURY us here.

At the top of the hill, where you park your car, there's a sign - several, actually - that says, "NO SLEDDERS BEYOND THIS POINT". Which makes absolutely no sense. I mean, if I'm not going beyond that point, which is to say, if I'm in the road, then in what way exactly am I a sledder? And if I am allowed to be a sledder UP TO that point, where precisely am I meant to sled? Uphill, perhaps...? Besides which, umpteen sled tracks grace the crest of the hill, visible from the parking area. And, finally: If not for sledding, why IS there a parking area there? In the end, we gave Q, who read the sign, a valuable life lesson: When a rule makes no sense, flout it.

Ready for some heavy-duty floutin'?



Well, since I'm up, and you're here, I’ll tell you the story of this morning’s hunt, why-don’t-I.

Up and at ‘em at 4:11, and out the door by 4:30, to be walking into the mountain by 5:00 and arrive at the spot I had elected to stand by 6:00. All went like clockwork, though I could have been at the stand by 5:45. I walked right past the turn-off for some reason. I was following a gas line (pics to follow), treeless and mown by the gas company (for miles and miles – gives you a whole new respect for the folks who work on our infrastructure), and convinced myself that it must be farther along. But when the gas line looked unfamiliar, I realized my mistake and headed back. Walking the gas line is pretty easy these days compared to being out in the trees: we had easily two feet of snow on the ground, but yesterday the temperatures got into the 50s, and it rained. So the snow that was there deteriorated and then froze overnight, making for a landscape of crust. Which means that it’s all but impossible to sneak up on a deer. In soft, powdery snow, it’s very unlikely. And in crusty snow, forget it.

So I had determined to stand. My spot seemed a likely one, given the way in which, on previous days, deer had walked in my tracks from when I passed through in the morning, to when I returned in the afternoon, in both directions. I learned by experience last time that the beaver ponds there below are not fun to try to cross, and had deduced thus that the deer had been avoiding them by way of the crossroads in trails just uphill of a wooded knoll. I had resolved to sit on a fallen tree that commands a view of several trails and await my deer.

Never came, though. I got there just as the moon set (lucky thing, that, as once the moon set, you couldn’t see much at all), and stayed there for three hours. Nothin’. A pair of ravens flew over early on, around 6:30, mocking me. That was it.

I did learn a lot, though. I learned that the town of Adams, far below, comes awake at precisely 6:30. Engines and sirens and honking galore. And that squirrels are very lazy – one could see for a good hour up there before they came out of their nests. They waited until the sun had actually struck the treetops before coming out.

The tree trunk I sat on had a pair of icicles on one branch that lit up when the sun topped the mountains across the valley:




But after three hours, my feet, slightly wet from yet another tussle with the beaver ponds, were too cold to keep still, and I decided to head home. Surprisingly, the snowmobile trails had firmed up between the time I used them to walk in at 5:00 and the time I started leaving, around 9:00. Never broke through the crust once - on the way in, the most I had made it without crashing through had been six steps. (I was counting.) I got back around to here:



(whence you can see the orchards down below), when I saw very fresh tracks, crossing my own from the morning. And I took up the challenge, and followed them. That deer started following a path that had been laid down two days ago, by me:



You can see the two little black marks in the larger tracks - the deer, this very morning, was walking in my footsteps from two days ago. Not likely a buck, as that seems very un-bucklike (they're far more paranoid and cautious than does), but I followed it anyway. Could have been a young one, inexperienced. I'm after meat in the freezer - I'm not picky. I'll take a young buck if I can. Here's another shot of the tracks inside my own:



That darn deer followed my tracks all the way to where I had crossed a gorge two days ago, following, at the time, another deer (or, quite possibly, the same one). I kept on past the gorge and emerged at a road, precisely at a spot where Jim, my native guide, had told me his brother always sets up, and where he had killed an eight-pointer this year. "This is where they cross," he had said.

Well, I guess so. So next time (the 26th), I'm walking to THERE and setting up a fricking hour before the sun comes up. It's a veritable highway. Here's the gorge they cross:



And here's the steely determination they'll meet with on the 26th:



And here are the boots that will carry me to triumph, and hopefully nowhere neare any bevers whatever, drying by the hearth:



Other things happened today, too - don't think they didn't. Here, T sings along with the public TV broadcast of all the local school choirs. Try reading her lips:



That's right: "Sexual Healing". No, no, of course - it's Jingle Bells. Although, when T sings that song, it does get a little blue.

While that went on, we were all enjoying a Christmas copetin, courtesy of Janneke:



As you can see, the day-before-a-holiday tradition of identical clothing continues. And, slightly later on, in keeping with another tradition, Santa's treats were delivered to the living room:



It's all very exciting. What can I say, we live well.

Holiday at Home

Well, the Christmas vacation is off to a strong start. I hit the faculty celebration for Lenox on the way home, stopped again with the Williamstown contingent for some brews, and rolled into town in time for pizza and a movie. (The Santa Clause 3. Which is precisely as you would think it would be.) Up before dawn this morning to go to Adams and chase deer again. Lots of tracks, but also lots of snow, which eventually made me give in. I mean, it was mid-thigh deep at times. But I scouted out an excellent location for when I go and stand on Monday. The deer, turns out, are forced into a quite narrow area if they want to get from one large portion of the property to another by a series of beaver ponds. Should be exciting.

Home for lunch, and then a lot of house cleaning. I'm still a bit sick - feeling pretty bleary-eyed and weak right now, as a matter of fact. But so far the kids aren't showing signs of it (apart form T' cough), and Janneke is a pillar of strength. Must be because her hair is growing long again - she French braided it the other day and was pleased as punch. She's our little Sampson.

On winter vacation days inside, things can get a little loopy. Here's what I'm talking about:



T doing one of her dramatic ballet-type leaps toward the camera. In her hand is the usual prop in any production of Swan lake: Berry-flavored licorice.



Q makes some stained glass panels for the window. If the picture the other day was his "liquid" face, this one would be his "Deliverance" face.



Here's Q, having claimed insomnia and returned to the couch to share in the joys of literature with Mami. I really like this picture, but, for you literalists and killjoys in our circle of friends (that's right, I'm talking about you (no, not you - Him. The one - Yes, right. You.)), here's the version where the cold, cruel light of the flash robs it of all life and spirit:



There. Happy now? You've got your precious detail. Never mind the death of the warm glow from Q's reading light. Who cares, right? It's only the entire soul of the picture.

Why don't you go kick over a sand castle somewhere?

Shmuck.

Love you, though.

Christmastime: Parties, Presents, Illness

A big hello to everyone out there in Blogland from the homestead, where cookies are in the oven, presents are under the tree, and visions of sugarplums dance in our heads, much as the microbes dance and cavort in my assorted innards. Stayed home from work sick today, and ironically got more work done than if I had gone in. I could feel it coming yesterday, and so left a plan on my desk just in case. Came in handy.

The biggest news lately is that we have attended two - TWO! - holiday parties, one at the house of Connor, a friend of T' from daycare, and another at the home of Brad and Betsy, who together form one third of Milk of Amnesia, Berkshire County's undefeated team trivia juggernaut, as well as roughly half of our social circle. Another three-sixths of Milk of Amnesia was in attendance at Brad and Betsy's (myself, Ronadh, and Janneke), despite which not a single soul asked any of us for autographs. And there were over 40 people in attendance - mostly adults, but a lot of kids, too. It was a quinTential Christmas party: caroling practice around the piano (which was crowned with the truly frightening trophy from Team Trivia), cookies and mulled wine, sweaters and turtlenecks, piles of overcoats on stair railings and beds, children in a separate orbit in a separate room, having their own brand of fun...It was a huge hit. As was the party at Connor's, which I had thought was going to be his birthday party. I was very pleasantly surprised to learn, just before we went, that it was to be their annual Christmas party. I was kind of wondering why it was necessary to send the whole family to a four-year-old's birthday party. And why it was taking place in the evening on a Sunday. And why we were bringing wine. Suddenly it all made sense.

In case you're curious, here's a photo of the 2007 Milk of Amnesia squad, out to dinner to collect our prize and celebrate our victory:



Janneke was not in the photo, as our friend Rob was the sixth man this year. But since Rob is in Michigan now, Janneke will get a shirt made up and participate in his stead. We were the only team with uniforms. (Mark and Ronadh, lamely (though understandably), didn't wear theirs to the celebration at Spice, Pittsfield's swankiest eatery.) And we're the only team to win the whole shootin' match for the past two years. And in April, it'll be 3 in a row. Dynasty, people. Dynasty.

But back to the Christmas parties - here's some pics:



T in her Christmas party outfit, complete with poodle purse. In the purse were a little green troll, googly puppet eyes, and a comb. Plus, of course, the ever-present switchblade. She's definitely her mother's daughter.



Here's the whole pile of little 'uns, lined up to watch "The Polar Express" while the adults party hearty two rooms (and thirty years) away.



Q and the hosts' children. I include it here, despite its obvious flaws, because it's a great example of what I call Q's "liquid face", when he's relaxed and his eyes and eyebrows and everything just melt together and cause everybody to swoon. Strangely, as you'll have seen, this face also causes the eyes of everyone around him to glow like the fires of Hell.



T, after one mulled wine too many. It was a blessing, in a way, when she passed out: At least the cussing subsided.

Here's what happens when a giant box of presents arrives from Auntie Stephanie and Uncle Jess. Note the traditional post-present-placement voguing and break-dancing:



Here endeth the narration of the recent Christmas cheer. If I don't talk to you, have a fantastic Christmas season. One quick anecdote before I go: Q, last Sunday, had a riding lesson, and afterward we went straight to Lessons and Carols, the big show put on at the Williams chapel, where Brad, our host the other night, leads the choir in song, and there are some readings and a sermon by our friend Rick, who's the college chaplain, and a big sing-along with all assembled. Q and I sat in the back, and came in just as one piece was ending. We sang one song (Angels We Have Heard on High, I think), and then hit a long stretch of choir piece, followed by reading from the Book of Somebody, followed by the sermon. It was a pretty good one, based on the metaphor of the barn from "Charlotte's Web". Q, though, who had just spent an hour of close concentration on horseback, was in no mood to sit quietly, and fidgeted and sighed like mad. Finally, he leaned over and whispered, "Papi, si no creemos en esto, por que estamos aqui?" (Dad, if we don't believe in this, why are we here?) "Porque la musica es linda, y la celebracion es linda, y es lindo ver a toda esta gente junta, celebrando." (Because the music is nice, and the celebration is nice, and it's nice to see all these people together, celebrating.)

But I couldn't come up with a better reason than that to make him sit through any more lengthy fidgets. So ten minutes later, we were at home, watching football.

Amen.

Snow Day!

Stopped for some fuel on the way to school today, and saw Ben, colleague who also commutes down from Williamstown. He told me Lenox had called around 6:30, after I'd left, to say that school would be let out early, at 11:00. (His wife had called him on the cell phone to let him know.) So I taught a few classes, wrote some emails, and then headed out into the storm. Shopped a bit for Christmas gifts, and then went home, where Janneke and the kids were warmly ensconced. We did some shoveling - I'd rather shovel three inches three times than nine inches once - and then settled in for some coziness. Observe:



T clears a path to the garage.



We warm up in the house afterward. Hobie the noble steed receives some lovin'.

And here's Coach Q, playing out a slow-motion football game with his beanie babies:

Many Species Suffered Today. But Not the Deer.

What a DAY! Let's start with the most important thing: What I did.

I took my muzzle-loader and drove to Adams, to hunt the public land that abuts the property of my friend Jim's family. It's the skirts of Mount Greylock, and the spur that goes north there is called Ragged Mountain.

Jim and I had looked at Google Earth to get a feel for the lay of the land, and it is a HUGE area. But bounded by hard-to-miss landmarks, so I was confident I couldn't get lost. The weather was such that I could always tell regardless the landmarks which way was north and so on. Jim and I talked on the walkie-talkies once, around 8:00, but for the rest of the time we were on our own. He hunts Maine-style, which involves tracking the deer much more than standing in likely spots and waiting for them to come, or having one group of hunters drive them toward another, as we do in Wisconsin. So I picked up fresh tracks and followed them all day.

I chased one buck for two hours before being met on private land by one of the owners, who never asked me to leave - I just volunteered to go back to the public land, and wished him luck, and was rewarded with a huge smile and equal wish. But that was the end of that trail. So I picked up another one, fresher this time, and after 30 minutes or so I realized that this was a likely hiding spot, and that the deer was no doubt nearby. And just as I thought that, BOOM!, somebody a quarter mile away or so started shooting. Which spooked my deer, which ran away from me. I was able to determine that it was a doe, which meant I couldn't shoot her. But I was annoyed that I hadn't been allowed to kick her up myself.

Between those two trails, there were other adventures that took up a lot of time but weren't very good stories. I'd walked and stalked for almost seven hours, up and down the mountain. That was about the end of my energy. At 1:00 I decided to head back home, and I was so far in - I knew where I was, just had lost track of the scale of the place - that it took me an hour and forty minutes to walk out. And I am BUSHED. Got home around 3:00.

The kids, it turns out, had been busy:




Check out his closeup - I think he looks like Billy Crystal's buddy from "City Slickers" and "When Harry Met Sally":



We charged immediately from the house down to Spring Street, where Williamstown has its annual Holiday Walk. It's tough to describe - part parade, part celebration of many species of animal through festive and demeaning holiday get-ups. I timed the whole parade - nine minutes. This, believe me, is easily triple the usual duration. Here's some pics:



Throngs, thronging. The place was absolutely jammed - I've never seen a better turnout. I think the combination of snow on the ground and Bush's imminent departure from the White House brought out the Christmas spirit in everyone.



T checks out the holiday window display, remarkably similar to last year's display. Luckily, she doesn't recall. Like a goldfish, experiencing each corner of its aquarium for the first time every single time it goes there.




Q, jaded, taking it all in, fully aware that he's being gipped. It's the same as last year, he says, only slightly surprised. Yet somehow he manages to be delighted through the haze of bitterness and misery.

The parade begins!




Species 1: Dogs.



Species 2: Horses.



Species 3: Cattle.




My battery ran out before the giant ground sloths and the pterodactyls came through. But believe me, they looked just as ridiculous.

This next photo proves that certain things should not be mixed. Christmas is great. Parades are great. But you shouldn't wrap marching bands in paper and put them under the tree - and you shouldn't throw candy canes from moving vehicles onto rock-hard pavement:



At least they learned their lesson from last year, when they were throwing out Christmas ornaments. Those things go off like hand grenades.

Home to supper, cleaning my muzzle-loader (I fired it once to make sure it was sighted in well, and once more to clear out the load I put in when I thought I'd kill a deer. The stuff corrodes the barrel, so you have to clean it after every use. And as a bonus, the spent powder and grime smells like a combination of swamp gas and baby farts. I can see why these things went out of fashion.) We did some practice for the caroling that Brad's going to organize, and now I am off to enjoy a long, hot bath, as my entire being hurts, from mid-back all the way down to tips of toes. Wish me luck!

Pictures Worth a Thousand Posts

Here it is: The picture where Tie, miraculously, shines through the screen of photography in all her gorgeousness, and yet I, due to a mysterious magical power I have, come through somehow as far more grizzled, hefty, and oddly proportioned than I can possibly be in real life. She's just fallen asleep here, and I have followed suit:



In other news, Q had basketball practice today. He really has fun there - it's only been two sessions, and the coach is a volunteer assistant coach from Williams, who runs a very tight ship for the ten or twelve kids who come. They do dribbling and passing drills, then some games that resemble actual basketball, but which don't bother to call traveling or anything else (besides fouls). Q was very proud at having outdone Owen in the "big game": Teams lined up on the sidelines, and every kid was given a number. When their number was called, the corresponding kid from each side had to race to the middle, grab a ball (there were two), and run to his own end to sink a shot before the other guy could. I hated to burst his bubble, so I didn't, but Owen's basket was probably nine and a half feet, while Q's was around eight. For some reason the lowering mechanism wasn't working today.

Before this game began, though, the coach had to explain the rules. He did so quickly and efficiently, and then asked if there were any questions. Q's hand shot up, as did most of his body, so excited was he to ask. The coach called on him. Q:

"Can we dunk?"

To the coach's enormous credit, he was immune to the stifled chuckles from the peanut gallery (I was producing many of them). He simply grinned, pointed right back at Q and said, without the slightest pause:

"Yes."

Shining, brilliant moment. So, anyway...The evening saw some rough-housing to round out the day's exercise. Q's about to charge into me and lay me flat with a football-style tackle that somehow manages not to split anyone's head open on any of the sharp edges with which we've taken great pains to surround the rough-housing area. Again, my strange ability to seem grotesque in photography is made evident:



I can't get a permit to own an actual shotgun or deer rifle in time for the hunting season, so I bought a black powder rifle, as these are unregulated - now all I have to do is have someone show me how to shoot it...Janneke, as of 8:52 PM, still has tenure...Snow expected tonight. All are encouraged to call the principal of Lenox Memorial Middle and High School and encourage him, in turn, to cancel school tomorrow.

G'night!

Three Guesses if Janneke Got Tenure

"No", you say.

You're wrong.

"Umm...Kind of...?"

Try again!

"Er...OK: No."

Man, you are just a @#@$(*&! idiot.

YES! She got tenure! Announced unto her at a dinner she was attending - an invitaion-from-a-student-only affair on campus, for which she had to get kind of dressed up. And it's cold lately, so she went swaddled in her black cape, which so few people can pull off, but which she makes look easy. And which, coincidentally, she had worn on her trip out here to interview a lifetime ago, when we only had one child, and that child had no control over when or how he pooped. So she was at this dinner, and was supposed to come back so I could leave at 7:45 to go watch the Packers at the 1896 house. But she was a few minutes late, and when she walked in, she said, "I'm sorry I'm late, sweetie. But I had a good reason." And she threw open her cape and held aloft a bottle of champagne. "I got tenure!" T and Q came charging out of their bedrooms in various states of undress (the process of putting on the pajamas had recently begun), smiling, and wanted to know what the excitement was all about. We tried to explain, but it didn't really seem to register too well - we finally settled for, "We don't ever have to leave Williamstown!" And T turned and ran her bare bottom back into her room, then came out with her toy trumpet, pointed it at the ceiling, and blasted her jubilation to the world. It was way cool.

So Leila, our friend who's on the CAP (CAP stands for Tenure-Determining Comittee), had taken her aside at the dinner, saying that Julie, Janneke's colleague and current chair of the department, had some news for her. And they whipped out the aforementioned bottle of champagne.

So flash back to the moment when she came home and held aloft her bottle victoriously. I was so happy I delayed for another four, maybe five minutes - Up to six, possibly - my departure to go watch the game. Hey, I offered to stay. But I was supposed to be meeting two people there...It wouldn' have been right. So I took one for the team.

OK, I know, I hear the boos: I should have stayed. But Janneke insisted I go, and besides, I got my just desserts. Green Bay lost.

Celebrations have ensued. Little photographic evidence exists. We'll have to provide you with evidence from other events.



Traditions again: Charlie Brown Christmas.



Q constructed this monster last weekend. It's some 18 inches tall.



Haircut - lopped off most of what was left of the Puerto Rican bleach job. This photo taken moments after getting home - he had run, literally, to the piano to play around.



Christmas Tree One



Christmas Tree Two



T is inspired and asks for help...



...imitating the tree.