Day 373: Slipping and sliding

Finally, we went out for a long walk in the late afternoon sunshine.  Unfortunately, the sidewalks were so slippery that we nearly broke our necks.  Turning left onto Temple, we noticed that my favorite tree with the succulent garden had been cut down.  Examining the trunk, we could certainly understand why it had to come down.  The inside was spongy and hollow. I've chronicled the succulents in every season for several years, and now it may be the end.  If they keep the stump, the garden may survive.

The succulents

Lots of progress has been made on the science building since we visited last a few weeks ago.  Many of the windows have been installed and the bricks on the eastern wall are complete.  The entire building is tightly wrapped, probably so they can do the interior work.  

I finished editing the student leader chapter!  That's two chapter in one week with a net addition of 1700 words.  Now, I have to figure out which chapters to tackle next.

Day 372: Good-bye holidays!

After working most of the day taking down Christmas decorations and cleaning up, we made a trip to Wing City for our favorite boneless chicken wings with Jack Daniels Bourbon sauce.  Yum!  Tomorrow, I will cook.  

I worked a couple hours on the Student Leader chapter by rereading many of their interviews.  The draft was ten very polished pages, so there was little to change. However, I want to add a page or two of their reflections on the challenges they face as student leaders and how they deal with them.  They told me so many funny stories, but I don't want to include them all in this chapter.  My plan is to finish that chapter tomorrow.  That means I'll have finished editing two chapters in a week.  Hooray!  I went through all of the topics and decided to combine a couple shorter segments into chapters.  For example, I have pages on costs and equipment that will become part of the logistics chapter.  I have five pages on recruiting students and eight pages on meeting with the parents which I will also combine to create a chapter on recruiting and enrolling. Then there are three sections on different aspects of leadership and organization that I will rework.  I hope I can get this all done by March 1!  So far I have put in 20 hours this week, but tomorrow will be a long day to complete the student leader section.  It's almost like a full-time job!

Day 371 (5 of 2013)

Such a productive day!  Stage crew met first thing this morning and we cleaned the entire supply room, pulled costumes we may use for the show, hung and put away all costumes from past productions, and sorted the racks.  The performers had a terrific rehearsal.  Their opening number is dazzling and will be very impressive for the audience.

Jake and Aubrey

Dancers

I finished polishing the remainder of the chapter, but I still need a few quotes to spice it up and add other voices. Tomorrow, it will be finished and I will move on to the chapter on student leaders.

Julius and Melodee

Tonight, we went to a surprise 30th anniversary party for our friends, Julius and Melodee.  Their sons made the arrangements and the entire family helped make it possible.  Everyone loves and admires Julius and Melodee and were so very happy to do something special for them, especially since they have spent their lives serving others.  The family put together a beautiful slide show of their lives together. In every photo, their faces beamed with joy!

Day 370 (Day 4 of 2013): Long shadows

View west from the front porch

The last night of the Christmas tree

Long shadows and oak leaves

After a busy day in Orchard Park, I snapped a shot of the long shadows in our backyard in the late afternoon.  On the trip home, the sun was gleaming on wind-blown glazed snow along the thruway.  Our yard is so trampled by deer and turkey tracks that there are no smooth surfaces to reflect the sun.  Red leaves still cling to the branches of the young oak tree and provide a bit of shelter for the bluejays, tufted titmice, juncos, chickadees and doves that visit each day.

A few hours of writing and editing today yielded another 400 words.  I worked on the hike down Canadaway Creek on Friday afternoon when a beaver swam between Evan and Monica's legs as they were crossing the stream.  They were stunned!  Then I reworked the paragraphs on the after dinner games and the cheesecake contest.  Many of the years we play a game when the kids form two lines and hold thick dowel rods between them creating a horizontal ladder.  The challenge comes when kids and adults attempt to cross the ladder, either by crawling or walking.  Years ago, our Supt., Paul D., was at 300 pounds when he crept across the ladder held up by a team of 8th graders.  He was amazed that they held him and so were the kids.

Anna H. started the cheesecake contest back in 2005 when her cook group decided they wanted to create the best cheesecake known to mankind.  Ever since then, the kids have delighted in embellishing their cheesecakes with whatever condiments they collected throughout the hike.  It's become one of the highlights of the Friday night events.

I feel certain I can finish the chapter revisions by Sunday night.  Tomorrow, the challenge will be to rework the talent show and the Saturday events.

Day 369 (Day 3 of 2013): Snowy creek

We finally got out for a long walk so I could capture my favorite locations on the creek in its snowy glory.  We have more snow now than we did all last winter.   Much of last January was in the 50s.

Goal posts

View north on Canadaway Creek from Risley St. Bridge

I put in three more hours on the book and made some progress in providing more colorful specifics.  I added details to the tale of the water snake swimming across a pond with a bullhead in its mouth.  I reread Kathy's interview and added her comments to several portions of the chapter.  She described a morning scene at Cockaigne when the heads of dandelions that had gone to seed froze into sparkling crystals balls.  One of the funniest incidents that I wrote about was when she and Marcia M. were leading the hike group and they encountered a couple making love in a grassy grove.  Then I did some research to identify the tall, brilliantly green plants that grow in the glade where we eat lunch on Friday.  They are called false hellebore.  Brie and Maggie had commented about how much they loved that lunch spot, so I reviewed their interviews and found the perfect quotes.  I also worked on the incident when Chris N. inhaled a snail and then spit it out.  It's one of our favorite stories.

I had lunch with an old friend from high school.  Until our class reunion this past summer, I had not seen her since graduation 45 years ago.  It was astonishing how much we had in common and how many of our interests overlap.  She lives in NYC and teaches at the CCNY which is right across the street from where Evan lives and at another campus in Brooklyn near where Colin lives.  She has students who are immigrants from Uzbekistan where I studied in 2000.  She could hardly believe that I had been there.  It was a delightful, intellectually stimulating couple of hours, something I have really craved.  

Day 368 (2 of 2013): Backyard highway

Deer at dusk

Turkey time

Our backyard is a veritable highway for turkeys and deer.  The critters entertained me as I spent most of the day working on the four day hike chapter.  It hurt to see the word count decline, but I deleted three paragraphs whose topics were addressed in other chapters.  I am trying to inject more references to specific natural phenomenon like the plants, geological formations and birds that we observe while hiking.  So, I read sections of the Roger Torey Peterson's Natural History Atlas of the Chautauqua Region.  I also reread a dozen student interview transcripts to pull out comments that I used to highlight and illustrate our activities.  I'm hoping to complete the editing of this chapter by Saturday or Sunday.  

Day 367 (1 of 2013): Ribs

This was the best New Year's Eve we have ever had!  While I love spending quiet evenings playing games, eating snacks and watching the ball drop at midnight, dancing with friends to an outstanding band was exhilarating!  Then we enjoyed a luxurious night at the Hyatt Regency Hotel and a delectable lunch at Dinosaur Ribs.  

No matter what, I wanted to restart the editing process for my book so I dove in and worked on the four day hike chapter for hours.  The yield was an extra 500 words!  I don't count all the words I delete or rearrange.  

Lunch at Dinosaur Ribs of Rochester, NY

In national news, the Congress finally settled a deal on the fiscal crisis.  No one is entirely satisfied with the terms on either side and lots of work remains, but it is progress.