A Mountaintop, Lake, and Earache - Oh My!

Last Friday morning the girls and I patted Tesla on the head with directions to behave himself when Andrew came by to feed and water him, threw our stuff, in the car, and pointed ourselves to the west. Amanda was going to spend the weekend with her friend Darci in Bennington who is attending college there while Jamie and I continued on to the Lake George area of New York.

Our journey to Bennington took us through the Berkshires of Massachusetts and as it was a picture-perfect September day we decided to take a slight detour and head to the summit of Mount Greylock, Massachusetts' highest peak at an elevation of 3,491 feet. Amanda and I been there once before early last September but it wasn't the best of days and what we saw on the summit was this:

Amanda had said that it seemed like something out of the movie "Silent Hill" and I've got to admit, it was downright impossible to get a good look at the war memorial that stands at the summit. This time, though, was a completely different story! And not just because Amanda's hair is now red instead of black!

As you can tell, the girls are thrilled to be back together now that Jamie has returned from Canada! Sigh ... Anyway, one of the other things that was different this time other than the fact that we could actually see the monument, was that it was open so we could climb the spiral staircase to the top if we wanted.

Amanda took about six steps up, decided that it was just too windy and steep for her (she apparently inherited my former fear of heights) so instead opted to safely wait for Jamie and I on a bench. There is a time when I would have been sitting right there with her but now I've simply got to do things I wouldn't have before as otherwise I might miss out on a good photo op!

Jamie and I successfully negotiated the increasingly narrower and narrower-as-it-got closer-to-the-top staircase until we finally arrived at the small room at the top of the tower with its windows looking out in all directions. Some of them were still pretty covered with condensation as it was still fairly early in the day but I was able to get a few decent photos taken before we started our way back down.

Amanda was right where we left here when we made our way up and once we got our feet firmly back on the ground we resumed our journey to Bennington which is not far from Mount Greylock at all. I'll be writing more about Mount Greylock over on The Distracted Wanderer once I get my proverbial act together and find some extra time too!

After getting Amanda settled at Bennington College with Darci, Jamie and I drove through some very pretty New York farmland for about an hour and a half before arriving in Lake George around 4:30 in the afternoon with plenty of time to check into our budget motel (more about that on my other blog at some point) and buy a couple of tickets for the upcoming fireworks cruise on the lake before killing some time walking around and taking photos of the area.

As the Adirondack Balloon Festival was taking place just down the road in Glens Falls (something that I decided to completely avoid after witnessing the line of cars trying to get into it off of the interstate)  a couple of balloons came up to do what they call a "moonglow" in Battlefield Park next to the lake before the fireworks went off.  I managed to get a quick picture from across the street before we boarded the Mohican, a moving National Historic Landmark that has been plying the waters of Lake George since December of 1907.

Not only did we get to see some beautiful fireworks over the lake from a terrific vantage point but just before the fireworks started, Jamie and I saw a meteor streak through the sky - though we didn't know it was a meteor at the time and only found out later when I was watching the 11:00 news back at our hotel. According to the newscaster, it's one of those "you're lucky if you see one once in your lifetime" kind of things so I guess we were quite lucky indeed!

Jamie wasn't quite so lucky the next morning when she awoke early with an earache. Thinking that maybe it was sinus-related, I made a trip to the closest Rite-Aid and bought Advil and Sudafed and a few other over-the-counter things and then as I drove up to Fort Ticonderoga, about 40 miles north of where we were staying, Jamie laid down in the back seat and napped until we got to our destination. I took Route 9N along the lake rather than heading up the interstate like my TomTom initially wanted me to as I thought it would be nice to see some scenery along the way even though it was an overcast day.

Jamie snoozed peacefully right up until I pulled into the parking area at the fort and then she was a good trooper as we had lunch and then walked around the grounds learning the history of the fort and the troops that defended it. As you can see by the flag and my hair in the photos below, it was a bit windy there on Lake Champlain but even though there were plenty of dark clouds, the rain held off until just as we climbed into the car to make the drive back to Lake George.  I was most thankful as I had been wanting to go to the fort for years and rain would have been most annoying!

Jamie climbed into the backseat and resumed her previous position for the drive up to the fort and slept the whole way back to the motel. She said she was feeling a bit better before going to sleep but the next morning she said that her ear was really bothering her again so I sent Amanda a text and told her that I'd be picking her up earlier than planned as I wanted to get Jamie home at that point. On the way back to Bennington I simply had to stop briefly to take the photo below:

Makes me wish that I lived up in that area simply as that would be one very cool triple-feature to see, especially at a drive-in movie theater! Unfortunately it's a bit far to go even if one of the movies does star John Cusack and it would be kinda interesting to see Abe Lincoln slaying vampires!

After picking Amanda up at Bennington College and saying good-bye to Darci, we continued on home though this time our route of travel took us down some back Vermont highways where the foliage was looking pretty good in some places. If I hadn't had a sick kid in the backseat, I probably would have been stopping way too often to take photos but instead I merely pulled over for the two below.  It looks we are most definitely having an early foliage season this year but that doesn't surprise me as everything seems to have been about a month early this year. It's been weird to say the least!

The rest of Sunday passed peacefully enough but when Jamie's ear seemed to be even worse on Monday, I took her to see a doctor who diagnosed her with both an inner and outer ear infection. Having been on an antibiotic plus ear drops along with a pretty powerful pain reliever since then, Jamie is finally starting to feel a bit better and hopefully the worse is now behind her.  Even though the timing could have been better as far as not having happened while we were out of town, I'm just glad that she didn't get the ear infection while she was still up in Canada as I'm not sure how she would have gotten it treated. Thank the good Lord for granted favors!

Good Grief! Where Did August Go?

Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!  Just in case I forget to say it out loud first thing in the morning and set myself up for a month of bad juju!

I get the sneaky feeling I've been pretty busy again lately though this is the first time I've been back to the North Shore since I was here in early July with Barb.  This time around I'm up in Salem for the weekend with a mission - to house and puppy sit for my friends Juli and Walt while they head off to Montreal to celebrate Walt's September 13th birthday a bit early. I'm kinda envious as I'd love to see Montreal one of these days but it's been there since 1605 so I guess it will still be there by the time I can finally visit it myself.  Of course, once I see Montreal then I'm going to want to see Quebec though if I ever get around to doing that, I should probably take someone who speaks French with me just in case!

I guess it's sort of cheating to say that I haven't been to the North Shore since early July as I was up this way last weekend - just not in Salem. I went to Portsmouth, New Hampshire with my cousins Amy and Robin to have lunch at Newick's Seafood Restaurant - a family favorite since 1972 when we lived up that way while my Dad was stationed at Pease Air Force Base. We followed that up with a little tax-free shopping and then drove down to Newburyport, Massachusetts to attend a concert by the Nova Scotia bluegrass band, The Spinney Brothers.  In case you're interested in reading up on either adventure, you can click here and here for the posts on The Distracted Wanderer.

My Travels With Nathaniel  for the Hawthorne Hotel have been keeping me busy also though most of that has been in the form of writing rather than traveling the past two months. I'm hoping to maybe get to a place or two with mini-Nate this weekend if the last-holiday-weekend-of-the-summer crowds aren't too bad.  The weather is supposed to be quite nice so that's a major plus and it's been too long since I've walked through a historic house so it's time to amend that.

Amanda is up here with me and visiting with some of her North Shore friends in between helping out with the pups who are pretty easy maintenance as long as they get their food and their walks and some attention now and again.  Just don't tell Tesla that we're up here with a couple of dogs, he might not like that very much!

This is Dewey and Jay-Jay - the younger fellas who are cute as buttons

Kookie is the older lady of the house who is more interested in naps than walks and is starting to have a touch of dementia - bless her little old heart. 

In other news, Jamie will be coming home from Toronto in about two weeks but chicken that I am, I haven't told Amanda that yet; I reckon I'll break the news to her this weekend at some point. I think she was hoping that her sister living in Canada was going to be a permanent thing but I always hoped Jamie would come back home at some point and figured she'd have to come home after six months at any rate or be an illegal alien. Those two are just going to have to grow up and learn how to get along - and get jobs too, that would be nice!

I hope that everyone has a great start to their September - which I still can't believe is here already.  Time most certainly does fly! 

The Boulevard of Broken Machines

While this past week saw New England suffering from some pretty sultry summer weather (which has thankfully passed for now!), it also saw Amanda up to her eyeballs in a few sewing projects that had her stressed to the max while she spent hour after hour sitting at her trusty Singer sewing machine that had been given to her by a family friend. With Otakon, the annual fan convention in Baltimore that celebrates pretty much every type of pop culture you can imagine from comics to movies to television shows, fast approaching and costumes to get finished in time for the big event, Amanda was really starting to feel the pressure of deadlines combined with the full effects of Murphy's Law which had kicked in big time.  If anything could go wrong with the major project that she had to do, it did and it did it in a big way.

As I worked on my own projects writing about my latest travels with mini-Nathaniel to places like Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, several historic homes in Gloucester, and a patriotic museum in Concord, Amanda slaved over her Singer and worked on what I dubbed to be "The Dress From Hell".  One of her friends had asked her if she could create a costume based on a character from the cartoon series "My Little Pony"; her friend wanted a dress looking like the one Pinkie Pie was wearing below and as Amanda owed her friend some money, she figured that was a good way to pay her back.

Even though it didn't look to Amanda like it was going to be that difficult of a project when she first envisioned it, that turned out not to be the case at all. With a row of embroidered candy corn and lollipops, scalloped hems, numerous bows, and three peplums below the vest and above the floor-length skirt along with a slew of other details, she really had her work cut out for her (no sewing pun intended!)  Add on the fact that the gal she was making the dress for made several major changes mid-project and Amanda was darn near ready for a ride to the local mental health facility halfway into the project.

To make matters worse, last Friday evening she had a bit of a scare when she was trying to bleach a pair of sand-colored shorts white and, following an on-line tutorial, mixed a bit of bleach and white vinegar together.  Double-checking another internet source she found that mixing the two together could result in chlorine gas and fatal poisoning which thankfully didn't happen but which raised her stress levels to near-critical.  Follow that up with our visit from the bat in the wee hours of the morning and I was definitely thinking of putting an ambulance on standby for her!  Not knowing what else to do, I had her take a couple of Tylenol PM and crash in my room as her stress was also causing her not to sleep and the kid really needed to get some sleep!

In the meantime though, "The Dress From Hell" waited and watched as Amanda - after having finally slept for a good solid eight hours - awoke to take on the candy corn and lollipop appliques.  Thankfully that part of it went more or less fairly well but when it got to the point where she had to gather the numerous peplums to sew to the vest, things started to go downhill again as the machine stitches just weren't gathering properly.  Having pity on her, I grabbed needle and thread and hand-sewed in basting stitches that were easier to gather together and soon work was back in progress.  Or I should say it was back in progress until her trusty Singer sewing machine had a fatal accident at 4:00 in the morning.

Having to go to work for my usual 16-hour double on Tuesday, I had gone to bed fairly late on Monday night  leaving Amanda to sew the peplums together after helping out with the whole gathering fiasco.  Around 4:00 I awoke to what I could have sworn was sobbing coming from the dining room where Amanda had been working and when I groggily opened my bedroom door to find out what was going on (please, Lord, not another bat!), I found Amanda in tears holding a metal piece from her sewing machine that had not just bent but had snapped clean in half.  Oh dear ... this wasn't good.  This wasn't good at all.

I finally convinced her to go to bed and try to get some sleep as there was nothing that could be done for it at that time of the morning.  I told her to take a few more Tylenol PM as she had a raging headache on top of everything else so she did and off to bed she sobbingly went while I was apparently up way too early for the long day that was ahead of me as there was no way I was going to be able to sleep as I wracked my brain as to how this particular dilemma was going to be solved. I had a sewing machine myself but it had been broken years ago by my ex-husband when he tried to sew material that was too heavy for it and all it did was spaghetti the bobbin thread so it was of no use and we sure couldn't afford to buy a new machine. I went to work not knowing how this project was ever going to end and hoping that Amanda could get some sleep and try to calm down.

Later in the day when Amanda finally woke up, she called me to tell me that a couple of her friends were coming down from Quincy, Massachusetts and they were bringing sewing machines with them.  The cavalry was on the way!  And they even brought pizza!  Having Kait and Melissa here to help out really, really helped - as did having access to a sewing machine that worked - as when I came home from work at 11:00 p.m. "The Dress From Hell" was almost totally completed. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Above was the dreaded dress as I last saw it on the dress form in the living room (not posterized of course!) for when I got up the next morning to go to work it was packed into its shipping box and merely awaited my taking it to the Post Office after work and getting it the heck out of my house.  I'm pretty sure that I have never been so happy to mail a package in my entire life! While there I also mailed out another package to another of Amanda's friends in Alabama - another costume that she had made but that had been a cake-walk compared to "The Dress From Hell".

There were still projects to be done though as Amanda had another commission for a jacket that she felt would be quite easy compared to Pinkie Pie's ballgown.  As her machine was obviously still dead, Kait left her old Kenmore machine behind for Amanda to use when she returned to Quincy.  The Kenmore had had some problems in the past but Cait was confident that her Dad had fixed it but alas, that turned out not to be the case as shortly into the project, the machine started not picking up the bobbin thread.  Oh no, here we go again.

I contacted a work friend of mine that I knew had a machine to ask her if Amanda could borrow it; it was an older Singer that hadn't been out of the attic for a few years but Lori said she was welcome to use it so we hopped in the car and drove across town to pick it up.  Back home it turned out that - like the Kenmore - it was having bobbin problems and wouldn't pick up the thread at all no matter what we tried.  Fail. Again. Once again I went to bed trying to figure out what to do next as Amanda's stress levels started to climb again as she was really running out of time to get the jacket done for Otakon.  I was beginning to think that Otakon really meant "Convention that causes great stress" as that's exactly what was going on in my house!

On Saturday morning I sent out a plea for help on Facebook for anyone nearby with a sewing machine that Amanda might be able to borrow for a bit which was thankfully answered by another of the ladies that I work with.  Amy said she had a new Singer machine that she had only used maybe twice that Amanda was welcome to borrow so I woke her up and we made the short drive across town (again) to pick up what turned out to be one of those fancy-dancy new computerized machines that pretty much does everything at the touch of a button.  As she was heading off on vacation soon, Amy said that Amanda was more than welcome to hang on to the machine for a couple of weeks and sew to her heart's desire (though I'm thinking once she's done doing the costumes for Otakon she isn't going to have any desire to sew anything for awhile!)

When we got home with Amy's machine, Amanda took a look at the gathering of sewing machines that had accumulated in the dining room and said that it looked like a boulevard of broken machines - a take on Green Day's song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".  I had to agree so snapped a photo because hey, that's what I do!

As of this writing, things are sewing along smoothly, Amanda's stress levels have returned to a manageable level and I think we should be okay until she leaves for Baltimore on Wednesday even though she still needs to make a pill box hat for Pinkie Pie's costume which, compared to everything else, should be a real walk in the park for her.

Oh, and as for "The Dress From Hell", I am very happy to say that it arrived safely in Pittsburgh and yesterday it's new owner wrote on Facebook, "It's here!!!! and it fits perfectly and looks amazing!!! :D i can't wait to wear it in a few days!" Phew!

Eventually we'll be getting Amanda a new sewing machine, especially if she wants to continue to do costume design and making, but in the meantime I'm a bit behind on my travel blogging and I just want to get through the rest of the week without any more stress or drama or disasters!  Hopefully Murphy and his darned law is off terrorizing someone else! Please! 

Monday Musings by Moi!

Whoa ... who turned the heat off?  June 4th and it's a blistering 59 degrees outside!  Mother Nature is definitely back to her old tricks!  Last Monday we were all sweating in 88 degrees with high humidity and today I've got all the windows closed and am wearing my warm robe and slippers.  It gets any colder and I'll be lighting a fire in the fireplace!

Had a nice visit with my mom yesterday; Amanda and I went up and took her for a drive to get her out of the house for a little bit in between rain showers.  We'd had such a deluge of rain on Saturday I think a lot of us were looking to get out and enjoy some sun even if only briefly. Mom seems to be doing great and one would be hard-pressed to tell that she'd ever had a stroke a little less than a month ago.  Just to be safe and to give her more of a sense of security, she's using a cane which I think is a great idea - there are times when I've thought it might not be a bad idea to have one myself! - but beyond that she's doing really, really well.  Once again thank you all for the positive thoughts and prayers that I'm sure helped immensely in her recovery.

As my mom and I were talking about how quickly the rhododendrons had gone by this year it dawned on me that yesterday was the 36th anniversary of my graduation from high school - holy krap!  Where has the time gone? In just a few short days it will be another 36th anniversary - this time of the day that I left for Air Force Basic Training as I boarded a bus in Willimantic (from that very spot) for Springfield, Massachusetts and the Armed Services Center where I met up with my recruiter, did the final official swearing-in, and then got on a plane for the very first time in Hartford to make my way to Lackland Air Force Base and six weeks of hard work, discipline, and fun.  It was June 7th, a mere four days after graduation, and I was only 17 at the time - younger than both of my girls are now.

Speaking of my girls, Jamie has been up in Toronto visiting a friend and has asked if she can stay in Canada longer and go back to Winnipeg to stay with the same friend that she was visiting last year.  She's been talking about going back ever since she got home and she's already partway there so I think I'm going to go ahead and let her stay.  Technically she's almost 19 and could certainly make that decision on her own but if she wants me to buy her bus ticket to Manitoba then she needs my permission!  If she and Amanda got along better here at home then I would be more inclined to tell her she needs to come back to Connecticut but she made a lot of friends when she was in Winnipeg last year and is hopeful that she can somehow figure out a way to permanently move to Canada so I think I should give her the chance to find that out for sure.  I'll miss her but I won't miss the tension between she and Amanda.

I'm still trying to adjust to my new work schedule - as is Amanda who is totally confused on what day it is! - and I'm going to totally confuse both she and I later this week as I switched a Thursday evening shift for a Friday evening shift so I can go see "Man of LaMancha" at the University of Connecticut with my cousins and also picked up an overtime shift on Sunday evening.  No doubt we'll both be wondering what day it is by the end of the week or beginning of next week or whenever that is!

And on a final note, even though I should have been out cruising to Canada with Barb this week on the Carnival Glory (a cruise we had to cancel for various and assorted reasons that were much more important than piano bars and room service and things like that), we have booked another cruise for the first part of July.

The Prince of Whales out of Newburyport, Massachusetts may not have a piano bar but they've got wine and whale sightings are guaranteed!  Barb will be up visiting her SistersDear later on this month and we're going to get together for some fun on the not-quite-as-high seas along with a few other activities that I've yet to determine but give me time and I'm sure I'll come up with something!

Hmm, I wonder if we should wear our tiaras?!?

A Monday Mish-Mash of Catch-Up

Seems to me it's been awhile since I've written a "regular" post over here so I thought I'd take some time to update the goings-on in my life lately rather than do my darnedest to lead you over to The Distracted Wanderer and whatever my newest post is over there. Lately blog posts here seem more like a jumping-off point over to that blog - something I do in order to get more traffic at the TDW in the hopes that someone will eventually take me seriously as a travel blogger. As long as this blog has been around, it definitely gets more traffic than the TDW but I'm hoping that will eventually change as Google picks up more searches and leads more people over that way. In the meantime though there really is more going on in my life than trips to a Battle Monument in Bennington, a Grand Resort Hotel in New Hampshire, the most fantastic Halloween Ball in the country, or even a historic Comfort Station in Massachusetts - the latest post on my wanderings if you'd like to check it out!

For example, Jamie will finally be coming home from Canada the weekend after Thanksgiving and probably none too soon with the way the weather has been acting this year;  I'm afraid if she waited much longer than that she'd have to return via sled dog or something!     When she went up to Manitoba in July she didn't exactly pack winter-type clothing as I really wasn't expecting her to be up there visiting her friend for quite as long as she has been and I suspect that Winnipeg is getting a bit chilly.  I guess that she figured trips to Canada are going to be few and far between so she wanted to stay for as much time as she could but that said, I believe she's quite ready to come home and try to find some sort of job as she tries to figure out which life path she wants to be on. Granted, finding a job around here is pretty darned tough but she said that she's willing to pretty much take any job that she can find even if it requires asking if you want fries with that!

In preparation for her coming home and still having Amanda here being that she wasn't able to go back to college this year as I've yet to win the lottery or have any wealthy distant relative leave me a substantial sum of cash in their will, I needed to take some steps for some better sleeping arrangements. Amanda has spent the summer sleeping on a trundle bed in the dining room while the perfectly good bedroom that I spent a long time painting when we first moved to this house has been used mostly as a storage catch-all for both she and her sister's stuff.  I suggested bunk beds awhile ago and was immediately scoffed at by Amanda but then after she thought about it some she decided that might not be a bad idea as she could then get a big table and use the space that the trundle bed was taking up as a craft corner.

After receiving her blessing I started looking around for a sturdy set of bunk beds and was able to find some on Craig's List that came complete with mattresses for what I thought was a very good price.  A few email correspondences back and forth later and I had made arrangements to have my go-to guy Andrew pick them up for me on Saturday.  The guy who was selling them actually lived closer to Andrew than I so that worked out pretty well.  Shortly after he arrived late Saturday afternoon, Andrew had the beds all assembled (thank you Andrew - I would be lost without you!) and that night Amanda tried hers out for the first time and declared it to be quite comfortable.

I snuck in this morning and took a picture of her sleeping quite soundly but don't tell her I posted it here as she'll probably give me that look! Surprisingly Tesla isn't in the picture as he usually sleeps next to Amanda's feet but I think he ran as soon as he saw I had the camera! (Memo to self: get the kid a nightstand so that her MacBook isn't on the floor all the time!) When Jamie gets home she'll get the top bunk minus the extra mattress and hopefully the girls will learn how to co-exist together without every day being a version of Family Feud: The Home Version! If not, I'm moving the bunk beds to the garage and they can sleep there!

In addition to acquiring the bunk beds, this last batch of days off also had me attending the opening reception of the Holiday Photography Exhibit at the Gallery at Firehouse Square in New London where I have eight photos on display alongside those of 15 other photographers.

My friend Paula, who is an art teacher, had encouraged me to submit some of my photos for the show and I was quite surprised when eight of the ten I sent in were accepted.  Of course that then meant I had to get them all framed and matted and prettied up to hang on the walls of the cute little gallery on Bank Street in New London but I managed to do that without suffering from too much stress though there definitely was some involved!

Friday night was the official opening of the exhibit which continues on until December 24th and I was thrilled to have had the support of some of my friends who showed up that evening.  Amanda and Paula were there along with John and Christine, Jeff and Sarah, Bucky, and Melissa, and Stacey and Jason.  Stacey, a fellow blogger and real-live published author, actually wrote a post about the evening on her blog that if you'd like a chuckle, you can read at Hobnobbing With the Artistes.

Believe it or not, I didn't bring my Nikon along for the evening so I had Amanda snap a few pictures of the gallery with her fancy-dancy new iPhone 4 that she recently upgraded to.  It takes much better pictures than my older generation iPhone 3 does though I did snap one picture of the area where most of my photos were displayed. That hand photo-bombing the shot would belong to Amanda of course!

All of the photographs on display in the exhibit are for sale so if you live in the area and are totally stumped on a last-minute gift for that certain someone at Christmas, feel free to stop in at the Gallery at Firehouse Square and take a look around.  Who knows?  Maybe you'll see a photograph of something you'll like!

In between work and the photography exhibit and the household stuff and what-not I also managed to come down with a nasty case of bronchitis that I seem to be having some trouble kicking. I went to see my doctor following a rather scary bout of "I can't seem to catch my breath" one night and she put me on antibiotics and an inhaler but even after finishing the antibiotics I've still got a pretty bad cough that keeps me awake a good part of the night sometimes. I was hoping to be able to quit taking my inhaler which leaves a nasty metallic taste in my mouth and causes trouble sleeping but alas, I don't think I'm at the point where I can do that yet so I'm still puffing away on it. Hopefully this will clear up soon as except for when I can't do it, I never think about breathing and lately I've thought way too much about it!

I believe that about catches me up for now, I promised myself that I would get outside with a rake before work today and take care of some of the leaves in my yard so I need to get to that. Before I do, though, may I just say that we got rather cheated out of our usual beautiful fall as Mother Nature decided to be more nasty than nice this year. The poor leaves basically turned brown and dropped from the trees rather than put on their usual brilliant show and now it's time to bag them up and send them to the Transfer Station. It's pretty sad task as I remember the words that my friend Rhonda said at one of our recent lunches, "We only get so many autumns and it's a shame to waste even one." So true, so true.

Yesterday Certainly Didn't Go As Planned

Last week Amanda had asked me if it would be okay if a friend of hers from Long Island who has been over to visit several time before could come up for a couple of days this week.  Apparently she's been having some trouble at home and wanted to get away for a little bit to sort things out.  I said that would be fine so Amanda and her friend (we'll call her Karen) worked out the details and made their plans.

Just prior to Karen's arrival early yesterday afternoon I got a call from another of Amanda's friends from Massachusetts (we'll call her Nancy) who told me that Karen had apparently been reported as a missing person in Naussau County in New York by her parents.  Turns out that she hadn't told them that she was coming up to visit and when they awoke to find her missing yesterday morning - along with a lot of her possessions - they called the police.  The police in turn called Nancy as her parents knew her to be a friend. Additionally, Nancy was worried that Karen might be suicidal and was going to visit her other friends along the East Coast to say good-bye.  I told her that I would have Amanda text her as soon Karen showed up (she was taking the bus) and she could then call the Nassau County police back and have them contact my local department to let them know that she was here.

Fortunately I still have a pretty good relationship with a lot of the officers at Norwich PD so when the responding officer arrived I met him outside and told him that Karen was here to visit Amanda but that we had no idea that she didn't have permission to be here.  Amanda, in the meantime, was inside telling Karen that she had been reported missing and that the police had arrived. Greg, the responding officer, was a really nice guy and he was really good at talking to Karen about what was going on.  When he told her that her parents were on their way up from Long Island to pick her up she completely broke down in tears as she apparently has some issues with her father.  She said that he has threatened to kill her on numerous occasions and hit her and she was scared to go back with him.

Greg told her that she had a couple of options - she could go sit and wait at the Police Department or she could go to the local emergency room and wait there while getting the chance to speak to a doctor or psychiatrist about what was going on. He emphasized to her that she wasn't in trouble and she wasn't going to be arrested but because she was only 16 (another revelation to us as Amanda thought she was older) she didn't have many choices.

Karen opted to go to the emergency room so before long one of my ambulance crews showed up to take her over to the hospital.  Amanda asked if it was okay for her to go with Karen and Greg said that would be a good idea as then she wouldn't have to wait alone.  I told Karen that it was very, very important that she tell the doctors exactly what was going on so that she could get the help that she needed as if she didn't then things certainly weren't going to get any better for her at home.  She said that she would while apologizing profusely for all of the trouble that she was causing. I assured her that it was no trouble at all and that I was glad she had come here rather than wandered around aimlessly somewhere else, I certainly wasn't angry about it, I was very concerned and wanted to see her get some help. Moments later she and Amanda were on their way to the hospital in the back of an ambulance.

While Amanda and Karen were at the hospital, I received another call from Nancy who told me that Karen had been texting her from the hospital and telling her that when she got out of the hospital that it was all going to be over sooner than she had originally planned. Apparently Karen had made a suicide pact with another friend and they were planning on killing themselves at the end of November once they'd had a chance to say their good-byes to their friends. Nancy wasn't sure what to do with the information so I told her that I would get hold of Amanda and have her talk to a nurse or doctor and pass the information on which I did and she did.

Finally, once Karen's parents arrived, the doctor came in to talk to her and Amanda called me from the hospital quite upset that she had been asked to sit in the waiting room rather than be with her friend.  She had promised Karen that she'd be there for her and felt really bad that she couldn't be.  I did my best to explain the patient confidentiality rules to Amanda and told her that I'm sure Karen understood that it wasn't that she didn't want to be there with her but that she couldn't be.  Karen had apparently been pretty good while they were at the hospital but as soon as her father showed she had totally broken down again.  Obviously there's something wrong with the relationship there but as I told Amanda there are two sides to every story and what Karen sees as an abusive parent may not exactly be that.

Pretty soon Amanda came home when Karen's mother brought her over to pick up Karen's possessions and Amanda told me that she felt that her mother was genuinely upset and really wanted to get her daughter some help and not just haul her back home as her father seemed to want to do.  She told Amanda that there was a hospital closer to home that they wanted to take her to and she gave her several hugs and thanked her over and over for being there for Karen as a friend.

A few hours later, Karen's father stopped by to pick up Karen's laptop that hadn't been in with her other things as she had left it on the bed and he told Amanda that Karen had finally admitted to the doctor about the suicide pact she had made.  She refused to say who the other person was and he said that he hoped that one of Karen's friends might be able to find out who it was so that teen could get some help also.  He said that Karen was going to be admitted to a 10-day treatment program at the hospital in New York and that during that time she wouldn't be able to have any contact with anyone but if Amanda or Nancy found out who the other person was, that they could call and let them know so that they could advise the police and try to get that person some help too.  He didn't really seem to be an ogre though Amanda said he made her nervous - most of which I'm sure is based on what Karen had told her.

So ... things definitely didn't go as planned yesterday and rather than having a friend visit for a few days Amanda instead spent several hours comforting a friend who definitely has some issues going on for which she needs professional help.  She seemed a bit shell-shocked when she got home from the hospital but I have to give Amanda a lot of credit for being there for Karen and for being a good friend.  Turns out a lot of things Karen has told Amanda and others have been lies but Amanda understands that she's got a lot of things going on and she just wants to see her get some help so that she doesn't hurt herself.  I think it took awhile for the enormity of the situation to hit her but she did very, very well with everything.

I'm just glad that Karen came here and that we could get her some help without pushing her closer to the edge that she was already standing on.  I sincerely hope that the hospital in Long Island can get her on the right track to a long and happy life and I also hope that she's able to work out the problems she has with her father.  I can only imagine what her poor mother was going through yesterday and her father too as I'd like to think that he's not as bad as Karen paints him to be.  Though again, I don't know what he's really like as like I said, there are two sides to every story and sometimes one side is vastly different than the other.

It's so sad that there are so many kids out there who feel like they can't talk to their parents about the things that are troubling them and situations like this occur but all things considered, this particular story could have had a much sadder ending too.

Fish Fingers and Custard

As I'm heading to Nashville with my cousin Amy for a few days next week, I asked Amanda to type a list of groceries into the notepad application of my iPhone so she wouldn't starve while I was away - or at least complain incessantly that there was nothing in the house to eat.  I figured the chances of me remembering to have my phone on me versus remembering to take a written list to the store were most definitely in the phone's favor.

Upon arriving at the local Big Y, acquiring a cart, and starting my way through the produce section I pulled out my iPhone and looked over Amanda's list:

• Milk
• Bread
• Cereal
• Hot dogs
• Shredded cheese
• Tomato soup
• Frozen pizza
• Mustard
• Hot Pockets
• Ravioli
• Fish Fingers and Custard

"Fish fingers and custard??" That one made me smile as I'm sure Amanda knew that it would being that it's a Doctor Who reference that, unless you're a Whovian, you just aren't going to understand. If you'd like to understand (more or less) watch the video clip below:


Even though I looked high and low I couldn't find any custard (or even custard mix) in the store so I'm afraid she's stuck with fish sticks and vanilla pudding but hopefully that'll be close enough!

As Summer Fades Away

You can always tell when summer is coming to a close - there's a certain look to the sky, a certain feel to the air; night comes quicker and the cicadas stir up quite the racket in the process.  It just feels different than it did in July and it looks different too. It looks and feels almost like summer is packing up and getting ready to go having enjoyed its visit but knowing that it's time to move on and let another season take its place.

Not that I mind one iota as I'm just not a summer kinda gal.  I much prefer the crispness of autumn and the fantastic foliage of fall.  Granted, I wish that autumn stuck around longer before it got rudely shouldered out of the way by Old Man Winter but still, it's my very favorite time of the year and it's fast-approaching.

With it, though, comes the big question of what to do about Amanda not being able to return to Montserrat this year?  It was our hope that she get the first year behind her and hopefully things would fall into place after that but alas, that didn't turn out to be the case at all.  Still, it just doesn't seem right that she not pursue her love and study of art in some way, shape, or form as the kid has talent but her options are pretty limited at the moment.

That said, I'd like to ask  you all to keep your fingers crossed that perhaps she'll be able to at least take a few courses at the local community college.  I got in touch with the FAFSA people yesterday and had her information sent to Three Rivers Community College which does offer a few Fine Arts classes though not as many as a regular art college does.  Still, something would be better than nothing and if we can work out the financing, I'd rather see her go there then not go anywhere at all.  It's not cheap - at almost $500 per 3 credit course plus the cost of materials the State of Connecticut won't really be cutting her any breaks but with any luck maybe she'll qualify for enough to at least get her into a few classes while she also tries to find a part-time job.

It might not be ideal and it sure wouldn't be the same as going to Montserrat but I refuse to give up hope completely that she can't do what she loves and what she's good at.

Five on Friday - The Homestuck Version

This week's Five on Friday comes courtesy of one my oldest daughter's favorite obsessions - "Homestuck". Some of you may remember when she did an art piece awhile back that was designed around a piece of music from the increasignly-popular web-comic which was titled Rex Duodecim Angelus. If that doesn't ring a bell, feel free to click here for the post I did on "Homestuck" and the stained-glass like drawing that Amanda spent a lot of time working on.

Anyhow, all that aside, even though I don't read "Homestuck" (sorry, I'm just not that cool I guess!) I do listen to quite a bit of the music as Amanda plays it a lot as did Jamie before she left for Canada. Amanda (yes, that's her in the picture dressed up as a "Homestuck" character) has been suggesting I do a Five on Friday using "Homestuck" music for awhile now so I finally acquiesced and said "sure, why not?" As a matter of fact, this post is actually going to be Five on Friday + One as I'm throwing in a bonus track just for my friend Jamie - she'll know exactly which one and why once she gives the music a listen. When it first came out Amanda made sure that I listened to it without telling me why but I knew soon enough not too far into the piece and so will Jamie!

Oh, and as a quick explanation as to the first two songs ... they are similar in music as well as similar in sound and title but just enough to be different.  As the web-comic progresses, a lot of the music in "Homestuck" comes back in different incarnations and that's exactly what happened with the first two songs but I like 'em both and couldn't decide which one to pick so you get both! If I had to pick a favorite, I'd say it was the second piece but that might depend on which day you asked me and at what point in time I was listening to it!

I hope you enjoy this week's slightly different twist to Five on Friday and as always, if you ever wish to join in on Trav's fun Friday meme, just pop over to Trav's Thoughts for the quick and easy rules and join in - we'd be happy to have you with us!

Five on Friday - The Backstreet's Back Version

First off, allow me to apologize for the auto-play of the music, it seems that Playlist.com has changed their player settings and I can't get it to NOT start right up. Rather annoying but I'm not sure how to change that or if it even can be changed. (Update, you disregard those first two sentences as it seems to be fixed!)  Anyhow, for this week's version of Travis' Five on Friday I decided to go back to when the girls were younger and pick music from a band that neither one of them would probably ever admit to actually listening to if you were to ask them today.  Well, no, I take that back, Jamie would most likely admit to it while Amanda would vehemently deny ever having listened to their music never mind singing along with it!

When I hear any music by Backstreet Boys, the once very popular boy band who is currently on tour and apparently quite popular still even though they are far from being boys, I always think of a road-trip that the girls and I took together back in 2001 when I loaded them into the car and drove up to Boston to go to the Science Center and Boston Common and just spend some time away together.  My marriage was in the process of falling apart at the time and we really needed the break to do something fun - just mom and daughters. On the way up and back we all (yes, even you Amanda) sang along to the Boys on the CD player and to this day that trip remains as one of my most favorite even though Amanda freaked a little bit when we had to walk across the bridge over the Charles River between the T stop and the museum because she had a major fear of heights thing going on.  Still, we girls had a good time and that's all that really mattered!

A Few Moments at Montserrat

Even though it was not the best of days with the weather (what else is new this spring?) I made the drive back up to Beverly yesterday as Amanda's college, the Montserrat College of Art, was holding their annual Open House at which, to quote their website:

"Each year, Montserrat pulls out all the stops and displays student artwork on every available surface. Classrooms, galleries and hallways are bedecked with recently made paintings, prints, photos and drawings; sculptures rise from the floor and hang from ceilings, and videos play from screens and projectors."

Amanda had four pieces of art that were chosen to be displayed by her teachers so it seemed like a good time to take my mother with me so that maybe she could see what exactly her oldest granddaughter had been doing with her advanced education and my former retirement money!  Jamie accompanied us and we arrived at the college around 2:00 or so and took a walk through the artwork that was displayed throughout pretty much the entire building.

As per usual with art, some of it I got and some of it totally went over my head but I've more or less gotten used to that over the past few years and I fully understand that art is objective to whomever happens to be looking at it.  My Mom, being a traditionalist, probably had even more of it go over her head and I had rather expected that but as I told her, as a freshman the students have to learn a lot of different techniques and styles before they can declare a concentration.  Kind of like freshmen going through all of the trades in a tech school before they choose their field except at Montserrat they're doing it with paints and brushes and charcoal and other mediums.

I really didn't take too many pictures as I'm fighting a nasty chest cold and wasn't exactly feeling up to par but I did take pictures of the pieces that Amanda had on display.  Those of you who have followed Amanda's artwork on this blog aren't going to be at all surprised by the subject matter for two of her pieces:

"Gas Mask Still Life #2 in Oil Paint & Charcoal"

"Gas Mask Still Life #3 in Oil Paint & Charcoal"

Her 3-D sculpture is made up of gears from clocks that she cut out from wood herself:

And my favorite piece that she had in the show was her self-portrait in charcoal as I've got to believe that it's very hard to draw yourself. I mean, heck, I don't even like having my picture taken never mind having to draw it and if I did try to draw myself, it sure the heck wouldn't look like me!

My mother did like the artwork that was from the Illustration Department which is what Amanda hopes to concentrate in but which she couldn't take as a freshman but which, if we can figure out the financing for future years, I'm sure she'd be very good at. That's still up in the air though so it's back to college financing stress for us. Fun.

It's kind of hard to believe that her freshman year is going to be over in just about a month ... where did the time go? ... but in another month I'll be making the trip back up to Beverly to bring Amanda home for the summer - a summer which I hope doesn't have bad written all over it as I have two unemployed teenagers hanging around the house. One can only hope that there really are jobs out there like people keep claiming there are!

Amanda Translates Rex Duodecim Angelus Into Stained Glass

If you'd like to click on the video below while reading this post please do so as the music goes along with the post; I promise it's not any sort of loud head-banging kind of music but is instrumental in nature and is part of the music that is used for a web-comic called Homestuck.


Before proceeding on with the main part of this post, I need to try to sum up what Homestuck is other than one of Amanda's obsessions similar to Doctor Who, Ludo, and anything H.P. Lovecraft! It's the latest installment in MS Paint Adventures which is:

"... a catch-all term for several webcomics by Andrew Hussie which are all, as the name suggests, made entirely in Adobe Photoshop and later, Flash. Each of the stories is written in the style of an Interactive Fiction Game, where each panel is accompanied by a text description, and the link to the next panel represents a player's command. 

Homestuck is the newest story, beginning with a 13-year old protagonist named John Egbert, who's alternately trying to play a reality-altering video game called "Sburb" and struggling mightily against a poorly-designed inventory system. It has since snowballed into an epic of children trying to survive After The End. While still happily displaying the energetic imagination and lightheartedness of Problem Sleuth (Hussie's third series), it has increased focus on deep characterization and dialogue, dramatic moods and a wildly twisting plot. It was initially done entirely in Flash, before Hussie decided to switch back to Photoshop because Flash is a pain to write comics in, though it is still used for some sections, both in interactive mini-games and animations."

Everyone who is let's say over the age of 21 who may be lost please raise your hand! You could include me in that group but it's hard to type with one hand in the air so I'll keep my own hand down for now but trust me, I was totally lost when Amanda first started talking about Homestuck and creating troll horns in her spare time! Anyhow, struggling on in a way that I hope readers can understand ... Homestuck's music is associated with and released by a small record label - What Pumpkin - which is made up of a small group of musicians who have created "a large variety of original music and a similarly large variety of remixes based on the various music".  The music (which can be found here) is quite good and I even home-shared Amanda's iTunes library and now have almost all of it on my own iPod, including the music above which is part of their newest release, AlterniaBound.

So, with all that said you're now probably really wondering what on earth this post is about, right? Some of you may recall that Amanda was home on Spring Break last week and one of her projects that she had in mind to do while she was home was a drawing based on the above music which translated from the Latin means "King of the Twelve". She had it in her head that she wanted to do a drawing in the design of the Bristol Rose Window, a stained glass window which is located in the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, a Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England, and commonly known as Bristol Cathedral. The church, originally known as St Augustine's Abbey, was founded in 1140 and became the seat of the bishop and cathedral of the new Diocese of Bristol in 1542.

At the western end of the nave at Bristol Cathedral is located their rose window - a generic term applied to a circular window especially used in churches of the Gothic architectural style. The origin of the rose window may be found in the Roman oculus - large circular openings that let in both light and air with the best known being at the top of the dome of the Pantheon. There are nine different styles of rose windows with the Bristol Rose Window being in the Rayonnant Gothic style. This style of rose window is divided by mullions radiating from a central roundel overlapping in a complex design with each light terminating in a pointed arch and often interspersed with quatrefoils and other such shapes. In addition to the Bristol Cathedral, the north transept at Westminster Abbey has another well-known example. Most, if not all, stained glass rose windows are based on some form of symbolism whether it be the Last Judgement, the Virgin Mary, God's dominion over Heaven and Earth, etc.

So, now that you're totally lost in talk of windows and historic cathedrals and all that good stuff - not to mention all the confusing information about Homestuck above! - allow me to show you the completed drawing of Amanda's Homestuck Rose Window which took her just about three days to draw. It was the style of the window and the symbolism that she wanted to portray that inspired Amanda to create her own rose window based on the song above, Rex Duodecim Angelus, using Homestuck characters.

Please don't ask me who all of the characters are as I honestly don't know but I do know that Amanda did a phenomenal job and I think her final rendering most definitely has a stained glass look about it.  Personally I think that Andrew Hussie ought to have his own autographed copy sent to him but Amanda demurred and said that it certainly "wasn't that good".  To that I say harrumph and of course it is!  I'm going to sound like a bragging parental unit here but honestly? That kid has talent! Not that she got it from me, mind you, but she most definitely has talent! Oh, and if you click on the picture, I think you can get a better look at in a bigger image which makes it even that much more impressive. So ... how do I get Andrew Hussie to read this post?!?

Cruising Conversation and a Campus Update

We're into the teens now on our cruise countdown and the reality of the whole thing is finally starting to sink in a little bit especially now that I've printed out my boarding pass and luggage tags. I don't want to say that I'm getting excited about it just yet as I don't want to become horribly obsessive and annoying and drive everyone crazy with my incessant talk about my upcoming cruise but dang ... we are getting CLOSE!

Of course, not quite close enough for me to really do anything other than look at my suitcase and think "darn, I really have nothing to wear on a cruise!"  To be honest, it's hard to think about tropical attire when one is in the midst of one of the snowiest winters ever and layers are the standard dress before venturing outside.  Short sleeves, crop pants, and summer footwear are just kind of hard to wrap my head around these days!  Soon, though ... honest!

For those who asked for an update on Amanda's situation at Montserrat ... I had an email from the Director of Residency yesterday in response to mine to him and he advised me that he met with Amanda and her roommate both yesterday and that they are working out a resolution.  He also told me that they do not tolerate bullying at the college - which I assumed was their position - and that it is being handled accordingly.  I spoke to Amanda and she seemed greatly relieved that the wheels have been put into motion for her to move to another house; it just may take some time due to logistics and all that sort of thing.  Add on the fact that moving her stuff from one house to another around two-foot high snowpiles is going to be downright tricky.  I'm hoping a trip to Beverly won't be necessary to assist but if it is, I'll do it as that's what we parents do.

In the meantime, Amanda is still staying at Juli's in Salem and from the sounds of it, loving every minute that she's there.  Apparently Juli has "a really cool house, her husband is the funniest man she's met in a long time, Juli is wonderful, and the dogs are adorable".   I am so incredibly glad that she had a safe place to land during all of this and will forever be grateful to Juli.  She has a wonderful philosophy on life that she learned from her mother that I think more of us need to adopt which (quoted from a Facebook message) is:

"What goes around comes around. Mom always said so. I like what I put out in the world to be kindness, so that hopefully when things come my way, there will be that same thing coming back to me. It has worked that way so far, so I'm sticking with it!!"

Juli's mom was a very wise woman and I've got no doubt she'd be very, very proud of her daughter for putting into practice what she taught her.  I know I'm thankful the lesson stuck and I've got no doubt that good things will be coming Juli's way!

In spite of the turmoil that all of this has caused, I'm really hoping that Amanda learns a few things from all of this like being able to stand up for herself and not let people push her around and that there are some truly wonderful people in the world who will be there for you when you need it.  A big thank you to all of my friends who offered encouragement and support; it's very nice to know you're there for us!

So ... who wants to get together sometime and do a tour of Salem with me?  I know a great historic hotel we can stay at with really comfortable beds, newly renovated bathrooms, great restaurants, and the finest General Manager to be found!