Fiberrant

Chess camp is over, and Staffan has decamped back to Pappa’s house. I think we had a pretty good week. I didn’t see any of the “problem areas” J is always complaining about (being slow to get ready, forgetting to do chores). This confirms my suspicion that he (Staffan) isn’t given enough guidance to perform as Johan wants. I don’t care if he’s 13 yrs old, he isn’t ready to take charge of himself for 90 minutes of activities, without frequent help to keep on track. Which isn’t different from other kids, IIRC.

High point of the week: the Kriegspiel match Wednesday. I came in at the end, to find Staffan competing alone against a team of 5 boys. They were repeatedly escaping Staffan’s checks, and the game was finally called since everyone had to go home.

Low point: The lunch trip to Wendy’s, where Staffan forgot to order his burgers “plain with nothing on it”. We’ll need to practice ordering meals – usually I just order for him, since he doesn’t like to talk to the cashier.

I knit quite a bit this week, too. The first sleeve of the cashmere cardi is about 6″ from complete. It’s a flared sleeve, and I’ve just started the increases. I don’t know if I’ll like the look, but we’ll see. Most likely I’ll do a picot hem.

I read June’s wonderful entry on drum carder blending, and I’m dying to be dyeing. There’s no sock yarn left in my stash, and my recent purging has decimated my sock drawer. (Don’t hang on to socks with holes. Mend them or toss them. I’ll darn them twice, but then they’ve got to go.) There is no superwash in my stash, but there is some 80/20 merino/silk – will that shrink up like straight merino?

I’m celebrating Independence this morning, thanks to a 7 am call from Sean:

Did I get a letter yesterday from UNH? Because I got a parking ticket, but it wasn’t fair, and I appealed. They said they’d send a letter with their decision, but if they deny the appeal, and I don’t pay, they’ll boot my car.

Yes, here’s the letter, they accepted your appeal and you owe nothing.

Great! The dining halls are all closed here for the holiday, but I heard a rumor that some restaurants in town are honoring my meal card for breakfast – so I’m off to find some food.

Stapled to the letter is Sean’s appeal, hand written, cogent and obviously persuasive. I told him how proud I am of him – and I’ll spend the day reveling in his new-found independence. Amazing, how just sixteen days – and two hundred miles – away from home can change a boy into a man.

In a stunning feat of CRS yesterday, I nearly forgot niece Colleen’s high school graduation party. It was a beautiful day in the country, good food, family and friends, sitting in the late afternoon sunshine. On the way home, we detoured through Montezuma near sunset.

The swamp is nearly dry. We drove by the sign near the entrance titled “Where did the water go?” but today I found this explanation (pdf link) about a national wetland drawdown experiment. A few pools are still filled, like this one, and dozens of heron (herons?) were lined up all along the canal. The mud flats are covered with small-animal tracks, though we saw none of the makers.

We may have seen an osprey, kestrel* or eagle – some large, dark bird wheeled in the sky, then dove into the mud flats, but we lost sight of it. Poor planning – no binoculars, and only a 4x optical zoom on the camera. We sighted many geese, millions of red wing blackbirds, and a couple of deer.

The purple loosestrife is much less rampant than it was in the late 20th century all over the state. One of the graduation party guests is a central NY farmer, and he told us about a program the state is testing – releasing beetles to control the loosestrife.

So, happy to have spent time in the country with birds, animals and people, we toddled home to our city house. Listening to the traffic from our deck, it felt so good to be home again.

* This kestrel-cam is located near Colleen’s grandparents’ house in Stanley, NY.

… to remind me of things I should never, ever do again.

But first, a picture of Staffan from this week’s Award Ceremony. He won a Math league award, an Achievement award for Spanish, high honor roll, and a Presidential honor certificate. He’s had a very good year. I’m so proud of him!

The thing I will never, ever do again: Get a root canal in one visit. It sounded like a great idea, compressing three or four visits into one. Save me all that extra time in the waiting room.

And the first 24 hrs was okay. I was pretty surprised, even, that I wasn’t in more pain. I should have known that there’s no escape though. By Thursday, I was having “significant discomfort”. Don’t you just love medical terminology?

Luckily, nothing has gone horribly wrong with the tooth – just an infection. I started antibiotics on Friday, and it’s getting better. Eating anything is still a bit dicey, but hey, I can stand to skip a few meals.

Another thing I won’t do again: Keep pulling weeds while I wonder, “Is this poison ivy?” Because, though I used to be immune to it, I’m not any more. And the evidence points to the affirmative on that question. How it got into my back yard, I’ll never know. Compared to the tooth, it’s nothing. And I’m not terribly affected – just a few spots on my arm and shin.

This little guy is a brown-headed cowbird, who’s found a friend in our building’s reflective glass doors. He does a dance and sings a song to his “buddy”, puffing out his chest feathers, even when people are standing a few feet away. The maintenance guy is not happy with the bird crap all over the sidewalk, but I think he’s adorable. If a bit bird-brained.

Yesterday we went gator hunting at Lake Tarpon, just a mile or two from the house. But first, because we don’t have any in Rochester (and those ads on TV look so good!) we ate lunch at Sonic. It’s an honest-to-goodness drive-in, though you can walk-in and order on the patio, too.

On to the park. Staffan was in full nature-photographer mode, and we have pictures of nearly every squirrel in Florida. And no, they don’t look any different from the squirrels up north.

There are nature trails – paved with crushed shells, or boardwalks with rails – through the whole park. It’s largely wetland, hence the boardwalks to prevent destruction of nature, as well as to protect tourists from the gators.

This bad boy was just hanging out in the green river. (these are all shots of the same gator) He wasn’t as big as he appears here – maybe five feet long.

A scenic shot of the river, the gator is in the lower right corner.

He must not have been too hungry, because these turtles were hanging out just the other side of the bridge. Do alligators eat turtles?

Fourteen slime-covered turtles. We didn’t even notice them until one slid off the log.

At last – Lake Tarpon. It’s hard to see over the cattails & stuff, but it’s out there. Lots of shore birds (again, hard to see through the brush). This heron flew up and landed almost right in front of us. There were lots of little brown duck-like creatures, many heron, and blackbirds. The little blue bird in the bush is something else – we didn’t get a good shot of him, but he was very pretty.

There was even a cardinal – not shy at all, we took these from about four feet away.

At one point, you can walk right up to the lake shore (if you don’t mind the bugs – ugh!) and stand on a little protective wall. We were looking at the birds and the lake for about ten minutes before we saw these baby gators, well hidden in the slime.

Paul spotted a bunny rabbit, calmly munching a leaf. He was really good at spotting the small game. This is not funny, because he really is very good at it.*

The whole park was a bit surreal – pine forest, with ferns and pine needles, just like the Adirondacks (except hot!). Only with palm trees.

Today the weather is not so nice – it’s thundering right now, and it’s been raining. We’d planned to go to the science museum in Tampa today, which is perfect.

* Paul was kibitzing on the blog entry – making fun of my “There was even a rabbit” and “We saw a rabbit”. Give me a break … this isn’t National Geographic! When I added this bit, he gave up in disgust and left the room.

A fairly uneventful trip … the usual (I gather) 90 min delay in NYC, but otherwise very smooth all the way through. Here we are last night, relaxing last night in the back yard, with Lisa and Adam. They have a “forever-wild” area behind the house, with Valencia orange trees (presumably left from the days when this area was an orange grove). Though it’s a bit past the end of the season, they are the tastiest, sweetest, juiciest oranges I’ve ever had.

This morning, after sleeping in til almost 8 am (!), we were startled by a pair of red-headed woodpeckers in the tree just over the fence. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera so early, before the coffee kicked in. But Paul insists I need to include a shot of me writing this post.

Today we’ll go for a boat ride to some island (I didn’t catch the name, but it has one – so it’s probably a good size, and not far away. I’m such a wimp about boats) for a picnic lunch, then back home to Meet The Parents: Adam’s mom is coming for a barbecue.