Lock 8, 8/29/2011 at 1:30 PM

After Irene


Good Morning everyone,

As you can tell, we have power, phone, internet.  We lost power for about 12 hours yesterday, starting a little after 10:00 AM.  

It was a tense day, but we have fared pretty well.  From our house it doesn't seem all that bad, especially considering the tree damage that we have already seen earlier this summer.  But when I walked the dogs this morning, I was surprised at how bad the damage is right here in our neighborhood.  It's not possible to count all of the trees that are down.  I'm concerned that more may fall today, even though the weather is clear, calm and sunny.  The ground is so wet and many of the trees are now leaning, because the wind was relentless.

Downed trees and flooding have closed a lot of roads in the area.  Ironically, our street is one of the few that is open and useful for getting anywhere.  So we have an unusually large number of people passing the house this morning.  Apparently most of them are late for work or heading to a fire or a great sale, because they are flying down the road.  I, being one of great patience and compassion, am cursing most of them and wishing they'd go speeding down someone else's road.

Yesterday was "Who's gotta a pick-up truck day."  The rain was falling at the rate of 1 or 2 inches per hour.  The wind was gusting at 30+ miles per hour.  Trees and power lines were everywhere.  And every guy with a pick up truck put his kid in the passenger seat and took at least one pass (flying) down our road.  It was unbelievable.  It got to the point where Kim and I would watch the another one pass by and just laugh.

The flooding will be a major issue today, record level they say.  On my walk, I went to a spot that overlooks the Mohawk, and it was actually a little scary.  I didn't imagine that the water could be so high at that spot.  They are saying the water will crest here at about 2:30 this afternoon.  It may be the worst flooding that the Stockade and Scotia have on record.  They're not sure, but say it's possible.  The flooding in the Stockade might reach Erie Blvd. or even Broadway.  I think that would impact the GE plant.

Schoharie County has closed every road today.  The flooding on the creek and in the Middleburg area is extreme.

Our local news outlets are WTEN, WNYT, WRGB and WXXA.  I'm sure you'll be able to see footage of the flooding later today.

The water in our basement wasn't as bad as we've seen in the past.  I think that's because I went outside and put sheets of plastic on the ground where the water was pouring off of the house.  I managed to get most all of that water to run off into the driveway.  In the basement we were able to soak up the water with towels and wring it into buckets.  I probably collected about five or ten gallons every hour or so.  We were ready for it; we cleared the floor on Saturday, so it was easy to gather it up.  Most of our stuff stayed dry, except for the rug in the area where the TV is set up for the kids.  We don't see water there often, but it's not surprising in this situation.  Today I'll spend some time down there getting the last puddle cleaned up.  It will be nice to work in the light.  Working in the dark was my least favorite part, I think.

So we're fine.  We can't really do much today, so we'll be here.  We love you all.

Rob  

A Couple of Birds

It's a perfect day.  What I mean is that the sun is shining and the temperature is warm.  And even though there's a stiff breeze, it's comfortable, not chilling.

This morning as Kim and I sat on the porch reading and watching the boat traffic.  We were suddenly aware of a buzzing creature approaching us on the porch.  I couldn't imagine what it might be, but initially I assumed it was some sort of bug, which frankly was a little scary, considering how loud it was.  But suddenly this thing stopped right in front of me and hovered.  It was a hummingbird.  Then, as if he wasn't already close enough, he flew onto the porch and hovered over the picnic table, just about 5 feet away from my head.  Then he flew away.

I can't ever remember being close enough to a hummingbird to hear the sound of it's wings.  It was louder, harsher really, than I would have expected, but now it's easy to understand how they got their name.

It's afternoon now, and Nate and I just got back from a walk.  We decided to go to the lighthouse.  It's one of those days when you know that there will be lots of boats in the water and long, clear views.  As we were heading that way, traveling along the edge of South Shore Drive, I looked up just in time to see a bald eagle fly across the road, just above the trees directly in front of us.  We have known that their population is on the rise in this area, but we haven't ever seen one, except from a great distance.  And so, on the same day as my up-close experience with the hummingbird, I got the best view I may ever have of bald eagle in the wild.

Post-Op

by Rob

The phone rang just shortly after Nate and I got home. Kim and I had just gotten Nathan settled into the over-sized red chair in the living room. He was a little agitated about being told he had to sit and stop trying to talk. The gauze in his mouth made understanding him nearly impossible, but that was beside the point since he was supposed to be clenching down on it anyway to make the bleeding stop.

"You have a text to land-line message from 5-1-8-6-3-0-7-9-7-0..." The voice on the phone wasn't a live person or even a recording, but rather one of those computerized versions of a man's voice. Frankly, I don't remember what the synthesized speaker said next, but I think I'll always remember the expression on Nate's face as I turned around in the kitchen to look at him out in the other room. His phone was held by two hands in his lap, his eyes were fixed on me, and he was smirking ever-so-slightly with an expression that seemed half annoyed and half amused, a sort of non-verbal, passive aggressive, "Fine!"

The phone rang and the messages continued for the next several minutes before Kim had had enough. We handed him a pad and a pen instead.

His surgery went well. The nurse who escorted me to him from the waiting room after the procedure seemed almost upbeat. She never said so, but I got the sense that she had been charmed a bit by him. When I first saw him, he was still emerging from the sedative, but he spoke right away; "That was wild," is what I remember.

I'm not sure who laughed first, him or me, but within a minute or so, it was contagious. He kept trying to talk. The nurse and I kept trying to tell him to stop. He kept right on talking. I must have laughed at him, because the whole thing amused me so much. I kept thinking, "Shut up, Nate," all the time thinking he was so funny. So he kept talking. The nurse played interpreter (I guess it's a skill one acquires when working with people who have their mouths filled with gauze), and we all just kept giggling.

Once the nurse had rattled off all of the post-op instructions, we got Nathan into a wheelchair, and she took us out to the parking lot. By the time he reached the elevator, his face was red from laughing so hard. At that point I figured he was about to start tearing up, or choke to death on the gauze. The nurse just looked at me and smiled. She genuinely seemed to be enjoying the whole thing.

On the ride home, still he talked. I tried again to reason with him, repeating that he needed to stop the bleeding and I couldn't understand him anyway. So he picked up a pad of purple post-it notes and started looking for a pen. I decided to dig one out of my pocket rather than let the search continue.

Nathan has never been known for having great hand writing. It turns out, Nathan's writing in a moving vehicle while withdrawing from sedation is not much better than Nathan's speaking with a mouth full of gauze while withdrawing from sedation. The advantage here was that I could read each note several times, working it out more slowly. I decided to treat these messages like little puzzles to be solved. I'm sure that it makes no practical sense to keep these pieces of paper, but when I gathered them up off of the car floor when we got home, I decided to share them with Kim.

Here, without my verbal responses, are the messages that he scratched out onto three post-it notes:

"Did they give me Novocain?"

"It's hard to swallow. Is that bad?"

"So am I stoned? Or medically stoned?"

"If this is what stoned is, it's quite disappointing. The high lasted 5 minutes."

"I just got wisdom removed. Orally. I already feel like a dumb-ass."

"And I still can't swallow."

Today will be a day of pudding, ice packs and pills. Kim told me he was up in the middle of the night, overwhelmed by the pain. Fortunately, we don't have anything else to deal with today.

I recently noticed how rarely I used the blog during the last year. I'm not one for new year's resolutions, it seems to me they're just a way of being clear about what I'll fail to get accomplished, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and at least say that I hope that I'll do a better job keeping up with entries this year. As I read through some past postings, it was surprising to see how much I have forgotten about the last few years. Even the mundane stuff was interesting.

In light of that, and because I'm not feeling especially creative at this moment, I have decided to do a sort of "time-stamp" by creating a where-we-are-at-the-moment sort of list.

• Kim's job has changed again this school year. Although she's still working with Dylan, Grace and one other new student, she spends the bulk of her day in a Kindergarten classroom working with other teachers. My understanding is that this is partly because of the goals that have been set to see these kids mainstreamed for as much of their program as possible.
• Abbie's in eighth grade. She's having a much better year than last year; she's healthier, her grades are better, and she's seems to be less adversely affected by the social pressures of friends and school. She still texts constantly though, and her Facebook photos and self-portrait postings are becoming the punchline of many jokes. Last night, we had Lynn and Dave Barnes over for dinner. Nate and Abbie each invited one friend, and when Lynn introduced herself to Abbie's friend, she started by speaking to Rachel by name, and then added, as if to explain, "I feel like I already know you from Facebook." I'm not sure Lynn intended to call them out on all of their postings, but her comment was brilliant. I have to remember to thank her for it.
• Abbie's currently taking three dance lessons. Wednesday evenings are for ballet. Thursday nights are for tap and jazz. Because she has an hour break between her two Thursday evening lessons, she and I have been having supper together at the diner that's next door to the dance studio. I'm enjoying our once-a-week dad and daughter time.
• Abbie's also continuing to take guitar lessons from Jordan. I think that this is her third year. She still doesn't "practice" all that much, but plays all the time. I'm fine with the lack of focus on scales and things since I know that she's playing so well, and is getting so much enjoyment out of it. Every now and then we can here her singing too, off in her room or the basement.
• Nate's a junior. He also seems to be having a better year at school. This was the year of testing and trying to get to the bottom of some of his schoolwork issues. At this point, it seems that he's made progress, but I think that he's also become much more aware of how far he has to go. Tech Valley continues to be a great match for him and I know that he's well connected to the kids there.
• Nate's taking tap lessons with Mr. Pigliavento. He's been taking voice lessons with Mr. Gleason since September. He's in his third year with CDYC. He's been cast in the SLOC production of "Les Mis" that will performed in April. He's also recently expressed interest in resuming piano lessons.
• He's not real motivated about getting ready for college. It's time for us to start pushing the issue, since he'll need to start taking tests this spring and we should be visiting a campus or two every month or so. Of course, it's hard to predict, but I'm not sure he's going to be ready to go away to school at the end of high school. The next few months will, no doubt, be pretty important. The thing that I need to keep reminding myself is not to care about it more than he does.
• Work seems to be going better for me this year. It's not that anything significant has been a problem over the last few years, but I was beginning to feel restless and uninspired. During the summer I took the Orff Level I training at Eastman, and it's had a big impact on my teaching. I'm in the process of refining some of what I have always done, as well as, incorporated some new strategies and techniques. Overall, it has made work so much more enjoyable for me, which clearly is also affecting my students. A highlight of this fall was the Amidon's residency in early December. They are amazing with kids, and I learned a great deal from watching them and working with their materials. It was also wonderful to see the effect that their songs had on our school community.
• BRC seems to be getting along well. Our youth work continues to be both satisfying and challenging. It's clear to me that the kids don't view us the same way that the kids ten years ago did. It's also clear that being the parents of two of the youth group members means that most everyone else views us as being "parental." Nevertheless, we're blessed to be working with such great kids in such a supportive environment.
• The dogs are now 18 months old. We seem to be through the most difficult aspects of training. They aren't having any accidents in the house anymore, and we feel as though we can turn our backs for a couple of minutes without having to fear that they'll chew on something. They are great fun, and we all are enjoying them so much.

So hopefully, I can post a few more details in the coming weeks and months. Hopefully, I haven't already doomed myself by committing such an idea to writing...