I keep more things at work than some people own

In my office:

Drinking glass
Bowl
Napkin
Fork
Spoon
Handkerchief
Multivitamins
Calcium tablets
Sunscreen
Jar of almonds
Jar of sunflower seeds
Jar of chocolate chips
Bag of granola
Shelf-stable palak paneer
Rainhat
Tampons
Winter coat
Sweater
Poncho
Briefcase
20 or so books and magazines

In the locker room:

Jar of baking soda
Bottle of vinegar
Coconut oil
Shampoo
Conditioner
Moisturizer
Hairbrush
Q-Tips
Band-Aids
Condom
Ponytail holder

Shoes
Sandals
Socks (5 pairs)
Underwear (4)
Camisoles (2)
Short-sleeved shirts (3)
Long-sleeved shirts (3)
Skirts (3)
Pants (2)
Towels (2)

The new bike is getting outfitted!

Our current child seat setup on the Yuba Mundo. Not as pretty as this but it took less than 15 minutes to put on an old booster seat with two utility straps and an old belt. Cheaper and holds bigger kids than the official option.

Our kids and the neighbor kids took turns getting rides around our circle today, and Dan took A to a dance about four miles away.

happy vernal equinox!

After our St. Patrick’s Day ice cream cones at Stewart’s, the kids and I made ornaments representing signs of spring. Observations, events, etc. We hung up the ones that had already happened (snowdrops blooming, geese flying north, etc.)


and are waiting for the rest.



In future years I plan to use these as an event-driven, rather than date-driven, Advent calendar- maybe marking the dates on the back of each one as we get to hang them up?

Albany Bicycle Coalition favors sharrows over bicycle lanes

From last month's minutes:

"The consensus was that ABC favors Shared Lanes over Bicycle Lanes in those cases where there is a clear choice.

This consensus was based on the following points:
- Shared lanes are easier and less expensive to implement
- Shared lanes do not give a false sense of security to the cyclist (as a bicycle lane might)
- Putting shared Lanes “everywhere in Albany” (i.e., on the majority of heavily traveled streets) would enhance awareness by both motor vehicle operators and cyclists.
- Shared lanes do not put the cyclist in the (dangerous) “door zone.”

Those having concerns about this policy should make their thoughts known."

The next meeting is February 25th if anyone is interested in discussing this more. http://albanybicyclecoalition.com/

I personally think that sharrows might be worse than nothing because they can give drivers the impression that cyclists are only supposed to be on streets with them. Bike lanes have the same downside but at least provide cyclists with some benefit. I understand ABC's position, but I believe their active membership consists entirely of confident urban cyclists, which may be blinding them to how important bike lanes are for encouraging more people to bike. I personally don't find bike lanes necessary for myself (though there are places I'd find them useful) but I might've started biking sooner if they were there and I know many people who'd feel safer if they existed.

also, I have some Dukes of the Stratosphear

In my effort to convince Dan to get rid of virtually all of our cassette tapes, I’m tossing mine. Even this mix tape, dated “May/ June 1988.”

Side A:
Say You Will (Foreigner)
Angel (Aerosmith)
Land of Confusion (Genesis)
Faith (George Michael)
Pour Some Sugar on Me (Def Leppard)
Nothin’ But A Good Time (Poison)
Amanda (Boston)
Make Me Lose Control (Eric Carmen)
Never Say Goodbye (Bon Jovi)
Can’t Stand Losing You (Police)
Owner of a Lonely Heart (Yes)

Side B:
Hold Onto The Night (Richard Marx)
With or Without You (U2)
The Flame (Cheap Trick)
Need You Tonight/ Mediate (INXS)
Foolish Beat (Debbie Gibson)
Here Comes The Sun (Beatles)
Heart of Rock & Roll (Huey Lewis and the News)
And She Was (Talking Heads)
Devil’s Radio (George Harrison)
One More Try (George Michael)
The Night (Moody Blues)

I wish he'd chosen a hero with an easier job

C wrote this as part of a homework assignment a few months ago. It broke my heart a little. (The mess in Afghanistan left him feeling betrayed by Obama.)

Barack Obama is President of the United States. At first I liked him more than any other president but then, although he is better than John McCain, he isn't as good as I first thought. Though I still agree with his health care plan, the lesson is that I can't like and trust someone (especially not a politician) too much.

observational studies are just not all that difficult

Albany based its bicycle plan on the input of white people tied into local bike organizations. Some of these made conscious efforts to point out bike routes in unrepresented parts of the city, but presumably know rather less about what the average Albany bicycle user (who likely does not consider himself a “cyclist” and may well be wishing he had a car) wants. It looks like San Francisco is using the same tactic of collecting information from only those most interested in giving it. Cyclists are encouraged to install an iPhone app that tracks their routes to aid in traffic planning. You think maybe the folks willing and able to use this are not exactly representative of the population?

RPI goes high-tech

RPI is running an “Exploring Engineering Day” this winter which I think C would enjoy. It’s free, but requires registration. Do they have an online registration form? No. You have to download a PDF. Is it a fillable PDF, which would allow you to easily and legibly enter your info and e-mail it in? No. You have to PRINT IT OUT and MAIL it. With your street address, so they can MAIL back a confirmation letter. Really, seriously? I’d expect that of a liberal arts college maybe, but c’mon.

(I went all 20th century and faxed it, then e-mailed the organizer to see if she got it. No response yet. Maybe they’re having trouble with their vacuum tubes or dropped a punchcard or something.)

They’re also inexplicably segregating the children by gender; boys in the morning, girls in the afternoon. (They didn’t have a place to mark gender on the form though; I wonder where they’ll place C.) Maybe they want the boys to get used to how it would be if they actually attended RPI?

the sky is falling!

Our household is becoming better able to weather short-term or long-term emergencies. Next week we are having a woodstove insert installed into our fireplace which should be capable of heating our house. I shudder every time Dan uses the fireplace because I feel it’s wasteful (it doesn’t put out much heat and it sends a lot of pollution up the chimney) but the insert should resolve both of those objections, plus we’ll have a backup heating/ cooking source when the power goes out.

A big birthday present this year was a water filter which, in addition to filtering chlorine and pollutants from our tap water, is capable of removing microorganisms as well. The filters should last over a decade and can render pond water safe for consumption. So if our town water supply has problems we’ll still be able to purify drinking water.

And I’ve finally gotten a 30-day supply of food stored away. I’m guessing that the food we keep in our kitchen would feed us all for 30 days, so having the extra storage in the basement means we can probably feed our family for two months. I see this as a good insurance policy, not only in the case of a community disaster or epidemic but if we’re sick or lose our jobs or for whatever reason don’t want to buy food for a while. I’ve stored things we normally eat- beans, pasta, etc.- which will be rotated into our pantry so the supplies stay fresh.

Given the ugliness and bad government handling of natural disasters over the last decade, I do not feel safe expecting outside assistance if my community is cut off from normal supply lines. Do you?

Halloween Trick or Treating

The start of a very rainy trick-or-treating night...C as mercury pollution from Lafarge Cement plant, A as ballerina/princess, and me as Gargamel--note smurfs caught in a net bag, "Azrael" the cat peeking out of my cape, and I also made "smurf brownies" with blue M&M's that came out well... (even though he wasn't trying to eat the smurfs, of course, but instead turn them into gold).

Closeup with a friend

showing off the new short haircut

Blossoms Halloween Parade

A is one of the big kids now! Don't forget to click on photos to enlarge.

I am becoming less jaded in my old age

I've been listening to more radio in the car lately, both as an attempt to shake off Kurt Cobain and because I've had more car time in the past week than in the previous month. What I’ve been hearing is catchy but disturbing. I laughed when I caught the line, “I know she loves me- she loves everybody.” Listening more carefully though it’s a sad and creepy song. Yet it's nowhere near as bad as "a kiss with a fist is better than none." It’s sickening to hear, and even assuming it is supposed to be metaphorical, it’s suggesting that it’s better to be in a painful relationship than in none at all. Please, go find the girl who loves everybody instead.

bike plan again

As expected, the final presentation of the Albany Bicycle Master plan was disappointing. I'm not sure whether the organizers wanted to limit attendance or are just inept (and am not sure which bothers me more) but they didn't announce the meeting until last week and didn't release the plan until today, so no one could read it before the presentation. Not that it would have mattered anyway, I suppose, since they again refused to allow questions or comments from the audience. (I was tempted to stage an uprising but was unsure of my support.)

A few things will be implemented in the next year or so. They're entirely inadequate but I didn't think they were going to even pretend that this process was going anywhere. This spring: an education program. Woo-hoo. We'll see what this looks like, and hopefully it will be more focused on drivers not killing people than bicyclists being irritating to drivers. Also, CDTA is going to assist businesses and municipalities in bike rack installation and include bike racks along the bus rapid transit line between Albany and Schenectady.

The big exciting finale: sharrows along a few disconnected streets. Sharrows are pavement markings with pictures of bicycles and arrows, intending to inform drivers that bicycles are in fact allowed on the road. Maybe they're better than nothing, but they risk giving the impression that bicyclists aren't supposed to be on the roads without them. (Bike lanes can be problematic in this way too, but at least with them the cyclists are getting something out of it.) And white paint is apparently very expensive 'round these parts because they're only putting them in a few random places. (Well, presumably they're not random and are streets that are being worked on- Delaware Avenue is one- but the final effect will be disjointed. And given how hard the City finds it to keep even lane markings painted, I wonder how long they'll be maintained.) Perhaps we need to just go in and paint our own, like these folks?

There are going to be actual bike lanes on Clinton Avenue but only for a few blocks.

The reports is at (100-page pdf) and comments can be directed to AlbanyBikePlan@cdtcmpo.org.

Biking ten miles in the rain after dark was thankfully not a total waste of time. It is a nice night despite the drizzle and a fox crossed Delaware six feet in front of me.

it's better than wanting an unnecessary minivan

I’ve been thinking a lot about going car-free once our current car dies. If there were a local carshare program, we could definitely do it, and I think we might be able to pull it off anyway- the occasional taxi or rental car should be less expensive than the monthly cost of purchasing, maintaining, insuring, and fueling a car. Even if we can’t keep it up long-term I think it would be an interesting experiment to try for a few months.

I’m perhaps using this to justify my lust for cargo bikes. I’ve researched them sufficiently to have picked out what I would get; a Yuba Mundo which is decidedly less fancy than a lot of options but should be able to do pretty much anything I want it to for a reasonable price. (Comparatively reasonable, I mean; it’s still more than $1000.)* I was pretty much set to just get it when Dan pointed out that we can really do most of what we need with our current bike trailer and that it was rather unlike me to buy anything that we can reasonably make do without. I didn’t much appreciate being forced to admit that I just wanted it because I like it, but it’s true, so I’m letting it wait. Hopefully the new model coming out next month will only be available in hideous colors to reduce my temptation.


* Nerdy details about the final narrowing-down once I decided to focus on the less expensive options: I was torn between the Mundo and a Big Dummy, which is similar in a lot of ways but has fancier components plus the benefit of working with Xtracycle parts which are coming out with more nifty accessories each year. (The Kona Ute, also in this category, didn’t sound as sturdy.) But in addition to costing more than 50% more, I was worried about the shape of the frame making it more difficult for both Dan and I to ride it. The top bar of the Mundo is angled such that I think we’re both more likely to be able to ride it comfortably. (Its frame comes in just one size, while the Big Dummy comes in several, which means it’s not designed to accommodate riders of dramatically different heights. Most people don’t share bikes.) Finally, a very patient man at a Portland utility bike shop was kind enough to chat with me and he said he’d get the latest version of the Mundo even if price were no object. Then I was sold.

You've probably never noticed this, but fathers are treated differently than mothers.

Facebook post from a guy I knew in college: “[Name] is beat from picking apples and carrying children all day.” His mother posted: “Dads like you are rare!” I was tempted to write something snarky about how fathers who spend time with their children aren’t rare in my world, where most of my friends wouldn’t consider having kids with someone who wasn’t willing to be a co-parent, and that men shouldn’t be given pats on the back for doing what ought to be expected. I managed to refrain (it’s his mother, after all, and I can give her the benefit of the doubt and pretend that she just wanted to tell her son that she’s proud of him and wasn’t thinking about her word choice) but it was difficult. When I see women posting similar things they get comments like “isn’t fall fun?” or “but aren’t kids worth it!”

It’s most noticeable to me when Facebook-ers are expecting children. Women can’t post anything without people mentioning the baby. “I had an avocado for lunch” will get comments about how they should eat more, or the unsaturated fats are so good for their fetus, or they’d better be careful so they don’t gain too much weight, or to enjoy it while they still got to eat with two hands. Men’s impending parenthood is generally ignored. A friend of mine who posted about his baby for two trimesters was kind of ignored; he’d put up a status like “Finished sewing curtains for the baby’s room!” and people would comment about his art, his house, anything but fatherhood. It’s so frustrating to see people who quite clearly are not choosing a stereotypical gender-based division of labor to remain externally defined by it. What could a pregnant woman possibly be thinking about other than gestating, after all, and her husband must certainly be more interested in other things, right?

(Incidentally, the research potential of Facebook comments is pretty much untapped; if I were in grad school I’d be figuring out how to use Facebook data for my dissertation.)

90% of you still have at least one kidney! Congratulations!

Social marketing can work. And pointing out that most of your peers are engaging in healthy or prosocial behavior can be effective, so, for example, a 16-year-old virgin doesn’t think she’s the only one left. But the University at Albany attempts to do this in a rather confusing way.

Every semester the counseling center hangs up posters around campus: click here to see them. The one on my floor says: “79% of UAlbany students drink alcohol twice a week, less often, or not at all.” This is presumably supposed to make students who don’t drink frequently feel better about themselves. My reading? More than a FIFTH of the student population is drinking three or more times a week. WOW. Really, twice a week on average is quite a bit, assuming that it’s typical student-type drinking rather than a beer with dinner. Wouldn’t the statistic have been a little more encouraging to non-drinkers if it only included those who drank less than once a week? Or was that number too embarrassingly low to publish?

Another? “80% of UAlbany students have not engaged in unprotected sexual activity as a result of alcohol use.” I’m not entirely sure what this is trying to convey. That those in this 80% shouldn’t feel like prudes? Seems a little bit backwards. Maybe it would be more effective to point out that an entire FIFTH of the population apparently has, which (a) you may want to make an effort to avoid, and (b) means that whoever you’re sleeping with may well be in this category and perhaps more likely to be diseased. (Also: 77% have not physically injured themselves and 88% have not gotten into a fight due to alcohol. Reverse those odds, and wow.)

There are more. “58% of UAlbany students consume four or less alcoholic drinks at bars.” Disregarding the grammar, it’s hard to even know what this means (other than that 42% consume 4+). Is this only among students who are old enough to drink at bars, or can just about anyone get served around here? Or are all the people lacking fake IDs included in that 58%? “89% of UAlbany students believe that alcohol shouldn’t interfere with academics.” The rest think it SHOULD?

I’m not sure whether the survey results were so disturbing that there was no good way to present the data positively, or if the campaign’s designers just weren’t thinking. I find it pretty hard to believe that these posters are going to do what they hope.

Empire Group

must stop reading Modern Love

I hate the insistence that every bad experience has a “purpose” of some kind. SOMETIMES THINGS JUST HAPPEN. I understand the benefits of looking on the bright side; saying “well, it sucks that I lost my job, but if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have had time to replace the plumbing.” But accept it for what it is, optimism or rationalization, not something that was “meant to be.” Believing that some force out there not only chose this to happen to you, but chose it in order to IMPROVE you, is arrogant and self-centered and negates the experiences of the people out there who have bad thing happen to them with no reprieve. Like the ones who just die of cancer, in pain, with grieving families. What, had they done something wrong, so they didn’t just get cancer in order to find a new boyfriend? “People don’t die of disease; they die when their life is complete?” Gawd.

Twin Trees

So I thought I’d written up and posted about our trip to Twin Trees back in July, but it turns out I was only half done. And now I don’t remember what else happened. But here’s what I have:

Day 1: I pack furiously, but confronted with a refrigerator full of a CSA share, I am too overwhelmed to consider planning meals. I leave behind the cheese I’d bought for the trip but Dan remembers to bring socks and underwear this time.
The ride is blessedly uneventful. When we arrive, C immediately claims his favorite chair in the living room and reads a book. A wails, as we’re still unloading the car, “C has something to do and I don’t!” I suggest she climb on rocks, and to my surprise, she thought that was a fantastic suggestion.

We unpack and eat ice cream and send the kids to bed. (C in the Chalet, and I wonder if the fact that he not only accepts, but enjoys, sleeping in a building by himself at his age is something I should worry about.) Dan equates contra dancing with speed dating and we listen to the rain on the roof.

Day 2 dawns bright and sunny; we wonder where we are. Friends call and worry that their child may be too ill to visit. We assure them that vomiting only adds to the ambiance and ask them to pick up our cheese*. Dark clouds have rolled in by the time they arrive. “It’s funny,” they say, “it was sunny right up until we turned onto Thirteenth Lake Road.” How did my ancestors find such a miserable microclimate?

Hooper mine, lemon balm pesto, wine, campfire, s’mores (with vegan marshmallows!), hearts. Dan and I marvel at the functional toaster, and it occurs to us that we, too, could have one that toasts both sides of the bread simultaneously and stops when done.

Day 3: A bickers with her friend all morning (“everyone in the whole world is hurting my feelings!”) but shrieks, “You can’t leave so soon!” when his family departs. We go to Raquette Lake, where it’s windy and cloudy but not actually raining. The kids explore the cemetery when we return. We wonder, not for the first time, why my relatives LIKE to have a view of the road. I read a recipe that calls for a quart of breadcrumbs, which are used as bait to trap the pigeons used as the meal’s protein source.

Day 4: C wants to spend the day in his pajamas and we agree that he doesn’t have to go anywhere that requires clothing. So we spend the mostly sunny day reading; A colors and misuses game pieces and both kids play outside. Dan can’t take another day without e-mail and goes to North Creek for a fix. (I am extremely jealous.) He then demonstrates an effective way of removing dried CSA popcorn from the cob that he learned from a childhood of tic-tacking houses with field corn. I propose that people who hit deer with their cars be required to take partial responsibility for their actions by learning to gut and cook the meat.

Day 5: I think we went to the swimming hole at Ski-Bowl, which has the same lifeguard as last year. Sweet job- there are rarely any swimmers there, the pond is only about 5 feet deep, and he has his friends come over to hang out all day.

Day 6: Our next set of friends gets in around midnight and we stay up way too late chatting.

Day 7: A guest cooks us potatoes and peanuts for our third breakfast before we head out to Hooper Mine again. A climbs to the promontory without assistance. We stop at Thirteenth Lake on the way home and A freaks out when “black plumpy things” attach themselves to her. “The problem is that she doesn’t move around enough so the leeches have a chance to grab on,” Dan opines, as he swims out to a rock. All the children wail because they can’t reach the rock too.

Dan liked last year’s improvised lentil/ turnip/ feta meal so much that he makes it again, on purpose this time. Brian arrives as our other friends leave, bearing a six-pack of beer and a bag of cookies. He knows how to please us.

Day 8: Brian takes his bike to check out the “bike center” at Garnet Hill Lodge but is foiled by typical Adirondack service. So he rides to North Creek and back instead. The grandparents pick up C for a couple nights at Raquette Lake.

I tell Dan that I don’t want to go out to dinner if it means driving as far as Indian Lake (20 minutes). He tricks me into getting in the car to drive to the trailhead for Vanderwhacker Mountain an HOUR away, the last five miles of which on a rocky dirt road that does unmentionable things to our car. It’s muddy and buggy and steep and starts to rain when we’re less than halfway up. Brian and I insist on descending, traumatizing A who’d been promised a fire tower, but as it starts raining harder and harder even Dan admits we were right. We arrive at the car soaking wet and covered in mud, and of course have to creep back along the now-wet road designed for high-clearance 4WD vehicles. We have been officially Vanderwhacked.

Tired and hungry, we stop in Olmstedville for pizza at the dubiously-named Lucky Leprechaun. The waitress is polite and the place is clean, which is remarkable ‘round these parts, so things are looking up. The food takes forever, but when it finally comes I’m impressed that my first slice of pizza is tasty. Then I have a second and realize I was just starving initially. There is a single bathroom that eight people, including the four in our party, all desperately need to use simultaneously. I give up before it’s my turn, determining that it’d be more expedient to just drive home, where I declare that sea shanties don’t make anyone gay.

Days 9: Who knows? Presumably we were recovering from being Vanderwhacked.

Day 10: We manage to pack and clean up early so we’d have time to get home and settle in before I needed to go to work on Monday. But we are foiled on our way out of North River, when A has a sudden bout of (understandable) motion sickness and vomits all over the car. We spend an extra half hour cleaning up in the Hudson. Our car ride is more peaceful than usual, as C is still with his grandparents and A can obsessively listen to the same book on tape as she did on the way up, and I get the first load of laundry in as soon as we get home.

Back in September!


* I later find local cheese from happy cows for sale at Hudson River Trading, so I won’t have to fret so about left-behind-cheese in the future.