Ending, Beginning & Marking Time

         The end of June the school year came to a close and with it Hillary’s school career and my employment by the school district food service.  The four years we spent at the high school were by turns rewarding and maddening.  I was happy to see that time end for many reasons, exhaustion being one of them; for both myself and Hillary.  Seeing the end of predawn wakeups and bus pickups was most welcome! We celebrated graduation with a small party and moved forward.

         After spending months nudging the state along to have all paperwork done and arrangements in place by graduation, Hillary was able to begin attending a day program for medically compromised developmentally disabled adults.  The transition went really well and she is quite happy with the new situation which starts later in the morning, is shorter hours and fatigues her less as it is slower paced than school was.  I like it too as I no longer have to get up as early in order to have her ready for the bus. It was a quick turnaround for one thing to end and a new one to successfully begin.  What a blessing!

         I’m spending time this summer resting and trying and get my house and head in better order; clearing clutter and old papers, donating items, and throwing things away. Emotions go along with many of the cleaning projects I am undertaking so each day is a little bit of a roller coaster ride.  I find myself at times nostalgic, at times sad, annoyed, angry, amused and happy as I look at old notebooks, pictures and toys long ago set aside.

 I’m also trying to figure out what to do next for employment.  Although our board of education chose to hire a private company going forward to provide food services rather than keep our department going, the food service company has offered any of us who wish to continue in this profession a chance to work for them.  I’m going to have to work fewer hours than I was due to Hillary’s later and shorter schedule but current plans are for me to accept the offer.  For now, at least, and I’ll see how it goes and how I feel about it.  If I don’t like it, or for whatever reason it doesn’t work out for me then I will have to find something else.  It will give me some income as I try to figure out what else to do. So I am marking time job wise and getting used to a new rhythm to the days.

         The recent changes to my life were not as difficult as I had imagined they would be, and Hillary seems to have no ill effects from the changes for her.  It seems as if life changes don’t have to be hard if I look to the future and realize that I don’t have to figure everything out immediately.  There’s something nice about marking time.

The Percolator Vacation

The top picture is the St. Lawrence Seaway as seen from our hotel balcony last year. The picture below is a tanker heading downriver passing Boldt Castle.

It seems that there is some interest in knowing about the vacation I alluded to in my last post so I decided to expand on that topic in this one.  That particular vacation started out a little rough but lives in our memories as one of our best ever. We had switched from a big national chain hotel near a metropolitan area along the St. Lawrence River due to the uncleanliness of our room to a mom and pop type motel in the small but thriving resort town known as Alexandria Bay a bit further south but still on the St. Lawrence.  We were now within a few short blocks of the main drag and the river itself.  We found ourselves on a shoestring food budget as we took some of our food money to pay the higher price of the new lodgings but we didn’t mind.  Most of our meals we ate at a hot dog/burger shack as it was cheaper than any other eatery in town. The first time we walked to a public dock where we could see the mighty waterway in all its glory left us breathless. There, on an island, directly across from the town in the middle of the river stood a castle! Boldt Castle on Hart Island, we found out on an Uncle Sam’s Cruise Line tour, was built by self-made millionaire George Boldt as an homage to his beloved wife Louise.  She tragically passed away before the castle was complete and the heartbroken widower ordered construction immediately stopped.  There it sat going to ruin until finally restoration was begun by a historical preservation group.  The work is ongoing but the ground floor, parts of the upper floors and the grounds are quite beautiful as we found out on our first tour. I love the romance of the castle and it is a beautiful sight any time of the day.  As we explored other aspects of the area, we drove about 30 minutes to Cape St. Vincent which boasts a lighthouse at the mouth of Lake Ontario, and one day about 3 hours to Massena, NY to visit the locks there that allow vessels to navigate the waterways.  There are huge tankers, freighters, and barges that travel through carrying all types of supplies and goods to and from the great lakes to both Canada and the United States.  We also see some of those huge boats on the St. Lawrence when we are in Alexandria Bay and they dwarf Boldt Castle as they chug past.  While there we toured the Eisenhower Power Project, my main memory of which concerns getting Hillary to the top floor observation deck via a stair lift for her wheelchair.  It was the first time we’d seen such a contraption and it made a pleasant melodic dinging sound as it carried our princess up and down the stairs.  On the Wednesday of the week we spent in Alexandria Bay we went to the park on a hill overlooking the river for a free sunset concert by the Ft. Drum army band. It was wonderful!  We sat on a huge flat rock and munched on subs and chips as people danced, tapped their toes and children cavorted in time to the music.  All in all our vacation that started out not so well turned into one which we remember fondly, and we have returned to that town again and again, although now we stay in a larger family owned resort hotel right on the river with glorious sunsets, fresh breezes and a constant view of the castle.

This is Boldt Castle at sunset.

Percolator

I think I can make a story out of anything I have. On the last day of work we decided to have a little party and several of us brought in something to share. There was a yummy French toast casserole, fruit salad with dip, mini croissants, cheese & crackers, cake pops, and coffee. I brought my percolator from home and made the coffee at work---there's nothing like a fresh perked cup of coffee. 

As we gathered round waiting for the heavenly brew to be ready my friends commented on my percolator, so I entertained them with the story of my plastic white percolator.  Around 13 years ago we decided to try someplace new for a week's vacation in August and settled on the thousand islands region of.New York state. Not knowing where to stay we booked a room in a national hotel chain in Ogdensburg, a town which boasted a river walk along the mighty St. Lawrence River. The hotel listed a pool and in room microwave and refrigerator among its amenities which at the time were desirable as our girls were fairly young. We arrived around dinner time and found that the pool was closed, the room dirty and the river walk somewhat sketchy. We decided since it was rather late in the day to look for someplace else when we went for dinner and then in the morning we would check out and move.  We stopped at a visitor's center and my husband spoke with the gentleman who worked there. He suggested that we stay at a small mom & pop motel in Alexandria Bay, a small but lively resort town right on the river.

According to the pamphlet about the small hotel it offered no amenities but was a short walk from the town. We knew that we needed to be able to heat water in our room for Hillary's cereal so after dinner, on the way back to the not nice national chain hotel, we stopped at a WalMart to buy a hot pot since we'd left ours at home. As I perused the options before me I was reluctant to buy something I already had at home and spied the percolators, which were less expensive than hot pots. In fact, this percolator was under $10.00! Sold! It worked well for heating water at our new hotel, and has been quite useful at home. Sometimes one pot of coffee isn't enough when we have company, or sometimes we need both regular and decaf. It's much easier to remember which is decaf when you have two different types of coffee makers. Friends and relatives borrow my electric percolator for parties and visits from relatives. It's a popular, handy little appliance! 

By the time I finished my story the perking had stopped and we took our cups to the table and had a lovely little breakfast party. 

Weekends

Weekends go too fast. Two days isn't enough to fit everything into! That's because they've become a concentration  of things left undone during the work week with things I want to for pleasure sprinkled in. I try to keep things balanced but sometimes there is so much going on in those two short days that Monday is almost a relief! Some folks keep their weekends so full of activities and chores that just hearing them talk about it makes me want a nap. When my girls were younger we ran on the fringes of that type of weekend occasionally and I confess that I didn't enjoy it. It made me downright cranky! So I learned to shorten my "must be done" list and let some things slide. Of course now I face a room that borders on hoarder status to deal with over the summer; but at least I'll have something to do while I consider my employment options for the fall. Just think how accomplished I'll feel when things have been donated, repurposed, or thrown out and I have much less clutter! I almost can't wait to start--but not this weekend, it's almost over.

Dad

Some Dads rule with iron fist

Some with velvet glove

Some leave their babies way too soon

And watch from Heaven above

Some have humor, while others sing

Some play ball, some push the swing

Some go to work, some work at home

Some write books, some lay stone

Whatever else a Dad can do

He loves his children through and through.

--Susan Donald 6/15/2014

I get my wry, dry sense of humor from my father. We don't know anything about this picture; where it was taken, who took it, or what the occasion was. I love it for the contrast between his serious expression and comical headgear.

In this one I'm guessing I was about two years old. It looks like it was someone's birthday. It just looks like a cozy happy moment between father and daughter.

This was taken the day Hillary was christened. We were all blissfully unaware at that point how radically she would change all our lives! He was a wonderful "Grandpa", teaching my very young Anna to play chess and with arms always ready to snuggle Hillary. We miss his quiet presence and humor.