sara skates

We’re back from Toronto, the trip was great, though one of the skates boots is too small so there will be another trip in 2-8 weeks for a hopefully correctly-sized pair (depends on which option they pick for fixing the sizing issue – re-doing part of the current boot, or making a whole new one).  The kids had a good time at their sleepover with friends Doney and Dianne, we had a good time at the B&B and exploring the Queen St. area of Toronto as well as the historic Cabbagtown area.  ("Exploring" might be pushing it.  We weren’t there that long.)  (Case in point, we walked RIGHT BY this yarn store, and I wasn’t allowed to go into it.  Something about already having a lot of yarn.  Click on the "HOME" tab, I dare you.  The fact that they were having a sale is – um, well, no, I’m not bitter.  Not at all.)  Terry left shortly upon our return to go pick up her new-to-her horse from CT.  She’s almost back now – whew. 

In my blog travels today, I found this video clip – a fabulous presentation on sharing data effectively and informatively.  It’s really worth watching – the guy practically becomes part of his slides in his excitement – and the slides are so well done.  I started here at Creating Passionate Users, and then went to PresentationZen, (where I watched the video), and then found and linked the google video version that has options for downloading (PC/Mac, IPOD, etc.).

And on my to-do list now is playing around with Gapminder software.  It’s free, it’s designed to bridge the gap between publicly available data and knowing what that data is saying.  It’s like a web animated version of Edward Tufte, from what I can gather.

At the moment though, I need to go duke it out with some real live non-publicly shared data, and get it to behave.  Unfortunately, current purposes do not require visual presentation – the end goal is an excel file.  I’ll change the world of Institutional Research at my college another day

This Saturday morning, we are dropping the kids off at friends (Thanks Doney and Dianne!), and skedaddling our way up to Toronto to (a) pick up my new skate boots, and (b) have a mini-vacation without the littles. 

We love the little people in our house.  But it’ll be nice to be solo too.  Especially because we’ll be staying here, and enjoying high tea at 4:00 pm.  (Terry may be bringing a flask of diet coke to tea, but I’m pretty sure she’ll partake of the cakes and goodies.)

Tomorrow, I’m in Virginia at the Social Security Admin – so probably no blogging til after the weekend.

hushed voices only please –

shhh……no jinxing allowed.

He was pretty dry all last week while in Chicago. He persists in not verbalizing much when he needs to go, and is always surprised when we recognize the "potty dance" and ask him if he needs to go.  His answers range from outright refusal (but we know better), to surprise ("how did you know, Mama?") to pondering the possibilities ("Maybe it would be a good idea to try").  But 9 times out of 10 he goes when we recognize the signs.  He had a few "oopses" – but those are generally always late in the afternoon when he’s tired, or when he’s installed at the computer and hooked into a game.

Last night, for the first time *ever*, he called me back up about a half hour after I had tucked him in and announced that he had to go potty.  I took him in and guess what – he was right. 

As per his usual developmental patterning, he waits until we have about given up on him acquiring whatever skill and then gets around to it.  We have high hopes that he’ll start first grade without any sign of pullups….wheeeee!

Well, my photo plans had promise that resulted in reality!

Proof of knitting:

Trekking socks I finished while in Chicago at AIR in May.  And a lonely Toby-sized rainbow sock that is still looking for its completed other half – I’m thinking it’s permanently in hiding.  And chances are that by the time it’s cool enough to wear wool socks again, this one will be too narrow for Toby’s calf – so it’ll probably be frogged.

On the right, a pair I finished in Chicago last week at Gay Games.  Out of Austerman Step yarn with aloe and jojoba oil infused in the fibers…yeah, it sounds like a total gimick, but it has a lovely hand and it was a pleasure to knit with it.  On the left, the pair I started on the car ride home from Chicago – out of Fleece Artist sock yarn.  I’m loving the variegation – it reminds me of a tub full of marigolds, and the pooling is keeping me entertained.  This sock is also my first attempt at short row heels – so far, I like ‘em.

All socks except the orange one have most heels/toes kitchnered, but I predict a weaving-in-ends evening will be in my future soon.

A blue sky picture for Sandy. I’ve never met Sandy, but bloggers everywhere keep posting sky pictures for her, and we chased this pretty one all the way home on Sunday morning – from a little before Cleveland, OH to Rochester, NY.  It must have been that blue because of all the rain the day before – we didn’t see it in between Chicago and Cleveland, but by all reports- it dumped on Rochester on Saturday.

A photo of our house’s new paint job.  The colors are brighter in real life- the extreme sunlight has "faded" them a bit in the photo.  We LOVE sage green, dark green around the windows, and plum shutters.  And a sick part of me looks forward to the gray of this winter (gray skies, gray dirty snow on the ground), because we’ll practically have a garden of a house to come home to (rather than a gray house…).  Remind me of how much I love the color of the house when we’re in the eighth month in a row of snow.

Cuteness.  Toby picked out the most lovely vibrant rainbow-colored (not found in nature colored…) daisies for me at the grocery store.  And then he lobbied for another bunch for himself – he’s pointing them out.

More cuteness.  Hannah and Toby shared a murphy bed in Chicago (one of those beds that pulls out from the wall).  Hannah shared her pillow.  Awwww….

So we return home to the usual pile of mail – half of it gets recycled immediately.  One envelope I open with a bit of worry- the return address is the NY State Dept of Taxation, with the word "audit" in there somewhere.  Not to worry – it’s not a huge big deal – apparently I couldn’t deduct myself back in 2003, so they had revised my taxable income by $1,000 and I owe and extra $60 of tax.  (An audit would have been so much worse.  Not b/c I think I did anything wrong, just b/c of the hassle.)  Plus ~ $10 interest.

What I wanna know is how come NY State can take 2 years and 3.25 months to tell me that I owe them $60, AND they can charge interest on that????  Right, it’s a tax rule, there’s no real explaining of it.

Tonight, I have big plans to take – knitting photos!  (Note I said PLANS – no promises.)

We’re half-way home, somewhere in Ohio at a Holiday Inn. 

Photos (hundreds) from the Reuters guy John Gress are here:

http://johngress.com/gaygames/skating/

apparently I look very serious while practicing.  So does Debbie.  Clearly, we were still working on getting used to skating in each others’ space (real pairs’ hips would be about three feet closer together), but our jump landing timing wasn’t always bad.  Our final spin was always a bit of a hail-mary kind of thing.  Jay and Bradley (also a bi-coastal couple), somehow they figured out how to spin and pair way better than we did – they were great (and their Brokeback routine was memorable).  Brigit and Betina (part of the German contingent) were *fabulous*.  Here they are heading towards the one in air being suspended like a pole upside down.  Breathtaking again.

In the tradition of saving the best for last, this
is the one to see.  That’s our camel spin side by side.  For a brief
moment, apparently we were in sync with the revolutions.  And can you
just see the glee
when we’re done   I fell down just before hitting that pose in the
exhibition the next night, so there was a different kind of smile
happening.  What can I say, ice is slippery.

Amy and others in the production number (words can’t bring us down…).

I’d do it all over again though – it was a blast
working through a pairs thing with 3 days together on ice!  Simple and
unpolished in parts, but a really fun process.

(Somday I’ll figure out how to edit the fonts that keep swapping themselves around in typepad.)

Oh my, what a fabulous competition. I missed some performances I wanted to see today - but am getting the DVD so there will be re-runs galore.  Debbie and I did our couples program - and we did a great skate. We came in second to the other group from Germany - who honestly skated a beautiful program. (Their program was much more polished than ours.  Though they skate together on a Synchronized Skating team, and a bit more often than Debbie and I do - seeing as we live 3000 miles away and all and they do not LOL). There were no major flubs by either Debbie or I, and we were pretty together from my perspective. It would have been great to have more than a few days together to really polish it - but we did ok - and it was a blast.  We skated the way we wanted to skate - which given that you're doing so in front of a quantity of people is an achievement in itself.

The next one will be in Cologne Germany in four years...

Random notes from the field -

*So the weather forecast was wrong.  Yesterday, temps were close to 100 degrees – hot hot hot and sticky.  I spent the day in the nice cool rink, but most athletes here did not.

*the Opening Ceremonies on Sat night were spectacular in a number of ways.  Running onto the field state by state and country by country was awesome.  The scads of athletes here, and the focus on participation and personal best (rather that elite "best") is great.  The ceremonies were also spectacularly long – with way too many presenters spending way too much time talking about things that 99.9% of the audience already knew – support for gay marriage etc.  The performances were great but I wish they had been the focus of the evening.  We left due to exhaustion at 11:15 pm – with an act and a half still to go.  I missed the performance by Anti-Gravity but I just didn’t have the stamina.

*At the rink – yesterday was a long but fabulous day.  I think I was there for 11.5 hours.  I wasn’t on the ice for all of them, but I was for many of them.

*It’s SOMETHING to be at a session where most of the folks on the ice are men.  (Usually, sessions have one or maybe 2 boys). 

*Especially when they do better layback spins than I can
ever hope to do

(I do ‘em just not as well as these guys do).

*Equally, it’s something to be on the ice with other dykes.  The "tomboy" presence is pretty cool.

*There are some distractingly powerful skaters here (men and woman) – the energy is great.  Silver boots and flamboyance and all.

*Pairs skating, especially while relying on video training until three days before your event, is hard.  Debbie and I did way better on day 2 than we did on day 1, when I’m pretty sure both of us thought about packing it in.  Especially because during our first session together, the other pair of women doing pairs together were phenomenal.  One lifts the other upside down, then they switch and the other lifts the first upside down.  Etc.  Oh My Gosh. 

*So is compulsory dance skating.  I’m doing the "guy’s" part, Amy is doing the "girl’s", neither of us have every really skated these dances except with highly proficient coach types.  So far, neither of us has taking the other out at the knees, and no-one had ended up in tears yet, so as per Amy’s two primary criteria of success, we’re doing well.

*The contingent of Germans are amazing.  They skate great, they have awesomely creative choreography, and they’re hysterical. I was in a "Production" rehearsal last night (a team event), and one had a suggestion for calming some of the chaos. After his detailed description of how to enter the ice With Order so that we’d all be in the same place at the same time, one quipped "I’m sorry, is this too German for all of you????". 

*The Germans also have a refreshing sense of immodesty – thinking nothing of stripping down to undies in the lobby to change into practice-wear.  We’re all adults, who cares, except for the one session of learn-to-skate kiddos whose moms’ had their eyeballs raised right up to their hairlines while trying to get their kids’ skates on.

*Everyone is incredibly friendly and helpful. I’m partnering with two people who lives thousands of miles from me – Debbie from Seattle in a same-sex pairs event, and Amy from North Carolina in a compulsory dance event.  For hours, we’ve had help and input from other competitors on how to actually pull this off. 

*Later today is more pairs practice, but I’ll spend most of the day with Terry and the kids.  Chicago, here we come.

Two hours away from home on our way from Rochester NY to Chicago (which, while not as arduous of a travel plan as Liz is about to engage in, is nonetheless a substantial undertaking with two children in the car), Terry asked me this fateful question:  "Hey Honey, what were the kids’ clothes packed in??".

My reply:  The green square suitcase.

Yeah, that one, the one still at home in our bedroom. 

So the children’s entire wardrobes for 10 days are conveniently packed at home.  We have with us:  one pair of long pants for each, a long sleeved t-shirt for each, fleece outerwear (subtext:  all of which was earmarked for cold rink attire), a swimsuit for Hannah, a sunguard swim suit TOP for Toby, and pullups and swimmies for Toby. Oh yeah, plus what they are currently wearing – a pair of shorts and a t-shirt each.

Note that the weather forcast looks like this:

Weather for Chicago, IL

81°F Mostly Cloudy Wind: E at 9 mph Humidity: 65%

Thu 85° | 68° Fri 85° | 72° Sat 90° | 76° Sun 94° | 76°

And in a moment of true karmic balance, about a half hour before Hannah had been rather firmly reprimanded for forgetting to go get her sneakers and put them in the car – since she had been asked to do so very specifically.

Yes, we yelled at her for forgetting one arguably non-crucial item (as she had shoes on her feet already), and we forget 98% of what she’ll need for the rest of the week. 

Parenting moments you won’t forget…