Camping

I'm just back from a week with my college roomie. We have been doing this for 15 years now. We began as back-packers, doing sections of the Appalachian Trail. We have taken all 4 of our children at various times and it has been a time of separation from the day-to-day running of the real world. Several years ago, roomie, messed up her ankle (broke it, I think) and couldn't go, then I developed heel spurs and tore my Achilles tendon. My foot dr says I will never backpack again. Not sure I believe him, but it wasn't happening this year. So....
We went camping instead. We threw an old mattress in the back of my Exploder and headed out. Ended up at a different campsite every night and only got to do a little hiking. (Tendon was still pretty ouchy) But we saw some beautiful scenery. Mountains and waterfalls and the Finger Lakes of NY state. Lovely.
Buttermilk Falls allows swimming, but was closed for swimming when we were there. The lifeguards were 're-arranging' stones to allow a better flow. They had removed two boards that formed a dam to allow the water to flow freely while they worked. While my Roomie hiked up to the top of the falls, I did Tai Chi exercises and watched the process. When they finished to their satisfaction, they replaced the 2 boards, about 10-12" total, and I watched the water fill in. The pool was about 50-60 feet in diameter and fairly circular and it took about 7 minutes for the water to rise up and flow over the 2 boards. I was surprised at how fast it rose.
All the waterfalls we saw were cutting through 50,000 years of sediment. The gorges were gorgeous. In fact I saw a T-shirt that made a play on the two words, but I can't remember how it went right now. Maybe later.
I was fascinated by Watkins Glen. My first visit was at about age 6 or 7 when one of my mother's sisters was in college near there. I remember a lot of 'caves' or 'tunnels'. There are not so many now. And as I stood and watched one of the falls, I realized why. We were now on the other side of the gorge from my first visit and the remains of the trail I had taken were very few. Only a tunnel hinted at what had been. Each winter the frost and water cleave sections of the wall off and in the nearly 50 years since my first visit, that section is no more. Made me realize how old I am becoming and how young I am geologically... I think I will stick with the geologic date! :D
Anyway it was a wonderful week - maybe some pictures to come - if I can figure it out!

friends

There is an email that resurfaces periodically concerning friends. It speaks of friends for a season or a day or lifetime. I can't remember all of it, though I often share it when it comes up because I love what it says.
I have been blessed with a fair number of friends. Some were friends for a day, some for a season and some have been there at every turn. Thank you each and every one!
The reason I have been thinking about this is that DD 2 was bemoaning the loss of contact with someone with whom she really liked sharing ideas. She once described this person as her commaratiade - someone who understood her soul. This was not sexual, but spiritual, and it hurts that he has now cut her from his life. She knows that he is going through some tough times, and she would like to there for him, but he has isolated himself completely from the times they knew each other. He has become a friend of a season.
This is very hard for her to understand. At her age I didn't understand either. You were a friend or you weren't. But sometimes a person is as good a friend as they are able to be and that ability may change with their life and what happens and with the maturity they discover.
And we change. We just do. An event or philosophy that was vitally important when we are 18 is almost laughable at 40. This is not to downplay the importance of friends or of the friends that you make each day. One of these may become a 'bosom buddy.'
I also believe that you need to feed friendships. And tend to do a lousy job of that. I will call someone up and chat for an hour and then have no contact with that person for another year or more. That is not nutritious. That is barely life support. And how can these friends know they are important to you if you do not maintain contact?
It is now 10 days later and I have just read what I wrote and I still stand by it. I am still a lousy friend to many of my friends - and some of them are great friends to me. I am blessed with many people who actually want to hear from and about me. And people who I care about too. It is a wonderful thing to find you have more than one friend in the world.

in defense of video

Well...I have heard all the arguments for video playing. And I won't dispute the eye-hand thing. BUT my concern is the desensitization that can occur in some players. Particularly very young players. And my biggest concern is the lack of parental concern. It is easier to buy them a game that will keep them out of the parent's way, rather than hold some of the discussions that are necessary for any child growing up. Then the video becomes the parent and instills the ethics of the game designer into impressionable young minds.
I am not going to argue in this blog and this will be my last comment on it. I am using this space more as a stream of consciousness sort of thing. But by all means - discuss away! LOL

guns, wars and hunting lore

I just read a friend's blog about guns and violence (http://reverendjoy.blogspot.com) She is an Episcopal priest and is reacting to someone else's essay on stress relief using violent video games.
I have had a problem with many video games since their inception. To kill something seems wrong. Especially in a game. I learned to shoot from my grandfather, who stressed safety a lot (he lost a finger to a hunting accident in his teens) and I have no problem eating the occasional turkey or venison my cousins sometimes gift me. But none of this was a game. The time in the woods could be, and usually was, pleasant, but it was never a game.
Yet many video games stress kills, either of beasties or 'the enemy', whoever or whatever that might be. My darling daughters love to play WOW (and the name, World of Warcraft, says it all!) so I watched them one time. It appalled me. The entire purpose of the game is to kill or bash as many other beings as possible to get you to another place, level etc. There is no real skill, or reasoning or anything to make this a redeeming value. I hate that they play it.
These girls are adult now, and I certainly tried to teach them about the sanctity of life. But somewhere there is a short-circuit that allows them to differentiate between this 'game' and reality. They understand at some level that it is a game. But I hate that killing is a game to them. Maybe it is because neither my husband nor I actually hunt and they have never had to watch or help skin the rabbit or whatever for the dinner pot. Maybe then killing would be more real. We never allowed them to point even pretend guns at people. But they have no problem bashing that large green hairy thing to death on the screen!
On the other hand these are the same girls who will guide the spider into a jar and release it outside rather than squash it, so maybe there is hope.

12 June 2009

Well...we are once again clean. Actually we have been clean all along, but it is now MUCH easier to be clean.
About a year to a year and a half ago, our shower developed a leak. A steady drip, drip, drip that drove one insane. I was forever trying to tighten down the handles. Well, TheatreTech decided to fix it about a month ago. He took it carefully apart and then discovered that it wasn't as easy as a washer and our budget didn't count for a new set of handles right at that moment! So....he reassembled it (loosely) and we were to make do.
Enter yours truly to get ready for work. I get the hot water on and turn the cold water knob the usual quarter turn and step into the shower enclosure. To be scalded! The cold did NOT come on. No one was home, probably a good thing, so I traipsed out to the kitchen tool drawer (full of all kinds of interesting things) and found a screw driver and a pair of pliers. I managed to get the knob off and fix it so that I could get cold water. But you couldn't really tell when the water was turned off. The knob just kept turning so you had to really listen for running water. If you failed to find just the right amount of pressure to disconnect the flow, there would be water dripping into the cellar.
And thus it stayed for the next month until money freed up. So Saturday TT tackled the job again, only to discover that nothing we have is the size now available in the stores. My father did the original installation (and we had quite a discussion on just when that was - somewhere between 1972 and 1984) and I am sure used whatever the common size was then, but none of the sets fit so we ended up spending twice as much to buy individual pieces and assemble them to work. But the good news is that, after a full day's work, he could shower and the knobs turn off the water just like they are suppose to! Yay for our team!