Fear Winter?

Driving down through the hills of the southern tier of New York and the northern tier of Pennsylvania, the rolling tree-covered hills had changed from mostly green to mostly orange/yellow/brown. In the light of the setting sun it looked almost like the yellow hills of California in July. What I'm told is an unseasonably warm fall has finally caught up to itself, and there is a real chill, especially at Wuggy Norple's bus stop before the sun makes its full appearance. The squirrels are very, very fat.

Everyone has talked so much about the winter; we look forward to it with some trepidation. Will we still be able to head south for the weekend to visit our mid-Atlantic family and friends? How will Exploding Poptart run when it gets much colder? When will we get our first $400 heating bill? Everyone jokes about how hard February and March are; what does that really mean? Will Wuggy Norple really throw snowballs at our backs when we're not looking? Will we really be able to make snow angels in the backyard? Is it premature to buy cross-country skis?

Hitting the Wall

Here it is. The wall. Like in a marathon, when you hit mile 20 and just can't seem to run another step (or so I hear). Except ours is much more concrete, and gives the house that unsettled look, though we tried to hide it behind the rocking horse.

The unpacking has slowed to a crawl. All the easy stuff is unpacked. All the bookcases and drawers are full. And yet there are still so very many boxes remaining. I keep telling myself "do not fear your stuff; it all fit somewhere in the old place, and this place is no smaller."

It's easy to unpack a box of books into a bookcase. The problem comes when the box (marked "kitchen" probably) holds 20 copies of Papercup Mixmaster's last Album, a waffle iron, and all those 1" high rubber alien guys we used to keep on a windowsill. Now that we no longer have a garage, it all has to actually go someplace.

The wall emerged when we decided to corral them all into one place, so that now there are many "box free" rooms in the house. I've started to approach the boxes from a mining point of view. Somewhere behind the layer of "books that are going to go in that bookcase we ordered which the furniture store says will surely be here in 6-8 weeks" there is real ore. That cookbook that has my potato soup recipe. My favorite pencils. We mined pretty much all of Wuggy Norple's toys early on, but occasionally we hit a new vein, and voila! A great set of castle-building blocks to surprise and delight.

Probably if I have a banana and dump a cup of water over my head I can push trough this.

-E.P.T

I love New York in Fall

Wow, it's already as cold and wet as winter ever got Silicon Valley, but it sure is beautiful.

Quick Updates

This updated is dedicated to Adventure Gramma who checks our blog every day even when we let weeks go by without updating.

Papercup Mixmaster has finally gotten the organ out from under piles of boxes, and is within days of being able to make music in the new house.

Wuggy Norple just found a vintage Lego motor in the family Lego archives, and is now building Lego robots to go in his Lego universe.

Exploding poptart is happy at her new job- the people are great, and though there is always more work to do than time to do it, she gets to drive all around the county inspecting homes and taking in the beautiful landscape listening to Feist and Old Crow Medicine Show, and is always glad to be useful.

These shoes

These are the shoes Exploding Poptart wore to see Michael Franti and Spearhead last week. They are the same shoes she used to wear to the Cyber Ball. It felt good to carry so many memories on the walk around the corner to the show.

This is the restaurant where Exploding Poptart and Papercup Mixmaster had dinner before the show. And, incidentally where Michael Franti had dinner before the show.

This is the band that opened for Michael Franti. They rock.

The show was joyful and engaging. His music makes so much more sense in a live context. Suddenly we understand why so very many of his songs have lyrics about making noise, putting your hands up, and how, truth be told "I like my bass loudy, loudy, LOUDER. Poptart and Mixmaster agree, Franti knows how to keep a crowd engaged. It was a great night. A shout out to K-nob and Boog for having a sleepover with Wuggy Norple so we could throw our hands in the air.

This is the band that opened for Michael Franti. They are from Australia and we love them.