Look at me, I'm Sandra Dee!

More like Sandra Lee..

Monday afternoon and night, Hurricane Sandy came to Troy.  Lucky for us the portion that hit the capital district had slowed enough to fall out of the Tropical Storm category.  It was still a bad wind storm but significantly better than the forecasts predicted. RPI still shut down in the afternoon and awkward dance of "the undergraduates aren't supposed to be on campus, can I go home?" started.  Two hours after campus closed, I was finally able to go home.  Not before I had become thoroughly distraught by the day's events.

When I got home I knew there was only one thing left to do. BAKE.  This has happened to me a couple times in the past.  Most notably about seven years,  a good friend's mother had died in September but it didn't hit me until one fateful high school sociology class right before Halloween when I broke down into tears somehow managed to convince my mother to let me come home.  I baked Halloween-themed sugar cookies into the night.  With that same fervor, I set out to make pumpkin spice cookies and assorted pretzel treats.

I still haven't figured out why baking is so cathartic for me.  One nice thing about it is that I rarely want to eat whatever I make so my friends profit from baked goods and I avoid getting myself in trouble at boxing. I was recently introduced to Pinteret, for better or for worse, and refused to become one of those 'pinners' who never tries any of the things they find.  For this adventure I tried pumpkin snickerdoodles, edible eyeballs, and what I'm calling 'witch fingers'.

My family's a big fan of snickdoodles and while this pumpkin version is delicious, I don't think it has the characteristic texture of snickerdoodles so you'll hear me call them pumpkin spice cookies.  When I finished baking I was significantly calmer than when I started.  That serenity did not last me through the whole storm but I'm willing to bet that keeping busy helped a lot.  Creating something in the face of destruction is comforting to me, whether it's as simple as cookies or a series of complex travel plans.  Hopefully my labmates will appreciate my baking creations at group meeting tomorrow!  Thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by Hurricane Sandy.  Stay safe!

Places I Would Rather be on Monday Morning: Chatting with a Scarecrow

Schuyler Farms Corn Maze, Schuylerville, NY

Places I Would Rather be on Monday Morning: Buttermilk Falls

Gorge Trail, Buttermilk Falls State Park, Ithaca, NY

My First Wildlife Photo Shoot

The last few days I've driven home at sunset and thought how beautiful the area around my house is.  Today I got home a little earlier than usual so I grabbed my camera and headed down to the pond to try to take pictures of the ducks.  What I thought was going to be a 15 minute outing quickly turned into an hour long venture as I played peek-a-boo with four families of forest friends.  Once a upon a time ago I wanted to be a photographer for National Geographic but I don't think I'll be pursuing that dream just yet.  Wildlife photography is a lot harder than it looks.  Over the course of this hour I learned that (1) a telephoto lens is really hard to balance in low light, and (2) animals don't like to sit still while you fiddle with settings.  I also learned that muskrats are evil creatures but more on that later. I had just about finished attempting to focus on moving ducks when a small buck and doe walked out to the edge of the pond.  Of course by that time it was dark enough and far enough that very few of my pictures came out. A muskrat has taken up residence in the pond and taunted me by submerging just as I focused a frame and finally reappearing at the exact spot I was sitting as I headed home.  Out of 99 pictures I ended up with 12 keepers.  I was so frustrated especially because I had so many good frames that didn't come out in focus.  Even though I managed to shoot my first deer (and it's bigger than my brother's first), I plan on going back soon when there's a little more light, and maybe a box to hold my camera steady.

Sunset

The Ducks

My First Buck

Little Buck and a Little Doe

I really wanted a close up of a froggie but I couldn't hold the camera still enough

The Pond

Places I Would Rather be on Monday Morning: Finger Lakes Wine Country

Cayuga Ridge Winery, New York

Happy Independence Day USA!

For the first time in years I was able to go home for the 3rd and 4th of July and spend it with my family. The third of July is probably a bigger deal here than the fourth.  We live near one of the smaller Finger Lakes with tons of lake front cottages.  Every year the houses line the water front with flares and shoot off fireworks during the Ring of Fire.  The Ring of Fire comes with BBQ's by the lake with family and friends and horrible traffic on narrow country roads. I had to dig deep into my memory to figure out the back-roads to get home in any sort of reasonable amount of time.  The Fourth is a more low key day, especially in the 95F and humid heatwave we had. One of the advantages of living out in the country is that a lot of people will shoot off their own fireworks during the encouraged lawlessness of the holiday.  I took advantage of our own firework  display to try out some of the firework photography tips I picked up this week from Bethany (Beers and Beans).

SCUBA Julie, Part Two

Some of you will remember that I completed part one of my open water SCUBA certification back in February as part of an effort to start checking things off of my bucket list.  After six weeks of lessons , we still needed to actually go driving in something a bit bigger than a high school pool.  We're required to complete these four open water dives before we can get our certification cards.  For that reason alone, I found myself shivering on the shore of Lake George in the rain on the first weekend of July.  At 7am, fifteen of us were milling around trying to remember how to set up our gear, find a safe dry spot to stash some sweats, and dreading the initial shock of getting into the water.

Hearthstone Campground, Lake George

I had forgotten my weight belt.  I remembered every one of my lead weights but forgot the thick strip of nylon that allowed me to sink below surface and had to ask my instructor for a spare. At that point, I was really wondering if the whole SCUBA certification was worth it.  A couple hours later we took advantage of a break and the rain to suit up and start our first dive.  SCUBA gear is deceptively heavy. The weightlessness of neutral buoyancy is awesome but hauling everything necessary to maintain neutral buoyancy in the water column and live to tell the tell takes work.  After the waddle to the shoreline and balancing act to secure mask and fins, I was anxious to get on with the dive and feel less like an overweight penguin.  What I wasn’t ready for was the chill of 55°F water.  Instant chill.

Prepping for a dive

I was pleased that all of my required skills came back to me fairly quickly.  Every movement would let new cold water flow into my wetsuit so I didn’t want to move anymore than I had too.  There were a few interesting things about our two dives that day.  We saw the body of an airplane with the wings removed which had been sunk specifically for the divers.  There were a handful of fish and the thrill of staying underwater.  By the end of the second dive I was so chilled that I was mistaking fish eggs on water weeds for ice crystal coatings.

One of the hardest things about that day was waiting the necessary amount of time before I could take a hot shower.  Exposing yourself to hot water too quickly after diving can cause the residual nitrogen in your blood to be released too quickly causing the bends.  We were told that we could take “warm” showers but I didn’t trust myself to have that kind of control when I was that cold.  I bided my time by eating piping hot soup and watch shows about tropical coral reefs for several hours. Finally I was able to drain the hot water tank and raise my core temperature back to normal.

Duckies!

 Sunday morning came far too early and dreary.  As I made my way north to Lake George, my ears blocked due to some minute change in altitude.  When I arrived at our dive site they were still blocked.  Not good.  Until my ears cleared I couldn’t dive for fear of rupturing my eardrum or worse.  There were five other students who were nursing discomfort from the previous day too.  Three other students plus me were out of the water for at least the third dive,  I settled in to watch at least the first dive from land and quickly became bored.  There was a family of ducks that could keep my attention for a few minutes at a time.  Most of my time was spent watching everyone else’s bubbles raise to the surface.  Have I ever mentioned that patience isn’t my strong suite? I immediately went to work at getting my ear cleared.   

Navigating back to shore

 By the time my group came out of their open water dive three, I was pushing to try getting in the water and completing the course that day.  The top layer of water was slightly warmer thanks to the lack of rain that day.  My dive three was a quicker one to get me caught up with the rest of the group.  This time I wasn’t immediately frozen and found that I had an easier time controlling my buoyancy, making the dives much more enjoyable.  The fourth and final dive was trouble from the get-go.  As soon as we descended enough silt had been kicked up that it was impossible to see two inches in front of your face.  I couldn’t see my dive buddy and only saw the instructor when he suddenly appeared directly in front of my mask to test my mask removal skills.  I was so happy to move away from the cloud and then we started going deeper.  Deeper water always means colder temperatures.  It was interesting gliding along the bottom of a lake but the cold was getting to me.  At one point I realized that I was pulling my upper lip up to try to protect it from the cold and causing my mask to leak.  Not fun.  However, the knowledge that we were on our last dive made the frigid cold slightly more bearable. When we finally surfaced I was so relieved.  I had finished my PADI open water certification! Yes, stubbornness and impatience when it came to watch everyone else finish played a large role in it, but it was done!  I was also never so happy to be wearing sweatpants in June.

Certified Open Water Diver - only partially frozen

I think I’ll focus on warm water diving next.

SCUBA Julie, Part One

I'm going to put it out there. Like many of the swimmers I've met, I'm terrified of drowning.  We're talking recurring-nightmare-where-you-almost-die terrified. (Have psych people ever figured out why people have those?) I have no idea why so many people who are, in fact, GOOD swimmers are so scared of drowning but there you go.  Perhaps it is this underlying fear that made me so excited to learn SCUBA, literally breathing underwater.

SCUBA Julie

Through a series of very generous gifts from my family, I was able to sign up for a PADI Open Water course and tackle my first item on my adventure bucket list.  After completing this class I can dive anywhere in the world at a depth of up to 60ft as long as I have another certified diver with me.  I took my class with Seguin's SCUBA Center over six intense weeks.  5 hours of class, including 3 hours in the pool, after a full day's work is especially tiring.  That being said, I had a blast doing it.

Personal Gear

The class is made up of a combination of classroom and practical lessons.  Classroom lessons came with 60+ pages of reading a week and homework.  Each week there was a quiz at the end of class and a final exam at the end of the course.  There are a lot of warnings and 'what to do if this goes wrong' lessons but given that you're an airbreather underwater you're thankful to know it.  I will warn you that some of the explanations offered for changing pressure and how a compass works will make you cringe a little bit if you are familiar with these phenomena but it's not worth trying to correct anyone.  The part that I found most interesting was calculating how long you can safely stay at a give depth.

Class Photo

In the pool, every time we went under, I had to tell myself to keep breathing.  It's easier to breathe through a regulator underwater than above water which made it a little bit easier.  Surprisingly the most difficult part was the actual swimming in SCUBA gear.  You're caring a hefty amount of weight between the weight belt and the gear, and you want to be somewhere in the water column instead of the top or bottom.  The first week we were allowed in the deep end, I was either on the bottom of the pool or on the surface.  By the last week, I could show off a little bit more.

 

 All of my instructors and divemasters were knowledgeable with great sense of humor.  We learned every single skill in that book and practiced until we could do it right.  We had joked with each other and learned extra skills such as blowing bubble donuts.  We're not done yet though.  In June we complete part two by doing a weekend of open-water dives at Lake George.

Pass the Latkes!

Lighting the candles

 In between the end of the semester and millions of dollars of corporate advertising, it's easy to be distracted from the rest of the holidays during this time of the year.  The night before my 48-hour escape from Troy, I went to my first Hanukkah party since I was in Mrs. Hunter's pre-school class. The party was one of the most multicultural affairs I've ever been too.  Chinese, Korean, Thai, Irish, South African, and American, everyone showed up to eat latkes and light the Hanukiah on the third night of Hanukkah.  Our hosts were the newly wedded Israeli scholar from my lab and his blushing bride.  Eyal started us off with the picture book version of the story of Hanukkah. 

Hanukiah

To summarize, the Greeks had conquered Jerusalem and taken control of the Second Temple.  The Hebrews rallied and reclaimed their temple.  The Temple was cleaned and repaired but there was only enough oil for the Menorah (lamp) to burn for one day.  The lamp oil took eight days to prepare so the victorious Hebrews were still in a predicament.  Miraculously, one-day's worth of oil continued to burn for the full eight days required to procure more oil.  Eyal made us all chuckle when he went on the quip that every Jewish holiday can be summarized as 'We were few. They were many. We defeated them. Let's eat.' The last part crosses every culture I've encountered.  Even holidays that begin with fasting end with a really good meal. 

B'tey a'von - Hebrew for "Bon Appetit"

We each got a dreidel to take home

We definitely had a good meal..  There were piles of latkes, scalloped corn, and spreads for crackers and latkes.  Dessert featured cookies and cupcakes.  With everyone well fed and watered, everyone started sharing their personal holiday traditions and trying to play dreidel.  Interesting but of Hanukkah trivia: the symbols on the dreidel are an acronym to acknowledge the roots of Hanukkah in the Temple of Jerusalem.  Dreidels in Israel say "a great miracle happened here" and dreidels outside of Israel read "a great miracle happened there."  It's surprisingly difficult to get them spinning correctly. At one point one of the girls was trying to play jacks with the dreidels.  I remember learning how to play the game in school years ago but all I could remember was there's a symbol for putting all your pieces in the pot and one for putting half your pieces in.  What those symbols were or what the other two indicate were beyond me. We stayed out later than anyone was expecting but everyone left full and happy. I personally believe that the best part of the winter holiday season is sharing traditions and becoming a closer community.

Photo Credit: All photos are courtesy of Ang. Thank you!

Keeping in Classy: The Nutcracker Ballet

 

 2011 Proctors Nutcracker Commercial

I can still remember the day when my mother and grandmother took me to see The Nutcracker Ballet as a little girl.  For over a decade, when the holiday football games started I would go in the other room and bust out our VHS copy of the New York City Ballet performance.  The last few holiday seasons I've wanted to see the ballet in theater again.  Last year I tried to get tickets in early November but all of the performances were already sold out.  So when Proctors theater released its schedule over the summer, I quickly sent out a message looking for someone to accompany me.  My friend Erica had never seen the ballet and volunteered to come along.  I bought our tickets in August and I was still pressed to find tickets in the sections I wanted.

Right before opening curtain

Two weeks before Christmas, we put on our nice clothes and set off for the theater.  This was one of the reasons I was psyched to go to the ballet.  With my lack of natural grace I avoid wearing clothes I like to lab for risk of acid stains, and make-up is a big no-no in the clean room (rouge and lithography don't go together).  As nice as we looked, we had nothing on the young girls in their Christmas dresses.  It's really hard to beat the excitement of a girl in a velvet dress with a big ribbon at her first ballet.

Theater draped in garlands

Proctors is an ornate old 1920s theater which vividly reminds me of the Auditorium theater in Rochester, NY. The walls and balconies are decorated with red seats reminiscent of skinnier days.  We had awesome seats in center orchestra about half way back (buy holiday show tickets during the summer!).  We had a perfect view of the stage but we weren't going anywhere quickly.  The Northeast Ballet Company with Wendy Whelan and Charles Askegard  from the New York City Ballet preformed the classic childhood tale.  It took me a minute to adjust to the director's vision of the ballet which differed from the 1993 VHS of the NYCB I grew up watching. The Nutcracker character played a fairly minor role, compared to other versions I've seen, and only appeared during the opening scenes.  One especially nostalgic thing for me was watching Wendy Whelan as the Sugar Plum Fairy.  She was Arabian Coffee in my trusting recording and one of my favorite dancers.  To see her preform live after all of these years was a really treat.  The kids throughout the performance were adorable. This one little boy, who couldn't be more than 4 years old, was completely adorable.  He was tiny compared to the rest of the kids and always appeared the be where he was supposed to be but in that clumsy grace of very small child.  He easily could have stolen the show.

                                                                                              

Keepsake from the Ballet with my Grandma

After a two hour ballet highlighting the sweets of the holidays, the only logical thing to do was go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. It's like of law of the Cheesecake Factory that if you eat there you much order cheesecake.  So after a decent-sized meals, we both ordered chocolatey cheesecake and managed to take about two bites before admitting defeat and wrapping up the rest. At the end of the day we felt like happy, well-sugared munchkins excited for the Christmas season which is all I could ask for on a Sunday two weeks before Christmas.

Lights in the Park

Every businesses in the Capital Region sponsor an all-out display of Christmas lights in Albany's Washington Park.  The week before Christmas, my old roommate, Gracie, and I wet for a  boost of "good will" after several frustrating work days.  Two peppermint hot chocolates and a few dollars later, we driving down the enchanted trail with the rest of the minivans, SUVs, and a party bus(!?!) admiring the giant displays.  During the weekend the line of traffic is bumper to bumper.  However, things were moving along at a good clip making it really difficult to photography the displays. Here are some of my favorite shots that came out - ish:

Santa's workshop

Horton helping to pass out presents

Friendly Dragon

Snow Palace

Demonic Hockey Players

Life Lessons in multicolored LEDs

Places I Would Rather be on Monday Morning: Manhattan Sunset

Hudson River Greenway, Manhattan

Places I Would Rather Be on Monday Morning: Chilling with Christmas Spirit

My favorite place during the holidays: Close to the Christmas tree with a blanket and hot cocoa

Oh Christmas Tree!!

After a quick cost/benefit analysis, I decided it was a better choice to get a real Christmas tree for the next couple years than an artificial tree.  Immediately around the holidays I'm flitting from one city to the next in an effort to see the family so I decided to get the tree set up early for maximum holiday enjoyment.

When I was growing up, going to cut down the Christmas tree meant a five minute ride and loading the tree in a full-size pickup truck and any required tools available in the garage. I should have known I was getting myself into trouble when the closest Christmas tree farm I could find was 30 minutes away. Nevertheless, Saturday afternoon the Dave and I set out on the Northway in my Toyota Corolla to retrieve my Christmas tree. The drive to Ellm's tree farm was uneventful save the encouraging sight of minivans and SUVs (you know cars with roof racks) carrying their prize evergreens away from the direction we were headed.  Did I mention I have a corolla?  At this point, I was mildly concerned by how we were going to transport this tree to my apartment with reenacting an Allstate Mayhem commercial.  I'm hoping an engineer and a Ph.D. candidate can figure something out.

Committing to the Tree

 The farm was much busier than I was expecting for the first weekend of December.  The tree farm was humming like a well-oiled machine.  Hayrides shuttled tree hunters twenty tree-hunters to and from the lots.  We hopped on the trolley and set-off to find the perfect Fraser fir.  I may have dragged Dave around half of the tree farm to look at every Fraser fir I could find.  Too tall.  Too fat.  Crooked trunk.  Too short.  Not enough branches.  Too many dead needles.  Finally, as the sun was setting, we found THE tree.  Not too tall with plenty of strong branches.  Dave kindly cut it while I was distracted by the golden retriever puppy in the next row.  I did help get the tree over to the trolley stop where the fluffy puppy was trying to trying to kill a stick larger than it.  It was so cute barking and jumping at the stick as it tried to pick it up but it was too big.

The farmhands were great. An assembly line unloaded the trees, shook off the loose needles and leaves, measured, tagged, and baled the trees within minutes of the trolleys arriving.  I was so charmed by being away from Troy and being helped by people in worn Carhartts and Timberlands that I did a double take when the girl had me use a cash register app on an iPad to pay for the tree.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that enough a rustic looking tree farm is online these days.

Complimentary hot chocolate was part of the tree package and it was chilly.  We decided to put the tree in the car and then go after our refreshments.  Walking to the car I noticed my keys weren't in the pocket I usually stick them in.  I stepped aside to properly dig through my purse when I glanced in the driver-side window and say my lanyard.  Not only had I left my car unlocked...I had left the keys in the ignition.  Good thing we weren't in Troy.  Feeling a little foolish, the next question was how to get the tree home.  Thankfully I erred on the side of short and the baled tree fit inside the car, stretching from boot to gear-shifter but inside.  (It still smells like Christmas tree.)

At my apartment, we needed to shorten the trunk a little bit more.  I don't own a saw.  I did manage to borrow one, a dulling hacksaw.  Not the ideal tool for the job. With a little teamwork and trading off at sawing, we were able to cut through the massive four inch trunk. Dave had the idea to put the tree in the stand before taking it inside.  At least we didn't have to deal with the ceiling for that part.  I cut the baling twine and the tree sprung open.  I also didn't have clippers to trim the top for the star, so we improvised with kitchen shears. Putting on the lights was probably the easiest they will ever be since they came straight out of the box.  Dave and I decorated the tree with ornaments from my childhood to ornaments I made special for this tree.  When we finished, Dave put the star up.  

Finished Product

Adding the Final Touches

I plugged in the lights and we gazed at our handy work for a minute before half of the string of blinking lights stopped blinking.  At that point I didn't care.  Everything was finally on the tree and staying there.  Now, every once in a while, the whole strand will blink for a minute before the one half gives up again.  I'm still so glad we ventured out to get a real tree.  It makes the apartment feel so much more festive and homey.  The technical difficulties just makes the story that much more memorable.

Happy with Our Tree

Foliage Findings in Wine Country

Seasons are built in changes in scenery.  I was once told that the four seasons in New York State are: almost winter, winter, still winter, and construction. Despite the tales of never-ending winter, there four distinct scene changes in Upstate. Over the last two weeks the trees have started to change colors.  We're approaching peak leaf-peeping season, or, for those not from the northeast, driving out to the country and to look at the pretty colors. In Upstate New York there are untold numbers of roads, parks, and trails to admire the technicolor forests.

As beautiful as this time of year is, I find myself the most frustrated when trying to pictures of the dramatic scenes around me.  I am by no means anything more than a shutter-happy amateur when it comes to photography.  Just the same, I always feel like the detains are lacking in my attempts to capture the elaborate color palette of the fall.

Mountain overlooking Warwick Valley Winery

With the threat of all the leaves disappearing and particularly stressful work weeks behind us, my friend Erica and I set off through the woods, literally, to Warwick Valley Winery and Distillery.  Depending on which way you come from there are some seriously winding roads to get there but the view is fantastic.

Road to the winery

Cayuga Lake was my first wine tasting experience back in September and I underestimated how busy the winery would be on a Sunday afternoon.  The tasting bars did a good job keeping the masses in order and happy.  The tasting itself was a good deal ($5 for seven samples of wine and cider plus a souvenir glass) but it was obvious that the main reason you go to Warwick Valley is to spend the day.  Everyone from the locals to Manhattan escapees were claiming tables and blankets on the lawn armed with a bottle from the winery/distillery shop and munching on food from the cafe.

Back garden of Tasting Room and Shop

It was sweater weather at its finest as Erica and I enjoyed hard apple cider and baked brie surrounded by orange and yellow maples.  I got out my trusty point-and-shoot, and tried to snap some decent pictures but they still don't do the colors justice. The relaxed and picturesque environment was just what we needed and the cider didn't hurt either.  I can't wait to go back for an artisan pizza and wine, and maybe attempt some more artistic photos.