Category Archives: Jaunts

1/6/2021 – Wednesday – visit with Andrea and insurrection in the capitol

Visit with Andrea, Noah & Nyla

Drove to Sagaponack in the Hamptons on the south fork of the eastern tip of Long Island. 4 hour drive (199 miles). Andrea bought a house here at a bargain price earlier in the year.  Arrived for lunch, chats with Andrea, Noah and Nyla, tour of the house and a visit to the beach. Continue reading

12/6/2020 – Sunday – walk, Leiden Zoom, dinner with Dave and Hazel

Snow on the Catskills already….

Went for a walk. Not our usual  route. Down  to  the Promenade, then on to the water  treatment  plant,  up 2nd to Robinson. At end of 3rd walk down steep hill and back up to Washington St. At the Fire Station walked around to County Social Services building this revealed a path across the eastern end of Oakdale Park. Through the woods to clamber on up to Oakwood Blvd. Along Oakdale Beach on 6th St on to Warren and then home. 3 1/2miles.On Robinson St.

Past the County Social Services bldg. to the path around the eastern end of Oakdale Park.

A lot of this was new territory for us. And new perspectives on well know ground.

Zoom with the kids in Leiden

Jesse scored in the top ranks for selection to the high schools in Leiden.

Dinner with Dave and Hazel

Karen roasted a beer can chicken, made tomatoes and cabbage stew, and I made faro. Dave brought his homemade butter nut pecan ice cream. Temperature was 30 degrees. Dinner lasted for 1 1.2 hours. With the 2 hours with Ted and Anne Saturday looks like a tank of gas lasts for around 4 hours.


More Brokenwood tv

11/27/2020 – Friday – Dermatology, walk, tennis

Drove Karen up to East Greenbush for a reading of the biopsy on her upper lip. Fortunately the results are fairly benign. A pre-cancer finding. Now hopefully successfully eradicated through a cryogenic procedure.

Drove to Papscanee Island Nature Preserve for a walk. This park is located on the Hudson River in New Castleton, NY. 3.5 mile walk. Flat with occasional muddy section on the trail. Nice to be walking in a new environment.
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There must have been a very strong wind storm recently. Whole trees blown down….


Tennis with Ted in the afternoon. Esther Hanig drink at 5:30 via Zoom. Post Thanksgiving debrief…..

4/30/2020 – 7/1/2020

I have not felt motivated to write much during this period. The pandemic and its associated tribulations interfere.

We’ve been quite busy with socializing mainly virtually but with warm weather outdoors chiefly people’s backyards. We’ve moved our drinks with Ted and Anne to our backyards on a weekly schedule. Dave Drake has come by for food a number of times. He is working his way through a myriad of curry dishes. Zoom meetings weekly with Esther Hanig, Ellen Feldman, Dave Drake, the Orton siblings, the Leiden crew. 

With less regularity Andrea and company have Zoomed and appeared here physically. Though we have seen Noah and Nyla twice now in the backyard once including Noah’s girlfriend Kiara Guyton. Andrea actually talked with us for almost two hours in a singe stretch. Probably my longest conversation with her in decades. Nyla wrote a great high school essay, “Aunt Jemima Ain’t Chure Mammy”

3/18 – 4/7/2020 – Coronavirus Isolation

Wednesday 3/18/2020

Hudson Area Library closes; all programs stop.

Friday 3/20/2020

Gov. Cuomo announces shit down of all non-essential businesses.

Saturday 3/21/2020

HAL hold first online Board of Trustees meeting; library closed

Tuesday 4/7/2020

Today marks the end of the third week of isolation. Excepting for a couple of trips to the grocery, bank, and liquor store we have had no contact with any one closer than 6 feet.

Walks

Fortunately for us we have been taking daily walks, sometimes lengthy enough to be called hikes. It has been remarkable how few people we see during these walks. You might think that people would be getting out for exercise, air, nature…. maybe this reflects how sedentary we have become as a society. Our walks have mainly featured a route up Warren St. around the hospital and then back down the hill to home – about 2.5 miles (4K). We have extended and varied this to make it both longer and more challenging. 

Here are reports for a few.

Continue reading

7/28/2019 – tennis, dinner with Sue and Mark Haven

Sunday

Woke up at 5 am. Got up and read more of Stalingrad, coffee, breakfast.

Cindy Weisbart appeared for breakfast along with Karen. Got NYTimes on paper.

Left to practice serve at 9. Probably hit 250 serves. Big focus on tossing the ball very high so that I have to delay my swing and hit up on the ball. Making progress with both flat and slice.

Did gallery duty.

Cindy left for the train at about 1pm. We jumped in car at 2:30 after Pauline Decarmo showed up for gallery sitting. Stopped at Pondside Nursery to consider plants for the backyard just behind the new sun room which ironically receives almost no sun at the level of the plants. Helped by older woman who had taught at Hudson High for a career then went on to teach remedial English at CGCC for another 20 years. She knows Joan Damiani.

Left for Sue and Mark Haven’s house in Lexington, NY in the Catskill Mtns. Since we weren’t due there until 5 pm we drove beyond through Wyndham, Prattsville, Grand Gorge, then to Stamford before tracking back to Lexington and dinner. Excellent time with the Havens. Looked at the vegetable garden in raised beds. Not much there due to hedgehog rampages. Maybe my thinking about a raised bed should focus on flowers? After all we can get excellent veggies at the farmers market here in Hudson every Saturday.

Combination of conversation about aging, photography, children, current politics and good food. Returned home as sky darkened with brilliant red sunset behind us.

7/4/2019 – Bantam, Harvey & Betsy

Thursday – 4th ofJuly

Both of us have colds. Nasty little coughs. Left for Bantam at about 11am.

Arrived to find Harvey on his back in bed in great pain from his back and nerve problems. He roused himself after a while and slowly staggered to the porch and a new reclining chair. We chatted away the afternoon. Big topic was Lena’s mental health problems, most accute in the last few days. She was in mental ward at local hospital for a few days, now enrolled in a six week outpatient program.

Harvey was in continuous pain with no body position proving real relief. Took Vicodin and muscle relaxants.

Carrot Mushroom Loaf in the oven

We had brought a mushroom carrot loaf so we had that with some other veggies for dinner. I didn’t stay up for the fireworks. Got in bed and coughed for a while. Karen and Betsy went down to the dock to watch.