Lunch with Kari and her sister at the Tasty Hot Pot for some great food and a visit with our student, Siyu, whose family owns the restaurant. Kari picked out the drinks and food.
No skiing pics from vacation.
Living in a college town means lots of friends who come into our lives for a year or two and then move on. The most recent was a student at the high school who has appeared in Banjoeblog a few times. Talia came with her family while her dad did a stint at Cornell. She was a treat to teach, and she was my companion on the walk to school for a month when she became a neighbor in January. This was the first time I've had company for my commute, and despite her being notoriously late, we only got to school after the first bell once. I don't think I ever had to wait more than 10 minutes for her, but one day I got to the bottom of the hill 30 seconds before her. She laughed and said, "You're late."
The pressure was on when she agreed to leave the house an hour early so we could take in a chimes concert on the way. We made it and she got to try out the levers and enjoy the view.
Emma stayed over at her house for the last night and joined us for the last walk. I put her in charge of getting them out the door.
That evening, I stopped by to say a proper farewell, she didn't have time to walk home because she still needed to pack. She rushed out of our classroom after two going away parties to catch the bus home without so much as a tearful goodbye. She was finishing up the packing with her sister and mother with an anxious friend trying to coax them to along and get to the airport in time. That last bag needed some coaxing to close. I carried all the bags down to the cars without too much coaxing.
Back in Israel with her cat after 18 months.
Talia managed to learn a few banjo tunes from me in between school, skiing, track, travel, and other clubs and activities. I'm looking for a new banjo student and Timur likes how he looks holding it but isn't too interested in learning. We'll see.
Gail and I visited another new spot for both of us. The Bock-Harvey Preserve was gifted to the Finger Lakes Trail Conference in 2013.
We also did the road walk over to the Land Trust's Stephenson Preserve. It sure would be nice if a neighboring property owner would allow the FLT to route between the two, but there are some nice open views along the road. The preserve provides a nice view too, without cars and trucks flying past. The hills behind us are across the county at Hammond Hill in Dryden.
On the way home we stopped to check on the progress of a friend's new house. We just missed Jim and learned later in the day that he got his occupancy permit. If he's lucky, maybe Gail will show up at his stove again.
I was saddened when David Crosby died. I did see CSN in Buffalo once (The Band opened). I missed him the last time he played in Ithaca. His recent music that I've heard has been quite good. I don't see much of Twitter, but I enjoyed checking on his posts once in a while, mainly because I agreed with him (the purpose of Twitter), but his humor was sharp up to the end.
I have recently recovered a photo on a related topic. I took this one when Janet and I rode our bikes around Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.
No question about Roxy getting settled into life on Columbia St. She survived unscathed an attack by a neighbor dog, just a bad tear to her coat that Gail was able to sew up. It's getting rarer to walk her somewhere new.
She and I went up to Hospicare one morning where the pond has been drained so we ventured out onto the muck. Hadn't been to that general area or specific spot before.
She insisted on getting all artsy up at Cornell one morning.
Winter has been far from typical this year, but one spell gave us a taste of notable cold. We had five days with a low in single digits, and two days it reached -12 F. Neither set a record, but one day the high didn't reach the 30-year normal low temp, so that was cool. It came with just enough snow to get some skiing in, but a long hike in the gorge was the highlight.
Based on the forecast, I tried to stir up some excitement for a road trip to Mt. Washington, but got no takers.
I love getting to see the mist blow back up over the dam like this. Lots of factors have to line up.
Gail and her cold-water companions waited a couple days before things warmed up to get into the creek.
Connie is breaking our hearts by moving to NYC. Now we'll have to meet up with her at Coney Island or something.
The Great Lakes are hurting for ice cover. This could lead to hurting for water as this can lead to significantly more evaporation than normal. Buffalo is grateful there hasn't been another blizzard, but there is still time.
