Frustration

So, finally the community college I'm going to got around to posting the class schedule for next semester.  Registration starts on Thursday.  And, well, for every class I need there is only one section offered, and it is in the evening.  Which means, if I took the classes I needed, I will be gone from home 4 nights a week.  Not good.  In fact, that is unacceptable.  So what do I do...

1. take fewer classes so I'm only gone 2 nights a week, but then almost guarantee that I won't graduate while I'm in New Jersey, and so have to transfer again (5 different schools instead of 4 but hey, who is counting)?
2. not take any classes and, I don't know, stay at home, or get a job during the day?
3. Try at this late time to get accepted to a 4 year college?  (Theoretically could be done, but application deadlines are very close, and the three that are close by, Rutgers, NJIT, and Ramapo are all pretty competitive).  Also way more expensive.
4.  Take classes that I don't really need for my major during the day.
5. Go ahead and take all the classes, no one really needs me at home during the week at all anyway.

I'm just really in a complaining mood.  I know that finishing my degree is hard, it has always been hard, I just don't know why it has to keep getting harder and harder.
I'm just so frustrated.

What is it?

So Adena and I went to go clothes shopping, but the mall was packed, not a parking space anywhere, and bumper-to-bumper traffic in and out. So we didn't even bother to go in.  On the way home we decided to stop at an antique shop in the town next to ours that we had seen many times, but was always closed.  After tearing ourselves away from the very tempting set of the complete works of Mark Twain (make an offer) published in 1899, we were greeted by the two ladies that had owned the shop for years.  They said hello, then half to us and half to eachother debated whether or not our presence meant that they should get up.  We assured them that they were fine where they were, we were just looking.  The shop had typical antique shop stuff, linens, glassware, a few pieces of old furniture.  But Adena found a few tin boxes she liked, and I found something wonderful.  It was labled "what is it, but it's old $25". 

The ladies in the store said that they had found it in the attic of the building when they bought the shop.  The attic is crammed with stuff, and they just take some of it out once in a while and put it in the shop.  I am now the proud owner of the "what is it".

Be careful what you wish for...

You know the old story about the couple that was given three wishes then the squandered them on stupid things, and ended up with nothing?

Well on Monday, Christine and I were driving around a packed parking lot, could not find a space anywhere.  Christine mentioned something that she wished for, and I replied.  "I just wish I could find a parking space!"  I turn a corner and bam! there is a parking space near the front of the store right in front of me.  Ever since then, no matter where I go, no matter how busy the parking lot, I have been able to find one in the first two rows.  Yesterday at the busy grocery store, on the street in front of the butcher shop, picking up Ian from preschool.  Great parking no matter where I go. 

I tried to immediately wish for gold bars, but so far, nothing.

Museums

We only have 2-3 years here, and so much to see, so we really need to get to it.  Doug got a little bonus this week, which ended up being just enough to buy a membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.  Now we can go for a year for free!  (Well not free, parking is $30 at least and it costs $8 to cross the bridge into the city, and believe it or not, that is the cheapest way to get to the city). 

The Museum in mind boggling just in its size.  Really it is bigger than I can comprehend.  It has more room dedicated to stairways than many museums have in total square footage. 

The museum has this terrific map for children, so we told Ian to point to something he wanted to see and we would go find it.
We first went to Egyptian wing to see some mummies, Ian was relieved that they didn't really wake up and wander around moaning, but did think that he wouldn't like to be around when they got resurrected. 

Then he picked a Rembrandt portrait on the totally other side of the museum.  On the way we came across this terrific painting.  Isn't that charming?

Then he picked the Greek wing, and we realized he was just picking the thing furthest from where we were, anyway I had to override him because on the way to the paintings I caught a glimpse of this:

The gold statue in the center is by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and the archway on the right is designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Had to go there.

On very few occasion something is so overwhelmingly beautiful I literally get weak in the knees.  I just sat on the edge of the fountain in the picture just to take it in. 

Here's a close up of the pillars

We spent all day between this museum and the museum of natural history, and just scratched the surface.  Can't wait to go back.

So I'm finally updating....

After watering the lawn, making breakfast, checking facebook, emailing people, checking all the blogs on google reader and playing 3 different computer games, my house is STILL full of cardboard boxes, so clearly I need to update my blog.  Maybe that will do the trick.  If not I will have to resort to UNPACKING which would be pretty tragic. 

So we live in a small town, which we love. I usually think of living in a small town as a town in the middle of fields or mountains with nothing around it.  This small town is surrounded by lots of other small towns and beyond that is NYC. 

Something I really love about our house is that there is a church a block away with a bell tower that chimes every hour.  How cool is that?

 Just down the street is a nice library, it is smallish, but has a nice collection and the kids can easily walk to it.

We are also two blocks away from the the elementary and middle school, which is nice.

So far we have only met one of our neighbors, but waved at a lot of people walking by.  There are always people walking by, which means either that people walk A LOT in this neighborhood (even at midnight) or that people are just walking by to check out the new neighbors.

Sorry about no pictures, but I bought the wrong size batteries for my camera.

So I was taking a nap today...

And I wake up and Doug is home, at about 4:30, which is pretty early. 

He asks what time we had lunch

I said 1 o'clock. 

He says, well I was thinking about an early dinner in Hoboken. 

Hoboken, why Hoboken? 

So we can go for dessert afterward.

So we drive about 20 minutes to Hoboken and go to Grimaldi's pizza.  I love good pizza, shortly after Adena was born we go pizza at a place called DeLoretto's in Salt Lake city, and I loved it.  There was a pizza place in Florida we loved too, but nothing holds a candle to this pizza.  The crust was thin but doughy, the sauce actually tasted like tomatoes, and the cheese was white and thick.  It was amazing.

We had about a 7 block walk to Carlo's, the bakery on "Cake Boss".  We got there about 6:00 and the line streched down the block and into the next block.  After half an hour later, we were giddy because we got to cross the street!  Another half and hour and we realized that the parking meter was going to run out, so Doug ran back to give it more quarters.  By about 7:15 we were finally allowed into the store and given a number.  The smell of the store was amazing.  Almost as good as our house smells after one of Doug's baking days.  Every once in a while, some other delicious smell would come wafting through.

The cases are filled with cakes, trays and trays of cookies, and a case in the corner holds the custom cakes people have ordered.  Today there was one that was 4 layers with the NYC skyline on it.  It was amazing.

So we don't want to go overboard, so we only bought:

A Chocolate Buttercream cake

3 Cannoli, A red velvet cup cake and 2 dozen cookies.

Here's the cool thing; this guy could charge anything he wanted for this stuff, people are waiting for and hour every day to get into his shop, but for all of that it was less than $50, which I think is pretty reasonable.

So how was it?  The texture was velvety, the frosting was creamy and chocolatey, with lighter and milder chocolate flavor on the outside and a darker chocolate frosting in the middle.  Yeah, it was good.

Just one more note,  the people that worked there had to deal with a crazy busy shop all day long, and they were so friendly patient and helpful, it really made the whole thing so nice.

Thoughts on the Indian Wars

For long trips, we try to locus out stops on a theme.  Not everything is associated with the theme but it is a general guide.  The theme for this trip has been the Indian Wars.  I knew hardly anything about this topic before this trip, and now I feel that everything I have learned has mostly taught me how little I know.

Over the miles of driving we have discussed what the difference between a battle and a massacre was.  Every battle ground we have been the (even Little Bighorn) started with the army surrounding and attacking an Indian village early in the morning. As unethical as a surprise attack in the early morning seems, I not sure that makes what happened afterwards a massacre. 

The incident at Sand Creek in south-eastern Colorado in 1864 (even before the end of the Civil War) was early enough to set the tone for the later indian wars.  I felt that this incident was a massacre because of these factors.
-most of the "soldiers" were untrained volunteers that were rallied for 100 days to avenge the death of a family killed by indians
-the casualties were disproportionate--12 soldiers to at least 160 indians
-women and children seem to have been killed with the same impunity as fighting men
-the bodies of the dead were mutilated

One soldiear wrote:
"I refused to fire and swore taht no one but a coward would, for by this time hundreds of women and cildren were coming towards us and getting on their knees for mercy"
News of the Sand Creek Massacre spread throughout the Indian territories and to the east. Unfortunatley it set the tone for more than a decade.