Vicarious Fireplaces

I grew up in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York.  When it was cold, our apartment was heated by radiators.  I didn’t think anything of it.  With the exception of a few friends who had homes off of Rogers Avenue as you get closer to Empire Boulevard, all of my friends lived in apartments.  I only ever remember going to a classmate’s house once, and I’d visit relatives out in Patchogue, Long Island during the summer, but those visits took place in the summer, so I wasn’t thinking about heat. 

Not so much in my neighborhood now, although I do live in the suburbs, but mostly when I’m driving Serena to gymnastics on Wednesday and Thursday nights, I have the pleasure of passing homes with fireplaces.  I LOVE the smell of fireplaces, and when we’re able to go to our special little bed and breakfast in the Poconos, it’s so great to be able to sit in front of the fireplace.  It’s just so cozy! I would love to have a fireplace in our home, but getting to be around one sometimes is also pretty nice.  

One of the most heartbreaking things for me recently is, after wanting to go to the winter celebration at our special bed and breakfast in the Poconos for the past four years, having reservations for the weekend of December 1^st for the special holiday dinner, and fantasizing about sitting in front of the fireplace when it’s actually cold, and not in the spring when we usually go for our anniversary, we realized that we actually won’t be able to go that weekend. Sigh.  

Wouldn’t it be so nice to have a money tree? That way, when we have to unexpectedly drop over $1K to fix Dishon’s car, and another $1K to fix my fractured tooth, it wouldn’t derail romantic weekends like this one. I'm keeping hope alive, though.  Maybe something miraculous will happen in the next week, and we'll still be able to go. I'm going to hold on to that reservation until we absolutely have to cancel. If we aren't able to go, there’s always next December . . .  :(  I guess, then, vicarious fireplaces will have to continue to suffice.  

The Amazing Race Weekend

On Saturday, October 27th, Randolph had its first Amazing Race as a part of our Harvest Hoopla.  We started out at Powers Farm, which is a new gathering place in the town where there’s a little playground, lots of green space, a walking trail, a covered picnic area, etc.  This was the first year for the Amazing Race.  The rules stated that no one on our team could be behind the wheel of a car at any time.  Since the buses don’t run regularly on Saturdays, and taking a taxi all over town would be costly, we decided to walk everywhere.  It wasn’t really fair, because there were teams of teenagers who had their parents drive them around to collect the clues.  In retrospect, we probably could’ve had  Dishon drive us, since the teams could be as smaller as three, and at least one person under 18, but I’m glad we didn’t use a car.

Higashi School

Our first clue led us to the Boston Higashi School.  This was really challenging because the exit was closer to where we were coming from, so we went in that way on foot, and we encountered a man who works for the Higashi school who told us that the folks at the school didn’t know anything about the race.  We thought we were at the wrong school, and started to head in another direction, but then some of the other participants had mercy on us and told us we were headed the wrong way.  The person with the next clue was at the entrance to the Higashi School, so we went back to get the clue, but lost quite a bit of time. 

Zapustas

 

The next site was Daddy’s Dairy.  Unfortunately, it was here that both kids started to complain about being tired, and we had just begun!  If we had known that we’d be doing so much walking (we didn’t know about the no driving rule until we were at Powers Farm), we would definitely had given Serena her inhaler and brought along bottles of water, but we’ll do that next year.  The next clue was verbal, and took us across town to the Zapustas Ice Arena.  There we took a bathroom break and bought lots of bottles of water from the snack bar.  

The next clue was hidden at the Elks Hall.  That clue took us to the new Memorial Field where Dishon represented the family well by kicking a soccer goal (we chose between that and a field goal).  We passed by one of the teams heading back to Powers Farm, so although we were encouraged when we saw lots of envelopes remaining at each of the sites, seeing that team heading back at that point reminded us that we were really just in it for the fun of it :).

Randolph High

  

Fire Station

The next clue led us to the pool at the HS where we had to guess how many pieces of candy corn were in a jar, and the count was the combination for the locker that contained our next clue, so we had to be precise.  The next clue took us to the fire station, and then finally back near the track where we had to choose between hitting two 3-point shots, or five 2-point shots.  We opted for the latter, and Dishon represented our family well yet again.  There was a school bus that ultimately would take us back to Powers Farm, but we decided to just go ahead and walk.  By the time we ended up back at Powers Farm, we didn’t even know where to go, because so many of the teams had already finished, and lots of other activities were going on.  So, we didn’t get the $500 prize, the $250 prize, or the dinner and a movie, but we had fun (or, at least Dishon and I did).  Next year we may have to kick our shorties to the curb, and find another person to complete our team, and let the kids just cheer us on :). 

The rest of that night was a lot of fun, too!  We were interested in the hot air balloon, but since Hurricane Sandy was coming, the weather prevented the balloon from going up, but isn’t it beautiful?  We had pizza for lunch, and after a nap, the kids got dressed up (Serena was Supergirl, and Cairo was the Green Lantern), went to the Haunted Hayride (we had the option between scary and not-so-scary, but we went all in for scary), and then to Trunk or Treat at Imagination station.  We figured that at least if Halloween was interrupted by the hurricane, the kids would have some candy.

We were at home together because of the hurricane on Monday, but thankfully, we never lost power, and didn’t experience any flooding.  It was still a little stressful, because the wind was fierce, and we are surrounded by very large pine trees.  But all was well, and our prayers go out to all who suffered loss :(.