TREVOR "The Games Man"

TREVOR's Blog
November 2008
 
 
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All photos ©2008 Nancy F. Little unless otherwise noted.
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       Saturday, November 1, 2008
   If you read yesterday's entry, you'd know that my lovely wife and I are up in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom for a few days visiting the in-laws.
   Her brother Pete leads a dual existance: he has homes in both Michigan and Vermont and routinely travels between the two. He's in VT for a couple of weeks right now, so we planned a visit while he's within range. (At least that was the ostensible reason for planning a trip three hours north at this exact time, although I'm pretty sure the real reason is that Nancy wanted to see her little niece Chloe in her "Strawberry Fairy" costume yesterday!)
   Today was our last day up here, so after we both finally got out of bed at her parents' place in East Burke VT, we drove the half hour north to spend our last few hours with Pete. Pete has a little homemade cabin on a bunch of acres at the end of a long, winding, mostly uphill, rutted, dirt "driveway" that's really more like a logging road and that my little flatlander vehicle can't make it up in the winter. The photo at left is at the very top and doesn't do it justice because it's one of the best parts.
   But anyways, Pete's property is gorgeous. It includes an awesome multiple-cascade waterfall, beaver ponds, a couple of dead cars abandoned in the woods that are beginning to merge back with it, a HUGE sand cliff, an 18-hole disc golf course through the rough, and a boodle of woods that Pete's cut some pretty cool trails through. 
   Whenever we're there, we always get Pete to lead us on a nature walk through the woods, and today was no exception. We had a great 45-minute figure 8 walk that showed us one of his latest trails and went by the waterfall, too. We liked it a lot.
 
       Sunday, November 2, 2008
   Regular Readers: Do you remember only 9 days ago when I mentioned I got a call from a guy who by chance happened to be one of my landlord's best buddies who booked me to do a delivery for his granddaughter's Taylor's 7th birthday? There was a pic of ← Hannah Montana with that entry because that was to be the theme for Taylor's party so I lucked out in finding a singing Hannah Montana mylar balloon to include with the delivery? Do you remember that?
   Well, it gets better. Just a few days after that, the mom called and booked me for Taylor Perrier's 7th birthday party ...the actual "party" party...  primarily, I think, because Taylor had spent the past several days re-living and re-enacting pretty much everything I did in the 20+ minutes I was at her house for the delivery!
   Nine days ago when I showed up, Taylor and her mom were there with a handful of 3- and 4-year-olds from Taylor's mom's family day care Tiny Toes. This time, however, when I got there there was a backyard just full of both kids and adults eagerly awaiting my show! There were about 15 kids and about an equal number of adults, and pretty much everyone watched my show — even though this particular show was one of my kid shows. (Check out The Party Game Show to see my most popular show for adults!)
   I always like it when the adults watch for several reasons. The first is that I'm glad adults can enjoy my kid shows. The second is that it really helps the kids behave themselves if their parents are right there. And the third is that I just think it's cool that adults often laugh at the same stuff as the kids!
   So young Taylor was really eager to see me again. From the backyard, she caught sight of me out on the street unloading my equipment, and came charging out of the backyard with a whole boodle of kids charging right behind her. CHARGE!
   Luckily, I was ready to join them by the time they all got to me (not to mention that mom called them back!), and we were able to all march right back inside the backyard fence and get ready for the show.
  The Perrier's had some blankets set up in the middle of the backyard for the show, and by the time I finished toting the stuff I needed that far, most of the kids were already seated and grinning with anticipation. So, I did my Aerial Delights Show followed by Parachute Games for the next hour or so. And, once again, even the adults had a good time!
   Afterwards, everyone headed into the basement for cake and ice cream and presents. However, the basement ceiling was so low that my extra tall Cat in the Hat hat hit the ceiling! So I spent the next half hour indoors with my hat tipped way back so I could walk around unimpeded down there!
   And a good time was had by all.
   (Special thanks to dad Nathan Perrier both for the nice tip and his excellent shoe cleaning services!)
 
       Wednesday, November 5, 2008

 I love this woman!
 
       Saturday, November 8, 2008
     This evening was my friend Dave Caputo's — owner/operator of Positronic Designs desktop publishing and website design & hosting— annual November birthday bash: The Scorpion Bowl. The invitation billed it as "Positronic's Annual Fall Rock-n-Roll Business Networking Keg Party... and Celebration of all things Scorpio". Even though this was technically Scorpion Bowl III, this party's been going on for the past six years. Dave invites both his friends and his clients to his home/business for a great kegger with live music, good food, local brew, and good times in his huge old house in Holyoke MA.
     This year, the opening act was Mark Kelso playing tunes on the living room piano. And then for the rest of the night, it was some really funky jam tunes by the Stanley Maxwell Band — a sax-bass-keyboards-drums quartet slamming out the tunes in the basement.
     The party starts at 5:00 p.m. and runs "til the Wee Hours"... and that it does! Me and my best buddy Don left a little after 2:00 a.m. and there was still plenty going on. Years past, I've stayed until dawn with little let-up in the party!
 
       Sunday, November 9, 2008
     Today's excitement was the 10th annual meeting of River Valley Market, our new food co-op in Northampton MA. It doesn't really sound all that exciting, but it was because because this was our first annual meeting since we actually opened our store this past April, so we really have something to celebrate! I was delighted to learn during our General Manager's report that we are meeting or exceeding pretty much every projection, budget benchmark, and membership level we made for ourselves. Yay! She showed us some very interesting graphs and pie charts about sales, costs, and memberships. A HUGE percentage of our member-owners have signed up since our official Grand Opening in October, and sales have been steadily increasing proportionately, too. Yay!
     The last 45 minutes of the meeting, we did a group brainstorm (using The World Café group discussion model) about "What's the Co-op's role in supporting our local Food System? and Where do we want to see the Co-op five years from now?" It was both interesting and kind of thrilling to toss ideas around with other member-owners.
 
       Thursday, November 13, 2008
   Nancy's fairy godmother Joan inherited a house in Weymouth MA. When Nancy went to help her clean in out last week, Joan told her that she could have just about anything in the house she wanted ("except that"). So when Nancy came home and told me that the basement was cram packed with tools, I was anxious to go get some because our summer camp really, really needs tools.
   So today we drove to Weymouth and while I pillaged the basement, the women were upstairs going through the rest of the house. Nancy absolutely was not kidding when she said it was packed with tools because just the workbench that ran along nearly one entire side of the basement was literally a foot deep in tools and other work stuff along it's entire length! And the whole rest of the basement was a variation on that theme. There was so much stuff down there I ended up taking 3 suitcases full, Full, FULL of tools out of that basement... and it didn't look like anything was missing!
   So thank you, Joan. And our summer camp thanks you, too!
 
       Friday, November 14, 2008
     My friends at the Bridge Street Co-op (a housing cooperative in Northampton MA) held a benefit concert/art show/party this evening for PINAC — Poverty Is Not A Crime — a local group fighting City Hall about some rather zealous anti-poor people regulations the city is proposing.
     Four different musical acts performed starting with Orion Star (who I missed because I wasn't there yet), Bucket Benny (a downtown institution we accompanies himself on a compound bucket and kazoo), Primate Fiasco (the headliners, a wonderful new wave dixieland band), and a group that I think spontaneously formed after the Fiasco had finished. 
     Besides the fact that dixieland is just so much fun, one of the things I just love about Primate Fiasco is their repertoire. Sure, the play lots of standard dixieland tunes like Bill Bailey and When the Saints Go Marching In, but they also take lots of songs from other genres — both new and old — and play them in their own inimitable style. So, besides the two songs I just mentioned, they also played the Grateful Dead's U.S. Blues and Richard Strauss's Thus Spake Zarathustra just to give you an idea of the breadth of the variety this band covers.
     They also take a fairly standard dixieland band orchestration: banjo, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, and drums — and simply go to town with it. For instance, the tuba player had at least as many solos as the three "lead" instruments.
     There was an art installation by local artists Neal Leaf and Bridge St. Co-op resident Carol Brussel. →  I've known Carol for a long time, and I absolutely love her art. I'm proud to admit that I have a piece of her original artwork on my wall. Neal Leaf's art is also delightful. All the art was for sale with the proceeds going to PINAC, of course.
     There was also a raffle of four different delightful packages containing items donated by local artists and businesses. Plus, all the food was donated by local food emporiums.
     All in all, it was a terrific event, and I hope they raised lots of moolah for the cause.
 
        Saturday, November 15, 2008
     Today I met the real Holly Hobbie, the author/illustrator who invented the famous storybook character that the popular line of dolls is named after. Let me tell you about it.
     November is my slowest month business-wise. Nothing happens. Despite the major holiday at the end of the month, it's the kind of holiday where everyone goes home and spends time with family: we don't have "Thanksgiving parties" very often. It's really a dead month for me. 
     I often use the free time to catch up on paperwork and start some major promotion or something, but I've stayed on top of the paperwork this fall and people just aren't buying as much entertainment this year so I'm not too keen on putting money into November advertising. Instead, this time, I began looking around for events I could volunteer my services for.
     The Odyssey Book Shop in South Hadley MA has been booking me for their summer children's entertainment series every summer for years, so when I read in the paper that they were having a book reading and signing by a local author that was going to start out with a costumed children's parade, I decided that this would be a good event for me to be able to give back to the community.
     I didn't read all the details about it, I just called up the owner, Joan Grenier, and asked if it would be appropriate for me to stiltwalk in their parade. When I showed up and Toot and Puddle were there, I knew I was in for a treat!
      About 20 minutes after the store opened, there was a good-sized crowd downstairs in the children's room. Most of the children were in costume, and several of them had brought along their Toot and Puddle plush toys, too. Everyone trooped upstairs and out the front door where I was waiting on stilts outside the front entrance. 
     With adult-size Toot and Puddle costumed characters right behind me, I lead the parade down the ramp in front of the store, across the little plaza out front to the sidewalk, turned left down Rte 47, passed the bank, turned left behind the bank into the lower entrance to the Village Commons where the Odyssey is, walked past the back of the bank and then past the coffee shop on the lower level, and then held open the lower entrance door of the Book Shop that opens directly into the children's room! It was a very short parade! But seeing as how the children were all roughly ages 3-5, it was a perfect length. Everyone was happy: the kids didn't have to walk too far, the parents didn't have to carry their wee ones too far, and Toot and Puddle (with their "seeing-eye guides") didn't have to do too much stumbling (they told me afterwards it was very difficult to see out of their costume heads).
     Then everyone gathered in the reading corner of the children's room while staff member Rachel read the original book in the series: Toot and Puddle. Most of the children in the audience obviously knew the book by heart, so it was especially fun for me because the children all participated so much. The book itself is a mighty lot of fun, too.
     About halfway through, a nice lady appeared next to me. We chatted quietly for a moment before she moved further into the reading corner and sat on the couch under the window. 
      When Rachel finished the story, they announced that the author of the book was sitting right there on the couch! I had been talking with the real live Holly Hobbie! (pictured at right)  
     When they formally introduced her, everyone clapped, the children were awed, the parents were delighted, and then Holly Hobbie read her newest book Fanny to everyone present. 
   Here's my favorite part of the whole event: When Holly Hobbie first came in and sat on the couch, she had spent the entire rest of the story watching the children's rapt faces while her most popular book was being read to them! 
     What a great event! And I got to meet the real live Holly Hobbie!
 
   And then, to make it even better, tonight my lovely wife accompanied me to the quarterly comedy show Girls, Girls, Girls at P.A.C.E. in Easthampton MA. The bill included our host Jennifer Myszkowksi, Boney, TammyTwo-Tone, Kathleen Konz, and a fifth woman whose name I forget because I've never seen her before. Jennifer hosts these shows at P.A.C.E. regularly three of four times a year; and since I'm a comedy groupie, I go to them all.
   It was particularly delightful to have my lovely wife along with me. I just love hearing her laugh! She's been kind of down recently about her nine month job search, so it was especially wonderful for me to hear that wonderful laugh for a couple hours straight!
 
       Sunday, November 16, 2008
   And today! Today, Nancy and I got to see: my cousin Sarah, my Aunt Lois, our dear friend Hannah Simons, my cousin Andrew (Sarah's brother), and his wife Sarah (sorry, 2 Sarahs), and their very young son George all at once for the entire middle part of the day. These are all people we love very much, half of whom we seldom get to see... so this was just plain wonderful!  d:{D>>>
 
       Saturday, November 22, 2008
   Our May Day friends, Karen & Mike, hosted a delightful party at their home in Belchertown MA tonight. Besides catching up with them, it was fun to see their house (way cool) and their daughter Courtney (also way cool) as well as meet a bunch of new people. 
   I know I don't know everyone, but it always surprises me a bit when nearby people I've know a long time have a completely different circle of friends that I don't know at all. For instance, Nancy & I spent quite a bit of time being regaled with stories by a gentleman who works for the National Park Service... but not a a National Park. He works at a National Historic Site. They fall under the purview of the NPS. In fact, he works at the Springfield Armory in Springfield MA. Overseeing antique weapons inside what is basically a fortress is about as far from the concept of "park" as I can imagine, but nonetheless, this guy was wearing a National Park Service uniform (he came to the party straight from work).
   Several of his funnier stories were about people who ask him questions about nature or how to deal with animals... something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with his job. He said with a bit of a grin on his face that occasionally he has to say he doesn't really know the answer to their question, but most of the time his "rudimentary knowledge of the natural kingdom" is enough to allow him to come up with some sort of answer that works for the asker!
 
        Wednesday, November 26, 2008
                         Thanksgiving Vacation Day 1
   Since the mid-80's, my kids and I have been going to my sister Laura's for Thanksgiving. It's such a deep-seated tradition that even now that my kids have grown up, moved out, and are in their upper 20's, they still make plans to be there for Thanksgiving, too.
   A couple years ago, Laura and her family (husband, 5 adult boys, and one grandkid) all picked up stakes and moved from rural Pennsylvania to rural Maine. So these day, we drive north instead of south the day before Thanksgiving. This year, like many other years, we had an extra passenger: this time it was my son Jason.
   He made plans to visit his old stomping grounds in Northamton MA for several days beforehand. So he came over for dinner last night (yay!), spent the night in our "spare bedroom", and then drove up with us this afternoon.
   Laura's got this big, old, beat-up farmhouse, so her "boys" (husband and 5 sons) spend a lot of time fixing up the place. They just finished refurbishing two of the upstairs bedrooms and putting in a brand new bathroom on the first floor. And now they're working on the upstairs bath. In fact, shortly after we got there, they installed the new medicine cabinet and put the new door on! And after we leave on Sunday, they'll begin the work on the other two bedrooms. And besides all that, this place is also a working farm with fields, barns, greenhouses, cows, chickens, pigs, the whole bit. So when we come here, it's a busy, busy place.
   And this year, on top of the usual farm work, house renovations, and relatives arriving, there's extra people added to the mix that haven't been here before. For me, this is great! I love having lots of people in the house. I suppose it's because I grew up in a big family (10 people!). I've always been more at ease the more people there are in the house.
   So we got here in time to schmooze for about an hour before gathering for dinner. And then we all spread out throughout the house with everyone doing whatever it is they wanted to do --- either together or alone --- until one-by-one they dropped off to bed. Now it's exactly midnight as I write this and there's only three of us left awake: the hardcore nightowls.
   Tomorrow, even more people arrive. YAY!
 
       Thursday, November 27, 2008
                   Thanksgiving Vacation Day 2
   Happy Thanksgiving! And Happy 81st Birthday, Mom! (Wowie Zowie.) Five more people arrived at about noon today, so we had 16 people here for dinner this afternoon. Here's the roster: our hosts my older sister Laura & her husband Harold, their 5 boys Josh, Tobin, Ben, Troy, and Ross, and Ben's daughter Jillian; Nancy & I, my son Jason, my daughter Myrrh & her husband Joe; my younger brother Lee and his three kids Heidi, Chris, and Caleb; and our teenage friend of the family Marybeth. It took two big tables to fit us all in!
   After holding hands in a big circle around the kitchen and a rousing singing grace, we all dug in! There was turkey and gravy and stuffing and chickpea goulash and broccoli and corn and sweet potatoes and white potatoes and salad and homemade whole wheat rolls and cranberry sauce, and sparkling cider, and pickles and four or five kinds of olives, and probably several more things I've forgotten. After lots of conversation and quite a few jokes and funny stories, everyone was completely stuffed. What a great meal!
   Then we paused for about an hour and a half for naps and digestion.
   And then it was pie time. (Pi time was 3.14 and 15 seconds!) There was lots of pie, and several different of kinds of pie, too. There was pumpkin pie and apple pie and pecan pie and Laura's traditional strawberry/banana jello pie, too! YU-U-UMMMMMM! Man was that stuff GOOD!
   Afterwards, we dispersed to all over the place. There were quiet conversations on the couch, lots of video games (lots of video games), card games, more pie, slot car racing, cow milking, indoor 1-on-1 volleyball, more pie, knitting, crocheting, fluffy white kittens petting, more pie, piano playing, singing, other computer stuff, more pie, and lots of other stuff in other rooms that I didn't see.
   Supper was strictly get-it-yourself, so the card games and the video games (lots of video games) lasted until well after 8:00 before some of these people stopped to get themselves some supper. And now it's almost 11:30 p.m. and about half the crew has crashed... one right here in front of me on a big comfy pillow in the middle of the living room floor!
 
       Friday, November 28, 2008
               Thanksgiving Vacation Day 3
   Nancy and I have been sleeping with the window open a wee bit at night and then opening it a lot during the day to get some air circulation in our room during construction, but this morning when I raised the shades to open the window more, it was snowing outside! So before lunch, I took my little grand-niece Jillian out for a walk around the farm. There was practically no snow on the ground yet, but somehow within 30 seconds of hitting the great outdoors, she scooped up a bit of snow, mushed it into a little tiny ball and threw it at me with a big laugh!
  After lunch, we packed 10 people into the big van and went sliding and skidding up the road (scary!) to the local movie theater where we saw Madagascar 2 at -- get this --- Ï$3 each! Afterwards, we strolled around town a bit... some of us going to the yarn store (there's a boodle of knit-wits in this group!) and others going to the used book store a couple doors down where I bought a couple used cd's for $4 each: one of "New Swing" tunes and the other of early Lionel Hampton recordings. For those of you who may not know who Lionel Hampton (pictured right) is, he's a jazz vibraphonist who was one of, if not the first black man to play in a white band when Benny Goodman asked him to join the Benny Goodman trio in the 1930's. I think he's simply awesome.
   On the way home from the movies, the roads were cleared somewhat, but about a mile from home, the red Camaro in front of us started to spin out and ended up doing at least 3 donuts in the road in front of us. Unfortunately, there was also an on-coming car involved that did an excellent job of trying to avoid the car spinning towards it in the middle of the road. It only got a door stove in instead of a head-on collision. Nobody was hurt, but it still was seriously scary. And, I'm sure, even moreso for the people involved.
   So once again, it's nearly midnight as I write this, and all but the hardcore night owls have gone to bed. Well, actually, last night's pillow-in-the-middle-of-the-livingroom-floor sleeper just fell asleep on the couch tonight, but other than that....
 
       Saturday, November 29, 2008
                Thanksgiving Vacation Day 4
   Today was Outing Day at the Grams residence. Last Thanksgiving, Nancy & I found this nice little hike up a mountain only about 10 minutes drive from the farm. It took me a while, but I found it on-line again this year. So after lunch today, 10 of us packed into the Gramsvanâ„¢ and drove over to French's Mountain in Rome ME and hiked the brief walk to the top. The trail was a bit snowy, so it took us all of 15 minutes to get to the summit this time. 
   The view at the top is gorgeous! There is an unobstructed view to the south where the guys were saying that the mountain we could see in the distance is 12 miles away. And three lakes are visible that are just eye candy to look down at. 
   I noticed that Nancy hadn't taken any people pictures yet (I look at all her pictures as soon after she downloads them as I can!), so I asked her to take a few group shots. She managed to squeeze all 10 of us plus the head of the snowman someone had made into a close up. What a great bunch of people!
 
   When we got back to Flying Pond Farm, Nancy & I kept our outer gear on and went for another little walk around the farm. First we walked up the road a bit, down the access road, then on the little path to the pond ↓, then back up and across the field to the chicken pens, then down across the fields to the pond again, then back up to the greenhouses, across the plank bridge over the creek, and visited Charlotte the redhead pig â†“ (she's a Tamworth), before going back to the house.
   Charlotte is one big pig... and she really is that color. It's pretty cool. I've never seen a red haired pig before. (I've got a thing for redheads.) As soon as she became aware of us headed her way, she came trotting up from the rear of her pen to the front corner where she knew we would be coming and stood there waiting for us until we arrived. We spent a good 5 or 10 minutes with her, and it sure seemed she was liking the attention. She audibly moaned with pleasure when I rubbed her behind the ears, and was pushing up against my hand while I was giving her a rub down and back scratching.
   After dinner, most of us went up to the attic to Tobin's "bat cave" and watched Will Smith in Hancock on Tobin's state of the art video set up. It was agreed that it was a pretty funny movie, although there were a few scenes that were a little over the top.
   And now, once again, it's nearly midnight as I write this, and you know what? I may be the only one still awake! I guess this vacation just tuckered everyone out.
 
       Sunday, November 30, 2008
                   Thanksgiving Vacation Day 5
   This morning, we got up, packed up, and were out of there by 10:00 a.m.. It was an uneventful 5 hour drive home, and a really nice vacation. It was great to see so much family (and friends) in one place. We had lots of good times together. We did the usual catching up and joking around that close people do, we had some sweet times together, we shared meals, at lots of pie, we went on a really nice hike, went to the movies, played cards, shared unusual video games (gPlanarity), even did some chores on the farm. But what has stayed with me the most right now — believe it or not — is Charlotte the redhead Tamworth pig. ↓ I guess she made a big impression on me.
      She's just the coolest thing. They told me it's kind of a rare breed, and very pure as breeds go. So I looked up "Tamworth pig" and read all about her, and my opinion of her only went up.
   There's only about 1000 of them in the entire U.S.,  about a third that number in Britain, and a little over a quarter that many in Canada. She's the only purebred red pig in England, was imported here in 1882, and does well in northern climates principally in the States and Canada and the Orient, as well as in Australia.
   In fact, Wikipedia says Charlotte's ideally suited to harshly cold and bitterly windy climates. So she's well-suited to Maine winters. They are also gentle and enjoy human attention. They're unique coloring makes them an excellent pig for field work because it protects them from sunburn.  Oh, and the females are good mothers, too. My sister's family picked a very good breed of pig for their little farm in Maine!
   I also looked at a lot of images of Tamworth pigs, but none of them were as good-looking as Charlotte. Her color is deeper and darker than most of the on-line images. And she seems bigger and sturdier than most, too. One of my nephews said that this kind of pig doesn't have very good eyesight, but if they get close enough to smell you they will never forget you. Well, I just made a new friend. I intend to give her some special attention â†“ each time I'm there.
   Other than that, it's really good to be home. I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.
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trevor@trevorthegamesman.com
PO Box 463, Haydenville, MA 01039