Ithaca View

Ithaca may not be on the list of top 5 greenest cities and towns in the US, but this place makes a real effort. In spite of the 5 SUV drivers who live here (you know who you are, you BASTARDS!!!!) individuals and the city make an effort to reduce their impact on the planet. Here are the top 3 examples for those who are just discovering how innovative this town can be:

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In southern California, the only time leaves change color and fall off a tree is during a drought. Okay, I am exaggerating a bit, but seeing so many trees begin to turn red and gold right outside my window goes on my list of culture shocks. I have watched in amazement as a sudden wind comes along and create a leaf storm creating creates spontaneous piles of leaves in front of the house. Canada Geese are beginning to head somewhere as well, sometimes flying so low overhead that I can see their legs retracted alongside their bodies and hear the wind streak past their feathers. It’s definitely Fall.

So why is it so horrendously hot?

I just want to crawl into the freezer and pretend to be a meat popsicle (spot the movie reference). I am sitting in the basement right now afraid to go upstairs. 93 degrees and humid is not the kind of weather someplace like Ithaca, NY should have. It should be no more than 70. Someone take care of it.

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A friend of ours and mother to a boy our son plays with is working on her PHD in Political Science at Cornell. She told us a story today that any exhausted parent could relate to. Recently she had to complete a 72 hour exam to continue in her coursework. That’s right, 72 hours. The participants were encouraged to "forgo sleep as much as possible". We did ask why someone in PoliSci has to complete a test of endurance more fitting to medical school and it seems that it is some type of weird hazing.

Anyway, on with the story. Sometime after the 50 hour mark, she was driving back to her house from Cornell very late at night completely exhausted. Her mind started drifting and so did the car. She had that moment shared by all exhausted drivers where they grip the wheel and cry "Oh, Shit!"

She honestly knew she had been weaving badly so when she heard the faint sound of a siren behind her she guiltily began pulling over to the side of the road. Almost stopped, she glanced into her rear view mirror. Nothing was there, not a single car.

She drove on and there it was again. That same siren. She was convinced she was having audio hallucinations from a lack of sleep, pulled over then got out of the car but the road was silent. She walked to the rear of the car and heard the siren again. It was coming from the trunk. Inside she found her son’s fire engine that she had taken away from him for misbehaving days earlier.

She never mentioned which woods she threw it into.

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Had to post this since it is so much different than Ventura.

For those of you who don’t know which way the politics of Ithaca run, you just need to read this headline from the local newspaper:

Town GOP won’t field candidates in Ithaca

I love it.

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Our brave 14 week old Daisy showed us exactly how courageous she is today (LEFT: here she is sleeping in the vet’s front window the day after we got her). I let her out of the house when my wife arrived home from taking my son to school this morning and watched her trot around the corner of the house next to the garage. Once she found a suitable location she got down to the business all dogs do upon exiting a house. So I turned back to talk to my wife , when Daisy erupted in the most terrified yelping we have ever heard. She rocketed back to us with her tail so far between her legs it was literally touching her chin. I quickly looked back to where she had been but saw nothing. I figured that a bee must have stung her but walked around the corner of the house anyway. There behind the garage was the scariest thing she had ever seen up close. See picture on the right. Yes. This is a mugshot of the actual four-legged beast. I had to go back with a camera. A deer so young it still had spots standing fifteen feet away from where she had been trying to relieve herself. Imagine yourself sitting on the toilet and seeing a spider the size of a dinner plate on the toilet roll. That must have been how she felt. She’ll be constipated for a week.

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As I sit here in a frigid 48 degrees (brrr, I hope it doesn’t get any colder this winter :-o) and look at the interesting Ithaca College skyline and dotted infinity above me, I have come to a realization. Deer hunters are morons. You may have thought so before, but here is the proof. I am sitting on our 4ft. wide back deck typing away on a well lit laptop when I here, slip, slip, slip below me. Not once but three times. The deer are walking past me to get to the apple tree. I could hit one with a USB cable. Why do grown men sit in the freezing cold and aim at them with high-powered rifles? Population control? Nah. Let them chop down apple trees. That would work just as well.

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Big Bird has arrived at our house and he’s a turkey. Three broods of turkeys to be exact. They were first spotted on the horse pasture a week before we moved in. At that time eleven of them were small chicks. Now the chicks have eaten everything in sight and become… fat chicks. They are in our front yard when I wake up and in the back of the house in the afternoon. I have a feeling that soon there will be more. Since they must know by our smell we are vegetarians, I expect more of their friends to start strutting through the yard as Thanksgiving approaches.

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