the gunks

I talked to Ariel briefly as she was walking from her subway station to her new apartment. It sounds like many good things are happening with her graduate program and work at IEEE Spectrum, with some possible travel, including a trip to Boston, where she'll visit Terra & Karl. She and Chris have been spending weekends around the Catskills, the Shawangunk Ridge (or Gunks) in particular, where they've been doing some technical rock climbing. There's a Minnewaska State Park Preserve there, but I haven't sorted it all out, and a village called New Paltz, where they join other climbers for eats. She said it's about an hour outside the city, but it can take another hour to get out of the city. I think they must camp out. Lots of other good news, including a mutual friend moving to the city soon.

The boys' school is in full swing. I can actually get Ry to talk some about his day. Mostly I know the names of the boys in his class and that they aren't doing math. We got him a backpack on sale, a really good one that he likes, red, without any super heroes or other commercial junk, a little big for him but it's got a secret compartment and a place for a lunch bag or box. Jack's not playing the Wii as much as I dreaded. In fact, they seem to be playing together with each other, re-discovering old toys again. Cyndi got the film version of Where the Wild Things Are, from netflix, and that seems to be a hit. We started reading The Magician's Elephant last night, and so far it's a good story for them. Ry fell asleep but woke up briefly to tell me to keep reading after I finished chapter one. Jackson, I noticed, must have been interested enough lying at my side because his hands stopped moving in the air and he settled down cuddling next to me. So a good start.

It cooled off some yesterday, thank goodness, because I didn't really tweak the swamp cooler as well as I thought.