Buddy's New Gear!

Ever since our CT adventure weekend and then Pyrapalooza we have been excited to do more activities with Buddy. At Pyrapalooza we won a carting harness and we have been using that at every opportunity. Most recently, we went to see Sofia run her half marathon and we took Buddy in his harness.

In addition to the new carting obsession, we shopped around for a back pack for Buddy and found this one from Mountainsmith. I have to admit that part of the reason we chose it was because it listed the Great Pyrenees as one of the examples of the breeds that the large size would fit! Buddy was excited to have a new piece of equipment, but it took a little getting used to. I got overzealous and put two seltzer bottles in the pack and then he got stuck in the doorway going down the hall. We've been using it as much as we can on our walks and have been putting a little more in it each time. Today Buddy even jogged all the way to the park in his pack! Work those legs!

Furry Orange Surprise (mit claws and fangs!)

A few days ago Olivia woke up and mentioned that she heard cat noises in the night that were not our cat. I have to admit that I assumed it was a cat in our backyard or....umm....Olivia's imagination. But this morning she went downstairs to put a knitted pumpkin in the washer for felting, and heard the noises again. It turned out to be a little orange kitten nestled on top of an old drop cloth, which promptly took off up the stairs into the kitchen and huddled in a corner of the dining room. I'm not sure who was more surprised—Buddy and Ginger to see the kitten, or the kitten to see Buddy and Ginger. After about half an hour of chasing him around the house he disappeared into the basement and we couldn't find him again. So we took off for Windsor for the weekend and left the door open to see what happened when we came back.

We were sort of worried that the kitten had been some sort of early morning hallucination and would be gone when we got back, but he was still prowling and mewling when we arrived. And thus began Round 2 of our battle to catch the cat, and I have to admit that he won again. He got the best of us for nearly an hour and we each had our hands on the little monster several times each, but he managed to scratch and bite and jump his way out of our grasp every time...

Here he is when he got up onto the breaker box and we thought we'd finally cornered him. I got a big bucket and Olivia got the oven mitts and we thought we had him in the bucket right before he jumped over my head and landed 8 feet below in a 6-gallon bucket, then rebounded out and away again.

After that he managed to bite Olivia right through the oven mitts and squeezed through the bars of Pepper's old crate the first time we actually did catch him. When we got our technique perfected and cornered him again, we sequestered him in Loki's old crate. The poor little guy was so panicked that he had collided with the mirror and gave himself a bloody nose.

So now we need to decide what to do with him.....

Aubrey's Halloween Party

I'm not normally a huge Halloween fan, but this year was exceptionally good.  First up was the Clark Family Halloween Party hosted by Aubrey, Heather, Warren, Whitney and Jeff.  Their theme was Gilligan's Island.  The Parkin family's theme - medieval/Robinhood - was completely unrelated. 

The party was excellent, though we only have a few pictures that don't do it justice.  The decorations were absolutely spectacular and I hope other people got some good shots.

I do prefer pumpkins with big grins like this one:

The extended medieval family:

It all started with Scott's Robin Hood costume.  The King and Queen came later.

Uncle Jon and Todd:

Like many of us, this little guy had too much to drink:

Women's leadership and the economic crisis: does gender matter?

The Cornell University Institute for Women & Work, ILR School and the President's Council of Cornell Women presented a policy debate on the New York economy: "Women's leadership and the economic crisis: does gender matter?"
The invite described the discussion with the following blurb:
"The current economic crisis will forever change the way in which New Yorkers and Americans view our economic security. How will this crisis impact New York?s working women and their families and what can women's leaders do to make a difference? Please join us and a distinguished group of panelists from the media, labor, business and the policy arena for this important public policy debate on the economy and gender equality. The forum features a special guest, Representative Carolyn B. Maloney on her new book entitled, "Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Why Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier--And How We Can Make Real Progress For Ourselves and Our Daughters."
U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-14th Dist.) opened the her portion of the panel by quipping that "In this period of economic downturn there's one area where we have achieved equality; job loss."  This set the tone for the evening.  One of smart, witty and frank discussion of the situation that women are in within the greater context of American economics; now and since the women's suffrage movement.  

Representative Maloney was part of an illustrious panel of eleven people including experts from government, organized labor, academia, the media and finance.
Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress, the union that represents more than 20,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York, added that "It's not a race-, gender- and class-free crisis.  It is constructed on the same lines of the existing divides within society."
The panelists pointed out that women are particularly vulnerable during this economic downturn because of their disadvantaged economic status, citing studies that revealed that women still earn on average 79 cents to every dollar earned by a man, and they are less likely to hold leadership positions in business and government. Furthermore, Rep. Maloney reported that women were more likely to be hurt by the subprime mortgage crisis, having received a disproportionate share of the risky loans as compared with prime mortgages, and single-parent households, the vast majority headed by single mothers, are at risk of falling below the poverty level during economic downturns.
The panel also included Kathleen A. Frankovic, a member of the President's Council of Cornell Women, and director of surveys at CBS News who brought the results of the latest New York Times/CBS News polls on the economy which revealed some discrepancies in the way that men and women perceive the economic downturn: 58 percent of women surveyed thought the economy was very bad compared with 41 percent of men, and 72 percent of women thought the economy would worsen compared with 61 percent of their male counterparts. However, women were also more hopeful that the U.S. government's bailout plan would work, she said.
Also on the panel, N.Y. Assemblywomen Catherine Nolan (D-37th Dist.) and Barbara Lifton (D-125th Dist.), joined Rep. Maloney in describing the disturbing systematic rolling back of women's rights in the federal government. I was surprised and upset to learn that the United States never ratified the equal rights amendment for women, which came before Congress in the late 1970s and that the United States (along with Sudan, Iran and Somalia) is not one of the 185 nations to adopt the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
It was an engaging and inspiring event that I was extremely please to participate in.  One of the things I really miss about Cornell and academia in general is the interchange of ideas by smart, articulate, insightful adults and this event really lived up to those expectations.  I was disturbed to discover that women still have lots of hurdles to overcome, albeit more insidious ones, but inspired to be an informed and active voter to live up to the legacy of women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony - who incidentally, were finally honored in 1996 by having their statue moved to the rotunda after 75 years being disgraceful stashed in the basement (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E3DF153CF934A1575AC0A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all). 

Naylor/Hagen Family Reunion

At my grandmother's memorial service we met cousins of my mother's, on her father's side that I'd never known about. They were really nice and it was exciting to learn that there was a whole group of relatives that were out there. After the service we learned that the brother of the cousin we met was organizing a family reunion. I didn't really know what to expect and sort of waffled about whether or not to go, but in the end, the prospect of meeting people who could bring pieces of my family tree to life outweighed my nervousness of meeting strangers.
The reunion took place in Ohio, in the towns of Adena (where my grandfather was born and grew up) and St. Clairsville the nearest town with motels.

My mother's cousin Drew did lots of work organizing the reunion and working with the relatives still in and around Adena he arranged a tour of Adena including the houses lived in by the Naylor and Hagen families. The first night we got in late and didn't get to see the first showing of the PowerPoint presentation of the Mclaughlin, Hagan, Anderson, Naylor and Hanna families but we did join the caravan early in the morning for the start of the tour. The first stop on the tour was the old school house where my great aunts and uncles went to school and then later taught. 

After that we walked to the house that my grandfather was actually born in and is the house pictured in the only snapshot of my grandfather as a child with his family. 

The house is currently being lived in by Naylor relatives which was really nice because it meant we could take a complete tour of the inside of the house too. After the Naylor house we took a little detour to get an early peek at the house where my grandfather's mother grew up and where my grandfather and his siblings went to live after his mother died. 

The next scheduled part of the reunion was a trip to the cemetery where my great-grandparents are buried, an also my grandfather's twin baby brothers that died of measles at less than a year old. 

We took advantage of the gorgeous day to take a bunch of group shots and that was great thinking on someone's part because now we have lots of great pictures of everyone organized into groups that will help us remember how everyone is related.

Four of the six children of Fred Naylor.  

The Naylor men.

The Naylor women.

First cousins. 

Second cousins.

The hill behind the Hagen house where the Naylor children recited poetry for their mother.

The Hagen house from the backyard. 
After the tour we took a break and went our separate ways for dinner.  Then we met up again in the common room provided by the Day's Inn and each of us introduced ourselves to the whole group including our background, how we were related and what we though about the reunion.
Overall it was a great experience and I'm really glad that we went to the reunion, got to see a glimpse of the past and also got to meet all these really cool people that I'm related to.  I hope that everyone else had a good time too and that we'll see each other more from now on.

Lake Erie Monsters Hockey

On our way to the Naylor-Hagen family reunion we made a detour through Strongsville, OH to see the Lake Erie Monsters.  The Monsters are the farm team for the Colorado Avalanche, the Parkin family team (for most Parkins, anyway).  We watched them play their last preseason game against the Rochester Americans in their practice rink, which only holds about 200 people.  Considering that they normally play in an arena the size of many pro arenas, this must be a strange experience for them.  

Unfortunately for the Monsters, their goaltending blew the game for them.  Lake Erie dominated the entire game, but the goalie let in three weak goals and the Americans' goalie had a strong performance.  But it was still fun to watch and we got to see four fights.  The best part was that we were at the far end of the stadium, right next to the section with all the scouts and team employees.  They told a great story about a game last year against one of the Canadian teams where one of their hot new rookies started a fight with an opposing player to show he was tough as well as talented.  Unfortunately the guy he fought was the son of a golden glove boxer and he went to the hospital in an ambulance and required 14 stitches to hold his face back together.  Somebody left the rink in an ambulance at this game too after one of the fights, but it wasn't clear who it was. 

Hoover Arena—the practice rink

I have no idea who was on the ice here.  All the top prospects I know were still a part of the Aves preseason roster at this point, or just not playing in this game.

This was the one fight that was more like a brawl.  Two guys started it, but everyone else joined in.  I believe one of the Monsters hit the Americans' goalie when he was our of the crease and out of the trapezoid.  I have no problem with hitting the goalie when he leaves his safety zone, but I would have started the fight too.  You have to protect your goalie.