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neither 2016 nor the arrival of 2017
Saturday, December 31 2016
I woke up at around six AM with a few ideas for dealing with the programming challenges in my head. One of these challenges was a dull one concerning the mod function and the limited granularity it provides when acting on integer percents. The other challenge was the one of producing tabular structures in an RTF document, though with a fresh mind and no distractions, I soon had some working code. Satisfied, I built a fire in the stove and went back to bed, where I slept late. Eventually I heard Gretchen and J through the vent hole talking in the living room, so I got up and partook of the coffee that had been made.
Gretchen had made plans for the morning: she would take J to Woodstock and buy him a Vonnegut novel at the Golden Notebook (to Gretchen's dismay, J had never heard of Vonnegut) and then there would be lunch at the Garden Café. Gretchen invited me to come along, and though I probably should've said no, I did not. I even brought my new camera on the chance phototunities presented themselves. J is a big guy, so of course he rode in the front seat, pushing it back as far as it would go to open up a suitably-sized void.
The bookstore was uncomfortably cold as Gretchen chatted with one of the co-owners at the front while I looked at the wildlife guides in the middle of the store. There's a new bird guide (to me and perhaps the store though it dates at least as far back as 2000) called Sibley's, though it's larger-form than usual for the genre, which suggests it has decided not to bother competing with iPhone apps.
The Garden Café was suitably cheerful on this last morning of 2016, though unfortunately we soon discovered that they were only offering a breakfast menu. For most people that's a feature, not a bug. But you know how I feel about breakfast, and that feeling extends even to vegan restaurants, where any eggs are simulated at worst. But just the seeing so much yellow and hearing joyful utterances of the word "scramble" tend to put me off my feed. Still, I might've been able to handle it better had there been something for me on the menu, such as a VLT (a BLT made with non-animal ingredients). But everything just kind of mushy, greasy, and bland in a breakfasty kind of way. And it didn't help when Gretchen said (of avocado toast) "Lots of people like it," to which my reply was, "Lots of people like lots of things." And then she was in the process of saying how the filling in the vegan lasagna wasn't all that different from the vegan scramble being offered on the menu, but I had to cut her off. She was trying to make the scramble more palatable, but the effect would only have been to make the lasagna less so. The solution to the problem involved thinking outside the box, or, in this case, the menu. Gretchen asked what of their normal non-breakfast foods that could possibly pull off at this breakfasty hour, and it turned out that panini (which is the only thing I normally order anyway) was one such thing. It's greasy and bland too, but at least it's not breakfasty, and it unblands nicely with a little hot sauce. (My Yucatan Sunshine was still there, ready for use.)
On the drive to Woodstock, we'd been learning from J about life under parole. There are the constant visits from parole officers, some of whom can see suspicious uses for the most ordinary things (such as fireplace lighters, in this case one owned by J's aunt in the house where he stays). J also told us of his new job at a button-down very establishment-sounding foundation. The head of the foundation is a black man who was heard to say that nobody takes black men seriously unless they're wearing a coat and tie, and for this reason J is pretty sure that's how he is expected to dress on the job.
Gretchen gave J a little drive through Uptown before dropping him off at the bus station so he could catch a ride back to the City. We've become rather proud of our humble little rust-belt city, and Uptown is looking good these days, what with the new unified sidewalk awnings, the non-ridiculous businesses visible through recently-cleaned windows, and the bustle of people who look like they'd spent the night in actual beds. Kingston didn't used to be this way, but times they are a ch-ch-ch-changing.
Originally Gretchen had plans of maybe going out to meet friends for New Year's Eve. But she was feeling social'd out after all that time in City followed immediately by J's visit. And, more to the point, neither 2016 nor the arrival of 2017 seemed like anything worth celebrating. The past year had been horrible in its aggregate effect, but 2017 looked like it would be nothing but a grand manifestation of bad decisions from that mystifyingly-terrible year. So instead Gretchen watched teevee and I honed software, work I really should feel embarrassed about not reserving for work hours. Later I took a bath, emerging from those relaxing warm waters just before midnight. Neither Gretchen nor I drank any alcohol at all today. It may not have been the first alcohol-free New Year's Eve in my adult life, but it probably was.
photos taken with the new Nikon P510 camera
Hurley Reformed Lutheran Church in Old Hurley. There are probably better pictures in Google Street View. (Click to enlarge.)
Wynokoop Road on the way from Old Hurley to Hurley Mountain Road (at the base of that forested escarpment).
(Click to enlarge.)
Hurley Mountain Road, facing the backside of distant Mohonk.
More of the backside of Mohonk from near where Hurley Mountain Road meets Dug Hill Road.
(Click to enlarge.)
(Click to enlarge.)
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