2009 - another fun year

(by Rani Dey)

This was another great year here in the USA. Life is getting easier and easier as my English gets better. I read every night before going to bed. If it is a good book I will read and read, maybe even finish the book.

From December through February I do cheerleading. It’s fun to cheer for the basketball team, and at half time we do what’s called a “half time cheer”, where we do stunts and long cheers. I am a flyer. That means that I go up in the air, and no, they don’t throw me - I just stand on their hands, straight and tall. I really enjoy cheerleading a lot.

Last winter I took my first downhill skiing lessons at Mount Sunapee. It’s fun to learn downhill and cross country skiing. When mom, dad, Mamta, and I go cross country skiing, Mamta sits in the sled pulled by dad. Dad had a long rope tied to his waist that pulled Mamta’s sled. She would pretend to be Santa and daddy would be Rudolph. Every time mom and I passed, Mamta would call “Come on Rudolph! Faster, faster.”

In February, during winter break, aunt Penny and I went to LA to see uncle Tom, Coco, Julian, and baby Phoebe. We went to Disneyland and saw my old friend Sakshi from India. It was nice seeing her again and her little sister and parents. Sakshi has changed a bit since I last saw her. Penny, Sakshi’s sister, Sakshi, Sakshi’s mother and I went to a very nice Indian restaurant where they keep feeding you and feeding you until you say ”Stop”. The food was very delicious! When Penny and I went to Disneyland, one of my favorite rides was the 50 foot drop off. Penny refused to come on the ride, but I didn’t. We rented a car (not a very smart one either). It was fine at times and sometimes you would have to sit in it and push, or Penny would have to unbuckle and then buckle up again. At last we took the car where it came from and returned it for a new good one. Luckily that car worked much better than the first one.

On spring vacation in April Mom, Dad, Mamta, and I went on a road trip to North Carolina to visit my Indian friend Soni and her brother. On the way we made stops to visit some other friends of mom and dad. It was a lot of driving and a lot of sitting around in the car, but it was fun to see all our friends.

I have been taking ballet lessons and I was in the Peter Pan performance last May. I was a Sprite, that’s a fairy without wings. I did like the dance and most of all my costume. I had a light green leotard with a green skirt and a round crown on my head. I was proud of my costume and I worked hard to learn the dance. Each sprite had her own elf to dance with (the elf was a boy or a girl). It was fun dancing with a partner. My scene was called Pixie Hollow. It was a beautiful scene.

On summer vacation Maria, a girl from Spain, came to live with us for month. Maria is just a few months older than me. She and I went to a horseback riding camp together. She said she has never ridden a horse before. By the end of the week she was a pro at horseback riding. Then we went to live with my grandma and grandpa in their rental house in Quidnet for a week or two.

On Nantucket Maria and I went to a bike camp called Strong Wings. We do a lot of fun things at Strong Wings such as: rock climbing, swimming and going on East to West challenges, where you bike from one side of the island to the other and back. We do take rest stops once in a while. We also go canoeing and kayaking. It’s tiring but fun. With Strong Wings you get rid of a lot of energy. At the end of the day I was really tired. Sometimes I got my growing pains. I have been doing Strong Wings now for two years and would love to become a CIT, that’s a counselor in training, in two more years. I can’t wait. I hope Maria had fun at Strong Wings. She looked like she had a lot of fun. Maria came only for a month and then went back to Pamplona.

In early August mom, dad, Mamta, and I flew from Boston to Marseille, France to visit Gwen in Provence. We took big bike rides through the mountains. We tried to bike as much as we could but the mountains were really, really steep. Mamta was in the bike seat on daddy’s bike. We went shopping at a street market. We also visited some ocher mines where they make paint from the ocher. The walls of the mines were covered with clay that has color pigments in them. Mamta and I covered ourselves all over. It was fun being covered with ocher. We even put water on the ocher to see what happens; the ocher only turned darker than its usual color. We also got to see where Gwen works (it’s a house where the girlfriend of a famous painter used to live).

From Marseille we went to Berlin for three weeks to visit Oma and Opa, my little cousins and aunts and uncles. We went on a bike tour at the island of Ruegen. Mom and I rode a tandem and Mamta was in a bike seat with daddy biking. One of the coolest things about Germany is that the bikes have lights on them. From Lauenhagen we went to my favorite water park. I love that park. We go there every summer when we visit Oma and Opa. I also take riding lessons in Lauenhagen. My riding teacher is very good. I cantered on the horse all by myself. It was really, really fun. I was scared at first to even try to trot on the horse, but at the end I did it. The horse’s name was Charlie. He is a very sleepy horse. I ride him whenever I can, maybe every day or every other day. Sometimes I get really sore so that I can’t ride very well the next time.

When school started it was so much different than 6th grade: different floor, different teacher, more classes, earlier lunch, no snacks, and most of all: a lot of switching classes. It’s hard to remember what class you are going to next. So all I do is follow some in my class and hope they know where they are going. We have dances every month and we have district dances where the other two schools join us or we join them. Dances are fun if everybody is dancing. If nobody is dancing that’s no fun. Coolest thing about the dance is that there are slow dances.

A few weeks after school started my friend Noemi, my parents, my sister and I went to New York and took a bike ride across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was fun but crowded - no surprise there. I wonder if it is always that crowded on the Brooklyn Bridge. We also biked up to the Museum of Natural History. It was pretty crowded there, too - even hard to get around. We didn’t have time to see all of it but we saw a lot of things and took lots of pictures.

Now it’s December again and soon grandpa and grandpa will move into the barn next to our house. Dad has been working very hard for many months so that the barn will be beautiful and ready by Christmas. This year Robin and Penny, Tom, Coco, Julian and Phoebe will all come here to spend Christmas with us. Like I said – it’s been a fun year!

Wond'ring Aloud

We are spending tonight at my parents’ house in Connecticut. The drive down from New Hampshire this evening was the first leg of a week-long spring vacation road trip that will take us to North Carolina and back. The initial impetus for the trip was to visit Soni, Rani’s best friend from the orphanage Bal Anand. Soni was adopted by a family in North Carolina. We have planned the trip to allow us to visit other friends along the way.

Sitting in my parents’ kitchen eating a late dinner, I hear the unmistakable sounds of the “classic rock” band Jethro Tull coming from the television in the next room. I sidle over to the doorway and sure enough, there is Ian Anderson prancing around in tights and blowing up a storm on his flute. I am transported back to the first rock concert I ever attended. It was Jethro Tull performing at the (since demolished) New Haven Coliseum, circa 1974. I realize that I was about Rani’s age at the time. The music was not considered "classic rock" back then! What were my parents thinking, letting me attend that concert – even if I was chaperoned by my older sister Robin?

I had invited the goalie from my hockey team to join us. My Wallingford Hawk teammate Paul Pulaski was a year older and much cooler – or should I say prematurely delinquent – than I. What were my parents thinking? They must not have known Paul.

Although I rarely listen to Jethro Tull’s music these days, as I stood this evening in my parents’ kitchen, I found myself moved by the songs I was hearing. The band played one of my favorites, “Wond’ring Aloud”:

Wond’ring aloud,
Will the years treat us well?

The song has new meaning thirty-five years later.

Since becoming a parent about a year and half ago, I have occasionally been plagued by the thought, “What if my kids end up doing some of the idiotic, dangerous things that I did as an adolescent?” A variation of this thought is “Did my parents have any idea of the trouble I could have gotten into, had I been slightly less lucky?” And I find myself pondering in all seriousness that timeless question, “Are there things that a parent has a right not to know about their kids’ activities?”

In retrospect I am able to appreciate how much freedom my parents afforded me to explore and grow. I think they would say they were willing to take “calculated risks.” Now that it’s my turn, I understand how difficult it can be to find the right balance between protecting children and giving them wings.

Maybe the world is too different now for the comparison to have much meaning, but I don’t plan on letting Rani attend her first rock concert any time soon.

The song ends,

And it’s only the giving
That makes us
What we are.

Slumdog Millionaire

My apologies to anyone who is disappointed that Annette and I have not kept up with this blog. Our priorities have been elsewhere. But everything important in our life is good: Rani and Mamta are thriving, Annette and I are well, and our families are fine.

Here are a few recent photos:

Annette and I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire last night, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had expected. I think it’s a wonderful movie, but as it progressed I had trouble letting go of the scenes of violence, deprivation and abuse in the slums of Mumbai. I found that I couldn’t willingly suspend my disbelief as Jamal worked his way steadily toward the million dollar prize. I am not sure whether my reaction would have been different had we not been in Mumbai about eighteen months ago to adopt our two daughters.

I thought about the movie again this evening when I attended a choral event in which Rani participated. Choruses from four different schools performed three songs each in a packed auditorium. Although I had not relished the thought of an evening spent listening to earnest but dissonant music, I enjoyed the concert thoroughly. The music teachers who conducted the performances were clearly beloved by the students, and for obvious reasons. The singers may not have hit every note, but all of the music was wonderful, and some of the performances were downright impressive.

The concert ended with a group sing-along of America the Beautiful. To me it was an inspired choice. I marveled at the opportunity represented by these singing children, and felt grateful to live in a land where such beauty and accomplishment are not only possible, but commonplace.

Renovation Adventures - This old house

This blog was supposed to be about renovating two houses on Nantucket, in addition to adopting our daughters from India. A few of our "building nerd" (we use the term with appreciation) friends have complained about the lack of information about the renovation project. They have a point. Between building our family and renovating two houses, we didn't have much time for blogging.

Belatedly, we offer these snapshots of the construction process.

The building before the renovation. Every contractor involved urged us to demolish it and start from scratch.

However, the Historic District Commission felt pretty strongly about keeping as much as possible of the original material in place.

Renovation Adventures - The Eagle has lifted

The shell of the building supported by temporary cribbing and steel beams.












As the foundation hole gets fully excavated, the cribbing piles grow.












The back half of the old structure sits on dirt. Also an old well is found in the rubble below the rotten deck.











The deck stays behind as the walls are lifted by a hydraulic press system.












2x12 ledgers are screwed to every intact stud. They are supported by the steel girders from below.











A 'bobcat' moves the soil to the shovel of the excavator.












The first floor deck has been dismantled piece by piece.


















The entire building is supported by four full height cribbing piles. The new deck will have to be framed around them.

Renovation Adventures - Piece by Piece

The old shell weathered a major storm in late November without roof and second floor to help brace it. Two dozen temporary diagonal braces were installed in a hurry before the storm hit. At this point the outer walls were already sitting soundly on their new foundation and first floor deck.







New plywood sheathing replaced the old boards which were subsequently planed and jointed for reuse as floor boards.











Original timbers have been treated against powder post beetles and mold in the upper gable walls. New framing got installed between the remaining timbers.










A large number of original timbers had to be replace, reinforced or modified on site.












The old chimney mass had been meticulously taken down. The bricks were scraped cleaned and reused around the new chimney flue.











The entire structure gets clad in tarpaper as is typcial for Nantucket houses.












Typical Nantucket window trim detail with white cedar shingle siding installed.












All exterior walls are tightly insulated with icynene foam for great energy efficiency.












Additional fiberglass insulation in the ceilings for sound deadening.

Renovation Adventures - New Shine

Exterior after renovation - shed set back for parking












View from entry hallway - arched frame opening allows for view through to bluestone patio

Living room with restored brick fireplace, built-ins, wainscoting and coffered ceiling












Living room with restored fireplace mantel and door to basement beyond.











Kitchen from dining room.













Upstairs bedroom with original floor boards













Master Bathroom overlooking the yard













Master Bedroom with 'character' oak flooring. This corner of the building used to house the second floor kitchen.