Where's Constance?

You've been very quiet recently.

Miss you here.

She hasn't looked in since 1st June, perhaps she is away

Nah Ville Sky Chick wrote:She hasn't looked in since 1st June, perhaps she is away

That's a real pity.

I think she was upset by the SJ & Andy upheavals.

Hope she logs in again soon.

I miss her contributions and her gentle personality.

eddie wrote:

Nah Ville Sky Chick wrote:She hasn't looked in since 1st June, perhaps she is away

That's a real pity.

I think she was upset by the SJ & Andy upheavals.

Hope she logs in again soon.

I miss her contributions and her gentle personality.

Eddie, that's so kind of you. I'm here every day. I check my email and AATU early in the morning and sometimes, like now, later in the day. I read all your Guardian reviews. I couldn't get the clues for the new Parrot and the Peg-Leg game.

June. I had to give up one of my parrots. That was sad. Sunny the caique. Out of the blue he started biting my husband. He wouldn't stop. We had him for four years and he was very loving with all of us but suddenly he didn't like my husband anymore. It was too serious to put up with (the bites really hurt). I found a parrot rescue place in NYC that was happy to take him. It was heartbreaking driving him down to the place and leaving him there. But just this morning I got an email from the bird rescue folks that a woman had come and adopted Sunny. So he has a new home with other parrots. We gave him complete freedom in the house. He flew around all day and enjoyed perching on a chair on our screened-in porch. I made it a condition that whoever adopted him not clip his wings so he could still fly and allow him lots of out-of-the-cage time. So I have to hope he has a good home now.

Julia had her field day and finished second grade. Today she started a day-camp program at the local library. Stories, crafts, and outdoor games. I took her to the lake twice earlier this week. She finds kids to play with. We stay until the place closes at 8 pm. Beautiful spring-fed lake.

Madeleine finished tenth grade. She won the chemistry, English, and math prizes. She won a two-week scholarship to Vassar College. Tomorrow is the last day. Thirty-two high school kids went to Vassar to study the 1960s! They had a textbook on the 1960s. Classes all day, and a film every night. They watched Dr. Strangelove. She said all the kids fell asleep during Don't Look Back. I told her to tell everyone that her mother had taken her to see Bob Dylan. She calls every night but she hasn't been homesick. She's made a lot of friends.

Elisabeth finished seventh grade. She won the Music, Technology, french and social studies prizes. She's taking piano and guzheng lessons this summer and practices every day. She's a big reader and I pass on to her a lot of books I read.

Next week i start visiting colleges with the girls. Two trips planned, one to State University of NY at New Paltz, and the other to SUNY Stony Brook. Big schools. Both have engineering departments. Madeleine thinks she wants to study engineering. This summer I plan to take them to 8 colleges. So a lot of driving and some overnights planned. My favorite school for her is Dartmouth, but she has to raise her SAT scores to get in there.

We're also going to Washington DC for a few days in August. Every year the families who adopted babies with Madeleine get together somewhere. It's been nice for these girls to stay in touch all these years. Babies together in China, now 17 years old.

And the girls have Chinese school homework. So we've got a busy summer.

I just finished the books on my Chinese book reading list so I'm looking for things to read. Keep the book recommendations coming!

Madeleine will teach origami to little kids in the summer camp later this month. She's been doing this for about five summers straight now. When she was very young she sat down with an origami book and figured out all the shapes. For a while she did nothing but origami and all her friends and teachers had big collections of her origami creations. I think her interest in engineering started with the origami. Now she spends her time building and taking apart Rubik's cubes.

The library's theme this summer is "All Around the World" and the children's librarian asked Madeleine and Elisabeth to teach simple Chinese words and phrases to two groups of kids. Then I suggested that the library have the girls teach brush painting and calligraphy to older kids. The date is set, but the library has done practically nothing to advertise the program and I'm afraid it's going to be cancelled.

Constance wrote:Madeleine will teach origami to little kids in the summer camp later this month. She's been doing this for about five summers straight now. When she was very young she sat down with an origami book and figured out all the shapes. For a while she did nothing but origami and all her friends and teachers had big collections of her origami creations. I think her interest in engineering started with the origami. Now she spends her time building and taking apart Rubik's cubes.

The library's theme this summer is "All Around the World" and the children's librarian asked Madeleine and Elisabeth to teach simple Chinese words and phrases to two groups of kids. Then I suggested that the library have the girls teach brush painting and calligraphy to older kids. The date is set, but the library has done practically nothing to advertise the program and I'm afraid it's going to be cancelled.

I love origami, never been able to do it myself. There used to be a TV Programme in the 60's where a man used to show you how to make things, but, I can't remember what it was called? It amazes me the intricate things that can be made from one sheet of paper.

Hi there, Constance.

Thanks for the updates. Your line about the parrot biting your husband reads like something out of Monty Python. Good to hear the girls are doing well.

I'm back in the hurly-burly of rotating shifts and the general madness of the London Underground, so my volume of posts has dipped sharply over the last week or so.

LU's mission statement- "A world-class tube for a world-class city"- is beyond satire: a statement so absurd that Mssrs. Chapman, Cleese, Palin, Jones & Idle would struggle to parody it.

More on all this later, when the madness abates a little.

[quote="Nah Ville Sky Chick"]

Constance wrote:

I love origami, never been able to do it myself. There used to be a TV Programme in the 60's where a man used to show you how to make things, but, I can't remember what it was called? It amazes me the intricate things that can be made from one sheet of paper.

She teaches two workshops, one for 6-9 year olds and the other to 10-13 year olds. About six-seven kids register for each.. She stands at the head of the table and explains how to do each fold, and she goes around the room to check on the kids. Interesting that the younger group has almost no trouble doing the origami, but the older kids get confused. It might be that they're more self-conscious. I try to follow along with the kids but I get nervous.

eddie wrote:Hi there, Constance.

Thanks for the updates. Your line about the parrot biting your husband reads like something out of Monty Python.

I emailed the parrot rescue woman to tell me a little about the woman who adopted Sunny and her plans for Sunny. I got a very reassuring email back. The new owner (the parrot rescue woman calls her the new "guardian") will not clip Sunny's wings and will have him out of the cage day and night. We had Sunny in his cage at night and I'm not sure it's a good idea to have a parrot out of a cage at night, but I won't complain. The new guardian also has Macaws--big noisy parrots with huge beaks--and Quakers. I hope she has a sun porch so Sunny can look outside.

Sunny looks just like this:

The big Macaw. There are also blue ones.