What Else Can a Lady Ask For?

Jay Mountain

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Cedar Run Carrot Cake

= A Very Happy Birthday!

The Endangered Phone Booth

Fellow readers, I have some very sad news to report. The phone booth along the Ausable is on the endangered list and may soon become extinct. Yes, that's right the phone booth, a four walled little building meant for you to have private phone conversations in. Or maybe if you are a teenager, to make prank phone calls from.

There are still a few cellular holdouts left in this world and what would they do without the phone booth that shelters them from the Adirondack weather? I have to admit that I am one of those people that only has a cell phone, no land line. What would happen if my cell phone went dead or we were without electricity for several days and couldn't charge my phone? I fear that some day soon I will be without having the option to use the phone booth and will have to buy a phone charger for my car. I realize that this is not just a regional phenomenon, but something that threatens many areas. For instance, Manhattan has just four phone booths left.

For this to also happen in our neck of the woods saddens me to no extent. Yes, there are pay phones to use, but the phone booth is a symbol of simpler times and I would hate for this to disappear.

Jay still has a phone booth on the Village Green. This is a beautiful telephone booth that still has the accordion door and I think that back in the day, when you closed it, the light above would turn on. Surprisingly, it lacks graffiti and the only noticeable wear was a rusty hole on the outside.

It was here that I tried using the phone inside and discovered that it was completely dead.

My phone booth quest continued in Keene Valley where there is a phone booth next to their grocery store and public parking lot. This one is lacking a door to close and I wonder if it may have been broken from a car backing into it because I noticed that there are yellow cement posts protecting it.

Keene Valley is one of the towns in our area where there is little to no cell service and many hikers rely on this phone booth at the end of their journey. I thought I'd give the phone a try inside and it looked more promising than the one in Jay. Definitely more modern with calling card instructions and how to charge a call to your credit card.

Unfortunately, there was no dial tone. I could tell that the phone wasn't dead, because there was a little bit of static on the other end, but I was unable to reach an operator. I reported this inside to the Keene Valley Grocery so it could get fixed before hiking season kicks in.

I cruised through Lake Placid and saw a few pay phones, but no phone booths. I remembered seeing a phone booth in Ausable Forks, but couldn't find it. Of course, I used my cell phone and called my friend to help me locate it and were informed that it had recently been removed! Our friend that had lived a few houses away from the phone booth had no answers, just that it was gone. She knew that my heart sank and the next day sent me a text message to my cell phone of a phone booth in Keeseville.

After spending the afternoon tracking down phone booths and becoming disheartened with the results, I have decided not to restrict my search to just our area. There is a gem of a phone booth in Ray Brook between the Ford dealership and the campground. That one is a must see!

As a graduate student in England, the phone booth became my second home to call family and friends when I needed privacy from flat mates and I don't know what I would have done without it. So, it is here readers that I am professing my love for the phone booth and will now attempt to save one phone booth at a time!

Trusty China City

In case you ever wanted to know, China City on Main Street, Lake Placid never seems to let me down.

I can always count on them for making my stomach satisfied with their Bean Curd in Hot Garlic Sauce along with an order of Cold Sesame Noodles.

I am also pleased that the order comes in heavy duty plastic containers that can be re-used for future leftovers besides Chinese take-out. Way better than the old styrofoam that would leak. Even though everything is placed in a plastic bag, it won't be thrown away either because how could I throw away a bag that has a smiley face and tells me to "Have a Nice Day"?

Easter Gargoyles

HOPPY EASTER!

Woodland Girl

As a kid, my paternal grandfather used to tell me these elaborate stories about how I was found in the woods on a log and had been raised by woodchucks. There was no stork that dropped me off, it was the woodchuck that could chuck wood that gave me a bottle. I don't really remember all the details on how I was placed in my parents care after being some magical kind of baby in the forest.

Anyways, my fascination with woodland creatures grew stronger when these human parents of mine gave me Woodsey's Log House to play with.

I felt some kind of connection to these squeaking squirrels in overalls, like they were distant cousins of the woodchuck family that I once belonged to. I know this was all make believe and that I wasn't really brought up by furry animals that live in the woods, but today the strangest thing happened.

I had a running date with a friend that recently moved to Wilmington with her family. We had never run together before and I was excited to explore the side areas of town. Jen and I checked out one of the campgrounds and found ourselves on Woodland Circle.

It was here that we went up a small hill and saw a young girl walking by herself.

We kept running on this trail and eventually it looped around. We kept on chatting away and didn't think anything of the child we just saw because it seemed like she was just going back to her family's cabin or something.

When we came back to the fork in the trail the girl was sitting on a log crying. Jen, being the mother was very calm and asked the girl where her parents were. She didn't say anything, and it was here we noticed she was petting a woodchuck! There was absolutely no one around to witness this other than Jen and I. No tents, no RVs, nothing. The campground was deserted and all I could think about was my grandfather's tall tale.

Jen stayed with the girl and I ran off towards the road as fast as I could to get some help for this girl all alone in the woods, but when I got back to the campground office there was nothing but a big old sign that said,

APRIL FOOLS!

Our One Maple

It was last year, that we tapped our Maple for the first time and it turned out to be one of my favorite days of 2009. This year, I was agonizing over tapping the tree at all because there would be a few days this month that we wouldn't be able to bring the sap up to Coolidge's Sugar Shack.

I had been in a bit of a "funk" the last month and then got sick, but when I pulled into the driveway after work a couple weeks ago and found three sap buckets on our porch along with a drill, a big smile appeared on my face. I was so happy that the Coolidge's remembered our one Maple tree that could be a part of their sugaring.

I immediately went over to the tree, drilled my three holes and then hung the buckets. Of course, the last hook wouldn't budge and so I sat on our ski lift chair waiting impatiently for Drew to get home to place the last bucket.

The darkness forced me inside and when I heard his car pull in the driveway, I rushed him over to catch the droplets of sap before too many had hit the ground.

The weather was perfect with warm days and cold nights. I kept checking the buckets and the sap level never seemed to change even after a few good days of steady dripping. I started thinking I was a little too crazy and stopped checking the buckets every two minutes.

Finally, I peeked in the buckets on Friday and there was nothing there! At this point I wondered if Cal was discreetly taking the sap for us when we weren't home. I stormed into his wife's place of work and asked if he was taking the sap. With her answer, yes, another mystery was solved and was glad we did not have a sap stealer on our hands. I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and reflect on how lucky we are to have people remember us and our one Maple.

Irish Gargoyle

Happy St. Patrick's Day!