January 18th was Mer’s fortieth birthday, but we always push our birthday celebrations off to the following Saturday. Since this was a big birthday for Mer, I decided to go a bit splashy. I told Mer to be ready and packed to go on a weekend trip right after school on Friday. We managed to be on the road by around 4:00, and we had good traveling weather. We headed northeast out of Ohio, and through Pennsylvania, and stopped for supper at the Angola rest stop, near Buffalo. After a pretty decent supper from a chain offering made-to-order burritos, we headed through Buffalo, and crossed with ease into Canada. I had to declare our intentions at the border, so Mer knew our weekend plans – to go to Toronto. We arrived in downtown Toronto, and were directed by a very affable doorman on where to park cheaply. We were situated in the middle of downtown, at the King Edward Hotel, a four-star hotel on which Priceline had worked magic for us. The room was on the eighth floor and had a view of the top of the CN Tower antenna, and was a quite lovely room. The only drawback was that the hotel was older, so soundproofing was not total, and we could often hear the man in the next room when he was on his cell phone. That was fine, though, as he seemed to keep our hours, more or less.

We were both up relatively early on Saturday, and were heading out the door around 10:00 or so to explore the waterfront. We bought a day-pass for the mass-transit system, and rode one stop toward the southern terminus of the subway. From there, we walked to the waterfront, and along it for quite a ways.

Toronto’s waterfront is lovely. It is publicly accessible, and looks out over Toronto Island, where there is a large park and a good-sized metropolitan airport at one end. We strolled along the lake, and enjoyed the ever-changing views of Toronto’s skyline, including the famous CN Tower. The amount of high-rise buildings going up in downtown Toronto is astonishing – there were cranes everywhere.

We made several little happy discoveries along the waterfront. I loved the up-close view of small jets landing at the airfield. We then came across a sculpture and fountain where you could walk inside the sculpture, which was shaped roughly like a globe. We stumbled upon a community ice rink that was very active on a Saturday morning. We found a spiffy walkway with lights laid out like sails, and ran across a sidewalk that was designed to be rolling like waves. We wandered around inside Pawsway, a building dedicated to cats and dogs and stories about them. We then headed back to the hotel by going past the Rogers Center (where the Blue Jays play baseball) and past the CN Tower. It was quite a marvelous little walk.

We stopped by the hotel briefly before heading across the street to a burger joint that was quite good and served an enormous helping of fries. After lunch and a brief hotel stop, we walked north through the shopping district, heading to the first event of the day. We arrived at a cross street while I looked for our destination, and found it – a theater across the street that happened to be flying a rainbow flag. Mer blinked a couple of times and asked, “Are you taking me to a gay theater for my birthday?” Since I had only looked up the show based on the summary, my honest answer was “Apparently so.” Gay theaters can occasionally do work that is extremely risque, and we were both a little anxious over that.

We did not need to be. The production we saw was being put on by an all-women company of actors, and it while it was certainly suggestive several times, it was about a PG-13 rating. Yay! We were there to see The Penelopiad, a retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey from Penelope’s point of view. (Penelope was the wife whom Odysseus left behind for twenty years while he was off at the Trojan War.) The show was tremendous and thought-provoking. It was very well acted, especially by the woman playing Penelope; and the woman who played the male Odysseus was so good at what she did, I often forgot she was female. The show explored the relationship Penelope had with her family and her household, especially her slave girls who (in this interpretation) sacrificed much to protect Penelope. It also shows how difficult the situation was in the house while Odysseus was away. It was a great show, and we were both pleased to have seen it.

After a brief return to the hotel, we jumped on the subway and took it out pretty far east. Toronto’s subway really is amazing – clean and efficient and not overly crowded. We found the next theater to which I was taking Meredith, and so then decided we could find a restaurant for supper. We walked a couple of blocks and ran across Queen’s Pasta Cafe, an Italian restaurant. It turned out to be a charming two-story restaurant. The experience was odd, though – it took awhile to be waited on, and then the food came very quickly. It was excellent. Then, the service disappeared again for over twenty minutes, so we did not have time for dessert, but headed back to the theater.

We were at a little community theater to see another play of which neither of us had ever heard – Queen Milli of Galt. The play explored the claim of a woman, Milli, that she had had some kind of a relationship with Edward, the Duke of Wales, and the later king who would abdicate the throne to marry an American woman. When Edward died, Milli had a tombstone erected that claimed she was “Queen Milli of Galt.” It turns out to be wonderful material for a witty and sometimes poignant play, and one that only required five actors. The actors in the work all did a wonderful job with their roles, and we both loved the play.

We headed back to the hotel via the subway, getting there around 11:00 or so. Mer had insisted on bringing much of her birthday food students and friends had given her, so we had a very pleasant dessert in the hotel. The day had gone more or less as I had planned, and we still had all of Sunday for more exploration of Toronto.

One of our semi-formal New Year’s resolutions for this year was to try to get together with CVCA colleagues for dinner, with the aim of offering an invitation once a week. Granted, people may be busy or we may get busy, but we figured if we aimed for once a week, then we had a good chance of being social with fun people at least twice a month.

Last Thursday we managed to catch up with Craig Rupe, who teaches science at CVCA. Craig is also heavily involved in cross country and track, and he is one of the more amazing runners I have ever known. Craig had an inclination to go to the Cheesecake Factory, and Mer and I do not ever have to be persuaded to do that.

We had an excellent supper, and got to chat for about an hour. Dessert is the main reason to go to the Cheescake Factory, so we all had a slab of cheesecake. It was a promising start to a new year.

Last Saturday, I started the morning out with an eighteen-mile run at Sand Run Metro Park. My boss and friend Jim had suggested it as a good run since the path is maintained even in the winter. It was also unseasonably warm, so the path was in good shape. What Jim did not tell me, and I had not remembered, is that two miles of the three-mile path are uphill, which meant six miles of uphill running out of eighteen miles. My legs hurt pretty badly by the end of the run.

It was Mer’s day, and so she had us drive to Canton to the second-run theater, where they were showing the movie Hitchcock, a film about Alfred Hitchcock’s struggles to get the movie Psycho made. My mom loves Hitchcock and passed that trait on to me, so I loved the film. It was an engaging story, and it was stunningly well acted.

After the movie, we ran by Dale and Carlene’s place and helped them hang some more pictures. Mer was kind enough to let me go out to Handel’s ice cream afterwards, so it wrapped up a mellow little Saturday.

On Sunday, we had our family Christmas dinner and gift exchange, for the King side of the family. Aunt Mary put together a quite wonderful meal, and we all had a good, relaxed visit. We did also get to exchange gifts, which I quite enjoy. The day was pleasant, and I probably ate too much, but it was a good time.

We had planned to spend the last day of J-term hiking the nearby Happy Days Visitor Center trail that leads up to the exposed rock of The Ledges, with a finish on the connector trail to Kendall Lake. That is a really scenic hike, and Jim and I were looking forward to introducing the students to the hike. The problem was, it rained all morning. I do not like hiking in a cold rain, so we cast about for another option. We decided to stick to the park system, and headed instead up to the Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo.

I’m not sure why the Metro Parks system runs the zoo, but it is sort of a park and so makes some sense. The kids were very excited to be going to the zoo, and the rain stopped by the time we got there. Since the paths at the zoo are all paved, or the animals are indoors, we were free from mud, and the day was quite warm and pleasant to be out in. We split the group into two groups – Jim and I took a group of nineteen students who wanted to hike a little more outside, and Vicki (the other adult staff worker who helped us) took a group of six students who thought they might like to be inside more than not. Vicki took her group to the indoor rain forest exhibit to start, and Jim and I took our group around the perimeter of the zoo.

We did stop to see animals, and we even went inside for one exhibit. We saw elephants and flamingos and big cats and fish and lemurs and primates and rhinos and a polar bear. We saw a few giraffes and a zebra from a distance, and we hiked all over the zoo, although we did catch the bus to the far part of the zoo when we discovered that the main path we were on was closed for construction. We saw Vicki and her students outside at one point, which I was pleased with (since it was such a nice day for January). We were only at the zoo for about seventy-five or eighty minutes, but we saw quite a bit of the grounds in that time. It ended the hiking class on a very good note.

Mer had her students do their mini-presentations on Italy. She said they went well enough considering the students only had thirty or forty minutes to put them together. One student took the project home the night before and made a very cool painting of everything she had learned about Italy; it was very well done. Mer was pleased with her class, and has some ideas of how to improve it should she offer it again in a couple of years. Mer finished her class by watching most of the movie Letters to Juliet, which was filmed in Italy.

J-term is a fun time at CVCA. That finishes up the third year of the program, and as far as I have seen, it has gone very well.

Friday evening, Craig and Jordan (of the Social Studies Department) came over for Mer’s and my monthly “History Night,” when we watch one DVD of the series Battlefield. This month the topic was the Battle of the Atlantic during World War 2. We ate pizza and cookies and watched the show and visited, and it was a fun and mellow way to end the work week.

Today’s hike was at the Nature Realm, in Akron. The Nature Realm has a visitor center with a bird-watching station, many stuffed animals, and naturalists on hand to answer questions. We met up with a naturalist who had also taught science at CVCA as a long-term substitute teacher a few years ago. He stayed with us the entire two hours we were there, and was very friendly and helpful.

We started the day with looking out the windows of the bird-observation area, and Dave (the naturalist) explained about some of the species of birds that stay in Ohio for the winter and some of the adaptations that allow them to survive during the cold weather. We then headed outside and tried to feed the birds, but the weather was warm enough (in the forties) that the birds were not all that interested. We then hiked all three trails at the Nature Realm, which includes a small but very cool suspension bridge, several small hills, a couple of ravines, and an overlook or two. Dave gave us fun facts about some of the plant and animal life as we walked along, and while some of the kids were not always riveted in their attentions, they were at least polite and not being a distraction for those who were listening. In the end, I’m guessing we hiked about three miles, and then we went back inside of the visitor center. Dave got out a mid-sized snake to show the students, and gave them time to wander around the center, looking at the exhibits. The entire visit seemed to go well.

Mer’s Italian culture class started to wrap up today. She finished covering Italian music and how the classic music of Italian culture remains relevant even in Italian popular culture. She played a couple of different review games to try to help cement some of the information she’d shared over the last six days, and she ended the class by giving the students time to work on mini-presentations they would give on Friday.

Today was another great hike. I was worried when I went into work and it was lightly raining, but by the time 11:45 rolled around, the rain had gone away and the sun had come out. One of the morning classes ran over slightly, so we got started about five minutes late, but that worked out fine.

We went down into the Valley, near Boston Store, to the Stanford House and the associated Stanford Trail. The Stanford Trail runs up and down several large hills and has several small bridges to cross. It eventually leads all the way up to Brandywine Falls, which are the best waterfalls I have seen in Ohio (although I hear there are some spectacular ones in the the southeast of Ohio). The hike was a bit slick, as the trail was wet with packed snow, and sometimes ice, but I was fine since I use “Yaktrax” traction guides on my shoes. Some of the students had some trouble with their boots, but no one got hurt (although we had people slipping a fair amount). The day was sunny and very warm (mid-forties).

The hike was again very pretty. I had never hiked the Stanford Trail, and it is a great trail. The hills are steep in places, but it makes for dramatic scenery. I have been to Brandywine Falls before, but hadn’t seen the falls so full with snow melt-off before. I had hoped to hike down to the river-level observation deck, but it was closed because of snow and ice. Still, we were able to see the falls pretty well from the upper platform and trail.

After the falls, we took a brief detour to walk on the newly completed paved Bike and Hike extension that runs through the woods. I wanted the kids to know about the trail since it is a paved trail that is about thirty miles long, and is a great trail for bikers.

We headed back to the Brandywine Gorge Trail, which took us a down a steep and icy incline to river-level. We crossed the newly completed footbridge (you used to have to cross on fording stones), but stopped long enough for the requisite group photo. The trail then looped back to the Stanford Trail, and we headed back to the bus after a good, but tiring, hike.

Mer had a field trip today in her Italian class – they headed up to Cleveland’s Little Italy for lunch. Mer was joined by three former students and a former CVCA parent, as well as her full class. They got started about forty minutes late because of waiting on a late morning class trip to return, but they had a successful trip once they got underway. Mer and her party had to wait on their entrees, so they got back to the bus five or ten minutes later than everyone else, but Mer said the food was excellent. Both of our trips came back with everyone and no injuries, so it was a successful day!

Today was a grand hike – we hiked the Oak Hill area, a series of trails near Peninsula, Ohio. It is only about eight miles from school, but has three ponds, a very cool tree alley, multiple bridges, dense forests, and a pretty deep gorge. Throw in the snow and a sunny day, and we had a very beautiful hike.

The trip started out well – because of J-term’s requiring more buses than we can get a hold of, we got a rented bus, with high-backed seats and pretty regal comfort. It was almost too bad that we were only on the bus for about fifteen minutes each way.

We hiked somewhere between four and five miles, and it took almost two hours. We got back to school about thirty minutes early, so if I ever do this class again, I’m adding in a two-mile extension that we did not hike. I’d much rather be a few minutes late than thirty minutes early.

My boss Jim could not go on this hike because of a sore tendon that resulted from a treatment shot. Happily, my co-worker Vicki was still able to go, so I was not alone with twenty-six students. The hike itself went well, and except for the slowdown from an almost-continuous snowball lobbing being done by some of the males of the group, all went smoothly.

In Mer’s Italy class, she taught more vocabulary, and then looked at scientists, authors, and musicians. She said that the students are on the quiet side, but that the class seems to be going well in general.

Today was a fun day. We went over to Firestone Metro Park, where we were able to hike the entire park in about an hour, which included another round of feeding the birds. I had two land on my hand today, and we saw a huge number of cardinals. The cardinals would not land in anyone’s hand, but they were very happy to pick up seed from the ground (as long as we stood a few feet off). The shorter hike allowed us time to break out the sleds and hit Firestone’s excellent sledding hill. Since it has been over a week since it snowed, the snow on the hill was packed and very fast. The middle of the hill features mini-moguls, which were responsible for dumping many people, including me and my boss Jim when we took our first tandem ride. The edges of the hill were much smoother, and Jim and I had a more successful ride down the smooth section, although the dismount was a bit rough. After two rides down the hill, I took two students back to feed the birds while everyone else kept sliding. With just three of us there, we commanded a lot of attention from the chickadees and even a few small woodpeckers, and we all had a large number of birds land in our hands and take seeds. It seemed as if it was a fun day for everyone, and no one got (very) hurt on the sliding hill.

Mer used today to teach about Italian art and architecture and food, and she also had the students compare Italian and American versions of Nutella (a chocolate-hazelnut spread) plastered on Italian bread. In general, the students could tell which was which (the American version is sweeter, not too surprisingly, but the chocolate and hazelnut flavors are stronger in the Italian version). She also taught a little about Italian soccer, which went over well with the class.

Today was day two of our J-term classes, and they went well. Mer reviewed the Italian vocabulary the students learned yesterday, as well as added some new words. She also highlighted Italian cinema, looking at clips from Cinema Paradiso, the Italian trailer for A Fistful of Dollars (released in Italy before coming to the U.S.), and more. She also looked at Italian fashion designers like Armani.

In my hiking class, we headed over to Brecksville Reservation, where we were meeting up with a naturalist named Pam. We were supposed to walk the four-mile Deer Lick Trail, but when we got there, Pam strongly recommended against it, citing icy trail conditions (they had had several hikers fall on the ice the day before). Instead, we started around the nature center, where she helped us feed the birds, which were mostly small chickadees. If you held still and were quiet, the birds would come and take seeds right out of your hand. Most of the students had at least one bird land on them, and several students had many, with one having eleven birds land on his hand. The kids seemed to enjoy the experience.

We then hiked the flatter trails around the nature center, and walked over to the gorge on the eastern side of the park. It was very pretty with the snow and ice, and Pam explained about various tracks in the snow and some of the plants around. We finished the first hike back at the bus, which we took to the far side of the park, where we picked up a small section of the Deer Lick Trail, which was still a pretty tough hike in the snow, and we walked down to the Deer Lick Cave, a small hollowed-out cave in a rocky portion of the park. We then headed back the way we came, and got back to the bus. It was a pretty good hike, even if it was not the original plan, and the kids seemed to enjoy the mellower pace after the longer hike yesterday on the Towpath. We now get the weekend to rest up for the five straight days of hiking next week.

J-term is a time of mini-classes that are fun and unusual, and CVCA started offering J-term three years ago. This year, J-term is for seven days, and it started today. Both Mer and I are teaching J-term classes this time around. Mer is teaching A Taste of Italy: Italian Language and Culture, a class that introduces students to a smattering of Italian language, and exposes them to Italian culture, film, history, food, and so on. Mer is pretty excited about it, and says her first day went well. Today she covered geography and major sites of Italy, and her students picked Italian names and played a little bocce (for a reward of the candy called “Baci” – “bocce for Baci”).

Along with my boss, Jim, and a co-worker, Vicki, I am leading Hiking NE Ohio, a class where we hike somewhere different in the area each day. We actually have twenty-six students in the class, although one student was out sick today. It surprised me that that many people wanted to hike outside in January.

We had decent weather today, with temperatures in the lower twenties, with some intermittent sun. It was supposed to be windy, but we were in the Valley, and the wind was not an issue. We hiked the Towpath Trail today, starting at Boston Store and going about three miles south, past Peninsula, to the Deep Lock Quarry Trail. Deep Lock Quarry is an old quarry used to make the canal, and it was a pretty place to end the hike. We saw four of the canal locks along the way, and we had plenty of time to explore the quarry, which included climbing around on some of the rocky areas (carefully, since they were snow-covered). We hiked about four miles total, which is pretty good considering the snow cover we had (about six inches of snow, although the snow was well packed on the Towpath from other hikers). I was pleased with how the hike went – everyone was dressed warmly, and I did not hear any complaints.  The students seemed to especially like the quarry, and everyone came back safe, if maybe a little tired. Here is hoping the next six hikes go as well.