Tag Archives: Vermont

More Than a Woman

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Yesterday, April 28, was Equal Pay Day, the day in the year when American women’s pay catches up to American men’s from the previous year.  It takes almost five months into the year before the wages paid to women equal those for men for the 12 months of the year before.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vermont women earn just over 81% of full time working men.

In 2007, the last full year for which information is available, American men earned an average of $14.75 per hour.  American women?  $12.05 per hour.  That’s a big difference.  The median national weekly earnings for men was $766.  For women it was $614.  In Vermont those weekly earnings were $767 and $625.  Not quite as big a disparity but a disparity nonetheless.  (You can get this and lots more information from the Highlight of Women’s Earnings in 2007 report.

Not only did the notice of Equal Pay Day come my way today from a colleague, but I also happened to notice a poster, which I had seen before but never really looked at closely, that broke down average earnings, separately for men and women, by degree attained.  Vermont’s Commission on Women reports, in its January 2009 Status of Women and Girls in Vermont report, that women with a Bachelor’s Degree earned an average of $31,770 while men earned an average of $46,933.  That is a difference of over $15,000.

That isn’t fair.  Maybe there is, as some claim, more an explanation than one can see on the surface, but that still isn’t fair, and I don’t buy that it can account for the gap.  Vermont’s Commision on Women has also put together a brochure on equity in the workplace.  This isn’t something that I see every day.  It isn’t something that affects me regularly, at least openly.  But it bothers me.

I have seen many women who do a better job than men.  And I know that not all women get paid less than men.  But it is hard to keep from noticing and wondering and questioning what the heck is up with this gender earnings gap.  April 28 is awfully late in the year to be catching up.  Equal pay by New Year’s Eve.  That would be a little more my speed.

Sugaring Weather

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It has been pretty ideal sugaring weather lately.  Warm days and cold nights.  The sap is flowing.  This weekend is open house weekend at sugarhouses across the state.  Tomorrow we will head out to one or two of them, do some tasting and watch the sap boil.

We will start off with a pancake breakfast at Shelburne Farms.  My parents are up for the weekend and we will make a morning of it.  Pancakes and syrup and some fun together.  Sunday it looks to rain all day.  It will be a wet one.

The sap should be flowing again tomorrow.  The children can hardly wait to sip those little cups of syrup.  Neither can I.

Waiting for Spring

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Today I ran and it was cold.  Yesterday I had a wintry run as well–it was blowing like stink and snowing like stink and I could hardly see where I was going.  Today was colder and windier but without the snow.  The ground was frozen.  It was basically winter.  Mark Breen, the meteorologist on Vermont Public Radio, offered today that Vermont had, with the exception of extreme northeast Alaska, the coldest weather in the United States.  Something to be proud of?

The problem with running in weather like today’s is one of temperature regulation.  Out in the open, the north wind was bearing down hard, and my wind layers separated me from frostbitten extremities.  Once I got into the shelter of a hill, with the sun shining, I started sweating down the back of my neck–too hot.  I ran an out-and-back and when I turned around at the halfway point, I headed directly into the north wind that had so helpfully been pushing me onward.  It bit.

So I sweated and froze, alternately.  On average I was just about right.  Yesterday the snow stung my cheeks and slicked up the frozen just-the-day-before-muddy road.  It was treacherous, or at least it felt so.  It was less dangerous than it may have appeared, considering I was never really more than a few miles from home.  It sure didn’t feel like spring.

I won’t run tomorrow but will lace on the shoes again Wednesday or Thursday, my schedule permitting.  Wednesday promises temperatures in the fifties–T-shirt weather for this time of year.  Of course, in September, 50 degrees will feel like the ice age has returned, but in spring, bust out the flip flops.  So I wait for spring.  Running is just so much easier when the weather is warm.  I have to wear fewer layers, I can leave the gloves at home, and I just feel looser.

If I want to make any kind of mileage goals I need to run when it is cold.  I live in Vermont.  I briefly considered applying for a job in California recently, but only briefly.  Apparently one can run in shorts year-round in the climes I was considering.  That might be nice, but I have to admit, running when the snow blows so hard I can’t see is kind of invigorating.  It is easier to run when it is warm, but it feels awfully nice to run in warm weather after running in cold weather.  I would miss getting pelted in the face by tiny beads of ice.  I am not sure, but I might even be proud of that.

Off to Town Meeting

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I am off to town meeting just now. I look forward to seeing some of my fellow Hinesburg town citizens and hearing what others have to say about how our town operates. I am curious what others are thinking these days with worries about lower revenues and job losses and so on.

Tomorrow we vote on the budgets for the town, the school and the high school. Hopefully, I will take one of my kids with me. Let them see democracy happening and all that. Now, however, I need to split. I don’t want to miss things getting started.

Freezing My…

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Ran this morning, first thing. It was cold–14 degrees. That isn’t too bad but it was way windy. I ran up Carpenter Road but turned around after a mile and a half. I was afraid of getting frostbite on my face. It was a crosswind, so either direction I was getting it.

Then I took a turn to try a different route. I figured it would be in the trees. I had a tailwind for a bit, over the river and into the woods. I didn’t even get close to Grandma’s house, however. When I got to the class IV part of the road, I was walking like an elderly grandmother. It was so icy that I could hardly walk at all. At the rise, where I could see down the road a ways, I could see that the skating rink kept going. I bagged.

It was warm yesterday, in the 40’s. Things melted. Then it got cold. Things froze. It made for great skating, but I was running. I did not get as far as I wanted, but so it goes. I went home and stirred the fire in the wood stove. And I had coffee. I warmed up soon enough.

Went into Burlington today for the Mardi Gras parade. We were concerned about finding a place to park, so we drove part way to take the bus. The bus was late. We stood around in the icy wind, the family and I. We got chilled. The bus was full, which I thought was a good plug for public transportation. If it was more reliable and stopped closer to home I might use it more.

Not as Warm as New Orleans

Not as Warm as New Orleans

Waiting for the parade to start, and walking down the street, we got chilly. The kids have less mass that the adults they live with, so they got colder faster. They forgot about the cold when the crazy floats started passing and the people in zany costumes started throwing bead necklaces and moon pies. But once the noise and commotion passed us by, we split. We warmed up in the mall for ten minutes while watching for anyone we knew or didn’t.

The children did not play outside much today, but at least we got plenty of fresh air. And we got to take a bus ride. That was a highlight for them. The temperature did not rise above 20 degrees here at the house. The bank thermometer in Burlington read 24 degrees when we passed it. That was such crap. I know it was windy but 24? No way.

Now we have way too many bead necklaces, more plastic crap that we don’t need that will outlive all of us. Tomorrow I need to try again for a morning run. The bummer is that is forecast to be even colder tonight than last night–a low of 5. We hope to go skiing tomorrow as well. Maybe the afternoon will be our time to play. I don’t want to freeze any parts of me.

A Little Skiing

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It’s not like I get out there that much these days.  My spouse and I used to get out at least once a week to ski, often long days in the backcountry.  Of course, we lived in the mountains.  We could walk out the door and access hundreds of acres of wilderness.  We also could walk out the door and ride the lift to ski or snowboard.  We used to sled on the groomed ski trails.

I’m not saying “Oh those were the days” or anything.  I’m no sentimental sap.  Living there was amazing but it also was pretty much impossible to walk out the door in the winter and safely go for a run.  A five mile steep road, covered in snow and hemmed in by snow banks is the place to run if you want to get back home.  But we did get in lots of skiing.

Yesterday I had one day at least of the kind of adventure we used to have.  I went with a handful of other gentlemen, poking around for some slides in the Adirondacks.  We found the snowmobile trail, skied up that, the puttered about looking for some access in the woods.  It was thick, filled in with hobblebush and birch saplings that had sprung up from the ice storm ten years ago.  Eventually, however, we found the slopes.

There were a couple of steep slopes, covered in powerdery snow.  There was a little ice underneath, but hardly much.  We were in there, we sweated, and we earned out turns.  It was great fun.  We sat for lunch at the top of an open slice of moutain, snow falling like crazy, with our backs a frozen waterfall and ate lunch before dropping down.  It was pretty dang good.

In the past week five feet of snow has fallen in the mountains.  Tomorrow, school on break, my wife and I both off, we will get into those mountains and, hopefully, link some turns.  I got in a little skiing.  I hope to get in much more this week.

Deep Enough Snow

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Snow After a Storm

Snow After a Storm

This morning we woke to the effects of yesterday’s storm.  We have several inches of snow on the ground.  It was deep and fluffy.  The sun rose to a clear sky and the world was aglow.  The low light slanted against the whitened firs, that air was still, our feet crunched as we walked.

When I was in high school I headed from my home in Connecticut to rural Vermont for a semester.  That was on this date a whole passel of years ago.  The experience had such an impact on me that not only did I end up living in Vermont, but I remember the day I started that semester.

I arrived with my parents in Vershire on a day much like this one.  The snow was deep, the world was quiet.  It was beautiful.  After my parents got a chance to see the place and get oriented, and to offer me a solid goodbye, I began my four months in a new place–a school on a working farm.

I dug it.  I learned a lot about myself.  I made good friends.  I came to love the world.  I still do.  And I came to ask lots of questions.  I still do that as well.

I mentioned the place, the Mountain School, to a couple of students with whom I now work.  I told them they might think about applying.  It would do them some good.  I suppose it isn’t for everyone, living in a small community and working hard and being pushed to learn, but, frankly, I think more of that would do all of us some good.

What, No Snow Day?

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My wife is an educator and, come winter, is seriously crazy about following the weather for the purposes of discovering the perfect convergence of snow/sleet/ice/cold and a school day.  This ideal scenario means, of course, a snow day.  She only works part time so the quest to find this meeting of the weather and the educational system has even more significance than it would were she to work full time, as there are fewer days on which it might happen.

I have some of the same feelings, I admit.  A snow day makes me feel like a kid.  That feeling of another day in the old classroom, suddenly turned into a day romping through the drifts of white, now that’s something to celebrate.  Having my own children these days, I get to experience a little of that all over again.  Plus, I get to do some romping now and again myself.

My wife, however, gets way more excited than I do.  This is a reflection, perhaps, of my own surliness.  Or maybe I just have a little bit less hope, or I hate to get disappointed if it does not happen.  In any case, she keeps me up on the latest.

This morning had real potential to be a snow day.  It started snowing last night and was falling heavily this morning.  The forecast was somewhat squirrely, so it had been continually updated over the past week as a couple of systems converged on us.  As of last night, it looked good for some poor travel.  Poor travel conditions are the key element to the snow day.  School gets cancelled if it seems unsafe for buses to make their way along the slippery roads.

Not only the severity of a storm has to be right but the timing has to be right.  If the roads can get cleared in time, well, forget missing a day of school.  It was seriously a tough call for those school administrators I am sure.  I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes.  If you cancel school, some parent complains that it was fine and their little Einstein missed another day of fractions.  If you don’t cancel school, some parent complains that their kid had to risk his neck just for another day of fractions.  Not an easy business.

You might have guessed by now that we did not have a snow day today.  Frankly, that isn’t a terrible thing for me.  Making up a snow day is big fat hassle.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy it.  It just puts a thorn in my tender side.  My wife, as you can imagine, was not exactly thrilled about this.  She even got a tad grumpy, but don’t tell her I said so.  Every school in the state, except for a few here in Chittenden County, was closed.  Apparently, they like to play it safe, while here in Chittenden County feel the need to risk a bus full of children in a ditch to keep the moaners at bay.

Don’t get me wrong, we have some stellar bus drivers around these parts, and I would trust them to make safety a priority.  It’s just that, couldn’t we have a snow day?  That would be so much more fun.  My wife certainly thinks so.  I am not home at the moment and I need to travel to get there.  It is snowing, ice covers the car.  It is slick as a booger rag.  But even if it were 6:00 am, I am sure schools around here would still be open.  Too many little Einsteins to educate.

Holiday Shopping Zaniness

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Yesterday afternoon I had the bright idea to go get some food so we are ready for all our holiday baking and cooking and general whipping-up of foodstuffs, and to pick up some stocking stuffers while I was out.  I could head to Dorset Street and get everything done in one shot since so many stores are so densely packed.  It would a quick and efficient trip.  Good idea.  Didn’t happen.

I crossed the Maginot line of Kennedy Drive and was soon battling traffic.  Cars were packed in every lane, both ways.  I was stuck.  Even if I could turn around, I would be inching along.  So I kept going.  I listened to a variety of odd holiday songs (Hanukkah in Santa Monica, Steven Colbert’s new holiday tribute) and laughed and jotted down some songs to download on i-Tunes.  Eventually I made it to the supermarket.

Of course, I had to navigate the parking lot (I parked far away so I wouldn’t have to jostle for a spot) then walk across the slush, then elbow through the other food shoppers, then wait in line to pay.  It was holiday zaniness at its best.  The young woman at the register told me it was actually kind of calm compared to earlier.  Like I said, zaniness.

Then I had the idea to go to the mall.  The ice cream would stay frozen in the car.  It was about six degrees.  Hopeully the spinach wouldn’t get too cold.  Normally I spurn the mall–too many people, too much commercialism, too much stuff no one needs in there.  So what was I thinking?  I knew what I was seeking so how hard could it be?

The mall, of course, was jammed.  It was, as always this time of year, overwhelming.  I made only two stops, the first a dud, the second a success.  At Vermont Toy and Hobby I found the two small toys I wanted.  OK, I was looking for three, but I thought it was a pretty good success rate anyway.  I had to wait in line, of course, and their credit card machines were down.  I paid with cash.  Overall, it wasn’t difficult, just mentally taxing.

Two stops to go.  I purchased a slew of stocking stuffers at Healthy Living, then went to Barnes and Noble.  I got a couple of books for the kids, ran into some friends, and hightailed it.  I had most certainly had enough.  Spending time at one of the busiest spots in the state was probably not the best idea.  I did manage to make some gift purchases, but whoa.  As I said a few years ago, never again.

I was gone for four hours.  Normally that would have meant about 40 minutes of driving out and back.  Most of my time was spent in traffic or in line.  Nuts.  But hey, now I can stay in and make the lasagna for which I purchased the fontina that was so hard to find.  I bet it tastes pretty dang yummy.

Christmas Tree Erection

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The Saturday after Thanksgiving is the day we have gotten our Christmas tree in the past and we continued that tradition today.  We cut our own from Martel’s farm in Williston.  The place has an incredible view of the Green Mountains, Lake Iroquois and the town of Williston, so it is worth the trip just for that.  We got some help tying to the top of the car and drove slowly home.

This tree is tall and skinny, unlike the rotund jobbers of the past two years.  It is a long boy.  We stood it up and trimmed it this afternoon.  Christmas has arrived.  In a few days we start the advent calendars.  Now we just need some snow.  And it looks like tomorrow we will get some.  Snow day on Monday?

Before the Trimming

Before the Trimming

Avec Trimmings

Avec Trimmings