How to budget your summer vacation

1. Give in to the teenagers’ impassioned pleas to “just hang” for the summer. Save $2,000 on camp fees. Pay $4,000 for overdue video fines at the Country Store.

2. Start paying college tuition payments on July 1 even though you haven’t filled out the Federal Financial Aid forms and you don’t have a clue how to pay for all that fine education.

3. Don’t replace the broken dishwasher in the bungalow because you “only use it three months out of the year” and the compact model that fits in your tiny kitchen costs $200 more than the one you use every day at home. Save $600. Buy rubber gloves in quantity at Sam’s Club. Break several favorite dishes. Hope they aren’t the kind you saw on Antiques Roadshow.

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Mesmerized by a master

A young local violinist recounts her impressions of listening to Midori

SHANDELEE, NY—As we drove away from the idyllic Shandelee Music Festival site on July 17, I considered myself one of the most fortunate teenagers in the music world. A few minutes ago I had sat spellbound gazing up at Midori, world-renowned violinist, whose incredible gifts had just been bestowed upon me. I could not possibly capture the magic of my experience in words, but I will try.

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Go live!

She lands with a thud barely three feet in front of me.

The impact of her feet slamming to stillness against the mat sends vibrations through the underlying wooden floor.

The motion enters through my bare feet; we’ve been asked to leave our shoes around the perimeter of the performance space used by LAVA, the OBIE Award-winning troupe of female acrobat-artists who steamed up and kicked off the 2005 Catskill Festival of New Theatre at North American Cultural Laboratory (NaCl) in Highland Lake, NY this past weekend.

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A D V E R T I S E M E N T S