Best of...

It was a family, friends, snow, ice, rain, warm, choc chip cookie, movie kind of Christmas and now it is over, and New Year's Eve looms.  We ate perhaps too well - with food from Whole Foods (ran into Don Sleeman), Plum's Market, and a new restaurant in Ann Arbor named Cubana.  We passed by some old fave's:  Bandito's, Seva, Red Hawk.  Ann Arbor remains a primo town.  Our past parades before our eyes.  We saw two movies "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Milk."  Both were spectacular in very different ways.  SM was quite the spectacle, complete with splashes of color, an amazing end-sequence of Bollywood dancing as well as incredible violence.  I'd recommend the film, but be aware of the brutal treatment of children.  I liked "Milk" so much I went and saw it twice, the second time with Sally, Mark and Bern at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck.  What a performance by Sean Penn!  And Josh Brolin, who, Barbara tells me, is married to Diane Lane, looked more amazing the 2nd time.  

We saw it first at the Michigan Theater with Midge and Jay.  The theater had a list of 'must-see' movies playing the week b/t Xmas and New Year's, which included some of my favorite films:  "Wall-E," "The Visitor," "Frozen River," "Man On Wire," and "Rachel Getting Married."  As I think of that list, Wall-E," "Frozen River" and "Man on Wire" stand out as seriously entertaining and, maybe more valuable,  interesting.  

I heard from and saw friends from all over my life this season:  Michelle Young, John Campbell, Cathy Arcure, Jean Nelson, Mary Kahl, Maria Callas, Dennis and Yvonne, Marilyn Knepp, Kathleen Stadtfeld, Linda Blakey, Sarah Boulton (who is a senior in college), Candace Vancko, Celia Soden, Janet Billek.  

Steve gave me Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife, and I was riveted to it all during the break.  I read on the plane.  I read in the car going between Ann Arbor and Grand Haven.  I read in the airport.  I read at Ray and Veda's.  I read at Midge's.  I finished the book just as the plane landed in Albany.  I passed along the book to Shelly W and look forward to talking about it with her.  I'm not too sure it is well written and am not too sure how faithful it is to Laura Bush's life, but I am sure it kept me entertained.  

Happy New Year!  2009 will be wonderful (and terrible), and I plan to enjoy every minute.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy winter holidays!

To all the lovely readers of this blog - Ken and I wish you the very best as you look back on 2008 and forward into 2009.  Travel safely.  Stay warm.    

A political note

I am a committed, life long Democrat and have been ecstatic about the election of Barack Obama.  So let me publicly state my disappointment in the selection of Rick Warren to be on the podium at the inauguration.  Christopher Hitchens in Slate  (http://www.slate.com/id/2207148/) is eloquent in a story that leaves me bleak.  

I would hate for us (the Dems) to be just like them and insist on only consorting with people with whom we agree, but surely there are others with whom we disagree who are more honorable than this guy.  

Rats.

It is winter for sure now...

My sweet New Paltz was blanketed with maybe 8" of snow yesterday, turning the first undergraduate commencement (2nd one this morning and Graduate School this afternoon) of the season into a sparsely attended but raucous affair.  It was short - less than an hour - and moving as only graduations can be.  Our DBA, Carol, who lives an hour away across the river, spent the night.  Working the Friday ceremony, and then the Saturday morning ceremony leaves little time for long, snow clogged commutes.  I don't know if I am just noticing it more, but the large contingent of staff volunteers at graduation ceremonies is remarkable at SUNY New Paltz.

Among the many changes at my college is a construction/renovation project at the Student Union Building (SUB).  It will involve a relocation of Jazzman's, one of three Starbuck's-ish coffee shops, to a farther away location.  As the SUB is just steps away from the offices of the Haggerty Administration Building, many of us are at Jazzman's multiple times a day.  Student life folks use it as conference space.  So the women who work at Jazzman's are much a part of our lives.  Mary Beth, dean of advising and a member of the Provost's Office, had a great idea yesterday morning which resulted in perhaps 20 serenading the Jazzman's crew with "Jingle Bell Rock."  It was a tiny moment of greatness:  spontaneous, fun, warm, good hearted.  

I am grateful for the lively, smart and hard working colleagues I have acquired by virtue of coming to New Paltz.  While a list of names is always a risk (someone gets left out; names are misspelled, etc.), it is a pleasure for me.  Here it is:  Shelly, Marda, Mary Beth, Sally, Steve, Carole, Jerry, Jon, all the David's, my name-mate Jackie, Shelly H, Laurel (of course), Vika, Carlos, Mert, Linda, Gae, Mary.  I am surrounded by a fabulous staff.  To see us all, go to http://www.newpaltz.edu/oir/staff.html

It's also Christmas card season and a time to hear from friends from all over.  I'm sobered, a little intimidated and a bit self-conscious by those who have said they are reading our blog.  Of course, I want people to read, but jeez, people are reading.  

Snow in New Paltz

There is snow on the ground this morning - the first time this season.  I guess on December 17 one must not complain.  Ken is home; always a good thing.  We're off to the NCS holiday party tomorrow in Long Island.  The weather should be OK for the 2-3 hour trip.  Graduations are this weekend:  Friday night, two ceremonies Saturday.  I love graduation.  So much happiness.  

Have a good Wednesday.

Road Show

We saw Road Show at The Public yesterday.  The music was reminiscent of Assassins and Sunday in the Park with George and Stephen Sondheim's past efforts in general.   It lasted 100 minutes and was in a small theater, which is one of the assets of The Public (and off-Broadway).  You can see their faces.  But they were still mic-ed, and did a fabulous job of articulating the words.  The show grew on me, and I liked it more as it went along.  It was about the Mizner brothers, hustlers and entrepreuners from the late 19th/early 20th century.  As is often the case with Sondheim, it was about the tension between ethics and profit, about 'selling out'.  Michael Cerveris and Alexander Gemignani were fabulous, as was the whole cast.  The cast, by the way, was made up of real-looking human beings and not the  impossibly-beautiful and thin people you often see on stage.  

Yours...

Early December

December 7, “A Date Which Will Live in Infamy.”   And yet here we are, in another war - a slo-mo war, where the dead accumulate slowly, but just as surely.  We should all be screaming for its end.  The Army/Navy football game was yesterday - and as in this century, Navy won - but those players, those fans, those cheerleaders, those band members - many of them will go off to this war, to come back wounded psychologically or physically, or to not come back at all.  I curse Bush and his people who did this to us.

As for us, we have another lovely Sunday ahead.  We are so lucky.  Most Americans are so lucky.  (In some ways, this recession is about the end of our phenomenal luck.  American exceptionalism and all that.  This recession just shows us that we are in the muck with everyone else after all.  No free passes.)  We are headed to the City to take advantage of what it has to offer.  I will go to Carnegie Hall to see AINADAMAR, an opera about the last days of Frederica Garcia Lorca and Ken will go to the Minetta Lane Theater to see Garden of Earthly Delights, which as close as I can tell consists of naked bodies flying around.  We have the means and the inclination for experimentation.  My choice is centered around Blood Wedding, a play at my college in which I have become involved and which is written by Lorca.  In an amazing coincidence, in an earlier life, Midge was also involved in this play.  

We had a New Paltz Saturday.  Ken put in electrical outlet on the outside of the house and we rigged a wreath on the window with lights.  He also put a motion light by the garage which actually worked!  Talk about amazing.  We went over to Poughkeepsie and saw Cadillac Records, which was really good.  Both of us liked it, so it truly does have something for everyone.  Then over to the Vassar College neighborhood to Zorona's, a very fine Middle Eastern restaurant.  Yum yum.

Thanksgiving weekend, which seems so long ago now, was delightful.  Randy and Jen are wonderful and their kids - Lauren and Emily - are great.  I could go on with superlatives about them.  They remind us of another great pair of sisters in our lives - Kate and Sarah.  

All the best, dear readers.

Thanksgiving

Happy Day to you all.  We are post-meal and pre-movie.  We have had a lovely, quiet day.  We went to New World Home Cooking in Saugerties and ate fabulous food.  Visitors to our Hudson Valley should demand to be taken there.  Very vegetarian friendly and everything really good.  We took a round-about way home and ended up west of Lake Minnewaska where we saw a bear!  Big, black, solitary, rambling around.  Amazing.  Practically in our neighborhood, and certainly in areas where we hike.  We will watch a little football, then walk to our local movie theater for Quantum of Solace.  It's to the City with Randy, Jen, Lauren and Emily tomorrow, then home on Saturday.  I hope to see I've Loved You For So Long on Saturday at Upstate Films, then it's glorious NY football on Sunday - the Giants first then those Jets.

We are thankful for our life and are glad to have you all in it.  

Maria Theresia, 1991-2008

MT died last night after a massive stroke that left her blind and paralyzed.  It started about 9:00 and by 11:30, Ken and I were home burying her in the back, by the rosebush.  We will plant more roses and hope to see that whole line along the back bloom in the future.

We got MT after we visited Matt in Vienna* in the spring of 1991.  She was to be 'company' for another cat, whose name I cannot recall.  We started with cats in 1982 with Cleo, who died on the operating table of the Ann Arbor Humane Society while being spayed.  We then had Dolly for a number of years, Sinbad and Binx for too few and Motley for too many.  We had Lewis and Clark in Delhi, but they did not make the trip to New Paltz.  They live in Michigan, formerly with Erica, and now with Brian, I think (hope).  They were lovely, but three cats was too much, especially as MT, always a spiky sort, was not lonely.

Midge's cat Daisy was put down last week and I heard that Candace's beloved Honey, the golden retriever, died quite unexpectedly recently.  

This is the end of the line for cats for us, although I could envision a time where life is less hectic and we will yearn for a creature to care for. 

* She was named for Maria Theresia of Austria, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa_of_Austria 

Post Obama, continued

Abraham Woods, a Civil Rights activist in the 1960's, a colleague of Martin Luther King and others, died this week.  In his obit in the New York Times yesterday, his granddaughter Marian Bell told this story:  'On election night last week, in his hospital room,  Ms. Bell asked him what he was thinking about the results.  He said, "If I could wake up Martin, Coretta, Rosa" along with other leaders of the struggle, "I would tell them that my son Barack made it."'  

Have a good Friday.

Post Obama

We O-people are indeed glad and heartened by the results of the election.  On the actual day, I was driving back from Providence, exhorting, "America, do the right thing!"  And it did.  Lovely.  As Ken said last weekend in New York City, "I look around and think, everyone I see is a member of the family."  We are one.  This election has turned cynical, hardened liberals into sentimental patriots and it feels pretty good.  

We are in the dog days of November, gray, not yet really cold; but what is ahead is obvious.  With the time change, it is dark by 5:00 and my walk home is via Main Street, brandishing my flash light on the streets of my neighborhood.  But it is light enough in the morning for me to do my walk or run at home, instead of going over to the Wellness Center on campus.  I expect that by Thanksgiving week, I will be back there, however.  

We were in New York last weekend, in a New York arts/culture trifecta:  Radio City Music Hall and the Christmas Spectacular; Joe's Pub and a monologist; and separate movies for separate movie tastes.  Radio City was pretty spectacular, if emphatically Christian and heterosexual.  The 3-D - wowie.  Mike Daisy, the monologist, was energetic and funny/depressing.  His performance was titled "If You See Something, Say Something."  As to movies, I saw "Rachel Getting Married" and Ken saw "Soul Men."  Perfect for both of us.  It rained like mad on Saturday and, as I was thoughtless and even stupid, I managed to ruin my cell phone.  So a new phone for me.  This weekend, we are there again to see Columbia play Cornell in football and another play at The Public.  

The news from the New York budget is pretty dire.  We have been in New York during good times and I am worried about New York City, and about my sweet college.  I keep asking people how long they think it will last and the consensus seems to be 2-3 years.  Timing is everything in life.

Stay warm.

November 1

"Rabbit, rabbit," as Barbara would say.  We are Obama people, and hope fervently that this month brings an Obama victory.  I have been wrestling with partisanship, wanting not to be a nutjob on the left, but I do fear McCain/Palin.  I keep talking myself down: I survived 8 years of Ronald Reagan; I survived 8 years of George Bush; many people I admire admire John McCain; Obama is not perfect.  So we'll see.  Does the future of the nation ride on this election?  I believe so.  

It's been a strange week, and, as we 'fall back' into Eastern Daylight Time, it will continue to be off-schedule.  Ken and I head to Providence, RI, today for the Northeast Association for Institutional Research.  It should be fun, as neither of us have ever been to Providence, which is about 3.5 hours away.  Ken will go to New York on Sunday night via Amtrak, then will come back home on election day, which is when the conference ends.  Both of us voted absentee.  Along with my many other wishes is the hope that we have a winner declared by Wednesday morning.  

We were in Michigan last weekend to celebrate Karen's birthday and Midge's birthday.  It was fun being there in nice weather, as opposed to Christmas.  We saw Ray, Veda, Erica, Jess, Jennifer, Chelsea, Karen, Mike, Jody, Nicole and Eileen.  We saw Midge, Jay, a group of their friends at a Michigan-loses-again/birthday party, as well as Linda and her friend Richard, and Jean and Jim.  It was big fun and lightening quick.  We were in Livonia, Chelsea and Ann Arbor, which was  welcome, as we frequently also drive across the state to Grand Haven.  That trip is coming up at Christmas and for Ken's birthday in February.  

Thanksgiving will be quiet, as traveling on that holiday is so onerous.  We'll be home on the actual day, watching football and probably going to New World Home Cooking in Saugerties for dinner.  Randy and Jen and their girls come in from Utica for a day in NYC and a day in New Paltz.  

Happy November.  Peace.  Joy.  Good weather (i.e., no snow).  

Ken and the Chipmunk

And I don't mean Alvin.  Here is a story about Ken, who embodies the good men/human beings on this planet.  He spent many hours on planning and creating our first garden, and this month many hours cleaning it up and tearing it down.  Because we live in a deer neighborhood, we put a soft mesh fence around the garden during the build-up phase.  In the tear-down phase, Ken took down the soft mesh and put it in a heap in back of the shed.  On another day of garden clean up, he was in the vicinity of the heaped up mesh and found a chipmunk struggling mightily.  Yikes!  He went in the house and found his most sturdy gloves and a scissors and worked for 20 minutes on cutting this little creature out of the mesh.  I wasn't home, so am repeating what he told me.  He held the chipmunk in his hand, putting it on its back, and cut the mesh that had enfolded it.  He said once it was on its back, it did not struggle much.  Was it a boy chipmunk or a girl chipmunk, I asked?  I didn't notice, he replied.  Did it try to bite you?  No, but it kicked a lot until I got it on its back.  Was it grateful?  Who knows?  Will it come back and save you some day in the future?  Maybe.  So add this sobriquet to Ken's long list:  chipmunk saver.  

College Football in the Hudson Valley

While Michigan was losing to Toledo yesterday, we were at Michie (pronounced Mikey) Stadium at the US Military Academy at West Point watching Army beat Eastern Michigan University on a shining, sunny day.  It was Army's homecoming, and I have to admit I was rooting for Army.  After all, teams deserve to win their homecoming, and oh, the pageantry of it all.  I think the Catholics and the military come from the same school of over-the-top ceremony and tradition.  It's in my blood and it moves me every time.  What the Army homecoming game had:  4 cadets parachuting onto the center of the field from very high in the sky from a Black Hawk helicopter; said helicopter often hovered above the field, inviting the not-sold-out crowd to admire it (Ken thought it had these hovering capabilities for other reasons).  It had a band.  It had cheerleaders.  A whole platoon (? right term?) of cadets, cheering and whooping, formed an avenue for the players to flood onto the field.  It had canons - yep, lots of explosions from them (it?).  The canon boomed for every point scored.  It boomed when the quarters ended.  It boomed when the game ended.  The Army fight song rang from the 40,000 seat stadium, which is perched high above the Hudson River and the campus.  The Army varsity song (think 'hurrah for the yellow and blue') made me cry as well.  The game has the Star Spangled Banner, sung by an a cappella group of USMA alumni.  Of course, this is one of few places in America where the words to the SSB mean something.  I have been to the USMA campus 8 times since moving to New York:  2 conferences, 3 football games, 2 college fairs and 1 band concert, all in the post 9/11 world; all when we are at war.  There are surely cadets on campus on my previous visits who are now war casualties.  The cheerleaders, band members and football players we saw yesterday may be in Iraq or Afghanistan next year.  They may come back from those wars minus limbs or with serious psychological issues.  It is sobering and sad and tragic.  It all looks exactly like a college like EMU or Michigan, but it is not.  

I do not want to end this post on that note.  We had a lovely time, especially as the last two games we went to were in pouring rain.  Last year, Tom and Barbara were here and we saw Rutgers beat Army, and I mean, it was pouring!  

Today is a birthday party, a hike around Lake Minnewaska, one more day of dealing with tomatoes and prep for the week to come.  I'll be in Rochester Thursday and Friday and Ken will be in Queens and Long Island Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Until the next post, be well...

Woodstock Film Fest & other weekend news

We are so lucky to be living in a culturally rich area and to have the energy and the wherewithal to take advantage of it.  I went today to the Woodstock Film Festival with colleague Sally Cross and her husband Mark.  We saw a panel about 'films that matter; do films matter?' with John Sayles, Haskell Wexler, Morgan Spurlock and Pamela Yates.  Very interesting and impressive.  Haskell Wexler is a FAMOUS cinematographer and director who has worked with John Sayles a number of times.  We went on to see "The Secret of Roan Inish," which is a Sayles/Wexler film.  More in a bit about the film.  Morgan Spurlock was very articulate and intelligent.  I have not seen either of his movies, but would gladly do so after having seen him.  Pamela Yates is a director of documentaries and has been doing so for 25 years.  They talked interestingly about being both in the film industry and outside of it.  Pamela Yates is the only one to have a career outside of the commercial industry, but the others have reaped many awards and rewards, all the while maintaining a distance.  I would have liked to hear more about how they do that.  "The Secret of Roan Inish" was very beautiful and lyrical and made me cry, but then I'm easy that way.  John Sayles talked about his movie "Silver City," which had a limited distribution schedule.  I would recommend that we all go out and buy/rent it today.  Sounds close to home re our current political situation.  I'm going to end this session to make dinner.

It looks as if pictures won't be much of a burden in terms of load, so here are a few more.  I somehow tagged each picture with the same title:  Jackie in the New Paltz kitchen.  Disregard.  Two are from Montreal, with Ken in the embrace of Mr. McGill, of McGill University, which btw is an English speaking college.  The other is me in front of the Pierre et Dominique Bed and Breakfast.  And finally, our whole inventory of canned goods.

September, 2008

It seems impossible that October looms.  Time goes by so fast!  It is Sunday morning, September 28.  At the front of my mind is the death of Paul Newman, the improbable victory of Michigan football (over another of my Big 10 schools, Wisconsin), the massive canning effort we did yesterday, and the upcoming Celebration of the Arts in New Paltz, which I will work on behalf of One Book/One New Paltz.  The COT was originally scheduled for September 27, but the weather forcast on September 26 was so daunting that organizers postponed to the rain date of today.  Of course, September 26 was almost completely dry, even warm.  

We went to Montreal for my birthday last weekend.  The drive was exceedingly pleasant.  The Adirondack Mountains are quite imposing and picturesque.  We stayed at a great B&B in a great neighborhood.  Attached please find a few pics.  

Here in the US, we parse differences by the color of one's skin by and large.  In Montreal, language is key.  On one side of a major north/south avenue, St. Laurent, signs do NOT have to have English translations.  We estimated we heard French around us about 3/4 of the time, but all of the service people we encountered spoke flawless, and often accent-free English.  There was absolutely no hostility to us as English speakers.  Those years have passed for Quebec-ers?  The city was easy to get around and we had no problem finding vegetarian fare.  We did tourist-y things with a bus tour and a tour of the harbor.  Montreal, we were surprised to discover, is an island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, which is very big at that point.

We went and watched the Obama/McCain debate Friday at the Student Union Building with a group of people organized by Mary Kahl, a Michigan native (born in Soo St. Marie) who teaches at my college.  It was riveting viewing and I look forward to the next three.  What I'd like is for the election to be over and my candidate - Barack Obama - to have been elected.  We'll see.

I hope your September/October transition is kind.  Enjoy our pictures.  Just think, one of those jars of our American bounty may be yours in the near future:  salsa, tomato/basil sauce, corn relish, pickles.  

14 pints of salsa

14 pints of salsa sit on our canning shelf in the utility room. We are masters of the universe!

Canning 101

Here we are, in the midst of the canning experience. Two quarts of peaches yesterday. The first batch of 7 pints of salsa in the canner today. Another 7 pints to come.

What have we learned? Peaches are a pain in the patoot. Blanche. Cook. Ladle. Boil. Now peaches are pretty fragile and all this handling can't improve the taste. I love peaches and vow to wait until some cold weather day to unscrew the cap and put on top of yogurt or cereal and see how they taste.

The recipe recommends using gloves when cutting up peppers and the middle finger of my right hand is proof of that for sure. I burned myself! But at least no boiling water burns (so far) and nothing untoward with knives.

Also, we are watching the Yankums beating the Tigers 11-9, although it was 11-2 just a minute ago. Not exactly a pitcher's dual. Many pitchers, for that matter.

Midge and Jay were fun! We toured Manhattan, eating and people watching and being moved by "The Horse."

Ken and I went up to Lake Minnewaska yesterday and threw ourselves into the Lake maybe for the last time. Depending on how long this batch of salsa takes, we may go up one last time.

Yours in the blogosphere...

Labor Day Weekend coming up

Midge just called (6:00 a.m. EDT) and she and Jay are ready to hit the road east. "I'm still geeked," she said, "about Barack Obama last night." As life long Democrats, mad fans of the Kennedy's and 60's girls, we are in the Obama column for sure. He does remind me of the candidate John Kennedy. Pundits called him inexperienced and undistinguished as well. I think Obama holds enormous promise to catch the zeitgeist, the moment, and make a huge difference. It's what Bill Clinton did as well, and Ronald Reagan and, somehow, Richard Nixon. It does seem like magic, this charisma thing. Although labeling it charisma slights it - it's something else, something subtle and ephemeral. By the way, keep an eye on David Patterson, New York's got-there-the-odd-way governor. He's got the goods.

One more work day to the lovely Labor Day holiday. It is a gift, a last sigh of summer, a time for garden and family and of course, the New Paltz Arts and Crafts show, end-of-summer version. I'll be there with my new friends Shelly, Marda and Pat and perhaps Jackie, who joined the staff in July as the new VP for Administration & Finance.

I have a phone call at 9:00, meetings at 10:00 and 11:00 and a lunch date. Then it would be amazing to actually finish the analysis of the Graduating Senior Survey. In any event, the day will end and it will be - ta da - Labor Day weekend.

Welcome to canning 101. We took a canning class at Brook Farm last week and it was fantastic. Stephanie, the canning expert, took about 8 of us through our paces and we produced many pints of salsa. She learned how to can from her Mom, who learned from her Mom, so it has a nice, Mom-to-Mom feel to it. Also stuff - and you all know how much we like to buy stuff. So far, we have everything but the centerpiece - the canner - which includes the twongers (to lift the hot bottles out of the hot water bath), the jars, the funnel, the pickling spices, and of course the pickling cukes and the many, many tomatoes rapidly ripening. The canner has been ordered from the in-our-neighborhood True Value and should be here Wednesday. Midge and Jay are coming on Friday and will be here until Sunday. She offered to help. One of my goals is to can peaches - which are glorious around here. I never thought I'd find the equal of a Michigan Red Haven peach, but voila! The Hudson Valley has wonderful peaches.

Ken is off to Elmhurst in Queens this morning and I am off to the start of the 2008-2009 academic year. Our classes start today and thousands of new and returning undergraduate and graduate students will be flooding the campus. My chorus class has its first meeting on Wednesday. Just in case you are early planners, our concerts are November 18 and 22 and December 9.

Have a good Monday.

What we did this summer...

To friends & family of Ken and Jackie -
Summer of 2008 has been bracketed by visits from our loved ones. The wonderful Linda Blakey visited in June, bringing her energetic self, her gardening and composting expertise, her willingness to walk many miles in city and country. We saw "In the Heights" the very day it went on to win the Tony Award for Best Musical. She helped me create a perennial bed at the foot of our driveway that will live forever. She taught us how to compost, hopefully turning food scraps into good soil. She observed that we might want to move those 24 tomato plants from one small plot of land, a project that has occupied Ken ever since. Of course, we are now looking at literally 100s of tomatoes in three locations.
The 4th of July rolled around and with it Erica, her three daughters Jessica, Chelsea and Jennifer, our niece Jody and Matthew all the way from Portland, OR. We ate. We shopped. We had a group birthday dinner, complete with a fantastic cake by Matt, cards and a loud song. We saw "Wicked," which was very much fun. Did I say we shopped? Well we shopped. We had a subway car to ourselves. We lost Grandpa Cheese. Matt and I went to the Bronx Zoo, learning as much about the express buses as the gorillas. Matt went to his first dance performance, seeing Pilabolus at The Joyce. It was very cool.
Ken and I had a happy July, watching those tomatoes and that watermelon take over our garden space. Who knew watermelon were so aggressive? We then celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary with a week off and a variety of adventures. We painted 3 bedrooms, 3 metal doors and 1 shed. We swam in the Hudson River, ate Greek food on Lark St., jaunted in our Riviera of the Hudson. We spent 3 nights at the Waldorf=Astoria, courtesy of Ken's Hilton points. We saw "Hair," ate FANTASTIC Chinese food in Flushing to celebrate the Olympics, walked and walked, saw "Man on Wire" and "Swing Vote" and rode Biria bikes up and down a car-less Park Avenue. It was too cool for school.
We await the visit of Midge and Jay over Labor Day, which will cap a lovely summer.