songbird's crazy world

 It’s a “you pick” week. Well, I’m sitting here with 12 pounds of purring feline in my lap … so let’s do an acrostic of the word “feline”. We start with something seasonally appropriate  A song that always gets me moving. Road trip anyone? My kids would appreciate this one Because I’m obsessed with Billy Joel Which leads us to  Meow!

 So Gilbert & Sullivan is over for the season.  Drew is already thinking about next year’s production.  We will find out what show they’re doing at the cast party next week. We had a quiet 4th.  Spent most of the day getting ready for our bbq on the 5th.  Watched the Mets beat the Yankees (yay!) We didn’t feel like cooking, so we headed to our favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner.  The place was surprisingly busy.   Afterwards we went home to watch fireworks.  Thanks to the DVR we were able to see fireworks from NYC, Boston, and Washington, DC.  And when we looked out the living room window we could see our neighborhood displays. (The cats hid during most of it.). Caught some of 1776  on TV. Ran to the supermarket this morning to pick up a few last minute supplies for the barbecue: crudités, tomatoes and mozzarella for caprese salad,  cucumbers and dill for another salad.  Saw something sad on my way home.  Two polic...

  Lady Liberty Welcome to  Saturday: 9 . What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme! Saturday 9: Lady Liberty (2018) ... because it's 4th of July weekend. Hear Barbra Streisand sing it  here . 1) This song is a Valentine to the Statue of Liberty. Have you ever visited Lady Liberty? I live on Long Island and at various times I’ve worked in lower Manhattan and Jersey City, NJ, so the Statue of Liberty has been a constant presence. I was able to see her from my doorstep when I lived in Brooklyn years ago, she was visible from my office window when I worked in Jersey City. Back then, if I had...

 Do you have a memorable July 4th, one that stands out as different from all the other times you celebrated the holiday? For me, it’s July 4, 1992. In 1992 Drew and I and our daughter Jen (a toddler at the time) were living in a two-bedroom apartment in Queens, NY.  Our apartment was on the 5th floor, overlooking the Van Wyck Expressway.  Our windows faced west, so we could see  Maple Grove Cemetery across the highway, and beyond that we saw several Queens neighborhoods and just a tiny piece of the Manhattan skyline. From our balcony, if we looked south, we could see the control tower at JFK. We were about four miles from the airport. At the time, Drew worked in midtown Manhattan, and I worked in Jersey City, NJ.  My commute?  The NYC Subway from Queens to the World Trade Center, then the PATH train from NYC one stop to Exchange Place in Jersey City.  Our offices were on the 12th and 13th floor of an office building on the Hudson River, directly across...

 August Heckscher was a 19th century capitalist, born in Germany, who emigrated to the United States and became quite wealthy. According to Wikipedia, Heckscher eventually became a multimillionaire and a philanthropist. He started  The Heckscher Foundation for Children  and created playgrounds in lower Manhattan and in  Central Park .  Heckscher Playground , Central Park's largest playground, is named in his honor. Heckscher also created  Heckscher Park  in the town of  Huntington  and created the  Heckscher Museum of Art . The State of New York purchased nearly 1,500 acres in  East Islip  with money donated by Heckscher to create  Heckscher State Park , made famous for hosting summer concerts for 35 years of the  New York Philharmonic . Why am I telling you about him? Because on Thursday I was in Heckscher Park in Huntington. The very last performance of this year’s production of HMS Pinafore was scheduled to be pres...

 It’s too darn hot    Just hanging in the living room  Clearly Duchess is in charge …