songbird's crazy world

Jen went to the movies last night. When I asked her what she planned to see, she told me: "Step Up 3D." I had never heard of this movie. Apparently this is the third movie in a series. It's a dance movie. Guess I'm not 19 anymore...

didn't get a chance to post to the blog yesterday....made it through almost the entire month of August as a NaBloPoMo participant before I blew it...

Jimmy Buffett lyric on the brain ...popped into my head when I saw the high surf advisory for Long Island due to Hurricane Danielle and Hurricane Earl. Long Island has been very lucky of late, hurricanes don't hit us directly, we only get the tidal surge and rough surf. I think the last big hurricane to hit us was Gloria -- and that was in the mid 80's.  I was living in Brooklyn at the time and working in lower Manhattan, and when they closed my office building that morning due to high winds I made my way home in a subway ssytem that was starting to flood.... In the 90's there was Floyd, which did horrible damage to New Jersey but passed over Long Island with barely a whisper... Of course, the newspapers always talk about 1938, the great unnamed hurricane that devastated Long island.  I have a feeling we're due for a bad one this year....

so because Becca volunteered to participate in Urban Plunge , Becca had the opportunity to move into her dorm yesterday, rather than on Sunday.  today she is involved in community service, and tomorrow she will be able to relax when the rest of the freshmen arrive. She had a three-hour window in which to move into her dorm, since the building opened for registration at 10 AM and there was an Urban Plunge orientation in the afternoon. So our morning began very early, as we packed up Drew's van, packed additional stuff into a friend's SUV, and packed people into my sister's car - it was like Becca was a Maharani with her entourage (Beca, Jen, Drew, all three of my sisters and a family friend helped move her in). After a quick stop at Starbucks we caravaned up the Long Island Expressway (in rush hour traffic no less).  Wish I'd had the camera out when we were in Queens...there's a spot on the highway, you come over the top of a hill and in the foreground you se...

if I brought home another cat? we've got two right now, but there was a point where we had as many as four in this house. my boss has three kittens to give away.  she found a litter in her garage, the mama was feral and abandoned the kittens.  they're six weeks old....

It looks like there was a raid at Bed, Bath and Beyond....dorm stuff for Becca, house stuff for Jen.  pillows and bedding and towels and etc.

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) Becca moves into her dorm in just two days.  In just two days she begins her life as a (semi) independent adult.  She's actually moving in a few days early.  Her school solicited volunteers for various community srvice projects -- New York City is filled with such opportunity, and her school emphasizes "social justice" and education of the entire person.  she moves into her dorm Friday and participates in a service project Saturday.  On Sunday, when all the other freshmen will be moving into the dorm, the students who participated in the community services projects are invited to a brunch.  Orientation starts on Monday and classes start on Wednesday. The other reward, of course, is that she gets to pick which bed, desk, dresser, etc. she wants....of the 8 girls living in her apartment, only one other  girl has volunteered for community service. Yes, 8 girls in one apartment.  It's really meant for ...

the Long Wrong Island Railroad strikes again. There are 11 branches of the railroad, which connects Long Island with Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn.  10 of those branches  must travel through the Jamaica Station hub.  so when there's a fire in the switching tower at Jamaica Station, the entire railroad (except for the Port Washington branch) shuts down. the fire and shutdown were at 10:30 in the morning.  there was "very limited" service home Monday night. oh, joy.

layers of red velvet cake and cheesecake, topped with a cream cheese forsting and garnished with white chocolate, served with a huge dollop of fresh whipped cream.... pure decadence.

Packing for college. More later.

...to find out she has dandruff! Now that it's over I can tell you.... Jen worked as a counselor at a day camp all summer.  the last day of camp was yesterday. the last week of camp was marred by an outbreak of  [ewww] head lice. Jen has long blonde hair. The nurse at the camp saw "something" in that long blonde  hair and told Jen "you have lice." you have never seen a young woman more upset.  she came home in tears. there's a woman in this neighborhood who is medically trained in the removal of head lice.  Jen went to see her. her verdict:  "you have a dry scalp....dandruff." you have never seen someone go from distraught to ecstatic as fast as Jen. so Jen spent the rest of the week doing preventative medicine.  special shampoo.  special hair spray.  wearing her hair in a bun. who would have known dandruff was a reason to celebrate?

 Let me take you back to the summer of 1978.  I had just graduated from high school and would soon start college.  I was incredibly innocent and naive, idealistic and earnest.  I was anxious for school to start, anxious for life to start.  Worked at  the beach that summer, 40 hours a week. And THE album that summer?

before 9/11, commuting through the World Trade Center was....well, not exactly easy, but usually uneventful. there was an underground shopping concourse that connected all the buildings.  On the west side of the concourse, right in fromt of One World Trade Center, you could catch the APTH trains to New Jersey.On the soputh side of the complex was the Cortland Street station for the 1 train.  On the east side, you had the cortland street station for the R train.  and on the north side, the E train terminal -- at the north end of the E train  (chambers Street) you could connect with the A, C, 2 and 3. well, the E train (and its connections at Chamber Street) was the only station not damaged on 9/11.   A temporary PATH station was rebuilt and reopened in 2004.  the R train has a stop at cortland Street northbound (coming in from Brooklyn) but not southbound, and the 1 skips cortland Street altogether -- which makes the E train all the more crowded. ...

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) so Becca's college prep continues...filling out the financial  aid forms, registering for classes, obtaining medical forms, getting her housing assignment and room mates... it's not as intense for Jen, she's going into her junior year and already registered for classes, but there's prep for moving into her off-campus house, things to buy, arranging for utilities... I should have a count down ticker .. a clock ...something...to amrk off the days.... the days until each girl goes off to college... and I have to deal with the empty nest. time for a few changes, perhaps?  maybe it's time to get serious about the gym... volunteer for a political campaign....something else to fill my time? nothing too drastic, of course. not like my neighbors..... they have two sons, one who is a college senior and one who is about to start his freshman year.  I found out last weekend that they just sold their house and bought a...

the concert isn't for another two weeks, but already I've got buffett on my mind. didn't really become a Parrothead until last year -- Buffett and Caribbean vacations seem to go hand in hand.  and then there was the contest, and I won tickets to the concert at MSG -- floor seats. when the tickets for Jones Beach went on sale in February, I HAD to buy them. two weeks....

ugh. that is all.

I've had "Cheeseburger in Paradise" stuck in my head for a few weeks now, so Friday night we ventured out to Burger 9.5 .  It's a small restaurant, maybe 10 tables total, but oh my Lord those burgers are GOOD! their namesake is a 9.5 ounce burger with your choice of toppings, but we wisely chose the 6.5 ounce burger instead -- and couldn't finish that!  A basket of seasoned waffle fries was more than enough to split between the two of us, with plenty left over to take home.  the cole slaw was rich and tangy without being too sharp or full of vinegar.  the burgers are served on an egg knot roll, but you can get a kaiser roll if you prefer.  I topped mine with mozzarella, caramelized onions, sauted mushrooms and bacon.  Drew had the same except for the onions.  I would have liked to have tried the "funnel cake fries" I saw written on the specials board....but alas, no room for dessert.....

I love Times Square!  I love the theater district! We saw La Cage Aux Folles Thursday night.  Douglas Hodge and Kelsey Grammer are incredible in this show, it's very different from the production I saw in the 1980's and the revival I saw in 2004 -- less lavish, bawdier but just as bittersweet as the original.  and both stars were very gracious about signing autographs at the stage door. Times Square on a thursday night -- not quite as crowded as New year's Eve, but very very full nevertheless.  And just as crowded at 11 PM (when the show was over) as it was at 6 PM when we went to dinner (Bubba Gump's we ordered shrimp, of course). I love the corwds, I love the excitement.  the street vendors selling "I Love NY" t shirts and "designer" pocketbooks....the hot dog and shish kebab carts ....the guys handing out coupons for comedy clubs, restuarants and double deecker tour buses...street musicians and other performers (I've seen the Naked Cowb...

Are you superstitious? Do you believe that today is a good luck day or a bad luck day? I think most people engage in superstitious behavior. Like, when you spill salt you throw a pinch of it over your shoulder. do you really believe therrible things will happen if you don't? Or do you just do this out of age-old habit? Most brides wear something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. the presence or absense of these items does nto indicate the chances of the success or failure of the marriage. I put a bright red ribbon in my new car, and I pinned red ribbons to my newborn baby's undershirt. But was I really warding off the evil eye? My father, a World War II veteran, thinks Friday the 13th is a very lucky day -- because his got his discharge papers from the ARmy on a Friday the 13th. But my grandmother....she was a very superstitious lady. My grandmother would caution you to be careful about what you say.... when grandma was in her 7...

ten years ago, if you accidentlaly left your tote bag on the bench in the world Trade Center PATH train staion, if you came back 10-15 minutes later to get it the bag would be gone -- and hopefully in the Lost and Found. nowadays...if you come back 10 minutes later, you find the bag guarded by two nice young police officers and their bomb-sniffing dog....

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms ) Not only do you have to worry about the way your child drives....you also have to worry about all the other morons on the road. Once again I am dealing with insurance adjusters, tow trucks, body shops, accident reports.... Jen was broadsided as she was pulling out of a parking lot onto the roadway. Jen says the other car came out of nowhere, that she looked both ways before pulling out of the lot and didn't see anyone coming. The guy who hit her says he was doing 30 MPH....but the damage to her car makes me doubt it. The accident happened just south of a very busy intersection, and my guess is that he wanted to make it through the intersection before the light changed.  And, oh yeah, the guy who hit her is NOT a teen driver...he's older than I am.  I keep telling both girls "Drive as if everyone else on the road is a moron, because most of them are." And now we have to figure out how Jen is going to get to work wh...

She got a piercing! And didn't even tell me ... Becca got her ears pierced when she was about 10 or 11 I think ... and for the last year or so, she's been talking about possibly getting a piercing at the top of her right ear, through cartilage instead of the lobe. I said "no". Well, now she's 18 and doesn't need my permission. What bothers me is that she didn't tell me she was planning to do it and didn't show me afterwards. Though I should have realized someone got somerhing pierced when I saw the bottle of saline solution in the bathroom. I noticed the piercing tonight. She was tossing her hair around while talking to Drew and me. I didn't want to say anything in front of Drew...but he noticed it, too.

I'm in the middle of The Red Queen by Phillipa Gregory. It's one of her Plantagenet novels, this one about Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. the War of the Roses was a fascinating time in English history and Gregory's novels tell the story from the perspective of the major participants.

We went to play miniature golf last night. Drew is much better at it than I am, of course. But. ..well. .. I got a hole in one. ..after he kept missing it. ..

I have a lot of favorites.  But today I want to talk about Casablanca .  Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II: An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications.   Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman,  Paul Heinreid, Claude Rains. Exotic locals, drama, a bit of comedy. romance.... and one unforgetable song.    

that's the NaBloPoMo theme for August. lots of thoughts here: green grass. green trees.  green garden. eating your vegetables. going "green", i.e., environmentally friendly. "green" is the color of money. "green" with envy. the wearing of the green -- support for Ireland. golf greens. Greenpeace. Kermit singing "It's Not Easy Being Green". more to come....

(cross posted at Midcentury Modern Moms phantom: a college-age daughter with a job, a social life and a car. I mean, I rarely see my kids these days! They flit in and out of the house....off to work, off to shop, off the hang out with friends. It's like the house is just a pit stop as they race around, enjoying the freedom of driving, enjoying the relative freedom of summer vacation. I've long since gotten used to Jen leaving the house at 10 PM. we've had many discussions about what time is a reasonable curfew on a week night (not that I can impose a "curfew" on a college student, it's more a matter of respect for a mother who can't sleep until the kids are all home and has to go to work in the morning). But now Becca is 18, and suddenly she's staying out late too. I suppose I should just go with the flow...in a few short weeks both girls will head off to college... But can you blame me for wanting my children to stay home a bit more ...

the other night we picked up some sandwiches at the deli and drove down to Jones Beach.  We got there around 7 PM, just under an hour before sunset.   The last of the day crowd is leaving around then, and the evening crowd is starting to arrive. The beachcloses at sunset, and that's when the boardwalk comes alive. this isn't a boardwak like Coney Island or down at the Jersey Shore, you know, with shlock shops and amusement rides and lots of differnet fast food places..  the boardwalk at Jones Beach is contained entirely within the state park and offers activities suitable to a park.  there's a bandshell and baseball fields and miniature golf and shuffleboard and paddleball and a playground and...well, you get the idea.  and some people just like to walk  and look out at the ocean. we parked near Central Mall and ate our sandwiches while sitting on a bench near the bandshell -- the show tonight was a Motown tribute band.  watched the sun ...

Monday, our last day. the history buffs headed up to Old Fort Niagara. this fort was pivotal to history, having been held at various times by the French, the British and the Americans. the reenactments here are all dated to the French and Indian War, which means the fort is under French control, but you see British soldiers and Iroquois guides camped outside. back down to Niagara Falls. as part of our package we had a voucher for a free lunch at the Old Sports Bar and Grille in the Crown Plaza Hotel. the menu was somewhat limited, but the food was excellent -- I had a club sandwich and DBF had the Philly cheese steak. after lunch we went back to Goat Island and walked over to Three Sisters islands. these are three small islands in the rapids above Horseshoe Falls. you have to walk across all three islands for the payoff -- an excellent view of the rapids and the top of the falls. be prepared to do some climbing over the rocks if you want to get the full effect. we ended...