songbird's crazy world

So I had unused vacation days in a "use them or lose them" environment, and Drew is off from school, we're both stressed and tired, so how are we spending our days off? Well, with a "Lord of the Rings" marathon, of course. I've mentioned, several times, that I read "The Hobbit" and the "Rings" trilogy back in high school, and while Drew and I have seen each of the "Hobbit" movies in the theater, I'd never seen any of the "Rings" films. So we stayed home for two days and did nothing except watch DVD's -- all 11 hours of Hobbits and Wizards and a Elves and Dwarves, and the one true Ring to rule them all. Wish I'd seen them sooner, the movies were wonderful. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

You know the routine by now,  We pick a day to take the train into the city, and then we walk...an walk...and walk. This year we went on the day after Christmas, a Friday.  Weather was relatively warm and comfortable.  And very, very crowded. We started at Macy's.  this year the marquis was decorated with SpongeBob.  The 34th Street windows have a "Yes, Virginia" theme (I miss "Miracle on 34th Street").  The Herald Square windows had Santa and some children travelling to all the planets in our solar system. We walked over the 5th Avenue and started  with Lord & Taylor. We stopped  for a snack.  I got a pretzel, Drew chose a hot dog. Then on to Bryant Park and the New York Public Library.  There are shops in the park.  We always stop at the chocolate shop for a free sample; the chocolate is so rich and creamy that you're not supposed to chew it, just let it melt in your mouth. Had an interesting e...

I'm really beginning to appreciate Asian fusion. We did takeout from Wild Ginger the other night. Very satisfied with our meal. As always, the sushi was fresh and flavorful. Shrimp Pad Thai was excellent, a generous amount of shrimp, the noodles had just the right "kick" without being too spicy. Sesame crusted salmon and wok grilled shrimp with garlic were perfect. Glad we found this place. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So we did our usual. Movie in the morning, Chinese food for dinner. Chen's buffet, a place we go to often, not much to say except it's a decent inexpensive buffet. So ... The movies. Our nearest AMC theater is in the midst of renovations. They're tearing out the conventional seating and replacing it ... With individual reclining chairs. Seriously, each patron gets his or her own recliner, you can sit, you can recline, you can put your feet up. Your seat is not attached to others in the row. There's plenty of room for others to walk past you to get to their own seats. And each chair has its own drink cup holder. This theater even gives you an assigned seat, like at a baseball game, a concert, etc. The seats were seriously comfortable. So far the price of the movie hasn't really changed, but when you lose half of your capacity... Anyhow, the movie we saw... Into The Woods . No surprise there. After all, I've seen the original Broadway production and t...

I must be the only person in America who has not seen "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, which is really weird, especially since I read and loved the Tolkein books in high school. "The Hobbit" was so light and fluffy, the three "Rings" books so dark and mysterious. So when I heard they were planning to turn "The Hobbit" into a trilogy, I had to wonder how they'd stretch it into three movies. December 2012 we saw "The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey". December 2013 we saw "The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug". And this year we saw "The a Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies". Now, having seen all three movies ...the tone of the movies is very much a prequel for the "Rings" trilogy. A lot of the material in the Hobbit movies doesn't come from the book, but rather, the subplots are created to set us up for what is to come. The third movie is focused on action, there's very little in plot,...

Christmas week and all is quiet in the office. Looking forward to a few days off. Though I am worried about our administrative assistant. She's out sick with something long term and serious. The last time I saw her, she looked like death warmed over. Her brother told our project manager that she will be out of the office for awhile. Funny how a 20-something adult can instantly revert to helpless teen. I got the "mom, what do I do?" call on Sunday -- Jen had a flat tire. And she needed to get it fixed ASAP so she could drive to Rhode Island with her boyfriend on Monday. Yes, Jen is the one running around with a boyfriend these days. And he must really rate, if she took him up to Rhode Island. Becca, on the other hand, is spending a lot of time with her friends, girls she's known since kindergarten. She's also apartment hunting, with plans to move into the city within the next few months. The work on my parents' house progresses. We are living in cha...

She sends me a message on Tuesday via Facebook. There's nothing more the doctors can do for my mother. I'm flying in tomorrow. Please let everyone know. In my mind's eye I see her throwing both passports into her backpack as she heads to Ben Gurion. I wish her safe travels. And then Friday I get another message. My mother just died. The funeral is Sunday. Services in Queens, burial at New Montifiore. And so, on the shortest day of the year, we find ourselves bracing the cold and damp. The darkness of the day, the darkness in our hearts... I am the only one amount the group of friends with two living parents. The others are all orphans...though calling them "orphans" when they are all in their 50's and 60's...but they've all been in her shoes, they know ...her mother was 98... Drew can't find the yarmulke he usually keeps in the car. One of the other mourners has a spare. The Rabbi reminds us that certain prayers cannot be said because ...

Lunch with a group of my coworkers, and we wound up at Brio Tuscan Grille at Walt Whitman Shops. I hadn't been to that shopping center in ages ... When it was still called Walt Whitman Mall ... Must say I am impressed with the upgrades. But I had forgotten about songbird's rules for parking at Whitman at Christmastime. Rule number one: Don't. Just don't. Rule number two: If you must break rule number one, park at the very outskirts of the mall. Brio is located at the center of the mall. I tried to park nearby, but after fruitless circling, I wound up parking in a distant part of the lot, near Bloomingdales, and hiking back to the restaurant. It was worth the hike. We shared a variety of appetizers. The fried calamari was tender and flavorful. Shrimp with eggplant was excellent. Spinach artichoke dip was smooth and creamy. I had bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella -- like eating caprese salad on the most delectable bread. For my entree, ...

The bomb threat made news again.  Tuesday's newspaper carried the story of an arrest made Monday - a 17 year old junior at the school charged with a misdemeanor for "unauthorized use of a computer" in October.    He wasn't charged with making the threats.  That might happen eventually. Apparently when he was picked up by the police a couple of weeks ago, he was not arrested, but merely questioned.  The rumor mill got it wrong. The article wasn't very detailed, but my guess is that the young man hacked into someone's computer (the school's?) in order to send the threats. There is speculation that he had an accomplice. There was another threat Tuesday night, but the police were apparently aware that the threat was going to be made. Very eerie driving past the school and seeing such a heavy police presence.

I am told that I had a deprived childhood because I never ate at  Dairy Queen.  Well, that was recently remedied.  Dairy Queen just opened a DQ Grill &  Chill in Levittown, and we  had to try it out. Nice sized restaurant, the parking lot is a bit small and cramped.  Typical fast food style seating, but  wait...is that a fireplace along the wall?  A real fireplace?  Wow... Menu is typical fast food, too.  Burgers, chicken, hot dogs, fries.  You order at the counter, you're handed a number, you go find a seat, and the server will bring your food to your table.  Very nice touch. I ordered a chicken tenders basket.  (I used to love the chicken tenders at McDonald's, and was sorry to see them eliminated from the menu; chicken nuggets just don't have the same oomph.)  Six chicken tenders, served with fries, buttered toast (!) and BBQ sauce.  Good meal for the price, probably a bit better than most fas...

So back in January we saw Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden.   Great concert.  Loved every minute of it. My only disappointment of the night was the lousy seats, up in nosebleed territory. Couldn't wait to do it again.  Which is easy, because he's taken up residency there, booked one show each month for the foreseeable future.  So this time I bought the tickets from Stub Hub, Section 113.  That's rear stage, but only 9 rows back, a better view than some of the floor seats.  Much better than last itme. Although for concerts, I suppose you shouldn't really call them "seats".  Their more like "here's your assigned place to stand and dance, with a chair for you to leave your stuff on while you do." Better food choices at that level, I discovered.  We had hamburgers and French fries.  The burgers were amazing, perfectly cooked, with a yummy cheese sauce.  Fries were decent.  And Drew was pleased, because he saved $10 by using...

I think the plans have finally come together.  Since we're such a small group, and since no one wants to spend gobs of money, we will be partying at Drew's house.  The plan is to order Chinese takeout for dinner from one of the local restaurants.  And everyone will throw in a couple of dollars to buy chips, appetizers and soda.  Drew has the champagne for a midnight toast, none of us are really big drinkers anymore so we don't need any other wine/beer/cocktails. I feel like I'm back in my college days. but then again, those days were fun. And I've got a killer recipe for cocktail meatballs, haven't made it in years, but just might try it again....

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. An old joke, but a revered institution. So how come the only times I've been inside those hallowed halls involve humor? Seriously, the first time I saw a performance at Carnegie Hall, it was PDQ Bach, Peter Schickele's wonderful parody of classical music. That has to have been 25 years ago. Drew is a big fan ... And here we are, years later, attending an oratorio called "Not the Messiah" by a relatively unknown composer named Eric Idle. Two nights only, we saw it on Tuesday night. I apparently had a deprived youth, because I was not Monty Python fan until recently, and I've never seen Life of Brian .  I'm sure I missed a lot, but I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.  I mean, you're in Carnegie Hall, there is a full orchestra, the women in black formals, the men in white tie and tails. There is a huge chorus, the men in tuxedos, the women in black. The first violin tunes the orchestra, the co...

Who eats together at the Carnegie Deli? (With apologies to Adam Sandler) the answer is NOT Bowser from Sha Na Na and Arthur Fonzarelli. Two delis opened in NYC in 1937. -- the now-closed Stage Deli, located on 7th Avenue near 54th Street, and the Carnegie Deli, located on 7th and 57th. The rivals were known for oversized sandwiches named for celebrities, Jewish delicacies such as matzoh ball soup, and cheesecake. All the things that I am genetically programmed to seek out. We liked the late Stage Deli, we ate there several times. It was very upsetting when the place closed in 2012.  A piece of Old Nw York was gone. But fear not, the legacy lives on at the Carnegie. Neither of us had ever been there before. But with tickets to an event at Carnegie Hall (more about that later) and without any other ideas for dinner, we figured we'd give it a try. The crowded, cramped room with celebrity photos covering the walls seemed familiar. If you're claustrophobic you m...

I mentioned that we're having major work done at the house.  Part of that is a complete renovation of the kitchen.  As in, we are tearing out the cabinets, the appliances,  even the floor.    My parents bought the house in 1968, and while they did occasional updates (the avocado green appliances are long gone), they never did a complete renovation until now.   So we had to empty out all the cabinets.   And we have discovered many things that we forgot we had.  A 60 year old blender.  A juicer from the 1960's.  A crockpot from the 1980's.   Depression glass.   Back in the 1930's, it was common for movie theater owners to give away dishes and glassware in order to encourage customers to come.    My father used to love to talk about getting dishes at the movies.   Someone in my family collected pieces of Ruby Red glasses, and those pieces wound up in my mother's possession. I remember using t...

So Friday night we went to a party sponsored by Drew's sister's union. There was a program about all the different celebrations held this time of year -- Christmas, Three Kings Day, Chanukah, Kwanzaa. They also recognized the Muslim Eids, although neither of those celebrations take place in December this year. Lots of food and good cheer. Saturday night was community theater time. Our local Gilbert & Sullivan group does a version of "A Christmas Carol", marrying the Dickens classic story with some of Sullivan's best music, including tunes recycled from "The Mikado", "H.M.S. Pinafore" and "Pirates of Penzance". A fun way to spend an evening. Sunday we went to the movies. We like to see classic movies at the movie theater, even if we've seen them so often on TV that we can recite dialogue by heart. You see things in a movie theater that you might have missed on TV. Our choice Sunday was "White Christmas" st...

You know you found a good diner when they bring you cole slaw, pickles and chickpea salad to start your meal. I really liked the chickpea salad -- lots of good, garlicky chickpeas. Both of our entrees were well prepared. He had an open faced sliced steak sandwich, I had Philly cheesesteak. The accompanying fries were hot and crisp -- I ate all of the fries and half a sandwich, and felt very full. I'm looking forward to the other half sandwich. Should have asked them to wrap up the rest of the chickpeas too. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

...and too cloudy to see a thing. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The New Year's Eve argument ...err, discussion...continues. Yesterday Drew suggested that he and I go out alone, and let everyone else worry about their own plans. Stay tuned for breaking developments. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So I got the test results from my doctor....it's time for more tests. Isn't it always like a doctor, they scare you half to death when they try to be reassuring.

My new lunchtime hangout. Typical storefront Chinese takeout, it's very busy at lunchtime, even on rainy days. A handful of tables, no atmosphere whatsoever, mostly takeout.  There's a lot of clutter  along one wall of the storefront -- no storage area, apparently -- but the kitchen area and the seating area look clean. I've been choosing the lunchtime special -- a lunch sized portion served over fried rice. The chicken in garlic sauce (sliced white meat chicken with peppers, pea pods, carrots and water chestnuts) was excellent. The pepper steak with onions was ok, a nice dish but nothing spectacular. I'm looking forward to trying other dishes. The restaurant is in a strip mall, alongside a dry cleaners, a pizza place and Starbucks. Be forewarned, parking here is abysmal. But you can get a decent meal for a decent price, so this place is definitely a "keeper". - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

So last Friday I went to my doctor about an issue I'm having. He drew blood to run some tests and told me he'd call me either Monday or Tuesday with the results. So I waited...and waited ...and waited... The nurse practitioner called me at 4:45 Tuesday afternoon. Started giving me the test results...except for the test that addresses my issue. She didn't know what happened. She called me yesterday morning. Apparently the lab wasn't able to run the test (I never did get a complete explanation of that) and I'd have to come back to the doctor's office so they could draw more blood. Just what I wanted to do on my lunch hour. In the rain. So here I sit, almost a week later, still waiting. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Trying to survive a nor'easter ... The rain is bad enough, but the wind! I fully expected Miss Gulch on her bicycle to fly by as she morphed into the Wicked Witch ... Stopped by Dortoni's Monday night, bought a pound of rainbow cookies...very popular around this house. My sisters used to make them from scratch, but it's very labor intensive, so what I buy in the bakery will have to suffice. Jen and Becca were fortunate to have tickets for Monday night's Nets game. My kids were impressed that Jay Z and Beyoncé were there --until Will and Kate showed up. And the media reports that there were lots of protesters outside. The country is still reeling from the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths. Another Wantable disappointment -- one of my favorite necklaces broke. The clasp fell apart as I was taking it off. Newest pet peeve: women who chat on their cell phones while in a public restroom. I felt very uncomfortable. We're having some work done on the house this w...

No, not really, but if you're eating at Joe's Crab Shack, you can be forgiven for thinking you're at a beach party.  We'd been to the location in Oceanside a few times, and were delighted to find the Westbury location, closer to home.  It's a smaller, less cavernous space than the Oceanside location, but just as much fun to visit. Very casual atmosphere, the wait staff is all dressed in tie dye.  Your table is set with a big bucket (for the shells), a smaller bucket for eating utensils, and a roll of paper towels instead of napkins.  The menu has many offerings -- shrimp dishes, fried seafood platters, salads, crab cakes, burgers, even steak and chicken.  But the stars of the menu, as I've said before, are the steam pots. The steam pots/buckets of crab can be a bit pricey, but many of the other entrees are less expensive. I ordered my favorite -- the Artic.  It includes Queen crab, shrimp, a whole lobster and smoked sausage all boiled in a ...