songbird's crazy world

 How do you replace the incomparable Alex Trebek? Well, it's starting to seem like you can't replace him at all. A series of guest hosts, lots of speculation.  I liked Ken Jennings, I liked Levar Burton.  I thought Mayim Bialik was OK. Buzzy Cohen was wonderful.   And then the announcement.  The show's executive producer Mike Richards would become the host.   He filmed a week's worth of episodes before his past caught up to him.  He resigned as host but was going to hang on as executive producer.  Until today's announcement...he's gone from any role at   Jeopardy! and from Wheel of Fortune. Mayim Bialik, announced as host of tournaments and prime time specials, filmed three weeks of regular episodes.  But she's got a sitcom, she can't devote all her time to hosting a game show.   So now we are back to guest hosts, at least for the time being. And we've learned a little something about our so-called "cancel cultu...

  Why do the spammers think you're actually going to take the click bait?

 And the theme?   Back to School (for a lot of the country) songs about school/college or the end of summer How about a bit of both? Summer is over, time to go back to school and tell everyone about it. Don't know much about history, don't know much biology... Or maybe you just don't care about history But you've got to be true to your school

  1. Is school back in session where you live? Is everyone in person or does your system still offer a virtual option? Are kids wearing masks?  School has not started here yet.  New York's school year usually runs from early September to the end of June.   Drew's students start on September 1, but the district where my daughters went to school doesn't start until September 9.  NYC public schools start September 13.  This year all New York schools will be in-person only. New York has a very high rate of vaccination and a very low rate of active infections.  Several school districts, responding to parent pressure and/or pending lawsuits, decided that masks would be voluntary in their schools.  However, New York's brand-new Governor, Kathy Hochul, is imposing a mask mandate.  I can't wait to see the next round of lawsuits... 2. Something you still do 'old school'?   I take notes at meetings, etc. on a legal pad. Pen and paper ...

 Hazy, hot and humid…the dog days of summer have arrived…

 See if you can guess my theme   Henri, great ruiner of plans ….  But the storm wasn’t nearly as bad as predicted.

 Sitting in my living room, riding out the storm.  Stay safe, everyone.

  Woman in Love 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: Woman in Love (1980) Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it  here . 1) In this song, Barbra dreams of love. What's something you've been dreaming of, or wishing for, lately? (It doesn't have to be romantic.)   Just thinking of the upcoming months and some of the things I'd like to do, weather and virus permitting.  Something fun for Halloween, I think.      2) She sings that she and her lover are oceans apart. Tell us about someone who is far away, and that you wish ...

This weed showed up on my patio around mid July, and now it’s over five feet tall. I wish the flowers I planted had been as successful…but they died… Really, what is this thing?  

 This has been on my desk at work since forever.

  1. Monday, August 16th was National Roller Coaster Day. Are you a fan? Did you celebrate? Last place/time you rode a roller coaster?  March 2019, we were in Disney World in Florida.  I love the coasters at Disney, they're just my speed.  Not too tall, not too scary. 2. Tell us about a time in your life where it felt like you were figuratively riding a roller coaster.  My life tends to run on an even keel.  But when I saw this question I flashed back 30 years, to one weekend... Jen was six months old, Becca had not yet been born.  Drew and I had been living in a one bedroom apartment before Jen came along, but now it was time to get a bigger place. We wanted to stay in the same neighborhood, because my aunt was our baby sitter while we were at  work.  I'd drop Jen off at my aunt's house every morning, and Drew would pick her up after work.   So when we found a really great apartment in the same neighborhood, we were e...

  New York City actors, singers, musicians, and late night hosts have come together to produce a video rendition of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” to encourage the city’s recovery from the pandemic and drive civic engagement. The “New York State of Mind” video features an array of artists from multiple disciplines and industries – including Zeshan B., Sara Bareilles, Mario Cantone, Victoria Clark, Cautious Clay, Andy Cohen, Stephen Colbert, Jerry Dixon, Chloe Flower, Billy Joel’s daughter and singer-songwriter Alexa Ray Joel, Joseph Joubert, Tom Kitt, The Klezmatics, The Yankees, LaChanze, Idina Menzel, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Brian Newman, Kelli O’Hara, Joan Osborne, Peppermint, Angie Pontani, Anaïs Reno, Mark Rivera, David Rosenthal, Bobby Sanabria, Ben Stiller and Suzanne Vega. The performers were shot and recorded in all 5 Boroughs in locations such as Birdland, the Brooklyn Museum, Columbia University, La Casita de Chema, Maimonides Park, NYU, Open Jar Studios, Red H...

And the theme?   Build a playlist from one decade (that one was so much fun let’s do it again!) I like the 70's, so here goes.  Some of my favorite bands. Styx and Stones Supertramp Fleetwood Mac Foreigner Skynrd And the incomparable Queen to close out the set

 Mixed emotions right now.  I don’t know  how to react. I was driving home from Drew’s house when my phone rang.  It was Drew.  “Darlene passed away.” I first met her in the mid 80’s.  She was engaged to Drew’s friend Tommy.  They got married just a few months after we did.  We spent a lot of time with Tommy and Darlene. Later, when Jen was a baby, and Drew and I unexpectedly needed to find childcare, Darlene became our nanny for a about six months.  That ended when I started my maternity leave before Becca was born, but there was a bond between Darlene and my daughter … And then … Drew and I were having serious problems in our marriage.  Ultimately we divorced, and things between us were miserable.  Absolutely miserable.  People who knew us during that time are shocked we even speak to each other, let alone that we have reconciled. I’d cry on Darlene’s shoulder as my marriage fell apart, and she urged me to leave Drew. But whe...

 I wasn’t home last night — Drew and I had tickets to see the Ducks play the Maryland Blue Crabs — but when I came home, I found the video. Field of Dreams , an iconic and unabashedly sentimental movie.  I remember sitting in the theater, 30 years ago, and crying when the ball players came out of the cornfield.   Major League Baseball gave us a real game on that field of dreams.  A publicity stunt, of course, but what a stunt.  I cried when I saw the White Sox and the Yankees, in period uniforms, emerge from that cornfield. Movies and sports.  They bring us together, they lift our spirits, they give us hope. Sounds like it was a fun and exciting game, too.  Something worthy of the movie that inspired it. Sigh. As for the Ducks …they lost 11-0.  Not their best effort.

  Baseball Rivalry

  Why yes, we did attend the Jimmy Buffett concert at Jones Beach last night.  How did you guess? A bit of history.  The first time we saw Jimmy in concert was at Madison Square Garden.  I’d won the tickets in a newspaper contest. After that, we made it a habit to see his concert at Jones Beach every summer.  We stopped going a few years ago, though, because the tailgating in the parking lot made it impossible for concert goers to park. But now that I live in the same zip code as Jones Beach, we were able to get to the theater early enough to park reasonably close. So early, in fact, that we had time to take a short walk on the boardwalk. A note about Live Nation.  They’re really good at providing information about the venue, if ticket holders bother to read it.  There've been some changes at Jones Beach since the 2019 concert season.So I knew that there was no opening act and that the show would start promptly at 8 PM.      I knew tha...

 Whoever got the idea to add GPS to cell phones was a genius.  My current favorite app is WAZE. We were in the car,  we were in a turning lane, waiting to make a left turn.  The cars in front of us were at a complete stop.  We stopped.  The car behind us stopped.  The car behind him...we heard the impact.  Getting rear ended is never fun, but it would have been disastrous on vacation. We were lucky.   We stayed at a Days Inn.  Two photos I pulled off their website:  As you can see, it's three stories tall, no exterior corridors.  Our room was on the third floor. Basic motel chain, nothing newsworthy...until... As we were checking in Saturday afternoon, I heard the desk clerk explain "the elevator isn't working, I called a repairman."  Repairman came, couldn't fix the elevator, and it remained out of service until Monday afternoon. But no one thought it necessary to cancel the paint job.  Yes, they were painting t...

Vacation is over, time to head home...but not just yet.   First we wanted to visit Mount Harmon . Restored 18th-century manor house and colonial era tobacco plantation; includes nature preserve, boxwood garden, colonial kitchen, smoke house, replica slave quarters, tobacco barn and prize house. And close to the Delaware border, which made it ideal for our last day. It's in an isolated spot on the Sassafras River.  A two mile long driveway leads to the plantation house and related buildings.  We parked our car in the visitor's lot, and were greeted with this sight: The manor house is a small but opulent display of Georgian architecture and 18th century  wealth.  I was fascinated by the kitchen as well, a separate building (just as at the Mudd house) where food for the entire plantation was prepared.  Initially the land was worked by indentured servants, but ultimately  it became a slave-based economy. Pineapples were used as a welcome sign in colon...

She hissed at Drew and gave him a real scolding, then spent twenty minutes wrapping herself around Drew's ankles, and then my ankles, and then Drew's ankles again...  

  T he more famous version … notice the change in the lyrics.  Baez learned the song from listening to The Band’s album, and never saw the printed lyrics.  Now she sings the song as written. So you know that today was more Civil War stuff.  More specifically,  The Dr. Samuel A. Mudd House . We all know that John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, and that Lincoln died the following day.  But how many people know the whole story, or the role played by Dr. Samuel Mudd? Before the Civil War, Southern Maryland was very much like Northern Virginia … tobacco plantations, slaves, and a lot of Confederate sympathizers. Dr. Mudd was a gentleman farmer, he owned a 200 acre plantation, and he was also a medical doctor. John Wilkes Booth visited the area several times in 1864, looking for support for a plan to kidnap Lincoln and to force the Union to exchange Confederate prisoners for the President.  It is unknown as to whether Dr. Mudd was part...