songbird's crazy world

  The New York Wildlife Conservation Society operates five parks within the City of New York.  The largest and most famous of these is The Bronx Zoo , a 265 acre park filled with wildlife from all over the world.   Our membership in the  Wildlife Conservation Society  gives us unlimited admission into the Bronx Zoo, the Central Park Zoo, the Queens Zoo, the Prospect Park Zoo and the New York Aquarium.  Every year the zoo presents Holiday Lights , an after-dark special event,  As members, we take full advantage of this event.  Here’s what I wrote  last year , with links to our prior visits. The zoo is turned into a Festival of Lights,  There are lanterns, representing the animals and plants preserved at the zoo.  There’s ice carving, a carousel, puppet show and train ride for the children.  Costumed characters, of course.  And, as always, there’s a Christmas tree display.   This year we didn’t get to the zoo early enou...

Someone was excited as she looked out the window.   Snow!     And a visitor … Yeah, even in the snow ..,

 I haven’t been able to walk around the neighborhood, I hope to be able to walk today, But I spotted some birds in the neighbor’s tree early Friday morning. Later we got snow. And a visit from a tuxedo And my neighbor down the street did this  Yeah, the guy on the tractor showed up just before Halloween. They decided to keep him around for the holidays. And another neighbor did this I’m doing my Hanukkah lawn decorations later today.  

  HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 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: HAPPY HOLIDAYS  From the archives 1. As you can see, when Sam Winters was a little girl, she loved giving her annual wish list to Santa. If you could ask Santa for anything at all, right now, what would it be? “Peace on Earth” might be too much to ask for, but a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing the hostages home sounds do-able. 2. Are you currently on the Naughty or Nice list? How did you get there? I hope I’m on the nice list.  3. Are you traveling this Christmas? If so, are you going by car, pl...

 How I got locked out of my work computer She used to do this all the time  when she was a kitten . And the best appliance on my counter but the reason I have to clean my kitchen before I start cooking: And she loves my potholders.  I find them under the dining  room table, on the living room couch, and occasionally in my bed. Face off in the living room: But ultimately they relaxed.

  I guess cats are people too.

  The cardinal likes to sit on my camera 

  Hide and seek?

  They just love to visit, don’t they? And Shadow often watches them from the front window. I wonder if she ever thinks about joining the outdoor cats.  Duchess has no interest in being outdoors.  The one time she accidentally wandered outside she panicked, and was very happy when I rescued her and brought her back into the house.   Shadow also loves to watch the birds.  I see a lot of doves, a few robins, and there’s a cardinal that hangs out in my front yard. They say that a visit by a cardinal or a robin is considered lucky.  Drew had eggs for breakfast yesterday, and one of them was a double yolk.   It came from the same carton as the double yolk egg Shadow broke.  I guess we must really be lucky.  I saw a drone last night.  We were watching tv and I happened to look out the living room window just as it flew by,  I’m used to seeing planes, of course.  We live under a flight path.  But this was different. Lower in the ...

 Got another visit from the tuxedo who lives across the street. He spent about ten minutes “hunting” in our yard. My ginger friend put on quite a show the other night. I’m a cat mom … I know what that scratching was all about …I am not happy with him right now … That blinking light in the sky, you can see it towards the end of the video, is a plane.  Not a drone. The drone sightings continue to make news.  Lots of speculation about what’s happening but no concrete answers. Federal government is sending high tech equipment to our area. So we were watching the news, and there was a story about a tornado in California and another about icy conditions in another state.  And both stories featured “Ring video”.  Guess I’m on trend … I haven’t been able to walk lately.  The weather has not cooperated.  But I’m hoping I’ll be able to get out once or twice this week. Shadow was in the proverbial dog house the yesterday.  I was about to make an omelet, I ha...

We went to the movies today (Sunday).  Saw an old movie, brought back to the big screen for a limited engagement by Fandango.   It was an old fashioned musical, featuring the following songs. Bet you figured out which movie we saw.

 The drones over Long Island garnered a front page headline in Newsday.  The governor is looking for federal legislation to protect our airspace.  An airport in Orange County was shut down  for an hour Friday night because of a drone. Oh, and it looks like Mariah Carey canceled her concert, Fortunately Peter Noone’s concert at Westbury Music Fair proceeded as scheduled Friday night.  The Buckinghams opened the show. Sorry, no fan video — YouTube blocked it all because of copyright laws.  I think they’re really cracking down.  We went back Saturday night to see Micky Dolenz of the Monkees. Didn’t even try to take video, but I got a few photos of Micky and his sister Coco. Coco did two solos to open the show. Micky told stories about his career and sang … Ran into some friends while we were there.  Not unexpectedly, they’re big Monkees fans. Before the show we went to  Ben’s Kosher Deli  for a late lunch/early dinner. The website has a lis...

 Afternoon walk 

 Every year Drew and I head over to Jones Beach for  Magic of Lights . It’s a drive-through holiday light experience.  There’s also a small holiday village where you can buy refreshments, the kids can meet Santa, etc. We went Thursday night.  It was very cold at the beach, but we were warm in our car. Got there at sunset, before the event began.   seven swans a swimming. A celebration of winter. And a peacock, my favorite! Going through light tunnels. At the Christmas village The dogs are Samoyeds.  You’re asked to make a donation to Mothers Against Drunk Driving when you visit them.  They are the sweetest, friendliest dogs. Another fun evening.  We had a blast.