songbird's crazy world

Two weeks of fun and relaxation. We flew from NYC to Orlando, FL and then took a shuttle to Cocoa Beach.  We spent one night in a lovely beach resort, International Palms.  A bit dated, but still a nice place to spend some time. The next day we headed over to Port Canaveral to begin a week-long cruise on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.   Since we were sailing just before Halloween, the ship was decorated for the holiday.  I especially liked this one: It's not a cruise ship, it's a floating city...we loved our cabin (we had a balcony), loved the layout of the ship.  Food was OK -- Carnival had better food and more choices, but Royal Caribbean wasn't bad.  And the entertainment was top notch -- several performances by the ship's singers and dancers, two different comedians (both did family-friendly and "adult" shows), and even a performance by Drew Thomas, a magician who competed on America's Got Talent .  The ship also features an ice r...

So the other night I was at the synagogue for the annual Sisterhood dinner.  And one of my friends whipped out her cell phone and said that we all had to see a picture  from a Toronto Maple Leaf game.  It seems the Leafs had a scarf giveaway that night...   (picture courtesy of  Adventures in Pucking )

So...autumn on Long Island...and I headed to Florida and the Caribbean for a two-week vacation. The fall foliage was already past peak when I returned. I live in a heavily-wooded area, I can see foliage in my own back yard.  But with the tumultuous week we'd all been through, I needed the tranquility of a walk in the woods.  And so I headed to Takapausha Museum and Preserve . The county's website describes Tackapausha as: In the middle of densely populated Seaford on the South Shore, is an historic and beautiful 84-acre sanctuary of oak forests, ponds, streams, small mammals and scores of bird species, all of which can viewed via five miles of clearly marked trails. The Tackapausha Preserve, the first tract of preserve land acquired by Nassau County (in 1938 and originally for drainage purposes), is one of the most popular preserves on the South Shore. Bordered by Merrick Road on the south and Jerusalem Avenue on the north, it provides residents with the opportunity to...

A few years back, the most popular novel, the book everyone was reading, was The DaVinci Code . Great book, it had all the elements of a mystery and a spy thriller, but with the unique elements of art and history incorporated into the plot. I so enjoyed the book that I immediately went out and bought Dan Brown's earlier book, Angels and Demons , featuring the same protagonist,Robert Langdon. And later, I loved the third book in the series, The Lost Symbol . And I loved the movies, and Tom Hanks as Langdon. And then I read Inferno . I loved the story, loved how Brown wove together a spy thriller/action story with Renaissance art and Dante's words. Until I got to the end of the story. And then I howled with anger and frustration, I felt betrayed by the author. All of Langdon's efforts were for nothing, he couldn't stop the plague, it had been released before his first clue was ever found. Though Brown did manage to cure overpopulation in a very intere...

One of our favorite chains.  We had a chance to visit this location with friends. I love the peanuts, I love the hot rolls with cinnamon butter.  I ordered a steak and ribs combo.  The steak was perfectly cooked, and came covered in mushrooms and onions as requested.  The ribs were cooked to falling-off-the-bone doneness.  My meal was accompanied by a large baked potato and a huge serving of buttered corn.  Service was friendly and efficient. My chief complaint?  Due to the way the restaurant is set up, we were not able to see the wait staff doing their line dance.  I guess I'll just have to live with that disappointment.

It's customary, on the yartzeit , (the anniversary) of a parent's death, to go to the synagogue to say a special prayer.  I was in the middle of the Caribbean on my father's yartzeit , and so chose to honor his memory in synagogue this morning. It was a busy morning in the synagogue, with several of us observing a yartzeit , one celebration of a new grandchild, and a bar mitzvah.  And afterwards, we all had bagels and coffee. And I found myself talking to Helga, whose father and grandfather were taken from the family home on Kristallnacht, and sent to concentration camps. She was a very young child, but she remembers the Germans breaking into her home, she remembers one of them kicking the china cabinet with his black boot. She tells me that her original birth certificate, buried in her safe deposit box, bears a Nazi swastika, a reminder of who she is and what she has endured. She listens to one of our fellow congregants rant about how Trump "can't be an an...

The Night of Broken Glass.  November 9-10, 1938.  The beginning of the Holocaust. Commemorated tonight, as we do every year, in the synagogue. The swirl of emotions as we recite ancient prayers.  Interspersed among the holy words are remembrances, snippets of diaries and letters written by the survivors of that night.  The prayers are comforting, the memories haunting. The speaker takes the podium.  He is 90 years old, a member of The Greatest Generation.  Born in Brooklyn, he served in the  Army and was stationed in Germany.  Fluent in Yiddish, he was called upon to be part of the force that liberated Dachau.  What he saw so disturbed him that he blocked out the memories for decades, but now wants to share his experiences. I find myself teary-eyed, shaken by the past and despairing of the future.  Our world has changed... And yet the words of the prayers, written over the course of 2,000 years of our history, give me hope. ...