Tag Archives: life in NY

I Love My Neighborhood ……

Double Wow ……

…… I cried again.

But a good cry.
You guys blew me out of the water with all of the comments …… and support …… here and on FB.
I really didn’t know that more than a handful of people read this blog. I hoped that some widowed people had found me, but I figured it was only a few.
Wow ……

Thank you SO much for the comments.
Thank you for your very kind words.
Thank you for your anger.
And thank you for the love I felt.
Wow ……

A friend messaged me last night and let me know that I was not alone in receiving that kind of comment from that person.
I was sorry that she had endured that, but I was also glad that it wasn’t just me.
And then I felt sad.

I’m sad for the person who I thought was a friend. Not a close friend, but a friend anyway.
I’m sad that something is going on in her life that causes her to try to hurt people, and cloaking it in “God”.
God doesn’t need a cloak.

I’m sad for her.
All I can do is pray for her …… and ask you to do the same.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that …… from here on out.

Yesterday was a big theatre day for me.
And a busy day.

My friend J and I walked to our book club meeting. The hostess lives about an hour from us, over by the U.N.
I love walking here. No matter how many blocks/miles.
But I don’t enjoy the humidity.
Yes, you’d think I’d be used to humidity since I happen to spend most of my life in one of the most humid places on earth …… south Texas.
But in Texas, we don’t walk everywhere we go.
That would just be insane.

And it’s October for cryin’ out loud!! It’s supposed to feel like fall up here!
By the time we got to the apartment, we were both pretty drenched.
And not from rain.
Ugh.

But we had a great meeting and a really good discussion about the book.
And I learned that …… if I cram the reading of a book in a little over 24 hours …… I remember it well enough to join in the discussion …… and know what I’m talking about!!
Who’d a thunk?!

BTW, the book is The Museum of Extraordinary Things, by Alice Hoffman. It’s good. It’s weird. But good.

After that J and I decided to walk to the theatre to see if we could get tickets to see “The Country House”, with Blythe Danner.
And we did!!!

It was very good.

We also walked past the library,

and by Bryant Park, where they’re already putting up the skating rink!

After the play I sat in Times Square, soaking up the people, the fun and the weirdness.

Then I met my friend B at Carmine’s for dinner.
And a blood orange margarita.

Yes, they were as good as they look.
Don’t be jealous.

After dinner we went to see “Pippin”. And I enjoyed it as much as the first time I saw it.

And the really cool thing, for me, was that this lady was in it!

I know you can’t really tell who that is, so I’ll tell you.
Cuz I’m nice like that.
It’s Lucie Arnaz.
You know, the daughter of Lucille Ball.

She happened to star in the very first Broadway show I saw …… “They’re Playing Our Song”.
And I LOVED that show. I still have the album.
And still listen to it.

After the play they held a Talk Back, which is when people from the show (producers, directors, actors, etc) hang out to discuss the show and answer questions. I love it when a Talk Back is included. The person who chatted with us was Stephen Schwartz, the composer and lyricist of “Pippin”. Forty years ago.
Wow ……

This theatre (Music Box Theatre) happens to be on a street with a ton of wonderful shows.

I’m heading back to TX on Sunday, which is why I’ve seen so many shows this week. I try to cram them in when I’m getting ready to leave.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, but only for a week.
But I’ll be back in December …… I bought a one way ticket.
Double wow ……
🙂

Little Bit ……

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…… and Laws.

Since Ashley so kindly asked for more of Little Bit, I figured I should write a post about that. And him.

First of all, he’s still amazing. He made the flight to Oregon with nary a peep.
If you don’t count the diaper blow out on the way.
Which just makes me smile because I wonder how many of those nasty things I had to deal with over the past almost-(GULP!)- 30 years?
You know the ones …… everything slides right up the back, and/or out the leg holes.
So.
Much.
Fun.

We bought him a little tuxedo onesie to wear to the wedding today, so I’m hoping to get a really cute pic soon.

Now about those pics …… we are prohibited by law from publishing his name and his picture. Or anything else personal about him.
Thus …… no pictures since I left.

I’m hoping to figure out how to edit some newer ones so that I can post them.
Now, if I know you personally then I can show you pictures of this amazingly cute baby. But other than that, I’m sorry.
And really, it’s totally killing me to not be able to show you how ever-lovin’-cute he is!!!!!

There are a few other things that are required of me, other than not publishing pictures.
Today I went to a CPR/AED/FA class.
This is so that the foster system will trust me to stay with him, but only for up to 72 hours. After that, he gets snatched away and taken to people who’ve taken training to provide “respite” care.
Needless to say, Daughter #2 isn’t going anywhere more than 72 hours away.

OK, I just had to stop and squeal quite loudly.
That’s because D2 just sent me a pic of him in the tux/onesie.
I can NOT stand the cuteness!!!!

OK, where was I?
Ahh, yes ….. requirements to hang with foster kids.
The CPR course.

So I perused the internet to find just the right class.
And I did.
Or so I thought.
It was called FUN CPR!
Now you know me …… give me a choice between regular and fun, and I’m going to choose FUN every time.

So I walked to this office/Asian church/Asian funeral home and got there before 10:00. (The email said that the doors would be locked promptly at 10:00).
WHATEVER!!!
There were Asian people, dressed in black, coming and going and mostly meeting in one room for a service.
Then there were four of us who weren’t Asian, who were waiting for the FUN CPR class to start.
We waited for an hour. No word at all from the teacher. The receptionist said he’d never been that late and wasn’t it just too bad that she didn’t have his cell number?
REALLY?!!

One of the four found another teacher near by and called him. Surprise, surprise ….. his students had not shown up this morning. No, he wasn’t ours and we weren’t his, it was just plain serendipity.
So we walked over to his office and took the class. And he ended up being hilarious.
I passed.
🙂

So far, my fingerprints and my background check have turned up nothing ……. in this country anyway. ;-p

I’ll see if I can edit some pics of him for you.

Until then, here are some pictures of Matthew Broderick and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley in Harry Potter), Megan Mullally, Stockard Channing and F. Murray Abraham from the play last night.
I have to admit that the last several pictures were taken under the cover of darkness and sneakiness. But they were soooo close that I just HAD to!!!

And you’re welcome.

Hopefully one of you can come bail me out some day.
Wherever I end up.

🙂

This is Stacey Keach, who was sitting a few seats from me at “You Can’t Take It With You” with James Earl Jones.

This is Stockard Channing, though difficult to see clearly.

Nathan Lane, who was so dang close!!

It took me several minutes to recognize Megan Mullally (Will and Grace) because she’s lost a great deal of weight and was blonde in the show.

Curtain call: 2nd from the right is F. Murray Abraham

Rupert Grint — very patient and kind

and goofy!

Matthew Broderick …. also very kind and patent.

Hello. My Name Is Janine ……

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…… and I’m a Little Bit-aholic.

I’m going through withdrawal.
I kid you not.

I have told Daughter #2 that she has to send me at least one picture every 24 hours.
They’re my crack.

I start feeling restless and cranky when I don’t hear from her. It’s gotten so bad that when she sent me a picture this morning (from an airport because they’re on their way to Oregon …… actually they’ve landed safely by now), my eyes got all teary.
I miss that baby …… physically. When I see pictures of him I wish I could climb into them and grab him.
If anyone knows the secret to doing that, I’d make it worth your while to tell me.
Word.

But in between times of the DT’s, I’m loving being back in NY.
Barre class is still kicking my butt, but I’m very, very close to …… enjoying it.
I KNOW!!!

You know how some people love pain? I think it might kind of be like that.
I like feeling stronger, but I’m not really liking my muscles growing bigger. My calves are larger and very defined, as are my upper arms.
And since my muscles seem to be getting larger, I’m not losing any weight.
At all.
Not.
One.
Pound.
And that almost makes me hyperventilate.

I’m doing Barre for an hour every other day. Almost every day I walk at least 2 miles. Today I walked 2 miles and then biked 5 miles.
It’s getting depressing.
And infuriating.

It seems that at this stage of life, I have absolutely no control over how my body looks. I’ve always heard the horror stories of women and menopause and fat around the middle. But I never really paid that much attention because I seemed to stay fit enough playing tennis and walking.

But no more.
And I’m here to tell you that those horror stories are true.
Damn it.

Flaunt it while you got it …… all you Peeps under the age of 50.
Sigh ……

In other news, I saw a great Broadway show the other night. It’s called “You Can’t Take It With You”, and it stars James Earl Jones …… you know, the voice of Darth Vader?
It also stars Rose Byrne, who was the wealthy best friend-wanna be in “Bridesmaids”. She was cute.
Mark Linn-Baker, from the 80’s sitcom “Perfect Strangers” was also in it, as was Elizabeth Ashley, whom I hadn’t seen in anything in a long time.
It was hilarious and I’d definitely see it again.
That means I highly recommend it.
I also had this guy squeeze past me as he went to his seat on my row. He even said, “Excuse me.”
And the best part is …… I recognized him!!! And then I remembered his name!!! Ten bonus points for me because I rarely recognize celebrities. In fact, I spotted two that day!
Here’s a pic of Stacy Keach, who sat a few seats down:

Tomorrow night I get to go see “It’s Only a Play” with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
I can NOT wait!!!
Here’s who else is in the cast:
F. Murray Abraham
Stockard Channing
Megan Mullally
Rupert Grint

WHOOP!!!!!

This is the hardest ticket to get right now. However, when you only want one, it’s a bit easier.

On Monday I went out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
I’d been to the statue a few decades ago …… and up it. But this was my first time to visit Ellis Island and it was quite interesting.
We had beautiful weather, even if it was a bit blustery.

This is Ellis Island, through the trees:

A picture of a boat full of immigrants:

This is a part of the wall that people wrote on while they waited to be seen by the doctors on Ellis:

This is from the gift shop. Because who wouldn’t want a Statue of Liberty bear?

Or a tacky Barbie?

Or, even better …… a Statue of Liberty monkey. Because nothing says American patriotism like a monkey, right?
Sheesh.

The entrance, that millions of immigrants entered upon landing on Ellis.

Afterwards we went to lunch at one of the best barbecue places I’ve been to ….. in and out of Texas!

It’s Hill Country Barbecue and it’s HUGE!!! Especially for NYC!! Most restaurants here barely fit 10 tables. But this looked like we stepped right into Texas when we walked through the door!

Today I decided to walk to the New York Historical Society Museum. It was another gorgeous day!! I took pictures of a few churches and interesting buildings on the way.

Looking into Central Park:

I just thought this was a cool tree. So I took a pic.

And these Ugg booties made me think of Little Bit …. so I took pics and sent them to Daughter #2.
I didn’t buy them.
I’m not entirely crazy.

Although I can always go back.
🙂

Have a great weekend, Peeps.
🙂

And thank you to each and everyone of you who has joined Jim’s team and/or donated. It would be amazing to know that no other person will every die from an aortic dissection …… and that no family will be torn asunder because of that damn event.
I think it’s a great goal.

Barre, Broadway, Blisters and ……

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…… The Blacklist!!

So, yeah, I finished Season 1 yesterday. I am now ready to watch Season 2! Whoop!
Tonight!! Double Whoop!!!

Yesterday was a busy day.
I went to barre class in the morning (I’ve now gone 3 days in a row, and yes, it’s still killing me), then came back to relax and finish The BL.

For those of you who were under a rock this past weekend (or who don’t live in NY), NYC had what has been purported to be THE largest climate rally in history.
Which begs the question: How long have we been having these rallies because this is the first time I ever heard of it.
There were over 400,000 people at this event. And it all started just down the street from my apartment …… at Columbus Circle.
Which looked a whole lot like this:

There were people EVERYWHERE!!
The parade was so big (How big was it?!) that, for people standing somewhere along the middle of the route, it took over an hour and a half for the parade to reach them. It was 3 miles long and took over 5 hours to complete.

I wasn’t too bothered by the parade and the massive amount of people. I had a show to go see in the afternoon, but I thought that I would be avoiding the masses since I was going in the other direction.
Wrong!!
Completely and totally WRONG!
I had no idea how massive the rally was nor that the multitude was spilling over in streets in every direction!
So my plan to leave 30 minutes before the show was, in hindsight, a pretty stupid plan.
On a nice day it only takes me 20 minutes to get to the Theatre District/Times Square. And yesterday was a nice day (although it was too warm, but there you go) …… so I didn’t think twice about my timing.

I ended up running at least half of the distance to the theatre. Running where I could find space to run.
Running in and around somewhere around 400,000 people.
Running, in boots.
Running, in boots with heels.
My feet are still ticked off at me.

I arrived at the theatre less than 5 minutes before curtain.
I had a huge blister on the bottom of both feet.
And I was drenched in sweat.
Fortunately, this is what I was seeing:

It’s not what you call a “dressy” show.

It’s the third time I’ve seen it. Twice with Neil Patrick Harris (sigh ……) and yesterday with Andrew Rannells (whom I saw in “The Book of Mormon”). He was very, very good.
He’s not Neil, but no one is (sigh ……). But he was certainly worth seeing.
He’s doing this show until the middle of October.
Then, a guy named Michael C. Hall is going to star in it. If you’re not sure who he is, he just finished the last season of a little show called, “Dexter”. If you know that show ……
I KNOW!!! Can you believe it??? I can NOT picture him doing Hedwig.

If you don’t know that show, good for you. I wish I didn’t. It was very disturbing. I never finished the first season.

After the show, I limped down 44th street to take in the annual Broadway Cares Flea Market.
Once again I was surrounded by a throng of people.
A throng is a whole lot.

I’ve never seen so many old Playbills in my life! I think every single table was selling them. Each theatre had a table set up with those, albums, cds, props, costumes, etc. It was fun to look through all that they had.
I ended up buying this t-shirt, because people are always asking me what the difference is/which spelling is correct.

That’s all I purchased. I figure I have more than enough current Playbills.
🙂

After that I stopped for dinner at a decent Mexican restaurant and then I went to church. But I had just eaten, I was hot (the building was very warm) and I was exhausted.
You do the math.

This morning, when I came out of barre class, 8th Avenue was packed with black vehicles. I’m talking a parking lot.
Black limos, black Escalades, black Lincolns. They were triple and quadruple parked. Men dressed in black suits, wearing earbuds, were standing all around.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on and just hoped I hadn’t popped onto the scene like any in “The Blacklist”.
Because, you know …… New York!

But then I saw a sign in one of the car windows that read, “Argentine delegation”, so I knew it was part of the huge U.N. Summit on, what else?, climate control.

I wanted to take a picture for you all, but after my last experience with taking a picture of something that looked kind of sketchy (you know, when I was stopped in Paris by the military for taking a picture of something I still can’t define, but knew it was government/military related), there’s no way I was going to chance get arrested over a picture!!

OK, I’m totally kidding!
Not about the Paris Picture Caper …… that really happened, but about taking pictures today.

See what I do for your entertainment?!
You’re welcome.

Tomorrow I’m touring around Hoboken.
I hope the blisters are gone by then.
Ha!

Later, Peeps.

I Am Woman ……

A Photo Album ……

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…… instead of a blog.
Or so it seems.

Oh, and hey …… if you want to go visit the Hudson Valley Bridge, you might want to hurry up and get there tomorrow.

I’m just sayin’.

If you get there early enough you can go see FDR’s house.
Or you can just stay home and enjoy these pics.
I just saved you a ton on plane fare, didn’t I?
You’re welcome.

This is actually a large dumbwaiter. FDR used it after he contracted polio and was confined to a wheel chair. It was already there and used by the servants. So you don’t have an elevator? No problem! Use the dumbwaiter.
I’m guessing that a smart one wouldn’t let you use it like that.
Ha!
(Did you groan or smile?)

This is one of the hallways upstairs with bedrooms up and down it.

This is a copy of the Declaration of Independence that hangs in the above bedroom (FDR’s boyhood room).

This is a sort of parlor for the guest room, which is through the white door on the back wall. If you look closely you can see what appears to maybe be a full sized bed (with a white coverlet), but it seemed smaller than that.
BTW, the King and Queen of England (Elizabeth’s parents) stayed there.
I hope she took the bed.

NINE freakin’ bathroooms!! Can you even imagine cleaning all of those toilets?!!

Another hallway:

“Mizz Scarlett, I don’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ babies!”
Sorry, that just pops into my head every time I see that picture!

A young FDR:

I don’t know about you, but I would’ve had a huge problem with my mother in law if she was remotely like Anna. She did NOT treat Eleanor all that well. Notice the size of the bed? Franklin’s was an adjoining room with a large bed.
Sheesh.
On a happy note, Eleanor did end up with her own cottage place, not far from the main house. So at least she did have her own home there.
Bossy MIL!

FDR’s room is through that door:

Guess who?! Yep, that girly-looking boy is our 32nd president.
Thank God his mother finally let him get his hair cut!

So for what I think is the first time ever, I’m going to have to do a three-parter.
Sorry, but I have about 35 more pics left to post (minus the ones I’ll edit out), and I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of FDR at the moment.

Let me know if you’re interested and if you are, I’ll post the rest.
I have to tell you that I got some pics of some pretty darn cute baby animals that seemed to live under the house.
Is that like a cliff hanger?!
🙂

A Sample Day ……

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…… of my life in NY.
(An alternate title of this post could be: “A BOATLOAD of Pics!”
You might want to pace yourself.
Over a week or two.)

And only a sample day. They’re not all like this.
But a lot of them are close. 🙂

The day before I flew back to Texas, my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m.
I was supposed to meet up with my friend, Jeni, to walk a mile or so and meet up with a group of Manhattan Women’s Club members.
I hit the snooze button.
Twice.

And then I just happened to wake up …… at 7:19 a.m.
Seriously.

Jumping out of bed, while experiencing heart palpitations and yelling out a curse word is not the best way to start the day.
Trust me.

But, since I seem to sometimes do my best under pressure, I managed to shower, dress, put make up on and race walk two blocks …… all by 7:36 a.m.
Yes, I’m that good.
Kind of sad, isn’t it?

Then Jeni and I walked to meet the bus. We ended up race walking because we thought the meeting spot was about 6 blocks before it actually was.
I know.
We were only about 7 minutes late, and thankfully we were not the last ones to get there.
Whew.

Jeni was smart …… she went to the long back seat and napped the two hours it took to get to Poughkeepsie (OK, I have to say that I just love saying that word. What a great name to be from. I have no idea if the town is a great place to be from, but I love its name. Say it … it’s fun! Oh, and it’s pronounced Poe-kip-see. 🙂 )

I was jealous.
And very tired.
But I perked up when we got there.
Thank you, Dr. Pepper.

We chartered a bus to the Hudson Valley to walk over the bridge (from the Poughkeepsie side). The bridge is 1.28 miles long and 212 feet tall.
Funny, it seemed longer and higher.

Here are some pics:

See? I told you it looked longer than that!

It’s also THE longest elevated pedestrian bridge In. The. World.
Impressed?
You should be.
This is the view of the Mid-Hudson Bridge, a.k.a. the “Franklin D. Roosevelt Bridge”.

A tug boat!
He was pushing a lot more than he was tugging.
(Or should I say “she”? Boats are supposed to be shes, but I seem to remember some children’s story about a boy tugboat. Anywhooo …. I digress. Terribly.
Sorry.
Welcome to my brain.)

The mid-way point. Does it look like less than 3/4 of a mile?
Me, either.

This is a view from the other side. I thought this house was so pretty with its blue door and its flower boxes.

Next stop: The Culinary Institute of America.
Or CIA, which, I confess, was a bit confusing on the first email. I kept thinking we were going to THE CIA, but knew that we’d have to go to Langley, VA for that tour, so that didn’t make sense.
Again, welcome to my brain.

Back to the cooking place.

Mostly everyone there (who were students) wore the comfy-looking uniform of grey pants (roomy pants, kind of like scrubs) and a white chef’s top. I think I’d go nuts trying to keep the top white. For one day.
Too much pressure.

Inside where our group had lunch. It was a fixed menu (kale salad with asparagus, grilled sea bass and veggies, and cheesecake). It was a very tasty meal.

We saw this lovely waterfall on the way out. I was trying to hurry to get a pic, so they’re not great, but you get the idea.
Hmmmm, I wonder if that statement would work for a picture of half of Niagara Falls? “It’s not a great picture, but you get the idea.”
Somehow, I doubt it.

The C.I.A. (the cooking place) is located in Hyde Park. Interestingly enough, Franklin Roosevelt’s home, museum and presidential library are located there, too.
So we went to see them!

This is the library … and our tour guide.

There were about 20 of us and then a good-sized group from Texas.
Whoop! They were an older crowd and were very nice. They asked us about NY and what they should see and do the next day there. I felt so New York-ish to be able to answer them. 🙂

This was FDR’s birth-home, childhood home, and his home-away-from-White House-home. The only place he thought of as “home”. And I can’t blame him.

These were the barns. Pretty dang nice for a barn, wouldn’t you say?!

Going in through the front door (as opposed, I guess, to the back door … whatever):

FDR greets you upon entering. A young FDR.

First floor living room:

This was Anna Roosevelt’s (FDR’s very “in control” mother) “office”.

And this is her picture. She looks like a formidable woman.
And she was.
Very.

First floor “family room”

Foyer

OK, I’ve decided to split this post into two posts.
You’re welcome.

Tomorrow I’ll post all of the pictures from the second story of the home, the inside of the Library and the grounds.
That’s going to be another boatload of pictures.
Sorry that there are so many, but I have to say that when I go visit something in NY, I feel like I’m visiting it for all of you, too, so I want to take as many pics as I can (interesting pics, I hope, for the most part).
Many of you have said (more than once) that you’re living vicariously through me, which is a fun role that I don’t take lightly. I want you to feel, as closely as possible, like you were there.
Of course, you’re free to exit right out of this window any time you’d like. I realize that looking at other peoples’ pictures isn’t very exciting for most people, so I don’t take it personally.
Much.

So, Happy Wednesday/Thursday, Peeps.
I’ll post the rest tomorrow …… or at least that’s my plan as of 11:52 p.m. Central Time.
I also have to do laundry and pack for San Diego before early Saturday morning, when I get on yet another plane.

Whoop!… ?
(Yawn!!!)

🙂

Lots and Lots ……

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…… of pictures from this past week.
I wasn’t sure what I’d have to write about, until I started looking through my pictures from this week and then thought, “Dang! I’ve been pretty busy!”

So I started selecting pictures to use for this post and ended up with way too many to write about.
Which means that I’ll have to post them and try not to write too much about them …… so as not to bore you all to tears.
I apologize now for any tears you might shed.
Feel free to close this window and go hang out on FaceBook or Pintrest.
I won’t be offended.
Much.

So last week I had a lunch outing in Central Park. We ate at the Boathouse. It was beautiful and the food was very good.
But also so expensive that we all kind of choked a bit when the bill came.
This place wasn’t on my bucket list, but I have since added it …… and crossed it off.
It’s a lovely place, but my recommendation would be to go take a couple of pictures and then eat somewhere else.
Because, for me, food is food.
And not worth having to leave your first born for collateral.

After lunch I walked through the Park. I absolutely love that Park.
But who wouldn’t?

I thought this was a great tree and really wanted to climb it.
But I resisted the urge.

This is the “Stuart Little Pond”, though that’s not the name of it. It’s where you go to rent those sailboats that you control with a remote. It was a very peaceful place.

This is the Alice in Wonderland statue. It’s right off of the above pond.

I love this picture. That’s because it shows something that is SO typical. Two dads (not with each other) who are hogging the remote to the boats while their children sit and wait to get their turn. They waited quite a while.
Men.
Sheesh.

I went out the other day to run some errands. While I was in line at one store, waiting to check out, this woman came up next to me with this stroller. I had to take a picture of it because it is SO New York.
You need to look very closely. Check out the right corner of the handle on this stroller. There’s a bike bell there.
Only in New York.
A bell on your stroller to tell people to get the hell out of the way when you’re coming! LOL!

That same day, this is what I came across on my way to get those errands done:

Ummm, yeah. Meatrushmore. Made out of beef jerky.
I have no idea.
But they were there all day, giving away samples of their jerky.

And I’m truly at a loss for words here. What this “guy/thing” had to do with beef jerky was, and still is, beyond me. But tourists seemed to love having their picture taken with him/it.
To each his own.

Thursday nights in my building are BBQ nights in the summer. They set up a grill and a buffet on the roof and everyone goes up there to eat and hang out with each other.

A storm came rolling in later that night. But it was still beautiful. At least to me. And it was a very brief storm.

Last Saturday our church had a picnic in the Park. It was a beautiful day for a picnic.
And …… bonus news …… Daughter #3’s boyfriend’s parents were visiting that weekend and they went to the picnic. So I had the pleasure of meeting them. They were very nice and I enjoyed meeting and talking with them. 🙂

I had to leave the picnic to attend our Soaring Spirits NY regional group meeting, which was at the Central Park zoo. It’s a very small, but decent, zoo.
You have to look closely here, but this is a female peacock, sitting on her nest, which holds one pretty large egg.

This is the male peacock, hanging out in an adjacent tree.

And this was a pretty cool sight: a young-ish leopard hanging out right up against the fenced enclosure so that we could all get great pictures!

The next day my friend Jeni and I went to see the play that won the Tony for Best Play …… AND for Best Actor in a Play. It was “All the Way” with Brian Cranston.
And I have to tell you that he was excellent. He deserved that Tony 100%. If you’re in NY, or going to be in NY in the near future, try your hardest to see this play. You won’t regret it.
I promise.

On Monday Jeni and I went with another friend to Christie’s Auction House to see all of the wonderful items that were going to be auctioned off two days later from the Clark family.
Our book club had read the book, “Empty Mansions”, and met the author so we were very interested in seeing all of the things that we had read about.
It was an amazing experience.
So amazing that we decided to attend the auction on Wednesday, before we had to leave for our next book club meeting, which was being held out on Long Island.

And just in case you’re wondering …… that violin? It’s a Stradivarius. We were hugely blessed to hear it being played by a man who just asked if he could try it.
Amazingly beautiful.

This picture is entitled “Girl Fishing”.
It sold for 3.4 million dollars.
Seriously.
Holy Cow!!! 🙂

These were our paddles. Which we were able to keep out of sight.
Thankfully. 🙂

On Tuesday I gave in and decided to go see “Rocky”. And though I really didn’t care for it overall (the songs were way to hokey and who hasn’t seen the movie??), I really did enjoy the staging, especially the last 20 minutes when they took everyone who was in the center orchestra, rows 1 through 7 or 8, and led them onstage to sit in bleacher seats, facing the boxing ring and the audience. It was very cool. And THEN, the stage moved forward, where it ended up on top of those first 7 or 8 rows. The audience on the side rows were encouraged to get up and stand next to the boxing ring, so that it looked like a real boxing match.
It was very innovative and I was glad that I went to see it, just for that (and extra glad that I received an email that gave me a pretty large discount).

These are pictures from the very lovely home of our book club hostess in Long Island:

These pictures are of the sun set this past Thursday night …… from our rooftop:

It was a very nice evening. The days before had been very hot and humid and then yesterday those hot temps were swept out of here and it’s been oh, so very, very delightful.

Daughter #2 flew into town last night. Yay!
Daughter #3 flew out of town this morning. Boo.
She’s in a wedding tomorrow in Florida and will be back Sunday morning. I’m taking both of them to see “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” Sunday. And I’m just as excited as they are …… even though I’ve already seen it. I’m thrilled to be seeing it again, and am excited for the two of them. I know they’ll love it.

Today D#2 and I went down to Chelsea and enjoyed the Chelsea Market, and then we walked the High Line. It was a beautiful day with perfect weather for walking around the city.
And so we did.

Tonight we experienced “The Ride”, which is a bus that has its seats stadium style and facing an entire wall (and ceiling) of windows, through which to look out at the sights (and sounds) of New York City. It was SO MUCH FUN!!!

If you’re still with me, I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the narrative. Thanks for hanging with me.
Tomorrow we’re joining some friends to experience karaoke and then going to a show tomorrow night.
It’s going to be another full, and very fun, day.

Happy Friday/Saturday, Peeps.
🙂