| Greetings from New Orleans, Day Three |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|12:54 am] |
We started the day Thursday driving out of the city past famous above-ground cemeteries to Destrehan Plantation, the 1787 manor on the Mississippi River that produced indigo, then sugar, then served as a refinery for Amoco before the manor house, slave cabins, and some of the other buildings were restored. The plantation has an 1804 document signed by Thomas Jefferson that appointed Jean Noel Destrehan to the council that governed the Louisiana Territory, plus reproductions of the papers that transferred the Louisiana Purchase from Spain to France to the United States. There's a tour of the home describing the lives of the plantation owners and their slaves, plus an outdoor demonstration of how sugar was refined there. It was beastly hot once outside the climate-controlled mansion, but we got to see dragonflies, lizards, and various birds that live along the Mississippi, including a flock of egrets.
We had a small lunch so that after stopping in a couple of stores, we could have beignets at Cafe du Monde. I think older son ate five of them. We walked to the Voodoo Museum and Voodoo Spiritual Temple, both off Dumaine, plus we visited the French Market and the Jazz National Historical Park, where two rangers were giving a terrific demonstration of the range of music developed and played in New Orleans, primarily blues and second-line funeral spirituals. We had dinner at Café Beignet, as much because the live jazz band Steamboat Willie plays at the Music Legends Park location on Bourbon Street as for the food (more gumbo, jambalaya, muffaletta, and fresh-squeezed lemonade, plus ![[info]](http://piktures.deadjournal.com/userinfo.gif) apaulled stopped for a hand grenade at Tropical Isle because we figured we had to have that or a hurricane). I know a lot of people find the French Quarter loud and tacky these days but I really love it -- I adored standing on a corner at the start of a thunderstorm with live jazz behind me, live zydeco across one street and live blues-rock across another, watching people dancing to different rhythms.
( On the Mississippi )
On Friday, sadly, we are leaving New Orleans, though we are going on a swamp tour before we head back into Alabama. |
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| Greetings from New Orleans, Day Two |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|12:25 am] |
Wednesday was our 19th wedding anniversary, and we had a delightful day in New Orleans to celebrate. In the morning we went to Jackson Square, where we toured the Cabildo, St. Louis Cathedral, and the Presbytere. The Cabildo is now part of the Louisiana State Museum, and houses exhibits on regional history and music, but it was originally the seat of Spanish government (and later housed the mayor and state supreme court) and the Louisiana Purchase documents were signed here. The cathedral is a Catholic minor basilica and was restored for the American Bicentennial. The Presbytere was built on the site of the residence of the Capuchin monks and currently has an exhibit on Zulu and Carnival, including the most amazing costumes I've ever seen.
We ate lunch in the park in Jackson Square before walking to the aquarium past the horse-drawn carriages, riverboats, National Park Service center, and dozens of French Quarter antique stores and praline shops. I knew nothing about the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas before we got there, quite the opposite of my experience with the Georgia Aquarium, and it turned out to be a nice surprise -- the penguins are very accessible and so are the sharks, rays, and other animals in the big ocean tanks, nothing was crowded (including the stingray touch tank), there were many exhibits on local ecology plus a rainforest with birds and snakes, and in general it's a great place especially with kids.
We walked around a bit in various shops (Voodoo, hot sauce, Mardi Gras souvenirs) but we were very fried from the heat, so we went back to the hotel for some late-afternoon pralines and air conditioning before we headed out again to go to Cajun Cabin, having opted for highly-rated gumbo and jambalaya over live music since the kids wanted to swim. Tomorrow night they're going to hear jazz whether they want to or not. I have bought only the tackiest, most touristy souvenirs for myself and others here and must contemplate proper keepsakes when we get back from Destrehan Plantation in the morning!
( Moon Over Bourbon Street ) |
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| Greetings from New Orleans |
[Jul. 1st, 2009|12:57 am] |
I am writing this from the Ramada Inn on Bourbon Street, former location of the French opera house at the corner of Toulouse, where we have returned after a fabulous Cajun dinner at La Bayou -- I'm sure there are better restaurants in the French Quarter but I'm not sure there are many where one can get so many different dishes so well done for so little money -- and wandering around stores selling Mardi Gras beads, voodoo charms, fleur de lis jewelry, images of women my sons probably did not need to see (well, they had probably seen them before, but they didn't need to see them with me around!) and vampire collectibles. It's all utterly delightful, particularly since we are in the quiet part of the hotel where the all-night music can't be heard at 2 a.m.
We started our day very early in Pensacola, since we had good weather -- big breakfast buffet, then a couple of hours on the beach, where we saw lots of fish and comb jellies in the clear water, followed by a visit to the Gulf Islands National Seashore visitor center and their exhibits on sustainable lumber, shipbuilding, and wildlife in the region. It started to rain hard before we could walk the circular path by the water, so we went on to Davis Bayou in Mississippi after a quick stop for lunch. There were no alligators in the swamp that we could see, but there were turtles, crabs, fish, dragonflies, herons, and lots of other wildlife.
We made a brief stop in Biloxi to see the lighthouse and beach, then drove over the Louisiana border, across the enormous bridge spanning Lake Pontchartrain, and into the devastated area of New Orleans near the water there, with dozens of buildings still abandoned or partially collapsed. The French Quarter, however, is very lively even at this hour on a weeknight, with both the music and adult nightclub scenes thriving. Thus far we haven't done any serious sightseeing so I'll save city photos for tomorrow and stick with the delights of the waterways of Florida and Mississippi...
( Glories of the Gulf )
Wednesday we will visit Jackson Square and the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas! |
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| Greetings from Pensacola Beach |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|12:35 am] |
It is currently storming in the Florida panhandle, but I don't care because I got more than an hour in the Gulf of Mexico in the early evening, where the water was warm, the air was relatively cool (it was nearly 100 in Mobile earlier in the day), and there were few people and lots of seashells. I didn't know what to expect, having never seen the Gulf before this afternoon -- I didn't find mole crabs, but I did find little burrowing coquina clams like in the Carolinas, and there were herring gulls, laughing gulls, and pelicans all flying over the water which had fairly good-sized waves in the wake of the afternoon's thunderstorms.
Earlier in the day, we left Georgia and drove into Atlanta, where we picnicked at a very warm rest stop before heading into Mobile to visit the Museum of Mobile in the Southern Market, which used to be City Hall. There's a temporary exhibit on Florida's East Coast pirates -- pieces of eight and artifacts from the Atocha wreck, plus maps, weapons, and illustrations of Drake (considered a pirate in these parts apparently), Teach, Bonny, Read, Gambi, Lafitte, et al. There are also history exhibits on the city and the region, including a replica of the hold of a slave ship, the interior of a Confederate submarine, one of Mobile-born Hank Aaron's home run balls, several historic carriages and house models, and an exhibit on Mardi Gras in Alabama.
( On the Gulf of Mexico )
Tuesday after some morning beach time we are off to Biloxi and New Orleans! |
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| Greetings from Union City |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|12:06 am] |
We spent Sunday in downtown Atlanta, which had some very entertaining aspects and some disappointing aspects. I readily admit that we have been spoiled when it comes to aquariums -- we've seen the best, in some cases behind the scenes, in both the U.S. and the U.K. -- but many people and tour books both had said that the Georgia Aquarium was a can't-miss attraction, so we had rather high expectations. We were very disappointed to learn that the penguins are completely off display unless one pays $50+ a person for a behind-the-scenes tour -- outside our budget, given that the aquarium has an entrance fee (and they nickel-and-dime you inside for everything from the Titanic touring exhibit, which is fair enough, to the short Disney-ripoff looking movie, which we skipped, to plastic bags for lunch leftovers which...don't get me started, and they yelled at me for taking a photo of the "Hairy Otter" t-shirt display in the gift shop, possibly because they stole the logo from the Maryland Zoo). We didn't find much Southern hospitality there.
So while the Georgia Aquarium is a must-see for anyone obsessed with sharks, given that it has enormous whale sharks in a fantastic ocean tank that also has many other species of sharks, rays and fish, and there are several touch tanks terrific for kids, I don't think the aquarium comes close to the Cincinnati Aquarium in overall impact, and I prefer the more low-key style of the Baltimore, Boston and Chicago aquariums (I haven't been to the latter in many years, so perhaps it has changed, but I don't remember huge advertising billboards, prominently placed gift shops, or crowds so thick that it was impossible to see most of the smaller tanks up close without waiting a long time). I find it ironic that World of Coca-Cola, which is an entirely commercial enterprise with all the tourist-trap insanity implied -- a steampunkish Coke "happiness" film, a 4-D presentation about Coke around the world, a room running Coke advertisements over the years -- feels lower-key and less hyped than the aquarium in some ways.
Our plan for the evening was to have dinner somewhere downtown, hopefully with krabapple, but she has a sinus infection so we didn't get to meet up with her, and when we arrived at the Atlanta Underground after a quick stop at the Georgia State House, we discovered that it closed an hour earlier than we thought, so we went through quickly on the main level which is most of what survives of pre-Civil War Atlanta -- the city was founded as a railroad crossroads, and a depot (the one from Gone With the Wind) once stood where the Underground is now, created during the 1920's when viaducts elevated the streets and left the old storefronts below the surface. So we went back to the hotel, took the kids swimming, and cooked Indian food in the microwave in our room to save money for dining in New Orleans!
( Downtown Atlanta )
Monday we will leave Georgia, visit historical stuff in Mobile, then head to the beach near Pensacola! |
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| Greetings from Atlanta |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|12:36 am] |
After arriving from Augusta in the late morning, we spent nearly the entire day at the Atlanta History Center. This fabulous museum has a main building with several interactive museum exhibits on the history of Atlanta, the Civil War, and the Olympic Games, plus a historic research center, extensive gardens and woods, and two historic houses -- the Swan House, which was originally the main building on the private estate, and the Tullie Smith Farm, whose main house was moved to the property to become part of the collection and has other buildings restored or brought from other local farms. (The Margaret Mitchell House, which we stopped at briefly late in the day, is also part of the museum.)
We had lunch in the Coca-Cola Cafe (a Chick-fil-A covered with historic Coke posters and decorations), then walked to the Swan House, the 1928 home of the Inman family who inherited a fortune from cotton futures. The library and master bathroom are really stunning, as is the massive fountain out front. Then we wandered in the 100-degree heat to the farm, where we saw sheep and chickens as well as the large farmhouse and reconstructed slave cabin. Back at the museum that houses the Atlanta History Museum and Centennial Olympic Games Museum, we went through the large Civil War exhibit with artifacts and short films covering each year of the war from Atlanta's perspective, and the kids tried out the rowing machines and bikes in the Olympics exhibit which has the only complete collection of Olympic torches and medals in the U.S.
( Atlanta History )
Sunday we will visit the aquarium, Coca-Cola factory, Underground, and Martin Luther King memorial! |
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| Greetings from Augusta |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|12:19 am] |
We have left Charleston after a fabulous day at the waterfront there, starting with a morning walk from our hotel to the Spirit of Charleston, which took us on a half-hour cruise past the Charleston coastline and the visiting tall ships to Fort Sumter. I learned a lot -- for instance, I didn't realize that the entire island upon which the fort stands was built on an underwater sandbar -- from the audio tour on the boat, which covers both the historical background and some of the architecture of the city. Adam and I stood on the forward deck for the whole cruise watching the pelicans, swallows and seagulls, plus Pride of Baltimore under sail and tugboats directing enormous freight tankers to the deep-water docks. It was very hot within the fort where the Civil War started, though also lovely, with little fiddler crabs and arthropods among the rocks.
After the boat ride back, we went to the South Carolina Aquarium, which mostly focuses on native species though it has a visiting exhibit on Magellanic penguins on loan from SeaWorld. We picnicked on the tables behind the aquarium overlooking the harbor, then we went to the dive and feeding at the big sea tank, which has sharks, a sea turtle, moray eel, and a lot of fish. We also spent a lot of time in the "outdoor" exhibit of shore birds, turtles, crabs, and fish found near the harbor (the room is surrounded by mesh but is open to the air and has local plants). And we saw the Carolina rainforest, an exhibit on rivers with otters and snakes, the touch tank with horseshoe crabs, urchins and rays, an interactive exhibit on camping with skunks and owls, and the aforementioned penguins, whose feeding we attended. In the late afternoon, we drove to Augusta, where we had dinner in our hotel room and took the kids to the pool.
( Charleston Harbor )
Saturday we go to Atlanta to see Civil War sites and Gone with the Wind settings! |
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| Greetings from Charleston |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|12:17 am] |
We are in glorious South Carolina, which was mired in gubernatorial scandal this morning but that has been wiped off the front pages by the definitive end of my childhood via the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. That was all anyone was talking about as we traveled today -- the former not entirely surprising given her well-publicized struggle with cancer, the latter a total shock. It's always interesting to me how people feel this sense of having something in common with total strangers via celebrity deaths, even someone as controversial as Jackson was in recent years.
The other running theme of our day was stray cats, several of whom tried to adopt us (and it's probably a good thing we weren't going home, or the first one would probably have succeeded). After saying farewell to that cat outside the motel, we went to Petersburg National Battlefield, which has a museum and several large earthworks preserved -- its most famous feature, the Crater, was created by a massive mine explosion that killed about 300 Confederate soldiers instantly. We also went to a reconstructed Union trench site with cabins and an underground magazine. Then we drove to Bentonville for lunch, site of a smaller Civil War battle, and into South Carolina where we stopped briefly at South of the Border, which remains as tacky, stereotypical, and goofy as ever.
Now we are in Charleston, where we arrived around dinnertime and ate during the late afternoon thunderstorm that broke the heat. Afterward, we walked from our hotel down to the waterfront, where the ships for Harborfest had arrived -- some were sailing under the bridge giving tours, like Pride of Baltimore, but most were docked, and we got to see both ships we'd visited before (the Schooner Virginia, the Mircea) and gorgeous big ships like the Dutch Europa, the Russian Kruzenshtern (which broke a mast sailing to Charleston), and the French schooners Etoile and Belle Poule. The sunset was glorious as we walked back past the customs house and old market; we had Ben & Jerry's after we passed the fiddler crab-filled marsh, listening to cicadas and watching the bats fly above the trees.
( Petersburg to Charleston ) |
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| Greetings from Petersburg |
[Jun. 25th, 2009|12:44 am] |
No poems while I'm traveling -- it's too complicated to keep straight what I've already posted, sorry. I spent the early part of the day fighting with an Avery template to print address labels for Adam's Bar Mitzvah thank you notes, then panicked, sent the kids to the pool, packed, and got out of the house as rush hour was ending, which was the perfect time to brave I-95 South.
It wasn't yet dark after 9 p.m. when we reached Richmond and met dementordelta for ice cream. Then we headed on to Petersburg, where we'll visit the battlefield in the morning before heading to Charleston -- after tracking down rubber bands for Adam's braces, since he somehow managed to lose his package of them between our house and the motel. I am hoping the CVS in town has them; if not, it may be an interesting (hah) day tomorrow.
Here are the last of my Baltimore photos from last weekend:
( Summer Solstice in Baltimore ) |
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| Poem for Wednesday |
[Jun. 24th, 2009|12:01 am] |
( The 'World-Famous' Lipizzaners )
We are leaving town tomorrow afternoon, meaning that today was spent doing necessary chores like laundry, tracking down the books the kids want to read in the car, tracking down necessities at Target that we didn't track down the last time we were at Target, and more laundry. I still need to burn a bunch of photos to disc in case of computer catastrophe, and I still need to pack pretty much all the practical stuff, but I have most of tomorrow for that while the kids are hopefully at the pool.
We had dinner with my parents, though I was a bit foggy since I had a seasonal migraine. And now I am spazzing about all the things I may forget to do but am too tired to do any of them. So instead I am listening to Hoawrd Dean talk to Stephen Colbert about health care (though not his own apparent plastic surgery and who paid for it, I note), and have my cat ignoring me in favor of sleeping on the new bath mat purchased earlier in the day.
( USS Constellation's Harbor ) |
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| Poem for Tuesday |
[Jun. 23rd, 2009|12:42 am] |
( Five Houses Down )
I had a lovely day with dementordelta, gblvr, and perkypaduan (or hufflepants depending on where you're reading this). The former got here first and we watched some Merlin and I dragged her to the bank with me. Then we met the others for lunch at the mall food court -- easiest place with all of us plus my kids. And after a stop in Hot Topic to check out the new Harry Potter merchandise (which seems sadly outnumbered by the new Twilight merchandise), we came back to my house, sent the kids to the pool, and watched Nobel Son (because some of us wanted to watch Alan Rickman and some of us wanted to watch Eliza Dushku).
The opening sequence was so graphically violent that I wasn't sure I'd make it through the rest of the movie, but the rest of it was largely quite entertaining, though this is very black comedy -- terrific cast (Mary Steenburgen, Danny DeVito, Bill Pullman), unpredictable script, most amusing car chase sequence I've ever seen (in a mall via remote control). Parts of it are actually quite sad, though Alan is hilarious as a man completely infatuated with himself. When the movie ended, I showed them the business card scene from Arrested Development and we had cookies. Here are some photos of Cisne Branco in Baltimore yesterday:
( Cisne Branco Visits Baltimore ) |
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| Poem for Monday |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|12:20 am] |
( Small Comfort )
We spent Father's Day with my in-laws visiting ships in Baltimore, a perfect day for such an activity since the longest day of the year wasn't overly hot and the waterfront was beautiful. Cisne Branco was visiting Baltimore from Brazil, and had brought her own band, which was playing jazz in front of Harborplace. We visited her first, then walked around to the USS Constellation, whose crew recently finished restoring her wardroom and officers' quarters, and its partner the Baltimore Maritime Museum, which includes the USCGC Taney, the submarine USS Torsk, the Lightship Chesapeake, and the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse (which no longer stands at Seven Foot Knoll but in the Inner Harbor). The schooner Lady Maryland and Chesapeake Bay Buy Boat Mildred Belle were docked just below the lighthouse.
We had dinner at Blu Bambu, an Asian fusion restaurant chosen by Adam (pretty good, very inexpensive), where we had hoped to eat outside but couldn't find a table out of direct sunlight, which ended up being just as well because there was a fire in a nearby outdoor trash can that sent smoke billowing all over the area for a couple of minutes. Then we walked back around the Inner Harbor toward where we were parked, stopping for a couple of minutes to look at the tall ships again and to listen to Elvis impersonator Jesse Garon who was performing in the amphitheater between the Light Street Pavilion and the Pratt Street Pavilion. After we sent my in-laws off to visit friends in Annapolis who have sailed down from New England, we came home to watch Merlin on American TV.
( Ships and Song ) |
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| Poem for Sunday |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|12:54 am] |
( The Expulsion )
We had a bunch of chores to get done on Saturday before we leave town next week -- going to World Market to get some food for the trip, going to Petco to get cat litter, going to CVS to get drugstore necessities...nothing all that exciting, in other words, other than following the protests in Iran. Here are some photos of the animals who enlivened our chores:
( Bunny, Cats, Mice )
In the evening we watched Interview with the Vampire, which I am embarrassed to admit that I never saw all the way through...I was with Anne Rice, I thought her original dream cast of Sting and Daniel Day-Lewis, or at least Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands, should have played Louis and Lestat, and I couldn't imagine liking Tom Cruise in anything. I must confess that either time has mellowed me or Twilight has lowered my standards. ( Spoilers. )
Have a blessed solstice and a happy Father's Day if you are celebrating either! Otherwise, have a nice Sunday! |
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| Poem for Saturday |
[Jun. 20th, 2009|12:13 am] |
( Fireflies )
I had a pretty quiet Friday. Hung out with my kids, organized Bar Mitzvah photos, fought with McAfee on my desktop for an absurdly long time, wrote a review of Next Gen's "Disaster". In the evening we watched Swing Vote, starring Kevin Costner as Homer Simpson, which was much, much better than I was expecting. I thought it would be about elections and the media, but it's really much more seriously about the working poor and Costner is so much more appealing as a drunken schmuck (in this as in The Upside of Anger) than he used to be playing the hero. Plus no one had told me Nana Visitor was in the movie, so I got the delightful surprise of her name in the credits followed by the delightful surprise of her slapping Dennis Hopper across the face! ( Spoilers. )
( Ocean Near the Solstice )
fannish5: ( If Characters Read Fic ) |
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| Poem for Friday |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|12:16 am] |
( Unclean )
There were major thunderstorms several times on Thursday, but these did not prevent the major activities of my day. After getting up and buying my Superpoke penguin a library, golf course, and back yard with a swimming hole -- some days I really want to be my penguin -- I took the kids to have lunch at Cici's with gblvr and her children (who picked the restaurant -- please don't lecture me about nutrition and having Cici's twice in a week!). Then I took my kids to the pool in the afternoon once it was apparent that the lightning was gone for the time being. I had a brief visit from my parents to exchange CDs -- my father had one from a friend with Bar Mitzvah photos, I had music for them (it was their anniversary). And in the evening, we went to see Ocean Orchestra at Silver Spring Swings.
( Ocean In Silver Spring )
Sometimes PETA has a way of reminding me exactly why I loathe them even though I believe in pretty much everything they believe in, at least in theory. Then again I'm also pissed at Jon Stewart for giving Mike Huckabee a platform for insulting everyone of every faith that does not believe life begins at fertilization and does believe that women should have the right to make their own medical decisions, so rather than be cranky I will go to bed! |
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| Poem for Thursday |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|12:49 am] |
( From 'Self-portrait' )
I have nothing worth reporting from Wednesday. It rained. The kids could neither go to the pool nor go play tennis/ride scooters/run around screaming someplace other than the basement. Adam's friend came over -- the one whose dad is in the hospital -- and though the mom swore he was over the 24-hour bug he had on Monday, he was coughing quite a bit, which made me pissed off because I had specifically told the mother that we are going out of town next week and I really, really cannot afford for any of us to get sick. The fact that she did not want to come inside when she came to pick him up because she is sick did not make me more sympathetic, particularly since she said the choir from Chess looked very silly.
Chess In Concert on PBS was the highlight of my day, even though I'm not a big fan of Idina Menzel as a singer. Yes, I know, sacrilege, but I don't actually love Rent, either -- yes, I know, more sacrilege -- and having heard Judy Kuhn sing that part from the original Broadway cast, it would be difficult for anyone to top that for me. (I am very fond of Elaine Paige from the album -- I know people either love her or hate her, I'm one of the one who loves her -- but the concert production was one that has "Someone Else's Story" and doesn't have Florence meeting her father and seemed like a mashup of the West End and Broadway versions of the story).
I suppose I had better confess that my other TV viewing today was an On Demand broadcast of You Don't Mess With the Zohan at the request of my kids, and I laughed through pretty much the whole thing. Sometimes I think I am turning into a teenage boy from being around them too much. Of course it has every stereotype ever perpetrated, plus Adam Sandler, so be forewarned. Given the subject matter, it's actually less offensive than I expected -- the villains are old rich white men and the rednecks they hire to do their dirty work, the Israelis and Palestinians are all about peace through partying together -- if you are a religious Jew or a religious Muslim, please avoid this movie at all costs -- and it takes for granted that the sexuality of older women is a good thing, even if a young Jewish man will choose a young Palestinian hottie over an older Jewish woman in the end.
Have a few more Mount Vernon spring photos from April:
( George Washington's Animals ) |
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| Poem for Wednesday |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|12:28 am] |
( Bereavement )
My day was meh because I did a bunch of dumb things, the stupidest of which was leaving our Peter Pan Big Ben toffee tin coin bank at the local bank branch office, where it took me a ridiculous amount of time to deposit Adam's Bar Mitzvah checks, put the bonds into the safe deposit box, and talk to the teller about whether we should switch the kids from young saver accounts to something with slightly higher interest. We got that tin in England on our last trip, keep our coins in it, and bring it to the bank where there's one of those machines where you can dump coins for a deposit slip, and between remembering the safe deposit box key and trying to keep all the papers straight, the tin got left behind. We are all sad about this. I must have been completely distracted, because I also forgot half the stuff I should have gotten next door in CVS. Sigh.
The kids had a pretty good day -- went to the pool early when it wasn't too hot, played with friends in the afternoon, then we all had dinner with my parents who will be out of town on Father's Day (I still owe my father a card and gift), and in the evening we watched The Running Man which I haven't seen in more than a decade. Everything that was dopey about it the first time is still there, but it's still a lot of fun and surprisingly prescient about how reality TV and the dumbing-down of America would occur. My favorite line in the entire film is, "Mr. Richards! I'm your court-appointed theatrical agent." This is Rob Blagojevich's America...or, more to the point, the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually the governor of California. Here are some bunnies from our campground in Moab, Utah last summer:
( Canyonlands Bunnies ) |
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| Poem for Monday |
[Jun. 15th, 2009|12:48 am] |
( Coronado Poet )
I am still in Bar Mitzvah mode and behind on everything (especially replying to e-mail and LiveJournal comments, sorry!). I had a nice day with family -- my parents had relatives and friends over for brunch, so I got to hang out with Mickey, Garrett, and my sister's daughters, plus one of my mother's oldest friends and my father's tennis partner who gave me my first real job in high school. We had bagels, lox, kippered salmon, tuna, cheeses, kugel, and the leftover cake from the candlelighting yesterday. Nicole and Harris arrived in the early afternoon, so we got to see them for a bit before keeping our promise to the kids to let them go to the pool before taking them home to get organized for their last day of school. Adam will have very little to do since the building is coming down later this week, but Daniel has an English final on Monday.
Adam's friend who stayed with us last night was picked up by his mother to see his father, who was moved from one hospital to another in the middle of the night but who is finally out of the horrible pain he was in yesterday. When I last spoke to the mother, it sounded like they were going to try to remove the damaged leg bone and replace it with an artificial one (I may be describing the procedure incorrectly, I'm not sure she was sure exactly what the plan was). Her son may be coming over here again after school or her sister may be staying with the kids, things were still up in the air; the father is going to be in the hospital for a while.
Here are baby geese from Lake Whetstone last month. I'll be more organized with photos tomorrow. A few people told me they couldn't load the pics I posted the past couple of days, which are hosted on my web site rather than on LiveJournal. Here they are on a web page on my site, if that helps.
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| Poem for Sunday |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|12:28 am] |
( Searching for You )
My penguin is now a man -- well, according to Jewish social convention, anyway -- and I am very happy, though also overstuffed and overtired! After getting up insanely early to take photos -- the two B'nai Mitzvah families are supposed to share the 9-10 hour in the sanctuary to take photos, but our partner family informed us that they needed a full hour with their relatives, so we went from 8-9 after picking up the cake, guests who needed a ride, etc. -- the ceremony went very well, with both kids giving nice speeches. Adam tells me he screwed up the eighth line of his Torah portion, but I seriously doubt that anyone besides the rabbi had any idea; I certainly didn't. The rabbi's sermon was mercifully brief, about personal responsibility and loyalty to one's principles, with a tribute to Officer Stephen T. Johns.
Yet again I completely winged the candlelighting ceremony, having forgotten to write notes on what to say until the last minute, but those ceremonies exist in large part to get photos of the Bar Mitzvah celebrant with family and friends, anyway. The food at the Melting Pot was terrific and the restaurant staff was very helpful and easy to work with -- we had to make room for two poker tables and a caricaturist and turn up the lights for our photographer, and keep turning the music on and off so we could say a blessing, greet people and all that. I sat with vertigo66, gblvr, dementordelta, cidercupcakes and perkypaduan among others at one of the long party tables. We got to see out-of-town relatives, hang out with friends, listen to kids shriek with glee at their dessert fondue, give out blackjack prizes, and play with squishy penguins at the reception. These are photos snapped with my camera and my mother-in-law's camera, so nothing like official...
( Family and Fondue )
Things got a little chaotic toward evening when we went to drive one of Adam's friends home, only to learn that the child's parent was in the hospital after an accident that turned out to be much more serious than the hospital initially believed. The friend is sleeping over tonight and has no idea how bad things may be -- the ex-spouse of the parent asked us just to say that it was taking longer to get through the x-rays so it was better if he slept here -- I think she wants to talk to the child in person, but was too upset over the phone to do so, since there were a lot of tears. We went to my parents' house for some light deli, though the kids spent more time running around in the backyard than eating. When we got home, we all watched the series finale of Pushing Daisies, which made me laugh ("Your moral compass is always pointing due...the right thing") but also made me sad and I need to watch it again when I am not so distracted. So I am very tired but very pleased! |
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| Poem for Saturday |
[Jun. 13th, 2009|12:12 am] |
( Unfinished Poem )
Just a quickie since we didn't have dinner till after 9 p.m. and I'm not done with candlelighting notes (we are not doing stupid little poems and songs for each person, they will just have to deal). Had a chaotic day, as expected -- picked up Daniel after his Spanish final, dad dropped by to visit with his brother and brother's son, in-laws arrived for quick 4 p.m. dinner. Then we went down to the temple for what turned out to be a really nice evening service -- it was supposed to be Shabbat Under the Stars, but due to muddy conditions was moved into the small chapel, yet remained casual with lots of music and a terrific informal sermon about making the everyday holy.
( Friday Before the Bar Mitzvah )
Speaking of penguins, clearly Pittsburgh knew what Adam wanted for his Bar Mitzvah as they delivered his gift a night early. Congratulations to the Penguins on winning the Stanley Cup! |
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