The August BIG Trip!

I’ve been gone from the internet world for two weeks because my friend and her daughter were visiting. Not that the computer sat idle, oh no, the almost 13 year old was busy with her own passions which involve dogs, wolves, Okami, etc..And I realized I have Windows Movie Maker! How was I to know? Milla makes some good clips too, her timing is excellent.

So in a high speed nutshell….here’s the highlights of my last two weeks:

First we met in Manhattan at the hotel. We stayed right on Times Square on Broadway, right across from a big M & M World Store. I kinda regret we never went into it! :( But it did help us to find our way bck to the hotel each time we set out walking.

We searched for comic shops to look for Manga goodness (anything Dogs or Wolves) and we saw the park and the zoo there…FAO Schwartz toy store and the Disney store were also big hits. The second day we went swimming in the hotel pool, and being reluctant to spend the day at the hotel, we headed down to the Village, and by an act of Serendipity found ourselves on the exact same street I was on 3 years ago with some other friends of mine. We passed by the Afghani restaurant we’d eaten at…visited a shop with all sorts of action figures (no Dean’s or Sam’s out there I’m afraid, and no Kyp’s either…for all my fandom needs). Then we ended back at St. Mark’s comics which is on St. Mark’s Place in the Village. They are very friendly and helpful there. I bought some Runaways comics, but Milla could find nothing on Okami (which is a video game that has apparently NOT spawned a franchise). Next day we did MidTown comics where I found the latest SW comic, but no Okami.

Finally to Grand Central and the Metro North to Poughkeepsie. Parking there and taking the commuter train is so easy . It makes going to NYC take just over 3 hours which is what it would be to drive (but not to have the hassle to park or get caught in traffic).

Then home…where we stayed local for a few days. Saw G-Force in 3D (my first 3D movie…not impressed with it, takes too long to adjust your eyes), ate at the Standard Restaurant (yummy, felt like we were in the City again)…shopped!

We did Saratoga on Saturday, spend $15 to win $20…sweated profusely, as we were having over 90 degree temps (but don’t get me wrong, I loved it)!!!!! Shopped, found the gelato store, ate gelato, saw a man with a parrot on a harness, about four dozen dogs on leashes, more stores, ate at “Circus” which was very good.

The next day we went to Grafton Lake and swam and picnicked with some other friends. The water was cool, but bearable. Saw “Marley and Me” that night, cried!

Next day we began the westward journey, stopped at my Mom’s. Fed fish in her pond, saw a couple wild rabbits, my friend’s daughter tried to coax them, but she wasn’t the “Rabbit Whisperer”. Rented a few episodes of the “Dog Whisperer” with Cesar Millan. Tuesday headed to Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Rainbow bridge was completely unmarked until you got very close! Seriously thought the Americans didn’t want to let people know where it was because then they would go to the other side (which duh, is the one with the better view) and so we did find our way to the bridge and an easy border crossing with the delightful Canadians.

Wandered the walkway, took pictures, ate some candy, took pictures, let the mist cover us! It was 32!!!! So hot (did I mention I love hot, oh and I’ve slipped into Celsius in honor of being in Canada). Left the Falls and headed toward Hamilton, Ontario. We were looking for a mall! LOL! I went to Canada for the mall! Took an extra hour to find the mall since I don’t have a GPS and the map only covered a few of the streets. Asking for directions was easy enough (who says you can’t go old school)? Found the mall in time to go to a pet store and then dinner. Spent the night (another first for me to stay over in Ontario)….bought gas in litres!!! Exciting stuff! Watched American cartoons on TV. “King of the Hill” was a big hit with Milla. Back to Limeridge Mall in the morning and then we did buy a few things. All I bought were scratch offs that lost. Got myself some Canadian coins including two Loonies that I can’t use, but I can use the little coins at home. The people at the mall and even at this little store were more than willing to take American money, why don’t shops in NY take Canadian?????

Headed to Lake Erie later! GPS would have been helpful, stopped at a PO to mall a postcard and got good directions to Long Beach Park. WOW! Now I was in love! I love water and beaches always, but this place was peaceful. The sand was soft and clean, there were a lot of people, but that didn’t matter. You could even bring a dog! We dipped our feet in. We didn’t prepare for this to be a beach excursion, which I kinda resent because the water was like bathwater! It was as warm as the water I experienced at Virginia Beach. I want to go back! The two Loonies I have are sort of a promise to myself to return. It’s a six hour drive, but for vacation, that’s not so bad.

Had to return to NY. The border guard was not nice! Here was three innocuous chicas with only a skirt and two stuffed animals as their major purchase! Our passports and such were in order (my friend is a Finn) and the guy didn’t see the extra form in their passports, until he was like “You have to wait and fill out this form…) He should have seen the card stapled in (it was obvious) and then I explained how it was there and that Mervi had filled out the form online prior to arriving at JFK and how it was good to November and then he got quite embarrassed and became the human he normally was, apologized and sent us on our way!

Considerable cursing on my part happened for the next few minutes as we drove off through Buffalo!

The drive home from Ontario was about 6 hours in its entirety, and I soothed myself by thinking about how Dean Winchester would drive this far easily in the Impala! Of course, I drive a Honda Civic, but she did well, even with all that heat and thank god the AC worked really well the whole time!

We had a few more peaceful days, a BBQ on Saturday! A pedicure on Sunday. I got to be so lucky as the women doing my feet said her name was SnowWhite, and I’m thinking is she BS-ing me? Then she said some people call her Lily for short! Why couldn’t I have had Linda or Kim? Just my luck to have to wonder if I was being tricked. The pedicure was a delight though! They had a massage chair you sat in as your feet soaked!

Monday I drove them back to JFK, got a little caught in rush hour through the Bronx, but still made it there in 4 hours (though it was 3 to get home). They got home safely and Mervi texted me this morning!

Back to normal now! : ( But still two weeks left of my vacation.

Some new photos with the new camera!

This is summer number 5 in my house. I have to say it really wasn't until last year when I got things moving! So really all these photos are the efforts of two years, not five. I'm most proud of the back bank. When I moved in it was nothing but weeds, an abandoned spot in the yard. It was like the privious owners had no idea what to do with it...and neither did I.

You can see that the grass is growing pretty well in the picture above. This grass is part of my "turf relocation program". When I dug up the lawn for the sweet potato garden, and then later for the Japanese garden I saved all the turf and carefully placed it on the back bank. It took! It's a wonder since I tend to forget to water it, but this June it rained so much I think it greatly helped to establish the lawn there. Now I can mow parts of it and weed whack the rest. In 2007, it was so bad I had to take the weeds down with a machete! So that changed fast!

The paved area had been for a basketball hoop. I haven't really planned what to do with it yet.

Sweet potatoes take forever to grow. It didin't help that I planted them mid-June b/c Burpee would not send them earlier! There's just plant now, they blossom late in August or in September if I remember correctly from last year. Then they grow like crazy and cover the entire inside of the fence and adhere to the wire! Messy in the end!

New hydrangea up close and personal. It's very purple. I have it under the evergreen so it's likely to remain acidic.

Again, to think this was so bad I need a machete to clean it up! I'm so proud of my yard and the look it now has. It's really a santuary!

Have New Camera...Back in Business

Well, not literally in business. Photography as a professional business holds no appeal to me. But I do love digital photos, never any waste (unless you are a printer junky) and you know I don't do hard copies.

Anyways, just bought this Samsung Camera today. Nothing special. Was mostly smitten by the color. You can do some really strange and funky things with the way the photos look. You can make it B & W, Sepia, calm lighting, and one weird but fun one..a negative

I'll post photos eventually once I load the software on my computer. At least hopefully this visit with Mervi and Milla won't be me accidentally erasing them all!

The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle

I read this for my Newbery class. A short verse novel, it would give a Middle or High Schooler a taste of Cuban history. It explores Cuba's fight for independance from Spain in the 1800's. It's told from the point of view of people who nursed the sick and injured.


The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle

Verse novel separated into 5 parts based on different times
In Cuba’s history. Part One: 1850, introduces the reader to
Rosa a slave and Lieutenant Death a slave catcher.

Rosa talks of the drive for freedom and her experience
Nursing the wounded (who quite often loose an ear for
Running away).

Part Two is during Cuban independence from Spain (1868)

Rosa thinks,

“Should I fight with weapons,
Or flowers and leaves?”

There is much talk of nature, but Rosa’s story intertwines with
Spain as Spain is infuriated that Cuban plantation owners would
Dare to free their slaves without permission. This passage shows
The tenacity of the Cubans as they fought off Spain for 10 years.

There were three wars for independence, but in the end the
Americans intervened, took over Cuba and never respected
the many years of fighting the Cubans put in to be free.

Rosa is a real person from Cuban history who lived
from approximately 1840-1907. She and her husband
Jose built field hospitals and nursed thousands
during the years of war.