Mind the Gap

And what a gap it is!  more than two years. But it's time to come back on line, look up, and see what's ahead.

What's ahead, it turns out, is spring.

And the boardwalk is waiting, so let's step over that gap - just ignore it - get out and see what there is to see.

What's YOUR Superpower?

Birds: Can fly

 Some Insects: Can walk on water

This Squirrel: Has Super-cuteness

 
It occurred to me the other day that I have a couple of superpowers.*

You, too, probably have at least one.
   
     The trick to recognizing your superpower, I think, is to realize that it is never going to be something as high-profile as, let's say, X-Ray vision, or telekinesis, or the ability to fly. No, nothing like that. It's going to be commonplace, mundane even. But super-useful!

    I have two:

1. I can always get a good parking space, whether I am the driver or a passenger. If we are meeting you at a restaurant, I will get the space in front of the entrance door, or at worst, the spot right-around-the-corner-not-two-steps-away. If I am a passenger in your car, follow my cryptic instructions to "turn here" or "go around again" or "wait one minute and look about you,"  and you will get a good space, trust me.
    Friends enjoy this power of mine, but I don't mind parking far away, so it's not my favorite. My favorite is:

2. I always know about what time it is, within a quarter hour at most. And no, not because I wear a watch or carry a phone. I will be able to tell you what time it is when I wake up in the middle of the night, when we've been walking around the museum all day, when we've been at the beach for hours and hours, when we've been waiting at a bus stop for what feels like forever ...anytime. That's my favorite because I don't wear a watch anymore, and sometimes I forget my phone. So it's super-useful.

*My superpowers do NOT include keeping this journal up-to-date.

Bailey Arboretum : A Walk in the Woods

    The one-time summer estate of Brooklyn financier Frank Bailey (whose fountain you may be familiar with), Bailey Arboretum sounds too good to be true: 40-odd acres of green peace on the North Shore, open free to the public, with free parking, 7 days a week the year around. And you are welcome to bring a picnic lunch and your dog (on a leash.)

    This is where we went to see Dawn Redwoods on Long Island. ("Surprise! We're not extinct.") And let me tell you, they are something to see:

I found it more or less impossible to frame a shot encompassing a whole specimen. Maybe next time. The ones growing on the estate here were planted from seeds collected in 1947.

 

Only seven acres are landscaped; the rest consists of rambling woodland paths, none of which are very interesting in late August. Still, they're shady and peaceful:

 

 

There is a dedicated children's garden area, and a small number of aviaries housing injured or otherwise-compromised rescued birds. They have a couple of crows (American and Fish), several red-tailed hawks, and a few owls (Great Horned and Barred).

 

This owl is blind in one eye.

 

    In my opinion, late August is a cruel month in the great outdoors. The birds are quiet, the insects are loud, and the pond scum is at its peak. So I'll be interested to see what this place is like in other seasons. The redwoods are deciduous!

    It surprised me to read that Bailey declares itself "the only accredited arboretum on Long Island and in the New York Metropolitan area." Say what now?  Planting Fields State Historic Park is a pretender? Bayard Cutting is a wannabe? Apparently they haven't applied for accreditation, which is a designation bestowed by these folk. Even more interesting, there are levels of accreditation, such that a golf course or a cemetery may be granted the status of an arboretum, albeit at a low level. (Maybe there's a tax benefit involved in doing so?) The page listing the levels of accreditation has links to lists of arboreta that meet each level. (Bailey is a Level 2.)

    So I'll be studying that list later, looking for more places to go. In the meantime, why don't you take a walk in the Long Island woods?

 

Do They Ever Grow Up?

I'm sure you parents of adolescents can relate to this cardinal's situation. There's your teenager, fully as tall as you are, and still you can't enjoy a few seeds by yourself without she's right there, piteously fluttering her wings and cheeping that she's hungry. The suggestion being, of course, that you crack those seeds and feed her. Which, of course, you proceed to do, knowing that someday, she'll do the same for hers.

 

Frog in Your Throat?

No, it's a fish. Today's walk revealed a Great Egret, fishing on the inlet of Jamaica Bay that runs as a creek through the Valley Stream Village Green. Look, ma, no hands!

 

Night Moves (of the Yellow-Crowned Variety)

A yellow-crowned night heron, high in a tree near River Avenue in Oceanside, puts on an earnest display for the ladies. Not a common sight in New York, but not unheard-of.

 

 

Let's Be Practical

                                                                               

Kindles have their place, but it isn't the great outdoors on a summer afternoon. To survive that, you need ink on paper. It's simply more versatile. Consider:

Magazine:  Can shield you from the sun.
E-Reader:   Not a good idea to leave that in the sun.

Magazine:  Can be sat on to protect you from the dirt or sand.
E-Reader:   You need to keep the dirt and sand out of that.

Magazine:  Can be used to swat a mosquito.
E-Reader:   The light is attracting mosquitoes.

Magazine:  Sudden rain shower? Hold the magazine over your head as you duck under the tree.
E-Reader:   Sudden rain shower? Don't get that thing wet, get under the tree.

Magazine:  It's a warm sunny day. Use the magazine to create a small cooling breeze.
E-Reader:   It's a warm sunny day. You're holding a hot plastic rectangle.

Night falls.

Magazine: Let's you know it's time to go inside, when you can't see the print anymore.
E-Reader:  Lets you go on reading into the night, until the battery suddenly dies.

Wolves close in.
You wish you had a magazine to set on fire.


 

Brunch For Everybody!

We weren't the only ones having brunch in Westbury today. The DH spotted this red-tailed hawk from waayy across the parking lot. "Is that a hawk?" he said. It was farther away than this when he saw it; what an eye!

     The bird was pretty wrapped up in his meal, so I was able to get right below it without freaking it out. It took one look to size me up, and dismissed me as unthreatening. (I'm okay with that.)

 

As I Was Saying

 

 

We closed out 2013 with an outdoor hockey game in Huntington, on what had to be the warmest December day on record. This is our capable young nephew in the center there, defending his team's goal. Victory was theirs.

And now it's the New Year!

It was a beautiful day for a walk out to the Fire Island lighthouse today; I think it was our first since 2011, the Year of the Iceberg. There were no icebergs today, but it was lovely.
And there was hot chocolate.

Come late afternoon we saw American Hustle, which might be the best movie I'm going to see all year. Seriously, I might have blown it all on the first day of the year, because that film was off the charts. (Is that still a saying?)

 

Determination



 



A pale predator waiting for the last late visitors to the sunflower. There in the morning before I left for work, there when I returned home at five. Patience is an eight-legged virtue.

 

 

Suburban Sunday

My sister surprised me with a hula hoop today! (Yes, I did want one, as a  matter of fact.) I find I need to practice, though. Apparently it's not like riding a bicycle, where it all comes back in sixty seconds. So, you won't be seeing any video of me just yet. Kenny, on the other hand...

Ken is a natural-born hooper. Some people just have the skill.

 

 

Nick Lowe at the Boulton Center

                                                                                   

 

Nick Lowe came to the YMCA Boulton Center in Bay Shore last night, the second stop in his latest tour after opening in Philadelphia. Traveling light, he was, with just the one guitar.  I'm not a musician, I don't even play one on TV, but he sounds great to me, especially for a guy who's been singing for five decades now.

The only unfamiliar tune he played was from his upcoming Christmas album (which might be the first Christmas album I ever buy, as it promises to be "The kind of record that gives vulgar, tawdry commercialism a good name!"  

At the end, with hundreds of his own songs left unsung, he borrowed his second encore (as it seems he borrowed his eyeglasses) from his pal Declan M., but his voice is the point, and it delivers.

Lake George Weekend

 

 

A few days of fun with our awesome nephews in Lake George, a place I haven't been since I was their age.

Featuring: singing in the car, circus amazement, sunshine and water slides, spectacular sunsets, mountainous clouds, an exciting windy thunderstorm we didn't get caught in (you could actually see the thunder), and a full moon sailing above on Sunday night.

 

The Big Apple Circus was our first stop after pulling in late on Friday afternoon.

Okay, first stop after checking into the hotel.

Okay, third stop after checking in and getting some dinner.

The point is, yay we saw the circus!

The next morning we got out on the lake in a boat (because why wouldn't you, given the chance?)

                                                                                                                                          

 

 

 

A crack view of the south end of the lake came with lunch on the patio at the Overlook Cafe...

 



A hotel pool is the very definition of paradise when you're eight and ten (and more.)

We got ice cream at the A&W Drive-In,

 

 

which I commend for having the nicest sign in the world:

Sunday we spent the whole day at Water Slide World. My first time at this kind of place; what I found is, it's the kind of thing you just have to give yourself up to. You're here, you're hot and carrying stuff, soon you're gonna be wet on top of it all. So be it. My first time in a wave pool, or on a giant water slide. Or, come to think of it, any water slide. Yes, we took eight- and ten-year-old boys to a water park, and it's all about me.

 

They had a blast, and look at these crowds! (I kid) We practically had the place to ourselves, so it was kind of a grown-up's paradise as well.

 

One thing you can't complain about in Lake George is a lack of high-quality miniature golf courses. The place we played (all 36 holes of it) featured a special decoration: Paul Bunyan from the World's Fair! Of 1939, if those geometric shapes on the sign are supposed to mean anything. I can't find any documentation for this. Also, I'm not sure Paul Bunyan is supposed to look this menacing:

 

We worked up an appetite playing golf around the world, and went to the Adirondack Brewery and Restaurant for dinner. Our waitress gave balloons to the kids as we left, which I ended up tying to my handbag during the walk home. We were ambling down the sidewalk together when suddenly, there was an English bulldog charging full speed (well as full as his stubby little legs could go) at our little group, followed by a man yelling, "Charlie, NO! NO balloons! No balloons!!" Charlie meant no harm - it's not like he could jump very high or anything - he just loooved balloons, apparently. I wish I'd gotten a picture of him. But here's one of the walk home, sans balloons.

 

The full moon was settled in before sunset was over.