Rosey Days at the Bay

Beach roses are beginning to bloom now.
They are so pretty in shades of deep pink and white.  I have two huge old plants growing on the side of my house both with white flowers.
The photo shows a deep pink close by the water.
The  rose hips that appear in autumn make wonderful jam or jelly filled with vitamin C.
I have never made any but I am thinking it might be a nice idea.

I got to see the new movie Godzilla . I had waited for months.
The story is  a good one but don't expect much from 3D as it was not very good.  If you see it, see it in regular film and save the expense of 3D.
I had seen A Christmas Carol in 3D just for the experience of seeing new 3D and Dickens is one of my favorite authors.       That 3D was simply great as things came out over the audience!  People actually ducked as we were going under the Scrooge and Marley sign!
Godzilla's 3D was not like that at all.

 My chicken soup is made for this evening and food for tomorrow is also cooking  and my work for the week is done. 

From my backyard to yours..... I hope you have a wonderful and refreshing weekend.

Roses by the bay

Question and Answer: First Date

Here is a new question and answer for those who would like to join in.
It is just 4 little questions.  If you do join in please leave a comment so others can visit your blog and see your answers.
It would be nice if we could get more people blogging more regularly, at least that is my hope.


 1. Do you recall your first date?
 2. What did you do? Where did you go? Did you have a good time?
 3. Did you go out with the same person again  or was that it?
 4. Ever go on a blind date?  How did that work out?
 5. What was the best date experience ever?

 my answers:
1. I recall it somewhat yes.
2. We had a little lunch at a small cafe.
I think I had a nice time but was really too nervous and don't like eating with someone I hardly know!
3. Yes, I went out with that person again. You can't judge a person by one date really. 4. Yes.  It was my first date and very nerve wracking!
5. The Bronx Zoo!  I had a wonderful time! It was relaxed and there were animals to talk about. That made it so nice.

Morning by the lovely sapphire blue bay

I am sharing a morning photo of the bay.
It is so blue and lovely.  The water is still chilly as is the sand but it is warming up slowly but surely.

You can click the photo to see it full sized if you like.

What is it like where you are?
 Care to share a photo?

Raining Cats and Dogs

It has been raining cats and dogs the last few days.

Yesterday morning we awoke to rolling thunder that lasted for hours and while it is not raining now it might rain tomorrow as well.

Monday is Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer at the beach.
People return from Florida to open their summer homes and we begin to get an influx of tourists and day trippers here at our beaches.

 So far I have no plans for Monday at all and will probably just spend the day playing a game or reading quietly.



 I'll leave you with a photo of a ferry ride from the city to home in NJ.
You can see the new Freedom Tower taking the place of the World Trade Center.
My daughter took it Tuesday morning.
She stayed overnight Monday for a lecture she was giving in the city.  Easier to stay over than commute when your day has to begin very early.

I will have a new Meme for the week probably on Sunday.
If you decide to join in, please let me know in comments and I will list the names of those joining.
It is small right now but if everyone visits the blogs of those joining in we can increase blogging .

Wicked Adventure and Meme Answers

In and out of the City. My daughter drove.

Went into the city yesterday to see the play "Wicked". Wonderful cast and a very nice performance.

My daughter drove us all in and we had fun on the ride in. Takes about an hour and some minutes to get into the city.

We had a great time just two rows back from the stage. Nice. I highly recommend this play if you've not seen it.

To the left is a  photo we took from the side of stage.    That is a dragon hanging out over the audience in the first few rows.

 It has now been one year since my spinal surgery which had turned out to be more extensive than they thought.  I had ruptured discs and spinal stenosis and on the verge of cauda equina syndrome (look that one up lol).
Surgery was not an option for my my compressed, collapsed back bones.

 I could no longer walk and the nerves were being damaged badly. I did lose some feeling in some places including my feet and lower legs.
It will be a long time until we know if the nerve damage is permanent.
  So, bones were screwed into place, strengthened with rods, bones were crushed down into powder, mixed with things  and molded around steel rods to hopefully grow  into new bone around the steel.  The surgery area was from the tip of tail bone up to the middle of my back.
It is great news that the  bone  is growing and after months and months of physical therapy (and still going) it was thought that I was strong enough to make the trek into the city.
I did pretty good though leaving the theater was a challenge since it is really uphill in the aisle.
The only help I needed was two Advil! Not bad at all.
I was scared in trying the escalator (the theater is upstairs from the lobby) but I did alright both going up and coming down again.

 Now I want to go to the opera again and maybe to see the play 'Jersey Boys'!


 My meme answers:
1.  probably small and intimate with some close friends and family.
2. formal all the way.  I love formality and some glam and glitter even with small things.
3. Hot and cold finger foods, cakes and champagne. Plenty of coffee and tea too.
4.  Evening
5. small wedding party.
6. Ideal honeymoon might be New York City or Bermuda.
7. Live music please, if possible but, if not, doesn't matter in the end.

Please try to go visit those who've participated in the meme and get to know them and their blogs!  That is also what makes memes fun. 

Friday Meme: Weddings

Internet has been too slow to do much of anything with it and I and others around me wondered why.
 Finally, on a television program I learned that cable companies deliberately slow down your service in an effort to get you to sign up for 'faster' internet.
 I was waiting so long for pages to load and then losing service about every 10 minutes or so for the longest time.
 Other neighbors complained as well but they service provider claimed they had no clue. Now I know they may well do it on purpose!

 Here are 6 questions about weddings as May/June are the wedding months.
 Many marry in May to take advantage of having photos taken in lush public gardens blooming with trees and flowers.
Public parks and gardens are popular in spring and summer for weddings, such as the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park in New York City.

Shakespeare Garden, New York City( photo via)

 1. Big weddings or small?
 2. Formal/informal?
 3. Big sit down dinner or finger foods and cake?
 4. Morning/afternoon/evening?
 5. Large wedding party/small wedding party?
 6. Ideal place to spend a honeymoon?
 7. Live music or recorded?

My answers on Monday. I have special plans this weekend and will tell you about it next week.
What do you have planned?

Until then,   I hope you have a glorious weekend.

Bunny with Lipstick

Many have seen this as it has gone viral. But it is worth a look if you have not and another look even if you have. A rabbit named Luna eating raspberries.
I will be posting a new meme tomorrow.

Bunny with Lipstick

Many have seen this as it has gone viral. But it is worth a look if you have not and another look even if you have. A rabbit named Luna eating raspberries. I will be posting a new meme tomorrow.

Overheard.....

In a lobby, the Little, a Kindergarten student, points to a public payphone and asks, "What is this thing for?"
♪♫ ♪

'As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'

And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'  '  ♫ ♪♫ ( song by Bob Dylan )

Simple Woman's Day Book

Daybook link

For Today:

Outside my window... The day is drawing to a close. It is cloudy,sort of foggy, cool and pleasant. I can hear a woodpecker working on getting his dinner.

 I am thinking...About how short the day really was today and things I still want to finish.

 I am thankful...for my little house and my dear pal Garfield.

 In the kitchen...The scent of food cooking for tonight  and tomorrow's meals.

 I am wearing... a brown and white pull over top and my moccasins as usual in the house.

 I am creating...Hopefully a garden I am going...to see a play next week.

 I am reading...Robert Parker Spenser novel  "Now and Then", Mesillat Yesharim for the millionth time!.

 I am looking forward to...my girls coming over in a few minutes

 I am learning to be patient and hopeful.

Around the house...things are neat and clean.  There is a fresh springtime scent in the house.

 One of my favorite things...The sound of peepers (very tiny frogs) in the spring. There are thousands of them now.

 A few plans for the rest of the week: physical therapy as usual. Reschedule ophthamologist appointment.
Family dinner on  Sunday.


A peek into my day...

Hello.. Come In!

These front door ideas from Home and Garden are just so nice.

  I am surprised that I like the lime door as much as I do but it really shouts '  Welcome' I think.
Do you like how the mailbox says :"hello"?   I do.    Might be nice to write "have a nice day" inside the open top as a message to the mailman too.

These shutters add a lovely touch to this front door.  It seems kind of Caribbean looking.
Notice the basket on the shutter for mail or magazines perhaps?  
My parents home had real hurricane shutters on the windows and doors.   They were heavy hard wood and very wide with big wrought iron hardware to lock  and secure them in high winds.    I was disappointed when they replaced them with the skinny and useless fake ones.
Above this door is a stencil too.   How sweet it looks.

I am really liking this pale green.  My own home is beige with dark green roof and accents. I think this color door might really pop out nicely.  The cottage needs painting.  I like the idea of varying shades of green with bits of brass accents.   Since it really is tiny, just a few feet over 1000 sq feet, and only one floor it is simple to paint.
My own front door has a large oval beveled glass window in it and in the sun it creates beautiful patterns inside the house.

You know they even sell lovely decals for doors
Look at this call box decal for a door.    How cool is this?

And here is a bit of whimsy every house should have in one way or another. From here.   I will definitely be doing this sometime soon.

 What is your front door like?  Would you change it in any way if you could?

The Dust of Jacob

Reprinted from my friend Daniel Greenfield's post, I place this here for all who have lost those they love:

"    Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the seed of Israel." Numbers 23:10

The sun sets above the hills. The siren cries out and on the busy highways that wend among the hills, the traffic stops, the people stop, and a moment of silence comes to a noisy country.

Flags fly at half mast, the torch of remembrance is lit, memorial candles are held in shaking hands and the country's own version of the Flanders Field poppy, the Red Everlasting daisy, dubbed Blood of the Maccabees, adorns lapels. And so begins the Yom Hazikaron, Heroes Remembrance Day, the day of remembrance for fallen soldiers and victims of terror-- Israel's Memorial Day.

What is a memorial day in a country that has always known war and where remembrance means adding the toll of one year's dead and wounded to the scales of history. A country where war never ends, where the sirens may pause but never stop, where each generation grows up knowing that they will have to fight or flee. To stand watch or run away. It is not so much the past that is remembered on this day, but the present and the future. The stillness, a breath in the warm air, before setting out to climb the slopes of tomorrow.  

Who can count the dust of Jacob. And yet each memorial day we count the dust. The dust that is a fraction of those who have fallen defending the land for thousands of years. Flesh wears out, blood falls to the earth where the red daisies grow, and bone turns to dust. The dust blows across the graves of soldiers and prophets, the tombs of priests hidden behind brush, the caverns where forefathers rest in sacred silence, laid to rest by their sons, who were laid to rest by their own sons, generations burying the past, standing guard over it, being driven away and returning each time.

On Memorial Day, the hands of memory are dipped in the dust raising it to the blue sky. A prayer, a whisper, a dream of peace. And the wind blows the candles out. War follows. And once again blood flows into the dust. A young lieutenant shading his eyes against the sun. An old man resting with his family on the beach. Children climbing into bed in a village on a hilltop. And more bodies are laid to rest in the dust. Until dust they become.

In this land, the Maker of Stars and Dust vowed to Abraham that his children would be as many as the dust of the earth and the stars of heaven. In their darkest days, they would be as the dust. But there is mercy in the numberless count of the dust. Mercy in not being able to make a full count of the fallen and remaining ignorant of that full measure of woe. Modern technologies permit us terrible estimates. Databanks store the names of millions; digital cemeteries of ghosts. But there is no counting the dust. And when we walk the length and breadth of the land, as the Maker told Abraham to do, it the dust that supports our feet, we walk in the dust of our ancestors.

Some new countries are built to escape from the past, but there is no escaping it in these ancient hills. IDF soldiers patrol over ground once contested by empires, tread over spearheads and the wheels of chariots buried deep in the earth. The Assyrians and the Babylonians came through here in all their glory. Greek and Roman soldiers and mercenaries pitted themselves against the handful of Judeans who came out of the Babylonian exile. The Ottoman and the Arab raged here, and Crusader battering rams and British Enfield rifles still echo in the quiet hills.

Here in the silence of remembrance the present is always the past and the sky hangs like a thin veil fluttering against the future. The believers cast their prayers out of their mouths against the veil. The soldiers cast their lives and their hearts. And still the future flutters above, like the sky near enough to touch, but out of reach. Beneath it, the sky-blue flag, the stripe of the believer's shawls adorned with the interlocked star of the House of David.

Can these bones live, the Lord asks Ezekiel. And generations, after each slaughter, they come again, the descendants of the dead to reclaim the hills of their ancestors. Rising like the red flowers out of the soil. Like the bones out of the earth. They come up as slaves out of Egypt and out of the captivity of empires, their tongues as numberless as the earth. Here they come again to set up kingdoms and nations. And there in shadows on the dust, a handful of men fight off a legion; swords, spears and rifles in hand they face down impossible odds. They fight and die, but they go on. 

The calendar itself is a memorial. Israel's Memorial Day, Independence Day and Lag BaOmer; the  commemoration of the original Yom Yerushalayim, the brief liberation of Jerusalem from the Romans, still covertly remembered in bonfires and bows shot into the air, all in a season that begins with Passover, the exodus that set over a million people off on a forty-year journey to return to the homeland of their forefathers. 

The battles today are new, but they are also very old. The weapons are new, but the struggle is the same. Who will remain and who will be swept away. Some 3,000 years ago, Judge Jephthah and the King of Ammon were exchanging messages not too different from those being passed around as diplomatic communiques today. The King of Ammon demanding land for peace and the Judge laying out the Israeli case for the land in a message that the enemy would hardly trouble to read before going to war. 

Take a stray path in these hills and you may find a terrorist with a knife, or the young David pitting his slingshot against a lion or bear. This way the Maccabees rush ahead against the armies of a slave empire and this way a helicopter passes low overhead on the way to Gaza. Like Dali's melting clocks, time is a fluid thing here. And what you remember; you shall find.

The soldier is not so sacred as he once was. The journalist and the judge have taken his place. The actors sneer from their theaters. The politicians gobble their free food and babble of peace. Musicians sing shrilly of flowers in gun barrels and doves everywhere. But the soldier still stands where he must. The borders have shrunk. The old victories have been exchanged for diplomatic defeats. From the old strongholds come missiles and rockets. And children hide in bomb shelters waiting for the worst to pass. This is the doing of the journalist and the judge, the politician and the actor, the lions of literature who send autographed copies of their books to imprisoned terrorists and the grandchildren of great men who hire themselves on in service to the enemy. 

The man who serves is still sacred, but the temple of duty is desecrated more and more each year. Leftist academics dismiss the heroes of the past as myths or murderers. Their wives dress in black and harass soldiers at checkpoints, their children wrap their faces in Keffiyas and throw stones at them. Draft dodging, once a black mark of shame, has become a mark of pride among the left. Some boast about how easy it is, others enlist only to then refuse to serve. They call themselves Refusniks , accepting the Soviet view of Israel as an illegitimate warmongering state, but laying claim to the name of the Zionists who fought to escape the Soviet Union. 

Some are only afraid, but some are filled with hate. They have looked into a twisted mirror and drunk of the poisoned wine. They have found their Inner Cain and go now to slay their brothers with words.

How shall I curse whom G-d has not cursed, asks Balaam. But the King of Moab is determined to have his curses anyway. And today it is to the UN that they come for curses. The Arab lands boil with blood, but resolution after resolution follows damning Israel. China squats on the mountains of Tibet, Russian government thugs throw dissidents out of windows and Saudi firefighters push girls back into a burning building. And still the resolutions come like curses. 

In a land built on memory, it is possible not to remember, but it is impossible to entirely forget. A war of memories comes. A war for the dust. Is this a day of remembrance or a day of shame. Were those men who fought and died for Judea and Samaria, for the Golan and Jerusalem, for every square inch of land when the armies of Arab dictators came to push them into the sea, heroes or villains. Were Nasser, Hussein, Saddam, Arafat, Gaddafi, Assad and the House of Saud the real heroes all along. The tiny minority of 360 million pitted against the overwhelming majority of 6 million. 

Yet though men may forget, the dust remembers. And the men return to it. For some four thousand years they have done it. And they shall do it again. For He who has made men of the dust and made worlds of the dust of stars does not forget. As the stars turn in whirling galaxies and the dust flies across the land, so the people return to the land. And though they forget, they remember again. For the dust is the memory of ages and the children shall always return to the dust of their ancestors.

In the cities, towns and villages-- the dead are remembered. Those who died with weapons in their hands and those who just died. Men, women and children. Drops of blood cast to the dust, reborn as flowers on lapels.   Reborn as memory.

All go to one place, said King Solomon, all that lives is of the dust, and all returns to the dust. There is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his works. And so memorial day precedes the day of independence. That we rejoice in that which those who sleep in the dust have died to protect. The skyscrapers and the orchards, the sheep ranches and the highways, the schools and the synagogues. For they who drained the swamps and built the roads, who held guard over the air and built the cities, may not have lived to see their works. But we rejoice in their works for them. And a new generation rises to watch over their dust and tend the works that they have built. Until the day when He that counts the dust of Jacob shall count them all, and the land shall stir, and in the words of Daniel, they that sleep in dust shall arise, and then rejoice with us."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

May Meme

May is here.
It is the real entrance to summertime but it feels ore like April with the torrents of rain we have been seeing.
My daughter's flight home was delayed by 2  1/2 hours by the storms.  She stayed in Oakland on business, gave a talk, manned a booth and really got little time to see anything of the area at all. The view from her room was of the bridge and alcatraz on the way to the airport.
She was most impressed on her last trip to San Diego and the gorgeous Spanish architecture there.

So how about a meme about summer?  I was thinking that I could use some new recipes for lunch and supper and  some ideas of what to read/see/do. How about you? Maybe we can help one another out.

1. Favorite summer supper?
2. Have a recipe for it you can share?
3. Do you have a recipe for a nice dessert or drink for summer time?
4.  What movies/books or television programs remind you most of summer?
5.  Do you have plans for the 4th of July if you are in America?  Wanna share?
(If you aren't in the USA do you have any special  things you do only in summer?)
6.  Do you store away your winter clothing or does it stay put all year long ?

My favorite summer supper is tuna salad.  I like to use Albacore tuna mixed with mayonnaise ,celery and onion  and serve it on top of a bed of  greens and  use some tiny tomatoes around it.  Sometimes I add a bit of tiny pasta to the tuna mix as well.    Adds some body and makes it more of a dinner.
I like to have iced tea with this in a tall glass packed with ice and fresh lemon wedges.
For dessert I like real key lime pie.
Here is a recipe for a very nice summer drink:

These are wonderful for kids and you on hot summer days.
Grab the milk and ice cream ....
Here's How
Pour 3oz of chocolate syrup in a large fountain style glass. 

Ubet chocolate syrup makes the best.
Fill the glass nearly half full with icy cold seltzer or club soda and stir it very well.

Add 1 or 2 scoops vanilla ice cream and watch the foaming begin.
Fill with more ice cream if you can manage it and top with Whipped cream.
Without the ice cream this is the recipe for an Egg Cream which is an old New York City favorite from long ago.  No one knows why it's called an egg cream but it just is!


I associate the movie A Summer Place with summertime and I love the theme song.  It starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue.  Was quite the hit in it's day and it is still a great movie.  I love old movies.
As for a book there is the Starlight Drive In by Marjorie Reynolds.  It is a decent read.
In summer I plan to watch the  British detective programs that Toni referred to and catch up on other programs I have not been watching at all.  I will resume watching Pretty Little Liars with the Famous Anonymous.
Summer is her piano recital time, and for the 4th we usually picnic by the water, swim and then watch the fireworks.
Our favortie place to go was destroyed by hurricane Sandy, but we went to the creek last year and have a wonderful day.
I don't have any place to store anything because my home is so tiny!  It is just barely over 1000 square feet. It really is a cottage!
Now it's your turn. Share.. share!!!