tom comes to visit

My brother Tom came for a long weekend this month. Our main goal was to pack in as much baseball as possible, although I quickly learned that he was also very interested in finding some good fresh seafood.

We got some good tickets to Mets vs. Marlins and Yankees vs. Orioles -- that last one was especially significant since those are our favorite teams.

Unfortunately I didn't have the camera for the Mets game, so you'll have to take my word that the new stadium is outstanding in every way. Waaaay better than Shea, which is not saying much.

Heading to the Yankees game...
























Pretty good seats -- lowest section, shallow left field.







































Jorge Posada, at the bat and about to strike out. Jeter's on deck. Unfortunately he had just got his hits record on the previous game.



















In the end, the Orioles (dead last in the division) soundly beat the Yankees (best record in baseball). Also Tom's favorite player, Brian Robinson, hit a grand slam. Tom was standing up cheering loudly while B.Rob rounded the bases... pretty brave, I thought. There was much grumbling, but no beers were thrown (it ain't Boston, after all).

A few other highlights -- we had a late-night cruise through the foggy city... here's Empire State.



















One day we traveled along the North Fork of Long Island, all the way to the very tip. It's pretty cool, the land actually comes to a point and then slowly sinks into the water. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the waves are coming from both sides, colliding in the middle (that's an island in the distance).



















Tom really wanted to see the Whaling Museum in nearby Sag Harbor, but unfortunately it was closed. Sounds intriguing, especially because it's in an old Masonic temple.



















I didn't get any pictures of the fresh seafood place, which was pretty amazing. Huge platefuls of different kinds of seafood, most of it caught fresh + local. Anyway, as you can see, there's something for everyone here. So when are you coming to visit?

Beethoven and Bernstein

We have a LOUSY cd player in our kitchen; it only plays some of our cds. I'm not sure of its criteria, but the player seems to weed out about 80% of our music. I went through 6 cds, all summarily rejected by the stereo, before I resorted to my favorite, which always seems inexplicably acceptable. I was secretly happy. It was what I really wanted to listen to, but I'm a little embarrassed to listen to it as much as I do. I listen to it so much that my 3 year old knows what it's called. "It ends with 7th," he states.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 is perfection itself. The man was brilliant!

I actually have two recordings of it, but honestly, who can compete with Leonard Bernstein??

I would upload the music here, but have spent the last hour failing to figure out how. Alas. Instead, you can go here and listen to tiny snippets, or simply buy your own copy.

harriet

When it became clear we were heading for a place with more outdoor space, the kids and Ami lost no time in lobbying for a pet.

Now I have nothing against animals in general. We're all just trying to get by on this crazy planet. But I do have objections to sharing my house with animals. Also, I have plenty on my plate already, thank you, without having to take care of an animal as well.

So the negotiations began. Ellie's starting position was a full-on farm, with cows, horses, llamas, who knows. More like a zoo, actually. The pro-animal coalition finally agreed to unify and push for a dog. No way was I going for that. Again, I have nothing against dogs, I actually like them if they're not yappy all the time. I just don't want to clean up after them and take them to the vet and etc. I suggested pet rocks as an alternative.

After some weeks of discussion, I had agreed to a single goldfish, and the Coalition was now arguing for a low-maintenance outdoor cat (Ellie, the extremist in the coalition, pushed for a large family of cats). I was considering this, but not quite ready to make a commitment.

Then Harriet showed up, and made the decision for us.

We have no idea where she came from. Our neighbor says she'd been roaming the neighborhood for a few weeks, looking for a place to call home. I suppose she was abandoned by her previous people. Anyway, we fed her a couple times and she stuck around, even defending her new territory against interlopers. Ellie named her after a character in the Catwings series, one of her favorites.

I'm glad she came. The kids adore her, of course. Ellie constantly asks us where Harriet is, as if we had her hooked up to a GPS. Ami and I both had cats growing up, and she reminds us of those Past Cats.

Harriet is a bit of a lounger.



















But she rouses herself to follow us around on our Saturday work. Does she think she's helping, or supervising?



















A few days ago she leapt into one of our pear trees.



















I was a little concerned -- could she get down ok? Turns out she was just curious, or perhaps trying to prove her agility. After exploring a few branches, she executed a few deft moves and landed gracefully on the ground.



















When I was growing up, our cats would line up outside the door and watch us for hours. We called it Cat TV. This must be a common trait in cats; Harriet subscribed to Cat TV right away.



















Welcome to the family, Harriet.

Queens: We miss your flowers.

The flowers outside SS Natural are missed. Even though we walked by them hundreds of times, the kids never failed to stop and smell them.

Ellie age 2:





Ellie age 6:

Nico and Ellie at the beach.

Since moving to Long Island, we've been to at least 6 different beaches; some of them several times. Initially Nico was VERY reticent to get in the water at all. He'd only go in if we were holding him and even then, just barely.

(This, my very favorite beach photo of Nico, aka Nico the Mad, was blatently stolen from the blog of Anne Hart. Check out those furrows!)

Luckily, Nico has warmed up to the water.

(Photo courtesy of Monica Rich, from whose blog I stole this one... although I did actually ask persmission, sort of. I do occasionally take my own pictures. But only occasionally.)

While I'm stealing pictures from Monica, I thought I'd throw this one in of our day at the Sunken Forest beach out on Fire Island. The waves were crazy that day, but it didn't stop the Ellie from having a blast! You can see Ellie on the right and me running in behind her to make sure all the little kids weren't washed away.




Last, here are Ellie and two of her great friends having a wonderful time on a sand bar on the North Shore. The tide came in shortly thereafter and washed the sandbar away, but not the girls.

alive after five

Add this to the "delightful village" category...

Throughout the summer, Patchogue hosts the "Alive After Five" event, in which Main Street is shut down to vehicle traffic through much of the village, and a wide array of vendors set up tents. There are several (four?) live music acts going on simultaneously on different parts of the street, and there are lots of food and activities. Here are a few shots from last Friday's tour...


People come from miles around (even from NYC) to hang out.




















Restaurants and cafes lucky enough to be on the street cordon off a piece of the street for their customers. They range from busy to a solid-pack mass of humanity.




















This place smelled reeeeeally good. Couldn't bring myself to try the fried Oreos though.




















I thought of B. Ray when we passed this one...




















Ellie and Nico were determined to try the climbing wall provided by the local YMCA. Neither were deterred by the fact that it was generally intended for somewhat older kids (I asked the guy if he had many customers like Nico... he said, "Oh sure, I had one his size try it once.")

Knowing Ellie, we weren't surprised to see her tearing off toward the top.
















































This is about as far as she made it... probably 3/4 of the way up. She came down all smiles and declared her intent to "practice." Sounds ominous...

























Nico's turn.



















The guy was very helpful.
























The spaces between the grips were just too big, but that didn't bother Nico. Physics: who needs it?

















































The ride down at the end is half the fun.

























A little ice cream made it a perfect day. Viva la Patchogue!

Wow. There actually is a house back there.

When we moved in, we had our own little shroud. Actually, it was not so little. We were the proud owners of 50 year-old privet hedges. Sounds cool, right? Well, it would have been, except that they were rarely, if ever, pruned, and were therefore out of control!





A couple weeks ago, we decided to take matters into our own hands. Alex rented a chainsaw and spent hours taking these babies out. He said his arms were still shaking the next day.





I've never seen so much yard waste in all my life. It practically buried the house. However, one of the great perks of living in the village of Patchogue and paying extraordinarily high taxes is that I just had to call the village and they came with a backhoe and took all of the yard waste away.



When we cut them down, we had lots of comments from all the neighbors. For days, we would see people drive by, slam on their brakes, and back up just to look at the lack of hedges. We heard our next door neighbor actually cheer loudly when he saw what we had done. We are happy too; We feel like a part of the neighborhood because we can actually see the neighborhood.