I Love New York Travel

Siamese cats’ eyes glow red when they are agitated or mischievous. Tabby cats with green eyes usually glow yellow; I find it slightly creepy that the Siamese glow red. This is my darling Livvy, inspecting the dog, Daisy. Daisy suffers from arthritis once in a while, and I’d brought her in to baby her a little. Livvy, the princess of the house, was not too pleased. She wasn’t a brat about it, just miffed. She eventually warmed up to Daisy (who wouldn’t hurt a fly).

Daisy is not much of a watchdog, wireless security systems are a must for security! Oh, she does woof at the Ugly Pooch Snatcher– what we call the UPS man– he’s a great guy, don’t get us wrong! But Daisy woofs like a maniac when she sees him. The UPS guy likes her and throws her biscuits, lol. So she’s not very terrifying, haha.

So I’ve been busy, nursing a dog and all the other jobs to do around here. Whew. I thought life would slow down a tad when I got older!

In other news, I’ve made some wonderful new friends out in blog-land. I’m really blessed by the discoveries– some folks are such good writers, good friends. They write from the heart. I look forward to their posts every day.

I discovered this video by accident today. *sigh* It’s a virtual choir, a new term for another Internet phenomenon. Composer Eric Whitacre gathered 185 singers from around the world to record– via webcam– Lux Aurumque. He had the webcam snippets compiled together into an elliptical, democratic, virtual symphonic choir.

I spent the better part of the afternoon, completely intrigued. I was once a drama student (not too good in drama, I might add). But I was good in comedy, and my teachers recommended me to study music because they said I had a beautiful, strong voice. I never pursued the career. I didn’t like the entertainment industry, and turned instead to a career in radio, and then marriage and children.

But seeing this video makes me want to sing again. I marvel that it’s no longer necessary to go through years of training at Julliard, sweat through years of apprenticeship, and then *hope* you get a part because you happen to know someone who knows someone. Instead, all you had to do was make a webcam video and upload it. And the effect- the incredible, beautiful, harmonious effect of hearing your tiny voice blend with a hundred others…. it’s a little bit of heaven on earth, it is.

These sat on a shelf in the gift shop of The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY. If I recall correctly, a decorated gourd was close to $10. I couldn’t imagine paying so much for something like this! But the basket was very intriguing– I drew closer to snap a photo. The detail of the paintwork on the gourd is very nice. But $10? I took a photo and am happy with that. I don’t care for knicks-knacks very much, even very unusual and colorful ones like decorated gourds.

Gourds are not edible, is this correct? Why would anyone grow them, except perhaps to pluck the fruit from the vines and paint them? Then again, maybe everything is edible when a person is hungry enough, haha! Not exactly nutrisystem-quality, the average gourd. What on earth do we do with gourds?

Ah yes, I’m pondering the great mysteries of the world today, I am– the mystique and function of gourds. :-p

I’m unhappy the health care “reform” bill passed, is all. And it’s raining today. And my basement sump pumps are going full tilt. And I’m hungry for a hamburger but haven’t the time to make one because I have a handful of deadlines for articles today! LOL, whine, whine, I know. Life is good anyway.

And gourds are kinda cool.

Taken on Route 28 in the Adirondacks, a few weeks ago. The roads were awful that day.

We’ve made it so far! No snow all month long for March! I heard the geese flocking in last week– what a wonderful sound! I *hope* they were the returning-from-migration- geese– we do have a lot of winter resident geese around here (there’s an animal sanctuary near us). Robins are here, too! They are quite skinny; migration must take a lot out of the poor critters, even more than the phentermine no prescription stuff, eh? haha! I have set out bird seed for them all, and they come to feed all morning and evening. It is SWEET to have the birds back, I tell you. Hurray, I think spring is truly here now!

Taken at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake. It’s the view of the ceiling of the immense lobby, when you walk into the building. There’s a circle of birches reaching up toward the domed ceiling. It’s very striking.

Didn’t the Adirondack Indians eat birch bark or something? Talk about diets that work, :-p. Adirondack means “bark eater” or something like it. It’s said that the native Americans in the area did their best to avoid the rugged and desolate Adirondacks, probably due to the large bears and scarcity of plentiful food. During the winter, when food was pretty slim, the legend goes that some Indians resorted to eating bark. Ouch, that’ll clean out the digestive tract all right…