My daughter wanted a picture of her standing in front of our favorite toy store in Highland Park: Over the Moon Toys. She told me not to put up the one with her squinting (which may have been a better shot of the store).
Do you have an old-fashioned, mom-and-pop style toy store in your area? Or just chain stores? We like Over the Moon Toys because it’s friendly(the store is owned by two sisters, and varying family members are behind the register), they have a nice selection of toys, and they wrap presents beautifully–yellow and pink tissue paper, blue and green tissue paper, multi-colored ribbons, colorful dotted paper, your choice. If your child walks into the store when you need to buy a gift for a friend and says:”I want this and that and this and that”, they have a gift registry. So you then tell your child to put the items she wants on the registry, so when it’s time for her party, she can tell her friends to check the registry.
My daughter is standing in front of the store with her brand-new Webkinz that she bought with the money her saba (grandfather) gave her before Pesach. Webkinz are a big craze among kids in America; you buy the little stuffed animal, then you go online to take care of it. What’s really funny is when my daughter plays on the computer at our house with the little boy across the street who’s on his computer at his house, and they go into the same room in the Webkinz game and make their Webkinzes jump and down together on a trampoline.
In between working on intriguing posts for your enjoyment and taking care of my family, I do website work for a number of Central New Jersey businesses and organizations. Sometimes it takes a while before my work becomes public, but recently I edited a number of web pages that I can share with you:
- Yesterday, I put the Rutgers Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life’s
Fall 2008 Public Events. Note that in December Dara Horn, author of The World to Come, a book recommended by Mother in Israel, will be speaking at Rutgers.
- The Highland Park Public Library has a bug poster to advertise summer programming for children. The bug poster, by children’s book illustrator Harry Bliss, is part of a national program called Collaborative Summer Library Program, so you may see a similar one on another library site. I just added some text to make it unique to our library.
- New Jersey School of Dental Assisting had me add their newest schedule, information about tuition and financing, and a new field on their contact form.
- I did some edits for Wilkin & Guttenplan, an accounting firm in East Brunswick, New Jersey, including an animated gif of Best Places to Work award logos that you can see on the bottom right of the Careers page.
I will soon be working on a new online course for the Rutgers Bildner Center. The courses are free; so if you have some time to do a course, go to the Jewish Studies Online Studies page to take the Bible & History or the Israeli Political System. Also, I’ve been working a site for a local firm that is not yet public.
We have this statue down the street from our house. It’s referred to as the “Doughboy.” That’s where the Memorial Day parade today ends.
American men who fought in World War I in France were called “doughboys.” It’s such a strange name, I decided to find out how the name came to be. The term goes back as far as the Mexican-American War of 1846-47, referring to the infantry.
From this site on World War I:
Independently, in the former colonies, the term had come to be applied to baker’s young apprentices, i.e. dough-boys. Again, American soldiers probably were familiar with this usage. This version of doughboy was also something of a distant relative to “dough-head”, a colloquialism for stupidity in 19th Century America. When doughboy was finally to find a home with the U.S. Army it would have a disparaging connotation, used most often by cavalrymen looking down [quite literally] on the foot-bound infantry.
More on Memorial Day:
One of the best annual events in Highland Park, New Jersey is the street fair. Traffic is closed from 12-4 pm along Raritan Avenue, the main street in our borough. Booths line the avenue from 5th to 2nd Avenue.
Here’s what my son and his friend chose to do:
If you are in pain, pay a visit to my friend Diana Hakakian, chiropractor:
Kosher pizza for sale, too:
My friend Iola tried to get me to join Hadassah.
Politicians, potters, ponies and people selling various stuff also graced the avenue.
Unfortunately, the rain did come down on my husband, daughter, son and his friend. My other son and I managed to walk the fair without any drops falling.
For more street fair photos, see the environmental booths here.
You know the Barney Song? The purple dinosaur who sings: “remember please and thank you”.
It’s been a while since I’ve highlighted a local business. Here’s one that knows how to say thank you:
And, if you’re a search engine who is too stupid to read the words on an image, that’s:
RARITAN AIR WATER POWER SERVICE
HEATING • COOLING • PLUMBING •
ELECTRICAL • DRAINING CLEANING
10 YEAR WARRANTY ON NEW EQUIPMENT
CALL FOR SERVICE
1-877-501-COOL (2665)
A friend is working on a document for clients for her business. In order to stress the importance of thanking the client, I tell her about my furnace-air conditioner-fix-the-toilet guy, Zev, who sends thank you notes just about every time we use their business. Well, his wife Leslie actually sends the note, but they are both so gracious and professional.
And, lo & behold, I get a notice yesterday asking us to renew our contract, with this lovely, hand-written note at the bottom:
I had recommended her to Mike Beberman of Cyber Knights in New Brunswick. Another gracious businessperson.
Anyway, thank you, Leslie, for sending over your husband to fix: our shower, our toilet, our sink and our furnace. And whatever it was he did with our air conditioning system.
A friend today asked me to feature her blogs (yes, she has four and considering a fifth) and her business. So here are her blogs (you can tell her I sent you):
Her art on t-shirts, mugs, magnets, posters and more can be found on CafePress.com.
Another Highland Parker is reportedly working on a “lose weight, eat healthy” book. The diet is what I would call “steak and salad”: red meat is encouraged over chicken, vegetables should be plentiful. Absolutely no white flour or sugar, and no fruit. You can eat cheese on the diet. But milk is a no-no. I wonder if anyone could stick to this. Anyway, when it becomes a real book, I’ll write more.
Last week I had a pleasant experience with a local techie. I had some problems with my laptop, and not only did Mike Beberman of Cyber Knights in New Brunswick fix the problem, he also performed diagnostics on my laptop. And he and I chatted about our mutual sadness at the demise of the local ‘Y’ and our favorite New Jersey kosher restaurants, neither which are located in Highland Park (Lin’s Chinese of Manville, New Jersey and Mosaica in or near Union, New Jersey).
He told me he would like to be known as the guy you call for computer problems, just like you might have one guy who fixes your car.
So if you live in Central New Jersey and have a computer problem, try Cyber Knights at:
(732) 227-0932
Lori at Lori’s Earth Friendly Products has been hard at work redesigning her home page. Who says the mom and pop store is gone? Sometimes you just have to know where to look. Lori is a local Highland Park resident who has been selling juice with fiber for kids and other kosher, healthy products from her internet website for many years (and that’s just her part-time job!).
Bought some coffee last week from Lori’s, and I’ve been enjoying every drop of the fresh coffee I’ve made with it.
Hear ye, hear ye! What was your favorite Highland Park story of the year?
The Highland Park Mirror is asking you to vote on your favorite story of the year. Cleverly, these are called the Readers’ Joyce Awards. Must have something to do with Joyce Kilmer.
So, what was your favorite story? The top story for me was the library budget cuts. But I was tempted to vote for the closing of the ‘Y’. All my children attended nursery school there, and we enjoyed swimming in the pool. Now there is no pool in Highland Park! When the Aguda dug a big hole for its new building last summer, some of us remarked how it was about the right size for a community pool. RPRY now has a beautiful outdoor pool for the day camp; couldn’t we women have a women’s hour in the summer, even if it’s just once a week?
