I am very proud at how much my daughter has progressed in dance. She opened her group’s ballet performance with this move. She and her group of eight-year-old performed three nights, the youngest group to do so. Luckily, the dance teacher decorated the back walls with red, so I could use this for Ruby Tuesday.
Unlike the original story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin, in which many children may have died of the plague, the Pied Piper of Highland Park is the story of a girl who likes to put on a show. And her mother who likes to play with Photoshop.
Her mother took all the background out of the original photo, except for a little on the right, after converting to sepia. Except for the red ribbon and the girl’s face.
A Photoshop brush of a star helped create a vibrant background. No rats were involved in this Highland Park project. And no children died of the plague. Thank goodness!
We have three guinea pigs visiting us this summer. This is Vanilla Cream. I sometimes call her Vanilla Bean. We nicknamed her the Adventuress.
This one is named Apricot. She is a favorite of one of her owner’s daughters who is away at camp. She doesn’t move around quite as much as Vanilla Cream, her sister.
This is the Mama of Vanilla Cream and Apricot. I think her real name is Stickers, but we call her the Mama. We also refer to her as the protectress.
This post will be a clue to a question I plan to ask for Ruby Tuesday.
For more Summer Stock photos, visit Robin:
This originally was going to be a post with a photo of the red afghan that my grandmother crocheted many years ago. However, my daughter showed up and posed with her book in front of the afghan. Of course, the photo with her in front of the afghan reading The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald is far more interesting than the others with only the blanket.
For more posts with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
in pain you shall bear children (Bereishit 3:16)
So, 13 years ago my little guy came out like a cannon ball. No time for the doctor to show up, no time for the epidural. The nurses were in a panic; they thought they would have to deliver the baby (a resident at the hospital did). There’s a technical name for women who deliver babies very quickly. I can’t remember it – I just call it “cannon ball pain.”
And then the parsha (portion of the Torah reading) tells me that I’m going to deliver in pain. No kidding.
At least it wasn’t emotional pain, like that of losing my mother. Her yahrzeit (anniversary of her death) is tonight.
My son created this video “Elements in Motion” two weeks ago with the members of his object animation video class at the Zimmerli Art Museum summer program for kids. He did the water section with a few other kids (that’s his voice saying “wheeeeee…”). His friend was part of the air group. Some girls we know did the fire section at the end, but my 12-year-old son is still at the stage where girls are ignored.
Robin’s Summer Stock Sunday is a photo meme, but I am again taking liberties with that definition and including this video, as creativity is in important part of our summer. My daughter is in theater camp for three weeks; I hope to do a post about the play (Brave Little Tailor) she was in on Friday soon.
I got on the computer tonight, and I found a note from one of my favorite European bloggers, Jientje, who granted me this:
The rules to this award are :
1)Show the award in your blog.
2)Link back to the blog that tagged you.
3)Pass on the award to 8 blogs that you love. (Since this award has been around for a while feel free to pass it to as many or as few as you want.)
4)Inform the bloggers that they have been awarded.
5)Take your time, there’s no pressure, but try to check out the other awarded blogs.
I picked three (new to me) blogs:
Congratulations to the awardees, and thanks again, Jientje.
Hey, anyone know what “de Ouro” means? I had to look it up.
My daughter turned seven. The fairy birthday party went well; thirteen fairies arrived, made fairy wreaths, received fairy wands and diplomas, went on a lost fairy hunt, played fairy freeze dance, put on three fairy skits about magic wishes, and enjoyed pizza and Fairytopia ice cream cake.
The theme for this week’s Thursday’s Challenge is CELEBRATION (National Holiday, Independence Day, Commemoration, Party, Fireworks,…).
I’ve been waiting a year to use that photo. Yes, that is the liberty bell, a copy of the one in Philadelphia. I believe the bell and parts of the park were donated by Americans and Canadians, the bell in particular by Americans in 1976. One year ago today we were in that park; on July 4th itself we were on a plane, flying back to New Jersey.
So, what does the United States of America mean to you? I am especially interested to hear if you do not live here.
As I have talked a bit about my mother’s parents (see, for example, Greetings from Mariampole), now I am going to mention my father’s parents. In brief, when my grandmother was a little girl in a shtetl (I always think of a shtetl house as one that had dirt for floors instead of wood or linoleum or marble or whatever – she lived somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) she had to hide under a bed to protect herself from a pogrom. Soon after that, she and her family came to the United States of America, to New York City. On my grandfather’s side, his family came from Poland (from Głogów or Glogov). He and his siblings were fortunate to come in the early part of the twentieth century; he had cousins, however, that were caught in Europe in World War II. Supposedly, they hid from the Nazis and survived by hiding in the sewers. I feel so fortunate to have escaped these experiences (a pogrom and hiding in a sewer). And to have a beautiful family and home, and to be able to express myself without fear. Well, maybe a little, the general “opening up in public” kind of fear, not the Stalinist lock you up in jail sort. My maternal grandmother once spent the night in jail in the Soviet Union, but that is a topic for another time. I don’t even know that much to tell about it.
Perhaps this is taken in Far Rockaway? They did live there for a while when I was little. Any New Yorkers know?
Your turn.
Thursday Challenge: the theme for this week is “LARGE” (Big Things, Tall Things, Buildings, Cars, Airplanes,…).
I’m not big on photographing cars or airplanes or skyscrapers, but I did enjoy watching my daughter dragging that cart around when we went apple picking last Sunday.
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.