A brief postscript to my last post

My father (may he rest in peace) played the violin from early childhood, and as a young adult he played with the St. Louis Symphony until his family responsibilities forced other career choices. Growing up, I was exposed to quite a bit of classical music, and studied classical piano for many years. The name Jascha Heifetz was very familiar to all of us kids; he was always the person to whom other violinists were compared. So when I found the video of his performance of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, I just had to share that. In my haste to post this morning I had left out this detail.

From the depths to the heights

What a wonderful day we had!

As you all know, I am not a particularly avid baseball fan, but yesterday was a glorious day, and with seats in the shade it was quite comfortable sitting outside and, of course, eating peanuts. I do not know how those folks in the sun do it! Anyway, having recently seen a couple of minor league (Pawsox) games, even I could tell the difference. These guys are quite a bit more expert at throwing, hitting, and catching the ball than their minor league counterparts, so it does make for more interesting watching. Still, the score was rather paltry: the Mets scored 1 run in the 4^th inning and the Atlanta Braves scored 1 in the 7^th, after the Mets pitcher appeared to be rattled by having hit the previous batter in the jaw and watching him fall to the ground. Neither team had scored any additional runs by the end of the 9^th, so the game went into extra innings. I was getting a bit nervous because we had those tickets for Lincoln Center at 8 pm, but we agreed we would stay for one more inning, and leave even if the game was not over. Then, after a relatively quiet 9 innings, with 2 out and 1 man on base in the top of the 10^th, the Braves batter hit a ground ball that was bobbled by the pitcher, who then threw it to first base. The umpire called the batter “safe,” but it was clear in the instant replay that he was actually out. Unfortunately for the Mets, the new rule that will permit the use of the instant replay will not be in effect until next year! Then the Mets manager put in a new pitcher, and on his first pitch, the Braves batter hit a home run, bringing in 3 runs! We left at the bottom of the 10^th inning when there were 2 Mets players out, and from the parking lot we heard that a third man was out, so the Mets lost 4 to 1. Despite the loss, we still had a good time.

(Thanks to Barry for proofreading and helping me rewrite this in recognition of my ignorance of the game).

Other than one brief stretch leading past the cut-off from I-87 to the George Washington Bridge, the traffic moved smoothly back to Riverdale, so we had plenty of time to stop at home and prepare for the concert. It was very nice to see/hear a performance of Mozart Symphony 36 (the “Linz”) because we had examined that piece in one of my music classes in the spring. But the highlight of the evening, and I am certain the reason why the concert hall appeared to be completely filled, was Joshua Bell playing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. The program said that he was playing a 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin. But ultimately even an obviously incredible instrument and the outstanding acoustics of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center need truly expert hands. Watching him play this incredibly challenging piece of music with such beauty, Barry and I both had the same reaction: it seemed almost surreal, simply impossible to believe had we not seen it with our own eyes. Just inspiring. Really.

The highs and lows of this day found me waking up this morning with my favorite old Billy Joel song on my mind, “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” with the line “from the high to the low ‘til the end of the show for the rest of their lives.”

The rain has moved back in today, but they say it will be short-lived, and predict a beautiful weekend.

Love,

Rebecca

A pleasant surprise

It has been many weeks since Barry and I ordered tickets for two concerts in the Mostly Mozart Series at Lincoln Center this summer. We selected those two based on dates that work for us and music we wanted to hear, although if you had asked me just a few minutes ago what was on the schedule for the next concert, I guarantee I could not have told you. Having ordered the tickets on-line, I receive an e-mail “reminder” a day or two before the performance. We have tickets for the Wednesday evening concert this week, and I just received the reminder.

We’re delighted you’ll be joining us soon. This email contains some important information about your upcoming performance. If you have any questions not answered here, please write to us atcustomerservice@lincolncenter.org  g at 212.875.5456ve us a call (10:00 am–9:00 pm).
Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra Louis Langrée, conductor Joshua Bell, violin Wednesday, August 21 at 8:00 Avery Fisher Hall, Columbus at 65th Street (directions)
The Program MOZART: Symphony No. 36 ("Linz") TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto   Pre-Concert Recital Prior to this evening's performance, there will be a pre-concert recital by Francesco Piemontesi, piano, at 7:00 at Avery Fisher Hall. Performance Length This performance is approximately one hour and forty minutes long, with one intermission.		No Late Seating This performance begins promptly on time and there is no late seating. Please allow yourself extra time to pick up your tickets at will-call if needed.  Information for Guests with Disabilities Please visit our page on accessibility in Avery Fisher Hall. For additional information, please contact our Programs and Services for Persons with Disabilities department at pspddepartment@lincolncenter.org or212.875.5375. Donate Your Ticket Can you no longer use your ticket? Consider converting it into a tax-deductible contribution to Lincoln Center. Contact our Customer Service department at 212.875.5456 for details. Restrictions may apply.

When I read the e-mail I was incredulous. I have no recollection whatsoever that we were going to see such an amazing program tomorrow evening! On the one hand, it continues to be incredibly frustrating that I still retain so little these days. But on the other hand, looking on the bright side, I have now had an opportunity to relive the pleasure of planning to go to this concert, sort of like Bill Murray in the 1993 movie, “Groundhog Day.” So now I am really excited about the concert tomorrow. And this is a good thing because we are going to an afternoon Mets game at Citi Field in Queens (almost assuredly the last game we will see this summer), and then driving back to Riverdale to dress before heading to Lincoln Center. Knowing that we are in for such an incredible treat will definitely help me find the energy to do all that! 

I will look forward to sharing this wonderful day with you.

Love,

Rebecca

A busy few days

I just looked back at the blog to see where I left off. Last Thursday, before we left for Sharon, I was all excited about having posted new pictures of our four grandchildren to the blog. That feels like a million years ago!

Our drive with Eliana and Maya up to Sharon went very well. They took turns playing games on an electronic device and we talked about all the things they did at Camp Grandma. I have to say I am truly impressed with Ronen’s Mom’s energy and good spirits, as she seemed none the worse for the wear when she brought the girls to Riverdale Thursday morning. We stopped for a nice picnic lunch, and I am happy to say that we even managed to keep them happy with only moderate amounts of unhealthy foods.

We took the girls home to their parents, who had a very nice few days on their own but were elated to see them. I spent Friday morning doing some things around the apartment, and in the afternoon Simmie invited me to come with the girls and her to play miniature golf (Barry was working). None of us had ever been to this particular place, although Simmie had heard good things about it. It was easily one of the cleanest and well-kept miniature golf courses I have ever seen, but (and you knew there was going to be a “but”) it was absolutely not handicap accessible. Quite a few of the holes had steps, sometimes many, and like so many miniature golf courses, to quote an old Allman Brothers song, “ain’t but one way out, baby.” So between my slow ambulation and a very-determined-but-a-bit-young-for-this-game Maya, we had to let the people behind us go ahead a few times. But we finished the course, and Simmie even won a free game by landing the ball in the correct slot in the ball return.

We had a nice Friday night dinner at Simmie and Ronen’s, an old Moosewood recipe that is a family favorite called Rebaked Potatoes. After synagogue on Saturday morning we went to Dina’s house, where the six of us and a friend of Joshua’s had lunch. We ended up staying for the whole afternoon, most of it spent outside on a truly glorious day with sunshine and low humidity. Ella was determined to finish the latest Lego kit we had bought her, Olivia’s House, and Joshua’s friend also got into working on it, all outside on a folding table. By the end of the afternoon we had completely finished it – all 695 pieces! Simmie and Ronen and the children dropped by on their way home from another friends’ house where they had eaten lunch, and stayed for a while. Dina and Aaron live on the corner of two streets that lead to the homes of many of their friends, so on a nice day they are never alone.

After Sabbath, Barry, Simmie, Dina and I went out for ice cream. We enjoy going doing this every now and then, sort of like old times for our family. We went to a really good ice cream parlor called J.P. Licks. There are places closer to Sharon but none can hold a candle to this one, and they even have some very good dairy-free choices for those who need them. If you happen to be in the Boston area, check it out at http://www.jplicks.com/ .

On Sunday we went to see the Pawsocks, the minor league team for the Boston Red Sox, with Joshua and family and a few friends. This was their last home afternoon game of the season. We have been to see them a number of times and they have lost every game we have seen, until this Sunday, when they beat the Buffalo Bisons 3 to 1! They do a lot of cute things for the fans at these games. Joshua’s birthday is coming up in a few weeks, so Dina and Aaron arranged to have birthday greetings to him on the monitor. We did not know exactly when it would happen, but somehow when it did I managed to snap a picture of it!

But I fear all this baseball talk has created, or more accurately, reawakened, a monster in Barry, who just bought tickets for an upcoming Mets afternoon game. Reluctant as I am to say this, it is actually not a bad way to spend an afternoon, as long as the weather is good. Our seats are in the shade, the people-watching is fun, I can eat peanuts (which I enjoy but never do anywhere else), and because I am not emotionally invested in the teams I can just relax and enjoy. What’s not to like?

I know I had something else in mind that I wanted to share, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it is. Hopefully it will come back, and I will do it then. Meanwhile, try to get outside a bit and enjoy these last days of summer.

Love,

Rebecca

Another (small) hurdle jumped!

I continued to ponder how to post the four pictures of the grandchildren to the top of the blog, where the template has room for only one picture. Yesterday I took the four separate pictures and made a collage slide in PowerPoint. But I could not get the .ppt file to load to Blogger. I woke up this morning still thinking about this and had a brainstorm: could the PowerPoint slide I had created be saved as a .jpeg file? I went downstairs to our office and sat down at the computer and discovered that, lo and behold, it can!

So now all four smiling faces greet you when you click on the link to the blog. And that makes me very happy!

Love,

Rebecca

More new things

I finally uploaded a few pictures from our visit to Hyde Park a few days ago. There were quite a few exquisite butterflies fluttering around the flowers, and I was lucky to capture a few very nice shots.

Here are a couple of pictures of President Roosevelt's grave, which is surrounded by a colorful garden.

After heavy rain all day yesterday, today has been a glorious day with bright sunshine, low humidity, and unusually cool temperatures for August. Barry went in to teach his class early this morning, but we simply could not bear to spend the entire day indoors. So he came home, we packed a lunch, and headed over to the Botanical Gardens for a short visit. We first visited to the rose garden, hoping to take one last stroll this year amid the thousands of roses. Unfortunately, the roses have just about finished for this season, so it was rather disappointing. We took a look at the map and decided to try something we had never done, the Ornamental Conifer 

Garden.

I had no idea what conifers are, but quickly learned that they are basically what we call evergreens. Here is a more formal definition from Wikipedia:

They are cone-bearing seed plants with vascular tissue; all extant conifers are woody plants, the great majority being trees with just a few being shrubs. Typical examples of conifers include cedars, Douglas firs, cypresses, firs, junipers,kauri, larches, pines, hemlocks, redwoods, spruces, and yews.^[1] The division contains approximately eight families, 68 genera, and 630 living species.^[2][3]

There were some amazingly beautiful trees, and we used all the explanations to allow me a chance to continue to work on my reading. It is still very slow going with many errors, but we are hoping that pursuing this every day will gradually lead to some improvement.

I have spent the last hour or so trying to upload pictures from my Samsung Galaxy Note II to Shutterfly. For reasons I simply cannot understand, it insists on uploading my landscape pictures in portrait orientation. I tried every trick I could devise to fix this but to no avail. I have noticed that Blogger has a special tab for uploading pictures from Picasa. So I finally succumbed and set up a Picasa account and copied the pictures there. I have no intention of learning Picasa at this point, but it did work to properly load the pictures to Blogger in the correct orientation. Of course now the trouble is that it copied all of my pictures from Shutterfly but did not set up the folders the way I had them, so it is quite difficult to find things. If I did not know better I would insist that someone out there is trying to drive me completely bonkers! Worse yet, they may be succeeding!

Eliana and Maya have been visiting their paternal grandparents in Cedarhurst (Long Island) for the past few days. Tomorrow, they are bringing the girls to Riverdale, and Barry and I are driving them back to Sharon. We are packing a picnic lunch and hope to stop midway on what is predicted to be another beautiful day.

If you are living in the northeast, I hope you have found or will find some time to get outdoors this week. We may just not have such fabulous weather again any time soon, so enjoy!

Love,

Rebecca

A very busy few days

I barely know where to begin! So I will take it in chronological order.

When I left off, I was bemoaning all the rain. Fortunately, it ended in Sharon on Friday evening, so we were not drenched going to Dina and family for dinner. We awoke Saturday to the beginning of what was a beautiful day. After synagogue, we had lunch at the home of some friends. This was not just a lunch, but a celebration known as Sheva Brachot. The traditional Jewish wedding is much more than just one big party; it is a week full of parties! Every night for the first week after the wedding, friends and relatives gather to enjoy a festive meal and repeat the seven blessings that are said as part of the marriage ceremony – seven blessings for seven days. To be fair, it is an exhausting experience for the young couple who is going to every one of the parties, but it is great fun if you just go to one, because rather than the 300+ guests who attended the wedding in a large hall, this was in a private home with only about 30 people, all of whom, except the bride’s parents, we have known for years. A few friends had prepared an amazing feast that was both creative and delicious. There was singing and lively conversation. We were honored to be included and so glad we could be there to celebrate with our friends.

If that wasn’t enough fun, after lunch we headed over to Dina’s house to pick up Ella and bring her back to our apartment for some play time, dinner, and a sleep-over. Neither Barry nor I had realized until Ella pointed it out that this was the first time she slept over at our apartment by herself, without her big brother, but although she expressed some trepidation, she did just fine. We embarked on a new 695-piece Lego set we had bought recently, completing a little less than half of the construction. Then we had a light dinner, we read, we played a few games, and she finally went to sleep around 9. The next morning Barry made pancakes. Ella is such a charming and easy-going person, always a joy to have with us. We hope to do this again soon.

On Sunday, Dina and Aaron took the children on a family bicycle ride, Simmie and Ronen and children had gone up to Cedarhurst for the weekend to visit with Ronen’s family, and Barry and I had tickets for a concert at Tanglewood. The weather was just amazing – bright sunshine and comfortably warm with low humidity. It was an all-Beethoven program:

The Boston Symphony Association of Volunteers Concert

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Christian Zacharias, conductor and piano

ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM

Coriolan Overture

Piano Concerto No. 2

Symphony No. 6, Pastoral

We packed a picnic lunch and arrived at Tanglewood early. We had bought seats in what they call “the shed,” but the weather was so beautiful that we ended up just sitting out on the grass in the little lounge chairs we usually take to the beach. One of things we enjoy most about going to Tanglewood is watching the amazingly elaborate picnics that some of the concertgoers bring on carts from the parking lot. They can include such niceties as glass wine goblets and flowers in vases set on little tables (with linens) they bring and assemble. It is a whole huge production! If we went more often I could really see us accumulating such things. Unfortunately, it is sort of in the middle of nowhere, and although we like to pretend it is “on the way home” to New York, in fact it adds quite a lot of total driving time.

Besides the perfect weather and the fabulous music, one other thing went really well this time. When we go to concerts at Tanglewood, we usually stay over after the concert in a hotel or bed and breakfast rather than trying to do the whole drive in one day. The traffic back towards New York on a summer Sunday evening can be quite exasperating.  But short of spending half the national debt, and even once when we did, we have not been all that happy with the places where we have stayed. Barry recently read some good reviews on Trip Advisor of a Hampton Inn in Lenox, just a few minutes from Tanglewood. We were fortunately able to book a room when we called on Friday (by Saturday night when Barry tried, just out of curiosity, they were fully booked), and this place was quite a pleasant surprise. It was clean and roomy and not too outrageously expensive. I am hesitant to tell you all about it because the next time we may have a harder time booking a room on short notice! But it is always tricky with Tanglewood, because although there is the shed, it just is not all that much fun to go when the weather is dreary.

This morning we got up, had some breakfast, and began the trip home to New York. It was another glorious day, and we just did not want to waste it. So we drove somewhat out of our way to Hyde Park, NY to visit the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the museum and library there. We had expected this would be an hour at the most. Well, nearly four hours later we were still engrossed in the exhibit but we had to tear ourselves away to head home. It is extremely well done, with different rooms for different periods of his life and presidency, many short films to watch along the way, and a wealth of historical detail. This, like Tanglewood, is a bit of an out-of-the-way place, but if you find yourself driving north from New York along the Hudson River, Barry and I highly recommend it. It will be a wonderful place to take the grandchildren when they are a bit older and can appreciate the history.

One last thing before I close this posting. My friend Joanne called today, excited to tell me that she heard the results of the recent Money Magazine’s survey of the “Best Places to Live,” and Sharon, Massachusetts was #1! Check it out at

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/best-places/

Meanwhile, have a wonderful week!

Love,

Rebecca