Cape May

I didn't drink these.

I did eat this.

Quite a tree trunk!

Coming soon...

Photos from weekend in Cape May.

Random pix taken one morning last week

Blockbust

ME (passing movie theater): Movies out now: Bad Teacher, and Horrible Bosses.
HUBBY: What does that say about society?

Huh, uh...

I logged into this when I meant to log into something else.

So...hi everybody!

I hope you are having a good summer. Don't let it pass you by!

Another good song from a commercial

Are you ready, get set... The original song is better than in the NY Lottery commercial.

Although it reminds me of this other song that was in a car commercial last year.

Good fer nothin'

Babies R us has a coupon for 20 percent on any regularly priced baby item. Underneath it says:

Excludes ALL toys, baby food, diapers, formula, wipes, Ameda Baby Brezza, Baby Jogger, BOB, Britax, Bugaboo, Cybex, ERGObaby, Mamas and Papas, Motherhood Maternity, Nap Nanny, Pediped, Peg Perego, Phil and Teds, Robeez, Tommee Tippee, under Armour, electronic learning toys, netbooks, tablets, video game hardware, video games, Apple products, FAO, RobotGalaxy, gift cards, photo studios, phone orders, special orders, assembly fee, delivery fee, and shipping and handling.

Did they forget anything??

Summer scenes

A good day to play hooky

Alleyway, as seen from window of our building

Italian cookies from Giorgio's

True delight

Home from work, resting, feet up on the couch, and my infant son is snoozing comfortably in his playpen a few feet away.

Writing stuff

I love this. Just love it. It's from Glimmer Train, a lit mag. The guy writes, "This is a picture of me trying to write while caring for my one-year-old son, Colton. He’s made my process more erratic and uncomfortable, but he’s so damn cute...."

I also like his writerly wooden desk and accountant's lamp. But I could never write long-term on a laptop, and I don't know why people do it voluntarily. I'd get too hunched.

Also, new review of my book is up on Amazon. Yay! It's nice that people are still finding it, even years after it came out. She read it on Kindle.

Writergate

I often send risque Twitter pics of myself to all 9,564 of my secret lovers. I hide my identifying features so they can't tell who I am. But it recently came out that it's me. I'm not sure how anyone could tell! I hid everything important! How did they know?

?

The High Line

Ten new blocks of the high line in NYC will open Wednesday, extending it to 30th Street! It's an old railroad line that they've converted into a long walking trail/park.

We saw some pretty sights when we went, the perfect juxtaposition of meadow growth and urban industrial decay. We'll have to go back to see more, with baby this time.

Good morning!

Found the photo that went with my Wildwood memory, although it doesn't appear to be raining at that moment.

Nature in the city





Saw this a few blocks from my house yesterday.

I can't tell which of these it is, but it's sure pretty.

Update

From: George Karagias info@criterionchocolates.com
To: lizzner lizzner@aol.com
Sent: Fri, May 6, 2011 1:39 pm
Subject: Re: coconut

Yes, We made vanilla,chocolate, and strawberry cakes. They were uncoded ( no chocolate on them) and we no longer make them.

----- Original Message -----
From: lizzner@aol.com
To: info@criterionchocolates.com
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 1:17 PM
Subject: coconut
Hey, when you guys were in Asbury Park, did you used to make vanilla and strawberry coconut patties? I used to love getting those at the candy shops on the boardwalk. I don't remember if they were yours or someone else's. No one makes them anymore!

I want candy

A while ago, I wrote here about not being able to find my favorite vanilla fudge candies. Eventually I did.

Well, I have a new challenge. When I was a kid, the candy shops on the boardwalk at Asbury Park (Criterion Candies, maybe Fanny Farmer) used to have round coconut patties - both vanilla and strawberry.

I can't find them anywhere now, except maybe chocolate covered. I want to find them without chocolate. They're big flat patties, white or pink.

You are welcome to try to look on the internet, but you shan't find any either, I bet.

Last r0und of memories

Janelle wrote in with a chaper of a book she wrote a while ago. And another reader, Mickey, submitted this:

"I was ten years old in 1965 and we were on vacation at my favorite place in New Hampshire near where my grandfather had built a small diner. We would eat there a couple of times during the vacation.
"I remember that he served the greatest tasting ice cream ever made. I always would order a big serving of Coffee flavored ice cream. I have never been able to find any that comes close to that brand.
"Anyway this story is not about my love for that ice cream, however it is about love. That was the year that I met a girl from Maryland, Clarkesville to be exact. That was the summer when I fell madly in puppy love with a girl. To this day I can remember her house number.
"I didn’t know anything about the anatomy of girls back then, but there was something about her that made my head spin. I have many found memories about those summers spent in Merrimack County.
"Some wonderful memories were born on those vacations. My happiest days were spent with my brother and father fishing on Chase Pond. "

Blogfan Sam writes to share his childhood memory:

"I was maybe 4 or 5 years old. We lived in a huge house and rented out part of it on occasion, but it was empty at the moment. There was a phone on the wall, not yet in service. I remember entertaining my sister making "phone calls" to a make believe witch, and my sister laughing her head off. She didn't laugh a lot (still doesn't) but for some reason she was really laughing that time."

Thanks! I remember doing stuff like that with my brother too. In fact, that stirred more memories of my own.

I had a photo to go with my entry about Wildwood, and I was going to find it and put it up here today, but I can't seem to find the photo album now that has it. It's my mom and brother eating the pastries on that patio. That album must be in one of the moving boxes still. I will have to post it when I find it.

Any other readers who want to share some random childhood memories for me to post, e-mail 'em to me at lizzner@aol.com.

Random childhood memory

Some of our happy childhood memories are of big events, but sometimes it's something small and random that occupies a warm spot in our mind.

One of my random good memories is this:

My mom, brother and I are on vacation in Wildwood, N.J. with its boardwalk and fine sand and long strip of old hotels. One morning, we wake up to a steady, melodious rainstorm. It's the kind of rain that is strong but not pounding, and it provides a musical lull. Even though the beach is meant to be enjoyed in sunny weather, there's something calming about watching the waves roll under a stormy sky, and I don't mind the break from hot weather at all.

We head a few blocks to a pastry shop and sit at one of the outdoor tables under an overhang. There's a white railing around the patio, and as I eat my sticky bun, I watch the rain hit the railing and splash in different directions. Beyond that I see the little shorehomes of the town. Political stickers are plastered all over the poles, and a resident is dropping something into a mailbox.

It's just a calm morning scene I remember. Why has it always stood out? I have no idea. I don't remember anything else about that trip, just eating pastries in the morning in the rain and observing the town.

I bet you have a few kind of random memories like that, slices of life that are nothing fancy, but just make you happy when you recall them. What are yours? Tell me!

Mailbag

James from college writes:

Seriously, the best way I have found to bring our children up right is A) Be an example for them B) Role play, use examples from real life...how would YOU handle that? What would YOU do if... C) Give them plenty of opportunities to "do good." (or bad). Give your son either a lot of positive feedback if he does well or make it a teachable moment if he falls short. We are all works in progress.I am so grateful that you share your wonderful, joyous life with all of us via the Internet. Jim

I didn't bring my son to work today, even though it was take your child to work day. I didn't think I'd get much done, what with all the crying and pooping. And that's just from me - I'm sure my son would have done some of that, too!

How do you raise your children to be nice people?

There are several blog entries I've been wanting to write for a while. At some point I'm going to get to the one about turning 40, even though I may really be 50 by then. But at least I can trick people into thinking I'm younger.

Anyway, one quicker entry I wanted to write is this...

Everyone tells us our son is cute, and he is. But when he gets to the age when his personality starts to really develop, how do we teach him to be a nice person?

There's a line between being firm when teaching your kids to do a certain thing, and being so firm that they rebel and do the opposite. I guess most parents figure it out as they go, and reassess over and over again. There are some kids who aren't very nice when they're younger but gradually figure it out. We've all met them.

Things like rewarding good behavior and being strict about bad behavior are important, but more important is showing why, so they understand your reasoning.

How do you teach your kids right from wrong, particularly in how they treat other people? Stefanie Klein had an interesting blog entry about this a while back that I wanted to link to, so here it is.

Sports talk

HUBBY (watching Mets game): They're winning 4-0!

ME: Are they playing the worst team in baseball?

HUBBY: They ARE the worst team in baseball.

Baby's first seder

Street shots

Nice little ditty

Is it just me, or are there some interesting songs featured in commercials these days? I guess because of the internet, you can find out what song is being used a lot more than you used to.

Right now there's a Tide/"Future friendly" goods commercial that even shows the "Shazam" logo on screen, so you can put your iphone up to find out what the song is. I simply put Tide/Future friendly song into Google and found it.

And here's another song I liked from a commercial last year.

Ah, spring.

(The second one is the original. I played around with it on my computer to get the first one; not sure which I like better.)

Nice new review

I saw that someone visited my website today from Jamaica. Does that mean they're on vacation enjoying my book by the warm beaches? It's a nice thought.

Anyway, I saw there's a great new review on a site called Bookshelf Banter. Excerpt:

She is the most over-thinking over-thinker I’ve ever heard of, and coming from someone like myself, who overanalyzes Every. Single. Thing, that’s saying a lot! It was so much fun to empathize with another over analyzer and see how her brain flits so quickly from one line of thinking to the next. For example, in one scene Carrie starts wondering if polkas are Polish so she looks it up in the dictionary, next thing you know she goes off on some tangent that leads her to wonder about gypsy moths.

Back to the beach

Cape May shots from when we were there in 2009.

Saw this last time I was in NYC.

they should make cherry m&m's.

oh, the internet sez they did already. for a limited time.

A lovely review of my book

Thanks, Random Ramblings blog!!

Eggsellent

Eggs Edessa, Americana Diner, East Windsor, NJ.

An excellent breakfast to start what was a great day.

Oh, oh, domino

A photo of one of my favorite pastimes as an adolescent. I set this up on our dining room floor in Freehold.

The show "That's Incredible!" made these domino setups popular. Note: That's also the show that made the phrase "Don't try this at home" popular. But I tried this at home. It didn't involve blowing anything up. Actually, there was one holiday season when two different game companies were selling colored domino sets to capitalize on the craze. I got the Incredible Domino Rally for Hannukah. My friend Missy got the other one. I forget what it was called, but her parents got it for her because it had 600 dominoes...little did they realize that the dominoes in that set were teeny-tiny. What a ripoff!

Stuff on my camera...

Column for my college paper in which I made the case that every student should have access to e-mail. From around 1992. Bold stance, no?

Smoked gouda mac and cheese I made on Monday when I was off. Conclusion: Really not worth the hour to buy the ingredients and cook it. Sometimes from scratch or homemade just ends up wasting time. It was ok, but I could have probably picked it up at a restaurant somewhere and still saved money and effort.

Short story I wrote in high school. Will explain later.

Blogfan Sam writes:

I think you should have kept it "hivernating".. perhaps spelling it to show it's not a mistake, like HIVEernating or hive-ernating. Maybe you would have gotten an A instead of a B (or a Bee). Just a thought, revisit that story and turn it into a children's book.

Response:

Good idea! It would get a lot of BUZZ!

At least not everyone rejected me.

...thank you, Muffin!

Another found item, this from eighth grade. I think this is from Holmdel Happenings. The only nice thing to happen in snooty ol' Holmdel. I got a $50 savings bond.

Yay!

They only rejected me later. What a tease.

(See more new stuff below.)

One writer's beginnings.

I actually wrote "hivernate," but then I realized teachers would just think I was making a mistake, so I corrected it. Dang.

Yes, it's all for the best

"If at the moment you are wondering if all of your efforts have gone for nought, I can't blame you. But I hope that in time you will come to realize that is not so. Whatever disappointment there may be at not gaining admission to Princeton will eventually pass. What will remain and stand you in good stead the rest of your life are the admirable personal qualities and accomplishments that came through in your application."

It might as well have started, "Dear Shitster..."

P.S. The hubby says: "April 12, 1989? I was in eighth grade!"

Moving

So we've been moving. I've been in my apartment for a whopping 17 years, so there's a lot of stuff. Plus I have childhood stuff in there, since my parents left my childhood home long ago and I had to drag my things to college and various apts. after that.

Moving means finding little things from your past and deciding whether to keep them. Today I went through some papers and found the following two gems:

1. My rejection letter from Princeton.
2. A letter from my brother that begins, "Dear Shitster..."

Jeopardy! On-line test

Baby slept right through it. None of the questions were about spitting up anyway. Here's a Youtube video of someone taking the test. I did so-so.

Had to move some of my (many, many) journals to a new location this week. More explanation forthcoming. Meanwhile, found some original scribblings of my first novel:

This is Poopardy!

I'm going to take the Jeopardy! on-line test this week. The baby is going to help me cheat if any of the topics are as follows:

POOP
BREASTMILK
CUTENESS
SMILES
WAKING UP AT 4:15 AM
CLANDESTINE SOCK REMOVAL

iPhone copy thanks to Brad

Chick lit and 'Sex and the City' being studied academically

Hey, yesterday's entry was all I had time to write! Anyway, there is now an academic book out about chick lit. The author interviewed me several years ago. She's very nice! It started as an article. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of the book.

I wonder if she's start a class at UNH about chick lit. Ooh, assign my book! Must work on a bribe...

Dogs should live at least as long as cats.

If you're ever feeling hopeless...

...reaching out to someone, particularly a professional, is a good idea. I'm spurred to write this mainly because of something I just read on the internet. Look how quickly things may change for this person. And all she did was write to a wacky advice columnist...

Two nice reviews

After a lull, I got two nice reviews in a row last week! Maybe the snow is keeping people inside and reading... or maybe they knew my 40th b-day was coming and they felt bad for me. Hee!

First one.

And second.

Also, School Library Journal said some nice things, so maybe school libraries will buy it now. Their review is posted on Amazon.

I notice that Amazon says there are 72 reviews, when there were only 71 a few days ago. I don't see the new one up, so it must be pending.

This morning...

In case you were wondering

N.J.S.A. 26:4B-4 Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, a mother shall be entitled to breast feed her baby in any location of a place of public accommodation, resort or amusement wherein the mother is otherwise permitted.

EFFECTIVE MAY 19, 1997

The Legislature finds and declares that: the Surgeon General of the United States recommends that babies from birth to one year of age should be breast fed, unless medically contraindicated, in order to achieve a healthy start on life; breast milk strengthens the immune system of babies, improves digestion and is of better nutritional value than regular milk; other benefits include the establishment of a strong mother-baby bond and a potential increase in baby's IQ level; despite the Surgeon General's recommendation, statistics reveal a declining number of women are choosing to breast feed their children, and nearly half of all new mothers are now choosing formula over breast milk even before they leave the hospital; the social constraints of modern society impede a woman's choice to breast feed due to embarrassment, fear of criminal prosecution and lack of public acceptance; therefore, it is in the best interest of the State to recognize breast feeding in places of public accommodation as an important right which must be encouraged in order to promote child health.

I want to beeeee a part of it, in old Nyack...

Hubby took me for b-day dinner to a lovely restaurant in Nyack. It was my choice, and I chose it as much for the cute town it was in then for how good the food looked. Nyack is an old artsy waterfront town in New Yawk state. Here are some pics from around the restaurant.

A couple was even getting married there! Brrr, it was a bit cold to be wearing your wedding duds outside.

If you go to the restaurant, I definitely recommend their crab ravioli. Good portion, good taste.

What a drag it is getting old

I am sorry this blog has gotten boring. I think I have some good entries brewing, particularly since I'm about to turn...um...30...well, ok, 40...shhhh. So as soon as I find the time, I will write.

Do some of you really not care about getting older? Ugh.

Luckily, I am going to be consuming something on this birthday that harks back to the birthdays of my youth. HINT.

Happy new year!

I had a great 2010, but clearly not everyone did. So...onward and upward!!