Sharing some news

What do you do when you have some great news, but don't have a blog of your own?

Susan just called on her way to her annual Memorial Day get-away at the Cape. She wanted to share some exciting news. It seems that what we have all suspected for years is true!

Underneath all that curly hair, Ian has a magnificent brain, and he has the SAT scores to prove it.

Apparently the SAT test has evolved a bit since I (and my kids) took it. What used to be called the Verbal portion is now broken into reading and writing, and then there is still the math section.

Ian scored 800 on the reading portion. And yes, that is a PERFECT SCORE!

He scored 770 on the writing portion, and 690 on the math. That means his total score was 2260, just a mere 140 points short of a total perfect score.

This is most certainly an achievement to celebrate!

Squirrels in the attic

One down - 99 to go!!

It wasn't enough that we had to battle these creatures at our bird feeder (you may remember Tom's creative attempt to keep them away).

NOW, it seems they have infested our houses in Cortland! We received a call from our tenants who let us know that these critters were running wild IN THE HOUSE - so we invested in a squirrel-size Hav-A-Heart trap. Tom caught this one with a peanut butter sandwich as bait. Hopefully we will be able to catch the rest of the family and transport them to the country as we did with this little guy.

We do have a back-up plan- it seems that fox urine will keep them away - but Tom thinks it might be hard to catch that fox and get him to go where we want him to..... :-)

Mother's Day

I had a very nice Mother's Day and hope you all did too! I was very pleased to note that gifts I have received in the past are still giving me pleasure- and just at the right time, too!

Both of the trees in the picture below were gifts for Mother's Day. Chris & Erika gave me the darker pink one MANY years ago, and its blooms this year are the best I've seen in a long time. The tulip tree is now past its prime, but still shows some gorgeous pink blooms. It was a gift from Chris and Laura.

However, the best gift a mother could ever have is her children, and I have been blessed with two of the best!

Tom's miscellaneous NYC pics

Yes, we were in NYC again this week. We stayed in the financial district near my corporate offices, and the site of the World Trade Center. Since this is at the southern tip of Manhattan, there is a lot of water (and boats) to be seen. The city has done a wonderful job of creating green space and park area that runs for miles along the waterfront. This walkway is in Battery Park.


Tom thought my shirt went quite nicely with this construction fence!

The immigrant statue in Battery Park.

The Sphere is a large metallic sculpture byGerman sculptor Fritz Koenig, currently displayed in Battery Park. It used to be in front of the World Trade Center towers. After being recovered from the rubble of the Twin Towers, its fate was initially uncertain and it was dismantled into its components. Although it remained structurally intact, it had been visibly damaged by debris.

Six months after the attacks, it was relocated to Battery Park on a temporary basis—without any repairs—and formally rededicated with an eternal flame as a memorial to the victims of 9/11. It has become a major tourist attraction, due partly to the fact that it survived the attacks with only dents and holes. It will be returned to its original home once the Freedom Tower project is completed. (Wikipedia)

???

The Red Cube! This sculpture by Isamu Noguchi supposedly represents chance, or "the rolling of the dice". It is appropriately located on lower Broadway near Wall St. It is important to me, because it is the only way I can remember how to find my company's office building, which is located a block behind the Red Cube. The streets in the financial district are not the straight grid lines of mid-town or upper Manhattan, so it is very easy to get lost wandering around in this area. It is important to have visual clues to get back on track!

NYC May 8 2008

Ready for a marathon?

Not hardly, but apparently you can teach old dogs new tricks! This is the esplanade by Battery Park in NYC.

Rat a tat tat

This bird has a real problem! He (looks like a male, I guess) sits on the tenant's metal satellite dish and hammers away all day long. You can hear him half a block away. Does anyone know what kind of woodpecker he is?

Only in New York City

So here I am at Union Square on 14 th Street, watching this guy actually paint a portrait of a woman right in front of me. The man in the red shirt just comes into the scene and starts dancing all around her. He finally stands on a chair and pours lotion all over his head and face, and continues to do his own thing while the painter continues to finish the painting. This went on for at least a half hour, after which I needed to leave.