One of the benefits of living in a small town like Highland Park, New Jersey are the events like the recent one for National Night Out. Night Out in Highland Park was celebrated with booths, balloons and fun activities for kids.
It was cool to watch kids scampering up this climbing tower.
There were announcers in the back calling out names of various winners of prizes. Local businesses had donated the prizes.
My favorite part of the evening was the dunking booth. Later in the evening, after I had left, the person sitting in the dunking booth was Mayor Gary Minkoff, but I had already gone home by then. One of my friends said her son managed to dunk Mayor Gary on his first throw. Great shot!
The fire trucks were fun to view. I’m not sure how to show this image – horizontally or vertically. Looks like it really belongs at an angle.
Does your area have local events? What kinds? Which ones do you enjoy most?
I visited the Piscataway end of Johnson Park at the end of July. It was a super hot day (there are a lot of those this summer), but I enjoyed taking shots of the trees in the distance.
When I got to the edge of the Raritan River that borders the park, I noticed you could see the Delaware & Raritan Canal on the other side. I thought: aha! that would be good subject matter for a post. Maybe it will get a little less hot, and I’ll go to take some photos of the canal itself. You can see from the three people on this canal photo that the canal is a fun place to hike and bike. There’s a lot of history behind the canal, constructed in 1834, that went all the way from New Brunswick (that’s this end of the canal) to Trenton, which is close to Philadelphia.
These geese are regular residents of Johnson Park.
One friend thought I was vegan because I only post pareve recipes on my blog. I do have this one recipe for chicken stuffing, but in an effort to prove that I do eat chicken I wrote up one of my favorite chicken recipes. It is a stir-fry of chicken, ginger and cabbage. Last week was the Nine Days, and observant Jews do not eat meat or chicken during this period of mourning (mourning the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem and many other sad events in Jewish history, such as the massacre in York in 1190 C.E.). My children were very happy to resume eating meat on Monday (nahamu, nahumu– comfort, as the saying goes), and we have had this chicken dish twice this week (as well as other carnivorous goodies). I had leftover chicken I needed to use up – this is a delicious way to deal with the leftover chicken problem.
Chicken, Ginger and Cabbage Ingredients
Three to four pieces of leftover chicken, taken off the bone and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 Tbsp. virgin coconut oil
1 Tbsp. chopped ginger root
1/2 head of cabbage, chopped (I use savoy cabbage)
1 tsp. tamari (or soy sauce) or to taste
Optional: bits of chopped kale
1 large fry pan or wok
Cut up the chicken into pieces. Put the coconut oil in the pan and warm it up. Add the chicken, then the chopped ginger and stir. Chop the cabbage and add to the pan. Add tamari sauce. If you like, sprinkle a few cut pieces of kale as well. Cook until cabbage is tender. Serve on a bed of brown rice, though my daughter who doesn’t like rice eats it straight. My son who doesn’t care for the cabbage picks out the chicken. I have been known to pick away at the cabbage, leaving the chicken for others.
My daughter’s theatre camp, Middlesex County College Theater Camp, put on Snow White and the Seventy Dwarves last week. My daughter had the great privilege of being picked for the character role of the old hag, the old woman who is really the wicked witch and tries to kill Snow White with a poisoned apple.
Here she is smiling at the end of the first show – I confess, my focus of watching the show was – when does the old hag enter? When does she do her evil cackles? I had a grand time watching her. As a child, I loved acting as well. I love that my daughter has this grand opportunity through camp.
This was a dramatic scene – here the Woodsman is about to kill Snow White, but of course, he does not. He brings the evil queen the heart of a pig. Do you think this will fool the wicked queen?
Trick this wicked queen into believing the heart of a pig is the heart of Snow White? She is not tricked. She sets out to kill Snow White as an old hag.
In this scene Snow White greets the prince. I’m not really sure what those two guys on the right are doing.
I took lots of photos of my dear daughter the old hag – I was so thrilled by her portrayal of the character. It was a great show, and one we will remember for many years to come.
This coming Friday, July 27, the show will be Rumpelstiltskin, and next Friday, August 3, the show will be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. There are two shows each Friday: one at 9:30 am and one at 11 am. Tickets are only $3.
Benji Lovitt, who usually writes and delivers comedy, wrote a piece called Terror in Bulgaria — a comedian’s response. Sometimes you just don’t know how to respond. And this was before the massacre in the theater in Colorado. “But for now? Like everyone else, I’ll mourn.”
If you can stomach the discussion, Therapy Doc has a post on James Egan Holmes.
