With the temperature and humidity high in New Jersey, is it any wonder that I am posting an indoor activity for Summer Stock? In the first scene of Jack and the Beanstalk at Middlesex County College Theater Camp, the mother looks for Jack and Jill.
My daughter is playing a market girl. She did well in the tryouts, so she may get a bigger role in an upcoming play. As her mom, I try not get my hopes or her hopes up too high.
My favorite character was the giant. My daughter said one of the teen counselors played the giant, who is tall in real life, too.
If you are in central New Jersey, you can see the play The Little Mermaid next Friday, July 29. On Friday August 5 the camp will put on Willy Wonka. Tickets are $3/person and showtimes are 9:30 am and 11:00 am.
My suburban example is watermelon at the annual Congregation Etz Ahaim picnic in Johnson Park, New Jersey.
This woman in New York City was accompanied by two men also dressed in black, funny outfits. No idea what they were trying to sell. They did get a lot of people’s attention.
For more Summer Stock Sunday, visit Around the Island:
Pershing Square bridge by Grand Central Station, New York City
This is the Pershing Square Bridge next to Grand Central Station on the East Side of New York City. I was in New York on Wednesday for the 140 Conference. Here’s a cool night photo of the same bridge that I found on Flickr.
The bridge is my entry for Sunday Bridges:
Sculpture on top of Grand Central Station, New York City
This is the top of Grand Central Station in New York City. From here I took the Lexington Avenue subway uptown to the 92nd Street Y.
The sculpture is my entry for Straight Out of the Camera:
Mime performing on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey
It was fun to watch this mime perform on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. He would start to move towards you and then suddenly stop and freeze. When I gave my daughter some money to put in his bucket, he motioned toward her, but she didn’t know why. You can see what happened next in the photo at the bottom.
On My Blog
The BIG GIGANTIC news today in our household is that the RPRY team of middle son (5 of them) won the Torah Bowl Championship. They previously won the New Jersey division, and today they beat New York schools SAR and HALB. Torah Bowl is sort of like Jeopardy – they get asked questions about certain parts of the Torah, and they have to answer quickly.
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
I got a kick out of this video of the preparation of a health salad. But he never does explain why he doesn’t think you should wash vegetables if you grow them in your own garden.
Here’s my daughter and the mime – he had motioned toward her so she could get her picture taken with him. He did that to anyone who put money in his bucket.
I posted these mime photos as part of Straight Out Of the Camera -I have a bit of time online on Saturday night. On Sunday, I’ll be marching down 5th Avenue in New York City with my kids’ school.
There are many gulls sitting on these rocks at the Asbury Park beach. But you will see at the end of the post, the humans out number the gulls.
One lone gull (is he a gull? See this list of sea birds) flies away from his friends. This one appears brown.
A brown gull flies by the active waves. Crafty Green Poet writes: “the brown bird is probably a young gull, most species of gull have I think three years in brown plumage (slightly different each of the years) before they take on adult plumage” – thank you!
A few brave souls sit on the rocks at the beach. My kids both went dunking into the freezing May waters. I just put in my toe. My husband relaxed on the beach – too cold for him.
This photo should give you an idea of how crowded it was on the beach. And economically, this is good news. Asbury Park was very depressed in the past thirty years. My husband grew up in this area, and he saw the decline. About one hundred years ago, it was quite a fashionable place. People may no longer walk in fancy dresses and suits, but the new restaurants and shops are upscale. I hope the gulls don’t mind.
Pictured in the crowded beach photo are the Asbury Park Theatre (see it in my Asbury post from last year) and the Berkeley Carteret Hotel.
No, it wasn’t the birthday party of any of these nursery school children. It was a Birthday Parade for the 63rd birthday of the State of Israel. When my daughter was in nursery, she wore one of these shirts.
Now she is in third grade, and she was taking photos along side her mom (me). And chatting with her friend. I’m not sure why she so wants me to be at the annual school parade for Israel, but there I was. I’ve been doing this for a while: here is the 2008 post of this little parade.
Some of her focus was on this dog named Winston. He is a therapy dog.
Getting back to the parade, there were children, teachers, parents and neighbors in our little march around the block for Israel. I had a great time chatting with a fellow blogger, Pragmatic Attic.
Thank you to the policemen of Edison, New Jersey who guarded our parade.
I usually try to reserve upbeat local events for my blog. Unfortunately, an upsetting, appalling event occurred last night at Rutgers University.
To quote Aaron Marcus, Rutgers student leader: “”We wanted to protest this event because as the children and grandchildren of victims of the Holocaust we believed it to be absolutely absurd to compare Israeli act of self defense to the viscous, systematic murder of millions of Jews, Catholics, Gays, Gypsies, Russians and others.”
Rutgers student organization BAKA (Students United for Middle Eastern Justice) sponsored the presumably public event, but when it became apparent that pro-Israel attendees would outnumber BAKA sympathizers by almost four to one, the organizers became alarmed. “There are so many Jews here,” exclaimed one BAKA member who was wearing a “Smash Israeli Apartheid” T-shirt.
To end this post with an upbeat, local event, here’s one of my son the filmmaker’s videos that may appear in the Highland Park Public Library Teen Film Festival on February 6:
