The Peninsula is not a geographic feature, but a hotel.  I should certainly put some adjectives in front of hotel.  “Luxurious” is the obvious one, but it is also refined without being too modern. We’ve already checked out, but we have access to all the accommodations until our car picks us up about 5:30, so I type this pool-side.

I wanted to show the kids some pictures of the hotel.  Daddy got us a Junior Executive Suite (a sweet suite, as we never tire of saying).  Even though we didn’t spend much time at the hotel, it was nice to come back to a living room separate from the bedroom. 

Ridiculously, there were 3 televisions, including the one for the bathtub.  This was really the only one I used, as I soaked while listening to Michelle Obama’s speech on Monday.

TV’s are wasted on Dwayne and me … when we have our laptops and smart phones. I usually spent a few hours a night blogging and trying to ignore email. 

But we didn’t scoff at the feather soft bed and extra pillows.

Or the hallway bench (great place to throw down the backpacks upon as we crawled back at the end of the day).

And the living room was a pleasant place to just be quiet after a day in Manhattan.

It’s not going to be affordable with kids (I can’t guarantee it was affordable without kids!), but I’m going to fondly remember our Home Sweet NY Home.

Dear Ducklings,

I’m not trying to sermonize.  Patience and Fortitude are the names of the lions guarding the New York Public Library, or “The People’s Palace” as it is also referred.

I think this is Fortitude (and I’m sure it’s Daddy)…

…making this the backside of Patience! Hee-hee.

By the way, Wesley, fortitude means great courage when facing difficulty.  Remember that, you may need to name something Fortitude or Patience.

Ta-da!  Here is….The Library.

There are over 80 circulating branches of the NYPL system, which means those are places patrons can check out materials.  This branch, however, is strictly a research library.  The public can access its maps, genealogical collections, periodicals (magazines and newspapers), and books, but only for use in the reading rooms.  Some rooms you have to apply, probably with the right academic credentials, to have access to some of the rare collections. 

Like so many other places we’ve loved this week, a lot of the treasure is in the architecture.  Before we even went into the building, we got lost in the statues, giant urns, and balustrades. 

(Cover your eyes, it’s another naked woman statue!)

You can open them now.

Poor Daddy.  Why does the entire city of NY get balustrades and arches and he has none?

We enter through none-too-shabby doors…

 

…and encounter a palace of white marble.  Pretend my pictures do justice to the soaring ceilings and elaborate staircases.

This is just a regular, ol’ ceiling of the 2nd floor Rotunda.

The murals were specially designed for the library.  They show the evolution of writing: stone engravings, manuscript copying, the first metal printing press (the Gutenberg Bible), and then newspaper publishing—and updated way to rapidly print something new daily. 

Gutenberg made approximately 180 copies of his Bible, though only 48 are known to have survived.  This is one of them! 

The children’s library is supposed to be exhibiting the original Winnie-the-Pooh bear and friends (except for Roo, who went on a family picnic long ago in an apple orchard and never returned).  This is the original bear belonging to the real Christopher Robin, whose father based many books on his life and stuffed animals.  However, the friends must be vacationing this week and will return next week.  That didn’t stop the gift store from selling replicas!

These Lego Lions guarded well the Children’s corner.

It was truly a fantastic glimpse into the largesse of the founders, and a very popular place to read, study, and to tourists like us, gawk!

Bryan Park shares the block with NYPL, and it’s charming as well.  With game tables, an open field, a beautiful carousel (designed for very young or timid children), an outdoor Reading Room, and picturesque restaurants, it’s truly a public space. 

I’m becoming charmed by public green spaces completely encircled by skyscrapers.  It makes an interesting juxtaposition that constantly reminds me that I’m not from here!

And to top off our afternoon before we had to check out, we finally had our New York hotdog. 

Tastes exactly as you’d think—bland and slightly off. 

Thanks, New York.  I can’t wait to come back and show you my awesome kids.  They certainly want to meet you!Love and kisses,

Mama

Dear Ducklings,

I don’t know how today could have been better.  After I bombed choosing the comedy club and restaurant, I encouraged Dwayne to plan our Friday.  He chose the Cloisters, a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is quite a bit north and very different.  Like the Met, it is situated in beautiful gardens, but that is where the similarities end. 

First, it took 3 train transfers to get there, but we got off at 190th and the world changed.

Just to relate it back to Hamilton, there’s a lyric that repeats a few times after Phillip’s death,  It’s quiet uptown, and it was hard not to hum it as we opened up into a quiet park full of the block walls Dwayne and I favor.

We walked through Tryon Park, a beautiful hill Rockefeller, Jr. liked so much that he bought it, helped build the Cloisters, purchased most of the medieval art for it, and then donated it.  God bless Rockefeller! 

The Met proper has so many objects that any one gallery (of the 400!) could make your head explode.  The Cloisters had several rooms, but you wouldn’t need to take off a second shoe to count them all.  And most of the art is architectural, which meant a lot of the rooms were works of art without further adornment. This included doors, stained glass windows, and, ahem, entire rooms.

The Chapters, where monks would congregate for daily meetings and readings of a chapter of the Benedictine’s handbook for being a monk (or similarly entitled), was taken from Europe and reassembled here, with only the floor being new.

Similarly, this Romanesque Apse was also taken down brick by brick in France and rebuilt here.

You can barely see the door in the right of the picture above.  That door was originally on a older church (1100AD, give or take a century) until it was removed to put in another door.  Supposedly it got moved around and around until it was found lying unloved in a field in France. 

Here’s a quick architecture lesson, ducklings.  Romanesque buildings have semi-circular arches.  Look in that last pictures.  Very Romanesque—you should be able to count 8 arches in that shot.  That was earlier medieval.

Here’s another example:

Then medieval went Gothic.

I always think of Gothic as gargoyles, and there certainly is an aspect of elaborate, slightly twisted to Gothic.  But especially in architecture, it meant using new methods (like flying buttresses) to make a building’s skeleton narrow.  Cathedrals now were able to point up to heaven.  Windows, doors, ceilings all come to a point rather than the semi-circle that Romanesque does. It meant significant amount of walls being taken up with windows (compared to Romanesque structures, at least), and so much lighter.

You can see a strong Gothic influence on this decorative Virgin Mary box—about the size of a toaster.

Kyla, do you remember one of the first artists we read about in your art book last year?  It was about 3 teenage brothers who made marvelous illuminated books?  This is by those brothers:

The books are some of my favorite medieval treasures.

I won’t—can’t—show you everything but here are a few articles that stood out.

This tapestry was less religious than most of medieval art, but still has saints and other Christian symbols mixed in the lords and ladies it represented.  It looks in terrible shape (it is about 800 year old cloth!), but its history included being cut up to make curtains!

These is reportedly the only intact deck of cards from this time period still in existence today!  There are 52 cards, though only a few are on display at a time. 

This was a choir chair. Like theater chairs, they can be folded upright or left down. When it is up, the seat has a bit of a leaning post on it, as choir boys had to stand for long times and needed to lean against something. The funny face?  Just a bit of levity, I believe!

I just thought this was a marvelous carving.  His face is beautiful in its realism.

Unicorns are a huge part of medieval themes.  First of all, the unicorn was supposed to have all sorts of magical power (being able to purify water with a touch of its horn, for one).  Secondly, it was a symbol of Christ—pure and strong.  The Unicorn room had several tapestries.  Just this room alone probably makes the Cloisters priceless.

But I thought the narwhal horn here in the corner was amazing.  It’s about 8 feet long, and was thought to be a unicorn horn hundreds of years ago (probably not by the person who sold it as such, though!).

Daddy and I were most enchanted by the cloisters (the covered walkways) and the courtyard gardens.  The entire cloisters were naturally uncrowded, peaceful places, again in contrast to the Met proper, and this time of year, smelled divine.

Here’s a 5 minute video of the Cloisters, if you wanted more.

Once we left the Cloisters, we had garden paths in every direction to choose from, and so we began to meander in earnest.  Dwayne was well rewarded when we came across the New Leaf Café.

From the outdoor draped ceilings accented with chandeliers to the fancy food, he was quite pleased with himself. 

Between happy hour and dinner there (yes, we did both), we explored more of the Heather Garden and Fort Tryon.  I know my ducklings would have enjoyed exploring this park with us!

We had a great plan (and it was Daddy’s so it was supposed to work well) to take the subway to the north end of Central Park, rent Citi Bikes, and ride to the south end, close to our hotel.  However, all the north end Citi Bike lots were “coming soon”, as opposed to the south end where they are ubiquitous. 

Central Park is about 1/2 mile wide and 2.6 miles long…with no straight paths.  Dwayne and I walked the entire park, slightly by accident, and with lots of zigzagging. 

But the sunset was beautiful, and there are so many pockets of joy in Central Park.  Even with all the walking we did tonight, we saw only the most obvious landmarks.  It would take real dedication to know this entire park well, which means there will always be a surprise…if you are willing to walk for it!

This time tomorrow, we’ll be landing in Seattle.  See you soon, beloved children.

Love,

Mama

 

Dear Ducklings,

As I go through my pictures of the American Museum of Natural History, most of them are not worth adding to the blog.  Here’s a short video that from the museum that gives you a small taste of it.  This video is 8 minutes long, but gives a better overview. 

Here’s a few pictures for you.  Kyla, here’s the tail club of an ankylosaurus:

Piper, I was explaining what dioramas are, a 3D scene of something.  Using taxidermied animals, plants, rocks, and a background mural, “natural” scenes like this one were displayed all over the museum.

Wesley, look at this cool ammonite!

Lucy’s skeleton was displayed!  It’s about 3.2 million years old, so forgive her for not looking her best.

 

This is what a real meteorite looks like.

This necklace has about 90 carats of diamonds.

 

 

We had a very disappointing evening—I suggested we try a comedy club.  Never have a paid so much to be so thoroughly disgusted.  It was followed by pizza recommended by the concierge.  Not great either.  But at least we did get to see a real comedian.  Stephen Colbert (a very famous TV show host) was outside the restaurant window, doing his Party Convention “Hunger for Power” Games skit—actually on the restaurants rooftop, which they accessed from a window just a few feet away from our table.  It was weirdly nonchalant. 

Dear Ducklings,

As I settle in with a cup of tea and terry slippers, I couldn’t rewrite this day better.

First of all, we didn’t realize how tired we were until we woke up probably about the same time you all did back in Washington.  Yeah, even with the 3 hour difference!

Not having enough time to ride bikes around Central Park, we got even lazier and took the NY Times up to the top floor pool and spa, and ate apples and drank tea.  (Okay, coffee for Daddy.) 

We swam for exercise and took advantage of what most gyms would call locker rooms, but here are referred to as the “ladies’ (or gentlemen’s) spa”.  I love the steam room and sauna, as well as the rain showerheads, and vanity tables with everything but my makeup. 

From there, it was easy to get ready for a 10 hour date.  The hotel has a car they call a Mini Cooper, but it is suspiciously bigger and has the strange words “Cadillac” on the back.  The car and driver is complementary to hotel guests, subject to availability.  They had just enough time at 1:30 to drive us to the theater district and drop us off half a block from the Richard Theater.  I won’t gush here about the show, other than to say it was even better than my high expectations.  I’d see it again tomorrow if we could!

We liked being dropped off and then walking back. As we left the theater, I got distracted by street performers.  

Notice the guy off to the side, looking inconspicuous and wearing a t-shirt?  After all the other guys doing amazing acrobatic trips, he’s going to casually jump over 4 people lined up.  Including Daddy.  Here’s the video!

Here’s a street artist creating a NYC skyline scene with spray paint and a scraper.

Finally, I put my blinders on and we made it to Rockefeller Center.  We find an outdoor bistro and had, I kid you not, the best creamed spinach we’ve ever had.  Usually we judge a restaurant by its beet salad, and theirs was good, but we ate up all the spinach and could have had more. 

On our way to the restaurant, we had noticed a bakery and went back for dessert. 

Showing remarkable self-control, we waited until we stumbled upon the perfect restful alcove before I dove into my chocolate truffle cake.

We thought St. Patrick’s was never open, but it’s just never open at 9 or 10pm when we usually walk by.  Tonight was early enough that we finally got to go inside.  It was very reminiscent of the cathedrals in Europe, but as Daddy put it so well, was “missing the expected gravitas.”  I pointed it that it was about 1000 years younger than most of the cathedrals we had experienced before. 

Kids, I’m looking forward to showing you a cathedral.  They are magnificent works of art, mostly architectural and sculpture.  There are separate alcoves for dozens of saints, and candles to light during prayers.  St. Therese even had a relic to go with her alcove, though there were not specifics—was it a finger bone, a lock of hair?  Whatever it is, it’s surrounded by gold and a glass case.

This is the podium the priest climbs up to to speak.  And although it’s much taller than I am, it is dwarfed by the church front.

This is the church front!

So good talking to all of you tonight!  See you in four days.

Love,

Mama

PS  Happy 14th Anniversary to you, Babe!  How did you manage to top the Salish Lodge, Vienna, and all the other places you’ve taken me?  This has been the best anniversary ever, Love!

 

Dear Ducklings,

[Squeal!]

When Hamilton comes to Seattle in two years, I’m saving up and taking all 5 of us to see it (and Grandma & Grandpa, too!).  It has spoiled me for other shows.  As Daddy said, “I can’t imagine this being any better.” 

The stage was solid and interesting.  While small props—tables, chairs—came in and out regularly, the backdrop only changed when the staircase was wheeled from one part of the stage to another.

I knew the music well after months of listening to it.  I’ve seen clips on youtube.  I’ve even caught the brief window when someone had (illegally) recorded the show and posted in online before it was quickly removed for copyright infringement.  But the entire show still blew me away.  I even cried when Hamilton died at the end, although before this show hit big, all anyone really remembered about him from high school history is that 1) he was Secretary Treasury and 2) he died in a dual with Aaron Burr, the VPOTUS.  Actually, his death didn’t make me cry as much as Eliza’s epilogue. 

It is easy to criticize the lack of historically important roles of women in US history outside of “wife” but Eliza used the 50 years she had after Alexander died as productively as Alexander did in his own short years.

To honor the women of the Revolution, I picked out this t-shirt.

I had forgotten that musicals are much more than music.  The acting made what was my favorite soundtrack into a great play.  Wesley and I love the King George songs, but they are twice as funny on stage. 

If you want some good clips of Hamilton, here’s some of my favorites:

1) This one is Lin-Manual’s concept piece he did at the 2009 White House Poetry Jam.  It’s almost exactly identical to the final piece,

2) shown here, again at a special White House performance (start at minute 9:00).

3) The entire soundtrack, with lyrics, can be listened to here.

4)  Here’s a short video ad that includes Thomas Jefferson’s What did I Miss?  and the Tony performance of The Battle of Yorktown.

5) King George is Wesley’s favorite. 

6) This NY Times review does Hamilton more justice than I can.

Dear Ducklings,

Today was momentous for a few reasons—we finally made it to Battery Park to take the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry tours….and we took the subway to get there.  Living where we do, we have to drive to public transportation, and what we have access to (buses) makes the trip twice as long, so we don’t “do” public transportation.  But Dwayne is a master map reader.  The concierge handed us a subway map and pointed us in the right direction, and it was great! But back to the Lady.

We got up early, by my standards, at 8:30, but realistically, we should have tried to be at the ferry by then.  The crowds were huge and tickets to the crown look out were sold out four months ago.

(We prepared for Ellis Island by standing in long, hot lines.)

If we had started a few hours earlier today, we probably could have seen the World Trade Center memorial, but it would have been mentally tough to do after the Statue and Ellis.

We also intended to take the subway to Brooklyn and walk back over the bridge, but I derailed that plan.  That story is coming up.

This is a model of Lady Liberty’s torch, one-eighth the scale.  The original torch had to be replaced due to water damage and that electric lights really weren’t up to snuff…in 1886.  This model was used to build the new one. 

The ticket to the island comes with an audio tour, something I always enjoy.  We also did a Park Ranger guided tour that was supposed to last about 30 minutes. An hour later we were still in the same spot as we started and maybe a touch restless.  I got to play the Statue’s artist’s mother in the living drama the ranger storied for us.  In fact, it’s probably my face that the statue is based off (not literally, Wesley!).

New Yorkers swear the backside is not facing Jersey on purpose.

In all the pictures I’ve seen of this Statue, I never realized she was striding forward.  She’s so calm and purposeful.

Which is why my daughters may appreciate this.  When the Statue was finally completed and “open” to the world, woman were not allowed to attend the ceremony.  Being slightly irritated about this, my suffragist sisters protested in boats nearby.  The only woman invited to the ribbon cutting was 300 feet tall, barefoot.

There was surprising controversy surrounding this gift from France.  First of all, many Americans were not enthused about accepting a gift from France at time our nation was still weak, and not willing or able to take sides in petty European disputes.  It was hard to imagine this gift from France came without any future strings attached. 

Also, France was designing, making, and transporting the statue, and the USA just had to built the foundation for it.  If you look at the pictures, the foundation is an old Revolutionary War fort, but then a very tall, very substantial pedestal had to be built on top of that.  Reportedly, America’s cost was greater than France’s.  The statue was almost ready and the pedestal was months and months (and more importantly, more than $100,000) behind.  Joseph Pulitzer used his newspaper power to beg, cajole and bribe–by publishing donor names in his paper–to raise the needed money.

A small anecdote. Upon it’s opening, Great Britain scoffed a bit, in the Times of London, “We wonder why liberty should be sent from France, which has too little, to America, which has too much.”

* * * * * *

After leaving the Statue of Liberty, it was just a short ferry to Ellis Island, where 3 million immigrants came through to find a new life in the United States.  It hasn’t operated as a immigration center for almost 100 years, but statistically, 2 out of every five Americans has an ancestor that come through these gates.

And waited in this huge room for hours and hours, if they were lucky.  (Not too many unlucky one, but those that were suspected of being ill or “degenerate” had many more rooms and exams to go through.  Only about 1% were refused entry, and the ships they came on had to return them to from whence they came, for free.

Leaving the island, we had more practice pretending we were immigrants in the 1890s.

We did finish the subway trip to Brooklyn, but I got distracted by a nearby TKTS counter that sells many day-of Broadway shows at a 30-50% discount—and had no line. I bought us tickets to see Jersey Boys, which nixed our plans to walk the Bridge or see the memorial. 

And it was a disappointment, only in that everything had been so great so far and this was…ho-hum.  I would put the entertainment value less than $20, a fraction of the regular ticket cost.  It’s the story of how Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons began, rose, and fell. I assumed knowing the music would make this a grand slam, but since the music wasn’t fresh, it was hard to make any of the profanity-laced, Jersey ‘hood ethics fresh or interesting. 

Luckily, Hamilton is tomorrow!

I look forward to out next phone call, Ducklings!

Love,

Mama

After sleeping 12 hours on Saturday night, I was determined to get up a little earlier on Monday.  Luckily, we did, and I was able to get one of the hotel cars to drop us off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art!  We got there a little after 10, and stayed until they kicked us out at 5:30—into a lightning storm, but that’s another story.

The Met takes up 4 city blocks near mid-Central Park.  Here’s a stock photo of the front—notice that the entire building cannot fit into the frame.

And here’s Daddy in front of the Met, because I think he’s cute.

Oh, my goodness!  Daddy and I bought our tickets, rented audio tours and went first to the Egyptian Galleries.  After an hour (and time to catch a tour), we realized we had seen almost none of the exhibit.  We learned we had to pace ourselves.  To see the 400 galleries in the 5 hours we had left after the tour, we had to skip some, skim some, and see only the big things in the sections we were in interested in.  And we also split up to go at our own pace.

The goal of the Met is to have a curated display of examples of all types of art from all time periods, beginning thousands of years BC. 

Check out the sarcophagus—that is Dionysus, my namesake, in the middle riding a panther during a big party.  This was carved out of a block of marble and was originally covered in gold leaf. 

Check this out.  In the first photo, the lionish-thing has 5 feet (the view you are not supposed to see).

If you were entering the throne room appropriately, you’d see the creature “moving”, like this:

When you were inside the throne room, the guardian animal would stand at attention, just so:

There was a dress/costume/textile section that was fascinating.  I believe Daddy skipped this.  The theme was technology and fashion.  This dress was designed and manufactured on a 3D printer.

Here’s a gallery of the funky fashions:

I loved the Tiffany stained glass exhibit.  The first is just a little something ripped from the front of Tiffany’s dream house and now flanks the American wing.

get closer

and closer

and closer!

[Oh, and opposite from the Tiffany front is the front of an old New York Bank. The building was being torn down, so the Met saved the front of the building to serve as the entrance to their America exhibits.]

Daddy and I both probably like sculpture best.  The best sculptures seems so alive and natural that you completely forget it began as a block of marble.  This embraces that block:

Hercules (who killed the Lion of Somewhere and likes to wear the pelt) shows up twice in the Greek and Roman gallery:

Here’s an incomplete sarcophagus.  The best guess is that he died first and no one got around to finishing her face.

Oh, Kyla, the ancient Egyptian gallery.  Actually, it was dozens of galleries, but here’s the most impressive: The Temple of Dendor.  The Egyptians were going to flood an area where this temple ruin stood, so they gave? sold? donated? it to the US and it ended up in it’s own private room at the Met.

I’ve heard of this happening, but today I got to witness it—200 year old graffiti among the ancient hieroglyphs!
See if you can spot it (hint, anything you can read is graffiti!).

Where was the Sphinx 200 years ago when those punks got out their chisels?

And here’s a few mummies and papyrus for kicks.

And you’ll recognize these as well.

There are so many paintings, but here’s just two (so I’m skipping approximately 5000 of them). 
The first, a famous portrait of Alexander Hamilton.

The second—wow!  I admire the technique used to paint this dress!

I lied.  I thought I liked sculpture best, but there were several recreations of rooms—especially in Royal French styles, and other ultra-opulent fashions.  They were all under low light, first to be somewhat authentic from the times of candle chandeliers, and secondly, I’m certain, to protect the elegant and very old furniture, some belonging to Marie Antoinette.  Without flash, I got very little worth showing you, but here’s a few.

Piper, this is for you.  Look closely at this room. Do you see what made me think of you?

Check out this fancy dog kennel in the middle of the parlor!

Kyla, the medieval period pieces were legion.  A lot of it was religious and altar pieces—so much Mary and Baby Jesus!  But I took pictures of the armor for you.

Look at all the creative ways to stab someone.

But check out this beautiful marble-inlaid period piece.  It weights about 11000 pounds and takes a dozen men several days to move it. 

Probably it’s base has something to do with its heft.

I raced through the contemporary and modern art, but I was stopped on a staircase by something strongly reminiscent of Wesley.  This picture is not upside down.

Faberge (FAB-ri-jay) eggs are rare jeweled treasures, and only have the shape, not calcium, of eggs.

We did have to leave at the 5:30 closing.  It was between showers, and I wanted to circle the Met to find Hatshepsut’s Needle, an obelisk, also originally from ancient Egypt, placed as to be seen from inside the Temple exhibit.

We found it, then ran for covering as the lightning and thunder were coming close together.  Piper, this is the tunnel we ducked into, probably for about an hour  (I had a copy of the NY Times, and Daddy his phone, so we were set for a long time).

Once we crawled out of our shelter (you’d never believe we were Seattleites!), I had it in my head I wanted a warm, gooey, deep dish New York pizza. We walked a few miles to a place with great reviews…that no longer existed.  The only other place on the street was a tiny, classic hole-in-the-wall, Zagat-rated, Italian restaurante.  We consoled ourselves over the loss of pizza with a glass of chianti and homemade lasagna, antipasto, and chocolate soufflé before the long walk back to the hotel, to soak in the bath while watching Michelle Obama give an awesome speech from the bathroom TV. 

This makes me grit my teeth AND rejoice at the same time.  Mostly, I think I’m fascinated that our language evolves so observably.

“THEY”

by Fiona Macdonald from BBC

The voice shouted from the crowd, in the manner of a rabble-rousing protestor on a march. But this was no banner-waving activist, and the crowd in this instance was made up of members of the 127-year-old American Dialect Society. “We need to accept ‘they’, and we need to do it now,” came the linguist’s cry, and at that moment an otherwise apolitical event took on an unexpected edge.

The Society was meeting in Washington DC to decide on its Word of the Year for 2015. Of all the possible candidates – which included ‘ghost’, ‘ammosexual’ and ‘Thanks, Obama’ – its final choice was an apparently straightforward pronoun. On the face of it, ‘they’ is hardly trailblazing. But what is controversial is the acceptance of a new way of using it. The Society’s website explains that “’They’ was recognised by the society for its emerging use as a pronoun to refer to a known person, often as a conscious choice by a person rejecting the traditional gender binary of ‘he’ and ‘she’.”

Singular appeal

She points to one example that indicates we could embrace ‘they’ as a singular pronoun. “There is a parallel in the history of English. We used to have ‘you’ contrasting with ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, and now we happily use ‘you’. We say ‘you go to the store’, not ‘you goes to the store’ – even if addressing a single individual, we still use the plural verb form,” she says. “People don’t seem to be upset about that – why can’t we do the same with ‘they’? Just let it expand to do this job.”

In 2015, The Washington Post adopted the singular ‘they’ in its style guide, with copy editor Bill Walsh describing it as “the only sensible solution to English’s lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun”. This kind of action is .”

Dear Ducklings,

Times Square would make Kyla spontaneously combust.  Daddy’s head nearly exploded, and neither of us wanted to linger.  Times Square is the part of NYC where every surface seems to be lit up with flashing lights, ginormous screens, fast moving videos and 100 foot tall ads.  And one or two people. Or more.

Characters wanted to take pictures with you (for tips).

I did not take pictures of the women wearing body paint…and little else.  I was trying hard to not to stare myself.

There was an entire store dedicated to Hershey products and merchandise.  I did not buy this for you because Hershey’s 1) is lousy chocolate and 2) exploits children overseas to make its product.  But the store was fascinating in a weird way.

We walked around the whole area and decided that seeing a matinee would be fun…and get us out of the 98 degree heat.  We chose Paramour by Cirque de Soliel (click here to see some of the amazing stunts). It’s a story, but a somewhat loose backdrop for what is a lot of song-and-dance numbers gilded with Olympic-level athleticism.  We really enjoyed it!

You’d be amazed at the theater—it has splendid chandeliers, velvet curtains, painted ceilings and gilded decorations, none of what I captured well on the camera.

After the show, we dawdled so I could take some pictures.  When we went out into the lobby, a crowd had formed around a team from the show. She is standing en pointe (on her tippy toes) on his shoulders!

 

It was 4:30 and we were ready to tackle NYC again.  We headed for the Highline, an old elevated train track converted into a park.  It’s really jut a long walking path, a few stories above the street.  It wasn’t as beautiful as I had pictured, but we had a lovely walk.

There was a funny “car” made out of old tires as an art installation.

The end of this park put us out a long way from anything, and we decided to meander through Greenwich Village.  After an odd experience with a very intoxicated Peruvian, in which we tried to take his picture for him and he sat on the railing, toppled over onto his head, and couldn’t get himself back up, we decided to start hoofing it back the 33+ blocks back to a Brazilian restaurant we chose earlier. 

The crowds got noticeable, well, crowdier as we got closer to Times Square. More people meant more creativity, and one guy used spray paint and a scraper to make amazing art. It took him about 5 minutes.

On the way back to the hotel for the night, we came across Rockefeller Center, a place I had heard of but meant nothing.  BUT!  Well, the flags and lights caught our attention, the statues and water fountains made us linger.

We tried to make it up to the 65th floor to the bar up there, but it was closed for an event.  I didn’t really want the drink, but I did want the experience!

Since we don’t know this area at all, every corner has the potential of a surprise.  We found St. Patrick’s on 5th, the same street as our hotel, and we’ve now added that to our Must See (in the daylight) list. 

When we got back to the hotel room, Daddy tried to draw our path on a digital map.  I’m sure he left out some of our backtracking and circling, but the map spit out 6.8 walking miles today! 

Tomorrow, we’re going to go to either the Metropolitan Museum or the Museum of Natural History.  We have a lot to do and only 6 days to do it all.

It was lovely talking with each of my ducklings tonight.  Until tomorrow!

Love,

Mama

PS Half a block from our hotel, we were bewildered by another crowd, mostly of young people, pointing and running toward something unknown.  It was like a cartoon coming to life.  Daddy was the first to realize they (hundreds of them, broken up only by walk/don’t walk street signals) were playing Pokémon Go.  Here’s Daddy’s summary:

Pokémon Go is terrible.  It’s an affliction upon the city. Yesterday, in Central Park, we became trapped in a sea of stumbling zombies.  Today we faced a herd of people running towards us, led by out-stretched hands clutching their phones. Street crossing signs went unheeded, cabs screeched, people jostled, Pokémon were captured.  I guess.