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. 

Dear Ducklings,

Daddy and I checked into our hotel about 5:30 this evening—because of the different time zones, it was 2:30 where you are! 

This is how our flight began, breaking through the clouds to see Mount Rainier looking like an island through the clouds.  Daddy was already snoozing by this altitude, so he missed it.

The hot humidity smacked us with a wet towel as we left the airport, but our hotel is divine.  I will have to take pictures to show you tomorrow, but at the top of the hotel is the pool, spa, and sundeck, which this pictures peeks down onto.

The sundeck also has a lovely garden filled with many of the herbs the hotel restaurant uses in their dishes.

From the hotel’s rooftop, we can see Central Park. Can you spot all the green a few blocks down? (The blue netting is surrounding the reconstruction of a church next door.)

Once we got unpacked and changed, the Park drew us like a magnet.  This is the Delacorte Musical Clock. Click here to see a video of why it’s so cool.  We happened to walk by it just as it was chiming, otherwise I wouldn’t have known how charming it is!

We walked quite a distance in the park but barely scratched the surface before we had to veer off to find dinner. Even so briefly, there were heaps of things I wish all you could see for yourself!  You’d have to do lots of walking, but it just makes dinner taste that much better.

I think we will try to do a bus tour tomorrow!

Love to you all,

Mama

Last October, we took a picture of all the Kruger cousins, and yours truly, as babies are so sticky they are hard to put down.

Here they are all again, 7 months later (with and without bottle)!

I also got a picture of the girls!

And ice cream!

Piper and Cecily have more in common than liking their picture being taken, but we’ll focus on that for now.

Even since Jack first came to Seattle, we have a standing date to go to the zoo.  Jack is Talinn and Daniel’s firstborn, and now he has to be referred to as such, as there is now a second born (or Omega, as Dwayne and I like to think we popularized…about 7 years ago).  Elise is almost a  year old, and Kyla, Piper, and I liked to borrow her whenever we could during their visit.

Talinn and I packed up, and took all 5 kids to Woodland Park.  The kids spent significant time as wolf pups, and had a howling good time!