Allaire State Park - Re-enactment of vote of 1836
Yesterday we had the fun of visiting Allaire State Park in Farmingdale, New Jersey, including the historic village and the train ride. The historic village featured Election Day 1836 – should women get the vote? The man without a hat was arguing with the women suffragettes to his right that that was a ridiculous notion.
The actors played their roles with great oomph and and in an impromptu fashion – they talked directly to the audience (there was no stage, and we were part of the show). The boy on the right was handing out blue ballots for his party, and he handed them only to the men in our party (my husband and a friend), but not to the women. I joked that I could influence my husband’s vote by telling him for whom to vote. My daughter and her friend, however, wanted the pink ballot party to win, no matter what the agenda, so they kept sneaking into the building to cast ballots for the pink party. They succeeded once or twice, but they also got caught and got a good “scolding” – all in good fun.
I wasn’t allowed to photograph the insides of the Allaire Village buildings – too bad, there was a lot of good history. We took the short train ride near the village at the end of our day. I’ll post the train another day, but here’s a great ghoulish guy at the train stop. He’s just there around Halloween time, have no fear.
For more photos with a little red or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Welcome back to another round of What Do You See? Here is a drawing my daughter did on Thursday, and with her permission, I ask you, what’s in the drawing?
Can someone remind me to put this “sukkah decoration” in JPIX, the Jewish Photobloggers Blog Carnival?
And I’ve started to put up some posts on my new tech blog, such as this one on 6 Ways to Learn jQuery. Please send your technically-oriented or small business minded friends (or yourself, if you wish to be) to my posts. In general, I’m looking for topic ideas for that blog. I tend to be a perfectionist about what I post, so you may not see me posting often in the beginning, but I’m hoping inspiration will allow me to post at least once a week.
About to go on a little journey by horse around Cold Springs Historic Village
Can you think of any famous journeys? I asked some friends, and we came up with these:
Journey of the Children of Israel from Egypt through the desert to the Land of Israel
Travels of Christopher Columbus
Explorations of Magellan, Sir Francis Drake, Lewis and Clark
Donner Party
The band Journey
The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela
Man’s travel to the Moon
Other space expeditions, like the tragic Challenger trip
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Exodus by Leon Uris
Marco Polo, Jacques Cartier, Vasco de Gama, Captain Cook
Commute to New York City every day
Odysseus, Jason
Hegira, the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D
Byrd, Peary, Scott and Amundsen: journey to the Poles
Laura Ingalls Wilder – journey through the places she lived in the U.S.
Dorothy’s journey to Oz (and back to Kansas)
Bilbo’s and Frodo’s journeys in Middle Earth
Finding parking in New Brunswick, New Jersey
On the Road, by Jack Kerouac
Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
After 1948 many Jews fled Muslim countries – most went to Israel, some to France and to the U.S.
Journey of the 12 spies into the Land of Canaan/Israel
Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne
Pilgrims travel to America (as did later many others from Europe and elsewhere)
Lady Godiva’s 11th century ride through Coventry to protest her husband’s excessive taxation of his subjects
In this week’s parsha of Lech Lecha, God tells Avram (he is not yet Avraham) to go forth from the land of his birth and travel to another land. According to the commentator Rashi, one is liable to lose three things by journeying: a trip can inhibit the birth of children, decrease one’s wealth and lessen one’s fame (lose one’s reputation). So God blesses Avram accordingly so he will have many children, wealth and he will become a great nation (fame).
So do any of the famous journeys we mention fit into the three categories mentioned by Rashi? As a loss or as a gain? Can you think of any other well-known journeys? Do people lose children, wealth or reputation on these journeys? Or do they gain them?
Woven and embroidered cloth at Cold Springs Historic Village, Cape May
At Cold Spring Historic Village in Cape May, New Jersey, you can watch women spin wool and weave cloth.
Hilarious Hairdresser fixing Rapunzel's hair in the play Rapunzel
My daughter, her friend, her friend’s mom and I had the pleasure of attending the play Rapunzel at the Forum Theatre in Metuchen, New Jersey. When you attend a play at the Forum, you are in for a treat. The actors talked directly to us from the stage; in the second half of the show, they went through the aisles of the audience. Some of the play was narrated, and much of it was bursts of creative song. I had a feeling when the witch showed up, she was not going to be all that scary. Indeed, by the end, she was one of the good guys (and there were only four actors, so they were all good guys). Here’s a photo of the witch signing her autograph outside the theater for my daughter:
My daughter thought the prince was the funniest actor, the way he reacted to the witch. Here’s a line from one of his songs, when he is bemoaning his poor luck as a prince: “Never come with a dragon – I only come with a cold.” At one point he pretends to be the witch, and my daughter thought that was SO funny! I found Simon, his valet, was amusing and versatile in the many roles he played (he’s in the top photo as a hairdresser).
Looks like the next children’s play at the Forum is The Three Little Pigs. You can fan the Forum Theatre on Facebook to keep up with their events. The set of the play: ladder, chair, garden, throne
Hungry? Not sure what to cook? Head over to the Kosher Cooking Carnival #46 hosted by Mimi. Enjoy this month’s recipes, and while you are there, check out Mimi’s blog – she has many tasty recipes that she shares, and she sometimes has posts of cultural life in Israel or her trips within the country.
It’s fun to revisit one’s summer vacation when autumn is in full swing. Here are murals from a house in Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, New Jersey.
The murals were not painted in the 18th or 19th centuries, the periods the village is supposed to represent, but in the 1990’s by an artist who decided to depict what she thought life was like during those periods.
Maybe this is supposed to be the mural painter, teleported back in time? The village is fun and friendly, though our visit did have its anachronistic moments, like when the tour guide’s cell phone rang when she was explaining the layout of the old schoolhouse.
For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Pink and Rose Volunteer Chrysanthemum near White Alyssum
This “volunteer” chrysanthemum (I didn’t plant it; it’s right next to a large, red chrysanthemum bush that I did plant) showed up this autumn in shades of pink and rose. The yellow petaled flower is one of my rudbeckia (black-eyed susan).
Ilana-Davita talks about what it means to obey, and what it means to listen. Mrs. S. comments about the student who does exactly what told to do vs. the student who takes the assignment to the next level. Speaking of Mrs. S., she is wondering how she should rename her blog.
I am planning to write a post on soup – what’s your favorite? If you have a link to a soup recipe, feel free to put it in the comments, and maybe it will appear in the post.
