Look and Tell Drawing

animo
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?

Have fun with this.

Review with Autumn Leaves

Yellow and Orange Maple Leaves in Edison, New Jersey
Yellow and Orange Maple Leaves in Edison, New Jersey

On My Blog

red_painter witch_autograph Pink and Rose Volunteer Chrysanthemum near White Alyssum

Famous Journeys – Thanks to all who participated.

Elsewhere in the Blogosphere

  • Some fall foliage favorites: Ellie Vellie, EG Wow!, Rambling Woods, Carletta
  • 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.

Famous Journeys

About to go on a little journey by horse around Cold Springs Historic Village
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
  • A Fantastic Voyage, The Fantastic Journey (I had to look these up)
  • 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?

Last year I wrote about Oaks, Terebinths or Plains.
Ilana-Davita writes about a spiritual journey for man and an individual relationship between man and God.

Thursday Challenge: Cloths

Woven and embroidered cloth at Cold Springs Historic Village, Cape May
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.

This week’s Thursday Challenge theme is CLOTHS (Colorful, Unusually, Fashionable, Komonos, Sari, Suits,…).

Rapunzel in Metuchen, New Jersey

Hairdresser fixing Rapunzel's hair in the play Rapunzel
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:
witch_autograph
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
The set of the play: ladder, chair, garden, throne

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