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This is a photograph of the delicious Christmas flan we had on Christmas Eve. And then, oh yeah, fresh strawberries!!!

Christmas in New York City

I took a walk the other evening to check out the Holiday lights in Manhattan. What surprised me was the limited decorations. Except for the areas where there is always some kind of visual holiday delight the rest of the city was quite unadorned. It was less than a week away from Christmas and most of the store windows were sorrowfully clad in some semblance of the holiday or at best a winter theme. This photo made me begin to look more closely at how the city has nearly hidden decorations.

At dusk when the mob outside of Macy's is a crush of bodies walking around the building on 34th St. and 6th Ave. there were some things to see, but I preferred looking up to get a full view of the city and her jewels!!!

There was a giant lone star hanging suspended over one of the major city streets.

But for me the most interesting view was not just the tree at Rockefeller Center, because even though the tree this year was as huge as ever, when I took a long look, the tree was dwarfed by the building behind it.

BALLOONS AND WHALES

I was in Time Square the other day and happened upon a balloon promotion for “Imagine, There's No Hunger" an organization established by Yoko Ono aimed at fighting world hunger. It was one of those beautiful bright and brisk New York City autumn days. But for me a shadow was cast across those hundreds of milky white balloons just before they were released enabling them to float up into the sky. I'm not a naysayer nor do I like to rain on anyone's parade, though since I learned that these latex bubbles frequently cause the death of whales and dolphins, I can no longer help but object to these kinds of balloon promotions.

It’s not just children’s party balloons that cause harm to sea life, weather balloons released into the atmosphere also are a part of the problem. The life of a helium balloon is predictable. As the balloon rises, the helium expands and the balloon eventually bursts into many small pieces or the balloon deflates as the helium escapes. Regardless of the demise of the balloon the particles always float back to Earth frequently falling into the oceans.

According to Save The Whales, “Balloons are ingested by whales, dolphins, turtles, seals, fish and water-fowl, which innocently believe they are food such as jellyfish or squid. Recently a young whale was stranded on a New Jersey beach. A balloon lodged in its stomach prevented the passage of food. Other examples are on record of sea life starving to death after swallowing balloons that was mistaken for food. Gerald Eddlemon, an ecologist who works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, suggests that the plastic used in the production of meteorological and astronomical observation balloons be replaced with materials that break down in salt water – or at least remove the chemicals that prevent the balloons from degrading.

There are alternatives to balloon promotions; plant flowers or trees, have children make kites and fly them, launch balloons indoors. Or if you must have a large demonstration using balloons, when handing out balloons also give everyone a sewing needle and break the balloons all at the same time, and then clean up the mess and dispose of the discarded latex in a proper manner. And for a business trying to get the attention of passersby, use colorful windsocks, they have great eye appeal and are reusable. It’s hard to ignore the problem once you realize the potential damage that a helium balloon can cause. Tell your friends to dispose of balloons properly and never let balloons loose into the atmosphere. Because balloons can travel quite long distances, even when a balloon is released miles from water it could quite likely end up in the ocean.

It was just a couple of days before Halloween and the snow began to fall from the sky in huge sloppy flakes. No one really thought it would last very long, but as it turned out the snow kept coming down all day. There was only a couple of inches accumulation and it was certainly pretty to watch. 2 million people lost their electricity and I understand that there are still areas in Conn. as of today Nov. 2, that are still sitting in the dark. But from what I've heard NYC was up and running in no time. In fact, the next day the sun was out and in most areas of the city there was almost no snow visible and only the streets remained wet as though it had simply been a heavy rain the day before. This is a photo of a section of Vancortlandt Park that first day.

A WALK IN VANCORTLANDT PARK

I took a walk in Vancortlandt Park the other day. What glorious light and the view was spectacular from the observation bridge on the small pond!!!

A LITTLE TO THE LEFT