I’ve been tagged. I thought it was hard enough to come up with five things, let alone eight more. The rules:

The rules are simple…Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) Habit: I read while I eat. This is a terrific habit for Mom’s Nights Out, meaning I can thoroughly enjoy a nice dinner in a restaurant without the hassle of finding some non-busy person to go out with me. It’s not so great for family life. I’m eyeing my son as he sits at his little table, eating with a Highlights magazine in front of him, and wondering if I can break this habit in time to give him the traditional Meals All Together ‘Round the Table. It’s doubtful. If I gave it up, I’d have to find some other time in my day to read books instead of the internet. Which leads to

2) Fact: I am a net addict. (So are you. Close this browser and walk away. Can’t do it, can you?) It started in college. It’s awful. Self-discipline? What’s that? Someday I’ll break free.

3) Fact: I am simply not a pet person. I wish I were; I do look at dogs and crow, “Oh, you’re a good dog,” but I’m obsessive about having clean hands, and petting animals on a regular basis doesn’t fit with that. And my house is dirty enough without dog or cat hair all over it, thanks. Other than hygiene, I do have a pretty good excuse:

4) Fact: I am deathly allergic to cats. With some breeds of cat, after an hour in the house with them I start to wheeze as though my lungs are filling up. Not. Nice. I am slightly allergic to dogs, but compared to the cat allergy, not so’s you notice.

5) Fact: James Taylor picked me out of a gaggle of embarrassingly behaved women to shake hands with at the end of a concert in Chicago. You know those stories about women throwing their underwear at performers? I used to think they were largely exaggerated, but now I’m sure some morons do that. No panties were flaunted at this event, but women were leaning onto the stage as far as they could, yelling stuff like, “Come home with me, James!!” I stood in the front row horribly embarrassed for the rest of my sex, clapping and cheering and trying to ignore them. He finished singing “Sweet Baby James,” took his bow, then scanned the row of frenzied women and apparently decided I was harmless. Thank you, James, for your talent (and taste!).

6) On the subject of celebrity encounters, fact: One of my ex-boyfriends worked for a TV station that had its own in-house afternoon kids’ show, starring one of my BF’s buddies as a clown. They brought in lots of minor-to-moderate celebrities for this show, with the result that BF once spent the day escorting John de Lancie, of Q fame. Yes, all right, that’s a fact about somebody else, really. I can’t help it, I like celebrity encounters–

7) I do my best to gin up a cool exterior to hide the fact that inside I’m a giggly, melty fangirl. Sometimes I succeed.

8) I got my first passport today. No plans to travel outside the country yet, but I’m excited nevertheless.

Righto, eight facts for your edification and amusement. Now the eight tags: Sarah, Petitedov, Mad William Flint, nk, Xrlq, Slublog, Chris, Allen.

These are fun enough, except the facts about me are boring enough. I’ve got an idea or two for a meme of my own to spread in future.

“Mommy, what does ‘frustrated’ mean? What does ‘frustrated’ mean? What does ‘frustrated mean? …”

It, um, wasn’t rain.

That was on a Sunday night after I’d seen a movie downtown. Tonight, Sunday night, I saw a movie at the same theater and walked back up the same street to get back to my car. It sprinkled … something … on me from the same building. Uuuggghh.

By coincidence I parked my car on the same street as a guy also seeing the same movie as I was … he said, “Maybe it’s just somebody with a kitchen sprayer at an open window.”

I gotta tell ya, I hope that’s all it was.

And next time I see a movie downtown, I walk on the effing other side of the street.

Day two was the day of the subway system. I dived down into the station two blocks from my hotel, snaked my MetroCard out of the machine, and proceeded to slide it through the slot to the left of my turnstile rather than the right. When I realized my error and slid it through the correct slot, the computer naturally thought I was trying to game it (at $7.00 for an all-day pass, it doesn’t account for individual rides but for more than one use of the same card within 18 minutes) and refused me entry. I pleaded my case to the attendant, who let me through the gate. Down the island, first stop Trinity Church as aforementioned, then onto the ferry for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t get off at Liberty Island; only took some pictures from the boat. Exhibits at Ellis Island were quite moving. My feelings on the current immigration hoo-ha can be summed up in a few sentences: I am in favor of allowing in almost any sound, sane, upstanding, law-abiding person who wants a) to become a U.S. citizen or b) to be educated at one of our universities. But the fact that our immigration policies in the past have stilted this ideal is no excuse for circumventing them. Secure the border first. Decide what to do about illegals afterward. Make the whole process more streamlined for future applicants. And screen the immigration status of all those who are arrested for any reason and deport immediately all such who are here illegally. But Ellis was a grand sight and quite moving in its depiction of those who came here seeking both to stay and make a better life.

After a brief stop at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, also as aforementioned, where you can see the Long Room where Washington said goodbye to his officers, I visited St. Paul’s Chapel. Impressive, but its native architectural beauty is marred by the ugly pink and powder blue interior decorating scheme.

St. Paul’s served as a rally point and aid-and-comfort zone during the atrocity of 9/11, located as it is adjacent to Ground Zero, my next focus. Ladder/Engine Company No. 10, also adjacent to the WTC, which took multiple hits in personnel and building that day:

My favorite sight at Ground Zero is the new WTC 7, rising serenely over the rather tortured landscape of whatever construction is evidently taking place, though not very quickly, on the site of the Twin Towers:

Finally, my last church of the day: over the threshold into St. Patrick’s Cathedral:

While I was inside this awe-inspiring structure, the sun came out:

The day ended with a trip up the Empire State Building at about 11 p.m., after I’d found my Italian restaurant from the previous night and, if you can believe it, was let through the gate again by a subway attendant after scurrying into the station, swiping my card, and realizing I’d left my cell phone back at the hotel. Back to the hotel, back to the station, where again the computer thought I was trying to cheat the subway out of $7. The attendant wasn’t as forgiving as the morning one, but he let me through eventually, thinking: Rube.

I have a bit more NYC stuff to toss out, but I’m using a family visit as an excuse for extra laziness. Regular blogging, including, I swear, what should now be called the Whenever Tolkien, resumes soon.

Trinity Church, in whose graveyard lie buried Alexander Hamilton and Robert Fulton:

The Met. My guidebook advised me to “pick one or two galleries and just see a few other things on your way to and from them so you don’t get burned out.” It’s good advice though disheartening if you ever want to see the whole or even most of the museum. I saw the Temple of Dendur:

and the American Wing, where I liked Winslow Homer somewhat less than I expected to and totally fell in love with one Elijah Boardman, as painted by Ralph Earl. The other American painters were uneven for me–no one painter got my unqualified recommendation, but I liked several of the individual works very much. I was amused by the information card for Washington Crossing the Delaware, though the blurb in the link is different from the one on the wall at the Met–did you know that painting was a success because it appealed to the strong feeling of nationalism in the country at the time? Silly me, I thought that sectionalism was by far the stronger force in the country in 1851, the time of the painting, and that its success might be due to the fact that nobody didn’t like George Washington, North or South.

My favorite painting may have been, ironically for the American Wing, of Queen Victoria, by Thomas Sully. Again the blurb in the link doesn’t match what’s on the wall, and the wall blurb was interesting. Paraphrased: “Sully chose the moment of her physical and literal ascension [in the finished painting, she was climbing the stairs to the throne] to show her humanity and femininity”–she looks beautiful and delicate, but strong.

What I really liked in the American Wing was the furniture, especially a little Greek Revival chair called a “klismos chair.” Greek Revival furniture was quite the thing during the Revolution and for a while afterward, and I enjoyed seeing the chairs again when I visited the Fraunces Tavern Museum the next day:

More tomorrow …

Walking through Manhattan on a sunny day:

That’s 77th St. east of Broadway, on the way to Central Park, where apparently you can fish, which would please my mother no end:

What pleases me is being able to get so many places you want to go in Manhattan by walking. I didn’t step in a cab or a subway the first day, although later in the afternoon I got living proof that normal people are able and allowed to drive in Manhattan when I rode with PetiteDov and her oh-so-preppy boyfriend from the Met to an Italian restaurant, the Trattoria, which is such a common name that you must have a location, but the exact location of which I’ve forgotten after misremembering the street corner when I wanted to go back to it on my last night. (Yeah, I was all wound up before I went about where I would eat dinner on the various nights, but in the end I spent my time on the sights and went back to the same convenient finds for food.) I found it, on the east side of Columbus and 80-something St. Good food, rather nonchalant service. Right, the walking–I walked through Central Park shortwise:

and after perusing the various sidewalk vendors, bought The Bean a little elephant carved out of soapstone, I think. The sculptor had many different animals in various sizes–I commented on the work it must take to carve the tiny ones, no bigger than half an inch wide. He was pleased–“People don’t usually get that the little ones are the hardest”–and remarked of my elephant choice that all his elephants have their trunks aloft because it’s a symbol of “removing barriers to forward progress.” On we go, then. The Metropolitan Museum of Art:

I just love this place, despite having been there only twice in my life now (thrice if you count the fact that I went twice on this day in question) and despite being enough of a rube not to notice that the surprising $20 entrance fee is a suggested donation. Ah well. It’s worth it. It has a mystique from my childhood regardless of the fact that I never saw it in my childhood: Didn’t you ever read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? Claudia, tired of being taken for granted at home, saves her allowance, packs her clothes into her violin case, recruits her brother Jamie, who supplements his income by cheating at cards, and they run away to live in the Metropolitan for a good many days, living on Automat food and bathing in the museum fountain, before they’re lured out by the mystery of Angel, a statue that might have been carved by Michaelangelo but nobody knows for sure. Oh, boloney, Claude. Why do you always pick on my gra[mmar]… / Boloney, boloney! That’s it, Jamie! She bought Angel in Bologna, Italy …

Great book. Great museum. More tomorrow.

So, New York. The trip was great. I got in a wild hurry to buy tickets that seemed like a good buy at Expedia, so I completed the transaction without considering the stupidity of flying straight south (to San Francisco) before moving even a mile east, as well as the time problems connected with arriving at JFK at 8 p.m. and then trying to drop stuff off at my hotel before hitting the blogger party. Also, you haven’t had fun until you’ve been in your layover airport and gotten the news that people were arrested for plotting to blow up the airport you’re headed for. Ineptly, as it turns out, thank God. Anyway I didn’t have to worry about the 8 p.m. arrival, because thanks to ATC at SFO, which seems to shut down under fog, which of course never occurs in San Francisco, I missed my connection and landed at JFK at 10:30 instead. Fortunately the bloggers are a night-owl bunch, for the most part.

In New York, I stayed at the Hotel Belleclaire, where they say Mark Twain once stayed and Max Gorky was once thrown out for staying with a woman other than his wife (“This is a family hotel!”). I can recommend it, unless it’s raining. It’s an old building with window A/C units, which isn’t a problem in itself, but when it rains it sounds like somebody’s letting off jumping jacks on top of them. My mom, bemused at my weakness: “The rain kept you awake?” Me: “Mother, I said it sounded like firecrackers.” Otherwise the hotel was clean, quiet, and a nice walk from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum:

The Manhattan Diner, just across Broadway from the Belleclaire, where I ate all my breakfasts:

I love to eat alone because that’s when I read. My book, Vol. I of the three-volume bio of Churchill that, appallingly, William Manchester left incomplete at his death, accompanied me to the diner, then went back to the room during the days while I wandered the town. Being in a strange city by myself brings out the people watcher in me, although only marginally–gotta read, after all. But the second day it was pouring the firecracker rain, so the Manchester got a protective covering of plastic shopping bag for the jog across Broadway. I was amused to imagine what other potential people watchers in the diner were thinking of me: Then she pulled a simply enormous book out of a plastic grocery bag!

Manchester and I passed the breakfast hours agreeably, then it was off to sight-see. More tomorrow.

Regular blogging, including what should now be called the Biweekly Tolkien, resumes tomorrow.

I know, it’s Cliche–but I’ve been a Billy Joel fan for … 18 years or so, so I’m entitled.

I’m home after a three-night stay in the Big Apple. It was great. I’ll have a couple pictures up soon. Thanks to Karol for setting up a blogger party. Many cool bloggers were present, several of whom were shocked to discover that I am, in fact, a girl. “We thought you were a guy!” was my number-one received comment of the night when I told my blog name. I’m going to assume that means I’m hard-headed and logical in other blogs’ comments and not really think much farther than that.

And special thanks to PetiteDov and her shy, retiring boyfriend for great company, conversation, and hospitality my first day in the city.

It sprinkled rain here tonight out of a clear blue sky.

Kid you not.

Back from vacation. After flying 3,000 miles and back with a three-year-old, I may need another vacation in a couple weeks.

I got a haircut today, and amid some standard mommy-son tickling/general “woolling,” as my mother used to call it, he mussed my hair with the following dialogue:

“Are your hairs long?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I like your hairs long.”

Woo! Validation! Followed immediately by this declaration:

“I’m tying Mommy’s hair together.”