Posts….

Rent-Seasons of Love

6,700,000 minutes running, 235,000 odd minutes left. (–and counting).

How do you measure—-

Measure success?

Measure a life?

A gritty, sad, uplifting tale, tossed into the 1990’s in NYC and it is iconic now. Just the other day I was in the city for the afternoon, on a no particular destination roam-about. And walking past The Nedelander Theater, the walls covered with graffiti caught me as they do, and the wash of a variety of emotions churned around in my mind.

My daughter Arlie fell in love with Rent way back in the 8th grade, 10 years ago. I closed my eyes and could see her smiling face as she opened the envelope on Christmas morning with her tickets to Rent. She lived with the CD in her Walkman, all the lyrics committed to memory. And it’s probably on her Ipod at this moment.

Another vision of Arlie and I, walking through the smoky, dusty streets of Manhattan on September the 15 or 16 2001, on our way to purchase tickets to Rent so her soon to be step-sister could see the show.

We stood on Broadway in the dusky late afternoon as a parade of heavy machinery, designed to tear things apart, crept southward, and the more final implications of their actions reached deep inside our aching hearts; because those behemoths were all but declaring no one would be found living in the rubble, Guilani’s continued TV proclamations of searching longer to the contrary. It was a quiet moment on Broadway, the same thought probably flitting through every persons mind.

Rent has been on Broadway, it occurs to me, most of Arlie’s conscious life. All of her adult life. And now she is graduating from college next month (FINALLY ;} ) and Rent will be closing soon too. All around us, things change, grow,move on.

It seems fitting I think, that maybe tickets to Rent could be a part of her graduation celebration. It’s always been there for her so far. Guess I need to find out how difficult it will be to find some tickets to the show.

So how odd indeed, to come home and find an article in the New York Times on the actual genesis of the Wall at the Nederlander? It’s an interesting article… Click here!

Look at my Flickr photos (to the right) for the photos I took last week.

The Ides of March….and other ramblings

well, no this has NOTHING at all to do with foreboding,  but Happy Ides of March sounds off, don’t you think? …And I am about two days too early for St Pat…but then again, I am Irish year round–not to mention a Patricia and  a Green,  so Happy St Patricks Day early….

I see my last post was for Dad’s birthday…that seems so long ago, until you figure that was way close to the end of the month–oh, heck; yeah its been a long time since I have updated.

 No real excuses. I celebrated my 43rd birthday with considerably less fanfare than my 42nd…(42 being the meaning and purpose of life and all that… you can check out last years blog for how I spent my day)

As an early birthday gift, every year I spend the weekend before at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt show in Hampton.  This year I finally made the leap and purchased a ‘real’ machine. The Viking Sapphire 830, with a 10″ throat, for me to hopefully be able to master machine quilting this year.  Thanks Nana, who left me a small sum of money, that I used for the purchase. I wanted to buy something she would approve of with the money, and not allow it to fritter away on those silly bills.

And as a late birthday gift, my brother-in-law Joe gave me a computer. Yep, really. He tinkers with them (hey it keeps him off the streets) and he cobbled together a pretty nifty set-up with a monitor that needs its own room…but free is free, and greatly appreciated….and I have almost found enough room in my studio for it. That has required the wholesale shifting of almost every item in there. Good practice for spring cleaning.

Speaking of spring cleaning, you know that my husband is reminded often that he did NOT marry me for my domestic prowess. (as this is a PG place WHY he married me is NONE of your business  LOL) I maintain that housework belongs at the BOTTOM of any list of things to do. I have a sign in my kitchen that reads “A clean kitchen is a sign of a wasted life!”

But did you know that housework is dangerous; possibly even fatal to electronics? Last week, like the good wife I am, I decided to do laundry (and NO, it wasn’t ONLY because you had to climb over the dirty stuff to get into the bathroom). Well, Timmy had been out in the garage playing cars, and had tossed his dirty clothes onto the pile. I was doing towels and sweats and in they went.

Lo and behold the next morning, who is muttering all through the house, trying to figure out where his Nano went?  Now, just let me stop for a minute and tell you that Timmy is just this side of OCD about emptying his pockets.

Yep, you guessed it. I washed Nano.

Turns out the gods were with me, and it’s not a particularly rare thing to have happen.  I googled washing your nano of course and discovered it was probably most thoroughly dead, but sit it out for a few days to dry before you bury it was the advice I located.

And do you know it worked? About 4 days after it’s tumble through the machine (it was rescued before the dryer) Timmy plugged it in and it worked! Catastrophe averted.

But I’m still a little leary about housework.

So, what else do we have going on this spring? *(yes, the nice thing about here is it’s mostly spring…my daffodils are almost GONE already)

Heading north next weekend to catch up with family for Easter, Connecticut here we come.  Spend a day in Manhattan, and possibly pop by Dad’s house on the way back to see how he’s doing. 

 Give a good thought to him when you have a chance— he just had some lung cancer surgeries, but he’s fiesty and ready for battle…. you can catch up with him and keep a closer eye on his life by checking in at http://countryjoesblog.com/ , since he shares more readily with people there whats going on medically.

Happy Birthday Dad! (a new years resolution story)

happy happy day…. =)

Joseph Kevin Caseyclick image for more photos

ok, on to my new years resolution…(yes there is a connection!) A bit late to the game you say? Well, come on. Should something of the magnitude of a year long promise be relegated to a night of party-ing, and one-up-manship when listing your resolutions? Of course not. (hey, I was in bed before the ball dropped,  but a ‘me-too-er’ I’m not)

Resolve away on that night and are you destined to failure? Timmy hopes so, so he can get back to getting INTO the gym and not having to wait in a line for equipment (I have tried to convince him hiking from the way back parking lot constitutes his warm-up)

My resolution may be late, but it’s arrived with some forethought.

–SCAN all the family photographs.–

  • once and for all, gather all the genealogical images that are in this house
  •  scan
  • Identify
  • touch-up
  • Burn CD’s
  • upload to Flickr
  • share with family

Simple, eh? Surely you jest. Have you any idea how many photos I have? I fear to say thousands, but in the high hundreds at least. I will then carefully box and put away the originals, and be able to call upon an image at the stroke of a few keys, instead of tossing the house upside down because I can “see” it in my head and “know” I own it.

This is the part where you come in! When you go off to view the photos I upload (and I am going to be doing this in small bits) –do you recognize anyone? Any place? Have I mis-identified someone? Does looking at the photos remind you of a story about a family member? Pass the information on to me please!

Next, do YOU have any family photos sitting around that you would like me to scan for you? (this means you —clarks, caseys, franks, bakers, greens –) If so, contact me about sending them my way and I will get them archived and back to you quickly.

So, WHY did this become my resolution? Well, sadly I recieved a call a week or so back informing me that Bill Casey III passed away. During a conversation with his lovely daughter Barbara, a discussion of the ‘Casey’ nose ensued. I was telling her I believed it to be a Carr trait and got ready to email her ‘proof’, but alas, I was lost by the lack of being able to lay my hands on the images easily. (when I get all the appropriate photos pulled together, we can re-visit this concept) 

And the Happy Birthday connection? Dad’s birthday just happened along as I came across a bunch of his photos to  scan. So I decided to be ‘cruel’ and post some images so you can see what a cutie he was, once upon a time! Click on the baby  to see lots more photos, and on the WORD “Dad’s” highlighted to go to his blog, and via that visit his virtual world and drop him some birthday wishes! 

Don’t forget to leave a comment!!