Everything spretty much still closed today- probably a result of the transit shutdown. Lots of Police, still very few cars, either parked or driving about. Other than that , it just seems like we had an extra large summer rain storm. Big Puddles, fallen leaves and a few branches, Central park was closed, Riverside park was not closed, but I did not ride down by the river ,like yesteerday. The Hudson had white caps on it, and it was still very windy, sustained at 20 mph and much stronger gusts, particularly at the big intersections and along the River. The West Side Highway was open, with moderate traffic moving quickly. Unfortunately the main part of the storm happened undercover of dark, I fell asleep and didn't wake up until a;most 10. No Sunday news shows-no politics except three Bloomberg press conferences of the City officials congratulating them selves. Endless Hurricane coverage on every channel. The Paper of Record did not deliver today- but it's on line.

Saturday 7 pm August 27 Well, aside from intermittent rain, nothing yet, but we'are under hurricane watch. I went down to the garden to put up "closed signs" in the garden because we got dead branches that could fall on people. Mayor Bloomberg closed the entire transit system at noon today ( all rides were free Friday through today) and Far Rockaway has been evacuated into shelters. The transit system closed at noon because it takes 8 hours to close it down and get all the train cars off the tracks and open air yards out in Queens and into tunnels for safe storage. Then they had to position work cars with pumps into place in the tunnels prone to flooding . I don't know why they had to stop all the busses. Maybe the buss drivers wanted off because the train operators got off. I took a bike ride downtown this afternoon to see what was going on after hearing on the radio that Times square was strangely deserterd. I started to ride down town on the new "bicycle highway" along the river that starts in Riverside park and goes all the way downtown.Riverside Drive was empty of car traffic and there were practiacaly no parked cars. It was more empty than Xmas. Down by the river the water was totally glatt- not a ripple, and but the air was filled with water- not raining, but every once in a while a drop of water would hit your face as you rode along. All the boat moorings were empty, and the house boats in the 79th street basin were tied up close to the docks and shuttered. I started out on the bike highway under the highway but a Parks Police guy shooed the bikers off saying it was closed, and told us we should use the pedestrian way along the river which is normally closed to bikers. The path along the river is pretty nice- better than that failure path along the bay in Sunnyvale. When i got to the part below 59th we were permitted back on the Bike high way along theWest Side Highway which was almost deserted. just a few taxis. Dump trucks were lined up prepared to pick up garbage left by the pending hurricane carnage, but near enough to the river to get caught by the water surge. I rode down to 42nd and decided to go over to Times square . There was almost no traffic on 42nd street, and only one car came out of the Lincoln Tunnel exit. (4pm Saturday). Four enormous Tree picker trucks capable of going up ten stories were parked towards midtown . Times square was devoid of almost all traffic other than Police, service trucks and taxis. A line of tourists were standing out side a Walgrens drugstore- i guess to use the toilets, because nothing else was open except a few bars. The big 42nd st Subway station was closed. Theaters, Movie Theaters, Restaurants, souvenier shops, even Starbucks- all closed. IN the pedestrian mall betweem 42nd and 50th there were about a hundred tourists milling around in the light rain- mostly Germans and other foreigners stranded by the closure of all the airports. train stations, and bus stations. When I looked up Broadway to 59th street from 50th street i counted 5 cars. I rode home up eighth avenue. Broadway and Amsterdam from 72nd up, riding much of the way in the middle of road because I could. There were cops at 72nd, 79th, 86th,.96th. They were mostly sitting in their cars eating. Almost all of the regular stores were closed, the restaurants were closed except for Chinese takeout and Kim's Used Fruit and vegetables at 104th. Stores that were not closed were going to be closed by 6 and stay closed until Monday. More stuff was closed than during the blizzard. The weather was fine- no wind, some rain, but not that much. When I got back the Condo Board guy said the mayor had asked all the buildngs to turn off their elevators tonight and tomorrow! They also plan to close down the power to downtown Manhattan and all other low laying areas tomorrow because flooding saltwater can damage "hot" wires. ( Powerlines in Manhattan are all underneath the street) 's Major highways out of the City are closed now-the thruway the Sawmill...I need to find my flashlight.

SWIMMING WITH MANATEES Back from my week in Florida again. Got in an extra day this year because our flight into LaGuardia was called off due to snow. For the second year in a row we arrived to cancelled motel reservations. Fort Lauderdale was empty though, so we went down the road and got better rooms at the Peaceful Dove, for the same price, with WIFI. As usual I was down there with my friend Ernie- the organist music director. It was so cold we both wanted to leave the second day, but didn't bring the subject up until it was too late. The temps hovered in the low 40s at night and it was a windy and cold 55 at the beach during the day. I had to put on all my clothing to go to bed at night. By Saturday it warmed up to 65 and the water was warmer than the air so it was great swimming. After the initial plunge I went swimming everyday no matter how old it was except for the day trip down to the Fairchild Tropical gardens. This Garden has the only tropical rainforest in the continental United States. You could recreate something similar with Palms, Banana Trees, some other trees, Philodendrums and lots of different Begonias. Right now we have a few hundred variegated Begonias in the Greenhouse at St. John the Divine. I figure we cold buy a red Banana tree, a hardy palm tree, several Philodendrms, and use the Colcasia Esculantas, ( Elephant Ears) in my front bathroom and the greenhouse Begonias to create our own little rain forest here in Manhattan. Anyway, since it was not really possible to lie on the beach because of the cold wind, we huddled sitting or walked on the beach when not in the warmish calm water. Monday the sun came out and I was out beyond the surf paddling when there was commotion at the shore. Ernie started yelling to me to come in immediately. Two gray shapes were approaching in the water. They were shapeless and fat without dorsal fins, and had stumpy flippers. They swam towards me, and one had its mouth open in what looked like a sort of a smile. It looked big- a lot larger than me, so I quickly started galloping and swimming toward shore because it was clearly wild and unpredictable. Halfway back one of the other swimmers yelled over "it's OK, they are just Manatees" but I kept going- probably because of their size. I saw the two Manatees again in the water the extra Friday when we were supposed to leave - at roughly the same time, they headed down the beach in the deeper water just beyond he sandbar heading in the same direction.

Florida dreams... Well, finally found my way back to my blogspot! It has been a long time and much has happened. Right now I am sitting here sweating because air conditioning sucks, and considering our upcoming trip to Orlando August 18- for five days. The only bright spot is that Barry's friend has a Condo at the beach where I can go swimming. My friend Ernie and I were down in Florida as per usual for our post Ash Wednesday trip in February. For the first time we decided to rent a car near the airport. When we arrived at the "Hurricane," our SRO motel on the beach, we discovered that the owner, Savi, had passed away that week and the entire motel had been commandeered by an extended group of Hindis coming in from all points East. There was no room in the inn. (Ernie and I have performed that number at least 40 times in Christman Rappings but this was reality). Fortunately, we had the car, so we could drive out to the wake to schmooze with Jonney, Savi's husband. We oozed into the funeral home trying to look as amiable as possible, pressing our hands together and bobbing our heads to express our sorrow in a respectful way. Finally, a cousin with a motel on the A1A took pity on us for lodgings. The rooms were of a higher quality and had a fast internet connection, but blocked off from the beach by huge and mostly empty Condominiums. Having the combination of a car and internet made all the difference- I would go to the beach and then come back and surf the internet until finding the entertainment of the day. We found an all you can eat place called Bubba's Crawfish, and the last orange grove in South Florida, and checked out the Everglades Park where they kept wild peacocks and had a hidden trailer park out back behind a large hummock of grass. Ernie and his friend Frank patiently permitted me to explore at will. Finally, I found directions to a place mentioned by one of our Florida Friends which was recommended for it's tremendous smoked fish, "Jimbo's" on Virginia Key. After fits and starts, including a side trip out to Key Biscayne, we finally found the place behind Miami's Solid Waste Disposal Plant. Driving into the littered weedy parking lot, I immediately recognized the tribe from my squatter attorney history. Imagine a squat located in a dirty corner of paradise by a beach, and you have the picture. We parked the car at a slight distance, closer to the solid waste disposal plant, and walked through the back area by the beach through the Sawgrass, ragged Palm trees, Palmettos, serious garbage , and burned out VW 's that had been painted and decorated. We should have known that this was not a place buy something to eat. Maybe something to smoke, but not anything to put in your mouth as food. After parrying an old hippie's attempt to get us to watch his entire video about the place, and admiring the more creative piles of junk trailers and dead boats along the beach, we found, or rather smelled the smoked fish shack. Inside was a hard bitten woman in a string halter who probably does all the work around the place. She sized us up as "outsiders" and grunting "salmon or white fish" she opened up a vast Styrofoam tub filled with blocks of wood. She whipped out a rectangle, and we realized it was smoked fish. Ernie asked how much and she answered eight dollars, hesitating, he asked "how much is that- a pound?" and she raised the price of the rectangle on the spot to 10 dollars! For us. For the heroine squatter attorney of New York! Well, after coming all that way we bought it as sort of the "price of admission", it was getting dark then and coming out of the shed, a couple of guys suggested we leave now, because we were not their type. The drive back to the Motel was redolent with the smell of fish, but we did interface with it for a late supper with salad. It stayed in my fridge after that, well wrapped, and I left it as a small gift for the Hindi cousin rather than inflict it on fellow passengers during the flight back to NYC.

More plants, more trouble and a trip to Germany. Tomorrow's our big garden fundraiser - a flag day extravagana. As per usual with big enterprises involving cooperation of two or more people at least two or more are not on speaking terms. There's no politics like Garden Politics. Tomorrow it will once again cometogether - and at least 100 people will enter the garden and eat the finest food on earth- contributed by the restaurants of the Upper West Side of New York, and the Vinegar Factory on the east side. The Early Music Ensemble will play high class music and we will honor the parks commissioner, the NY Botanical garden, and the Mayor. Everthing is planted, the pickup and delivery schedule is arranged, tables and chairs delivered! Once it's over I have about three more things to do and then i go off to Berlin for my strangest vacation. My friend Ernest made all the arrangments and got me a companion ticket on Swissair. I have never been to Berlin, or anywhere in the east because when I lived in Germany we had a stamp on our passport that made us part of the occupying force after we got part time jobs with the Americans. So although when I sang in Bayreuth you could literally look over the borders from the train I couldn't travel over there without going through a big deal. This time we're going to stay in the east- Reineckendorf, and travel to Leipzig and Dresdan. [I wonder why people though that when we went into Iraq we would be out of there in a few months. The Seventh Army has been sitting in Germany since 1945. We've been in Korea since 1952. ]

Shiny New Things...I remember my new bicycle in 1956 under the Christmas tree. Creeping down the stairs at 6 am in my pajamas and seeing a new Schwinn with red bows gleaming under the tree. Even though it was snowing outside with three inches of hard ice caked on the driveway I wanted to get out there and ride it right away in my jammies. Then there was the rush of the“new” Buick- a huge green beast crouching by the curb on 110^th Street, ready to whip off to a meeting, go shopping at the Fairway, or go on a quick spin up to Montreal. During the first six months I used the car so much I put on twenty pounds. Or how about the excitement of a new computer, bringing it home in its box , unpacking and checking cables, components and programs, looking forward with excitement to the extreme capabilities of new programs which will instantly organize schedules, write briefs, download bank accounts and create numbered exhibits on CDs. Rummy and his friends down in DC must feel like this. Type the special code and leave a hand print on the door of a hidden security elevator hidden under the flag hanging behind a desk in the Secretary's office. The elevator box descends down, down, and then jogs sideways for several yards, opening finally into a featureless gray hallway. You walk down a short hallway into a glass booth which overlooks a vast cavern carved under neath the Potomac. The giant cave is filled with shiny new things- green camouflage painted canons on giant rubber wheels, ranked behind them are larger canons with sharp caterpillar treads, Beside them, stacked rows of blunt cylinders. The are painted grey on each one is an orange symbol of three joined triangles. A whole cave full of shiny new tactical nuclear weapons, just waiting to be tried out...

This moment of spring... riding a bicycle in the rain black shapes of the trees still visible behind a mist of green. Down in Riverside Park, the Daffodils are a sweet glade of yellow beneath the blossoming cherry trees along the Promenade. The Forsythia have held on wonderfully and cascade down a hill near 96^th street. Orange Quince bushes bloom along the pathway. Down by 80^th street there is a yellow Magnolia tree! The massive Magnolia tree on the grounds of St. Jone the Divine back by the greenhouse has been in full bloom for 10 days now. Its cousins on Broadway have just starting dropping satin petals. Even the Calary pears, which line side streets in the West 90's with white clouds have kept going longer than usual. In our garden, newly insured and open daily again, the first species Tulips have opened along with the early hybrids. Daffodils are putting on a show and the Crabapples are getting ready to pop. We planted frilly pansies out of the greenhouse a couple of weeks ago and they are strutting their stuff along the borders. Down our garden paths are lines of perfumed Hyacinths in shades of blue. The Lenten Rose, Hellebore, is still blooming in the Rock Garden joined by tiny blue Iris Reticulata. You can't escape it. Get off the subway at Park Place downtown, and City Hall park is a glare of spring blooms backed by soft green fuzzy trees. Driving up to Westchester along Route 100 I saw a mile long row of white Calary pears, translating a mundane suburban mall scape to the sublime.