My sister left yesterday and I accompanied her into NYC on the train. We parted there: she to make her connection to the train that would take her home to North Carolina; while I went on to meet fellow blogger Lettuce, who was visiting from across the pond—London. This was my second trip into the city this week as my sister and I came in to shop on Monday. Now that I am proficient at taking the train I wonder why I haven’t done it by myself before? (Kim, if you are reading I see a day in the city headed our way this summer!)

I’m sure you’ve seen Lettuce’s comments on this blog. I love her photography and her writing style. While she lives in a gorgeous brick mid-late Victorian terrace house in London, I live in a center hall Colonial house on 4 acres in rural, small-town New Jersey. She takes scads of photos of buildings and other other city related subjects, while I focus on nature and countryside. A perfect yin and yang. Plus, we share the mutual grief of us both losing our mothers last year. Tough stuff, that. She had many wonderful words of wisdom to share with me after the death of my mom.

It’s a bit strange meeting a fellow blogger. Strange in a good way, that is. You already “know” them from sharing your separate lives through blogging, so it’s not like meeting a stranger, yet you’ve never met them face-to-face before.  I am not a very out-going sort of person. I probably talk more and share more information about myself through my blog than I do on a daily basis with people I know. I am actually kind of shy. So it was a pretty big leap for me, but I did not want to miss meeting her. Who knew if the opportunity would ever present itself again?

We had arranged to meet at the Penn Station entrance at Madison Square Garden. She actually found me first even though I was looking all around. We decided to walk up to Central Park and chat along the way since she had not been there yet and might not get the opportunity to before she left. I was amazed at what she had seen and done over the two days that she’d been in the city. A food and cultural tour of Greenwich Village, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge and viewing the cherry blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens,  the Empire State Building (that very morning before she met me.) After our brief visit she was meeting her friend at MOMA and taking the Circle line boat tour of the harbor in the evening. Today she met up with more fellow bloggers and more sights. All of these things I have yet to do!

The weather this week has been absolutely glorious with sunny, warm days. Not a cloud marred the skyline. Just beautiful. A perfect day for walking.

Central Park was lovely. The trees are just coming into leaf with that new “spring green” color. People were out enjoying the above-normal-temperature day. We grabbed a hot dog from a Sabrett vendor and then sat down on some rock outcroppings for a bit.

Funny, I had always thought by her blog name (Lettuce-Eating) that she was vegetarian. Not so at all! If I had read her blog entries from the beginning I would have known where the title came from (sorry, Letty!). Not because she was a vegetarian at all, but because when she started the blog she was having difficulties sleeping and therefore ate LETTUCE for the sleep promoting qualities found in tryptophan. Note: (I have always called her Letty which, of course, is not her real name. I won’t reveal her real name here, but suffice it to say I had a hard time calling her by her “real” name. How silly!)

All too soon it was time for me to head back to catch my off-peak train. We parted with a kiss and a hug. I am so glad we had the chance to meet. Now reading her blog will have so much more meaning having met her in person. I hope she has a wonderful time with the rest of her trip, meeting up with old friends and other fellow bloggers. I can’t wait to read her blog on her return and see all the fab photos she took of everything she saw. I love seeing things through other people’s eyes. It’s fascinating; as is this land of blogdom. How very wonderful.

Tonight I am restless. It was a very warm day here in NJ and the night has not really cooled off much. I feel the need to go outside and just sit under the full (or nearly) moon. Like an ancient pagan goddess I sit drinking in the moonlight. Forget the Pope who is in the city and about to hand out blessings. I’ve left my Catholic upbringing well behind me. Right now nature is the only blessing I need.

The frogs lend a perfect backdrop to a moonlit night. A symphony of nature, and the only admission fee is simply sitting there. No crowds, no tickets. The only fee they ask is the time and patience to lend an ear.

The “peepers,” or young baby frogs, are the sopranos. Their constant peeping is the perfect foil for the bigger frogs who come in at just the right moment with their bass voices. Next, the tenors pitch in with their slightly higher tones. They make up their own musical piece as they go along, and somehow it just works. Completely mesmerizing.

I find myself lost in their music, drifting off into sleep while sitting on the hard board decking that leads to our back yard. But as much as I would like to, I can’t sleep in the yard under the full moon. With much resistance, I make myself come inside and to bed.

Spring has finally arrived! The forsythia hedge in front of the house is in glorious full bloom, filling my world with its cheery yellowyness. (Do you like that word?) You almost need sunglasses on in order to look at it, it’s that bright. Above it is seen through the panes of my front door. My neighbor Kim told me that every time she quickly glances over at our house it looks like a big yellow bus is parked in front of it! I can certainly understand why.

The weather has been gorgeous; sunny and warm this week with even higher temperatures in the 70s expected for the next few days. I’ve gotten out and raked the flowers beds clean of their protective winter covering of leaves and dead vegetation. I was surprised to see how much was coming up underneath all that. And just look at the progress my daffodils have made!

Things have been pretty quiet around here. I’ve been on my own (except for dogs and cats) since Rick left for Las Vegas last Friday. It gets lonely without him and I miss him a lot, but the normal daily patterns eventually shift and settle into new ones. I talk to myself (a lot), and to the animals. I’ve watched many episodes of “What Not to Wear” and am convinced that my entire closet should be tossed. I’ve taken the dogs almost daily for a walk. I’ve read two books. I’ve become accustomed to being by myself.

But all that is about to change in a big way. This afternoon I pick my sister up from the train station for her six day visit. She likes to get [already] noisy Alex “talking” even more than he normally does. Then within a few hours of her arrival, Rick will be home again. It will be quite a change from the past week, but I’m ready!

On Saturday my neighbor Kim and I decided to try out the little cafe, Blue Skies, that we had read about in the local newspaper. The cafe is located in the terminal building of Greenwood Lake Airport. The airport has one runway and is mainly for small aircraft, and occasionally a Homeland Security helicopter. It is also the home of a long-out-of-service Lockheed Constellation (named the “Champagne Lady” or the “New Jersey Connie”), which is attached to the main terminal building. This plane has quite a history and if you’re interested in her back story you can read it here.

Right now she is housing the flight school offices, but we’ve heard rumors that they are going to turn her into a bar and have outside tables underneath her. I think it would be great, don’t you?

We sat at one of the two booths next to the window so we could watch the planes come and go. We had trouble deciding what to order because it all looked good to us. We both ended up with the Filet Mignon sandwich with grilled onions and cheese. Very tasty! There wasn’t much air traffic happening, but as we ate a beautiful little bright blue biplane landed and coasted to a stop right in front of our window. The owner of the plane came inside for lunch.

Now you’ve all heard me talk about my neighbor Kim and being “kim”-napped. She’s always getting me into something (what would I do without you, Kim?) and today was no exception. While I was getting cash from the ATM, she was busy at the counter asking if we could go onto the field and take a photo of the biplane. Now I did have my camera, but I hadn’t even thought about asking to take a photo of the biplane! However, I had to admit it was a good idea. Just as I heard the woman telling her it wasn’t allowed, the owner of the plane jumped up and said he’d go out there with us. As we were walking out, he continued on to say that not only could we take photos of the plane, he wanted us to actually climb in and have our photos taken.

I was hesitant but it didn’t take long for them to talk me into it. I mean, why not? He made sure we got in correctly and stepped on the wing in just the right spot. I needed longer legs but managed to climb into the tiny cockpit.

Here I am ready to roll!

Of course I had to make Kim get in too since she started the whole thing to begin with. For her photo he pulled out his mascot. (I think it’s Rocky from Rocky and Bullwinkle.)

There is a place for a passenger right in front of the pilot. He told us that if the weather was warmer (no canopy for the passenger) he’d take us up and do a roll. Whaaaat? No, no, I mumbled, not me! But, then again, you just never know what I might do ...

While the dogs were hungrily devouring their breakfasts this morning, I walked around opening the curtains at the front of the house. When I opened the curtain in the office there was something not quite right about my view. There was something big and black near the bird feeding station and it wasn’t a crow. A bear! Finally! I haven’t seen a bear around since last September.

No pics because I didn’t have time. It didn’t find any fresh bird seed so it did not stick around. It started off for my neighbor’s across the road, so I headed for the phone instead of my camera to warn her in case her dogs were outside. The bear was walking at a pretty good clip and was soon out of my range of vision. The amount of ground he/she could cover in just a few minutes by just walking was amazing.

It was a fairly big bear but I can’t be certain it was the same bear that was hanging around in my trees eating acorns last year. It might have been, but I think that bear was just a bit bigger than this one. Neither bear had any ear tags so for sure it was not Ursa, Doris or either of the two cubs, Major and Minor, from the first year.

My neighbor Luke, who lives at the other end of our street, told me he saw a mother with two tiny cubs down by the pond the other day. I was so hoping that they would come up here. It’s so much fun to watch the interaction between mom and cubs. Since moving here I have a whole new respect and admiration for bears instead of just fearing them. I love having them around! I have hopes that this could be a good bear year.