Linking up with Kelly.

—1—

I celebrated the Fourth of July with a family cookout on the 2nd, followed by fireworks in New York City on the 4th. It was raining, but I was watching from a balcony, so I was able to duck inside (out of the elements) for most of the night. On my way home afterwards, I encountered people wearing garbage-bag ponchos and plastic CVS bags tied around their heads as rain hats. It was very festive.

—2—

I taught myself to play the ukulele while I was home recovering from surgery. I can play a few basic songs (including several Disney songs and a couple of Hamilton songs, of course). I still make a bunch of mistakes, but it’s fun to play around learning different songs.

—3—

A few weeks ago I had a friend visiting me, so we did a few touristy things in the city. I had actually never been to the Met before, and now I’ll have to go back! There were so many interesting things to see.

We also went to Corona Park in Queens, site of the 1964 World’s Fair. The central icon of the World’s Fair was the Unisphere, a giant globe.

—4—

We ventured out to Coney Island and rode the Cyclone for the first time. It was fun! We spent a few hours exploring the rides and playing at the arcade—and we used our arcade tickets to buy candy to eat on the subway home. :)

—5—

It’s that time of year again: the unveiling of ugly Shamrock Series uniforms for Notre Dame football. Last night they revealed this year’s “special” uniforms, to be worn in the Army game. They’re not particularly appealing, and I’m not thrilled about this trend of appropriating another team’s color for our own uniforms (last year we wore “Green Monster” uniforms playing Boston College in Fenway; this year it’s military green against Army)…but then again, there have been worse. (I attended the Maryland game in 2011, and the glare from those helmets—which, by the way, matched my metallic folders from first grade—was crazy.)

—6—

I spent Sunday at a friend’s lake house, and it was a beautiful day to spend by the water. In the afternoon, I was sitting out on an Adirondack chair, and an acorn fell into my lap. I started spinning it on the wooden table like a top, and it spun pretty well! My friend and I took turns spinning it, and it got faster as we went because the tip wore down. It was nice to just sit for a few hours without worrying about anything but spinning acorns.

—7—

I’m currently obsessed with playing Geoguessr. I’d discovered it a few years back, but for some reason I clicked on it again recently, and now I can’t stop playing. Basically it drops you into Google Street View in a random spot in the world, and you have to click on the map to guess where you are. It’s fun when you can find a sign and piece things together (I was able to guess Wales based on only the surname on the sign in front of a farm!); it’s somewhat frustrating when you end up in a rural road somewhere in Russia.