The lake is nearly down to normal. But no new photos - battery ran out of charge. I should probably check it before I leave the house every day,. but I don't seem to be that organized. Oh well. The nice photo of the supported tree will go in. I think its a great shot.

Coffee Bark today. Big crowd, great weather, friendly people. I was talking to Rine, who's a big animal rights person. She was telling me a bout something called Kapparot. This is when some ultra-religious Jews, like the Hasidim, take time just before Yom Kippur, to swing a live chicken in a circle over their heads 3 times while chanting. I had to stop her to ask if she was serious - sounds so much like a Monty Python sketch! But this is totally serious. It apparently started up on the 9th century, when some genius noted that the Hebrew word gever means both man and chicken, so it would be cool to torture a chicken and make him/her suffer for your sins. WHAT??? As a Jewish person myself, I find this embarrassingly weird, and cruel. I'm not a vegetarian, and I accept that meat-eating is a large part of nature. Doesn't mean it's all right to torture, mistreat, etc., animals. http://www.endchickensaskaporos.com/ is the website, for more info. She's trying to stop it, to replace the chicken with a bag of money for charity, has the support of several rabbis, and I hope she's successful.

The world is busy making 9/11 plans for tomorrow, the 10th anniversary. Even the park. Paths will be closed for downed tree removals. I think I want to go to the beach or a movie, and according to today's Times, I'm not the only one. I don't need anything to remind me of 9/11 because I haven't forgotten it. At all. And I think most New Yorkers feel the same. I think about frequently. When the day is beautiful, with a cloudless blue sky, I shudder - this was the 9/11 weather. Tony thinks this is PTSS. I don't know. I think it's just that life affects people.