New Year's Eve in NJ.

12-31-19 SHORT HILLS: We came back on Saturday, along with everyone else trying to avoid traveling on an icy, sleety Sunday. The traffic was heavy in CT, fortunately for me, Judy was driving. Twice we got off I-84 to skirt severe congestion, using Google Maps to pick our way around the mess using local roads.

We’ve been busy catching up with two weeks worth of mail, etc. We did get to NYC to have Sunday brunch with Dan and Alison at Shun Lee Cafe on W 65th St near Lincoln Center. Many dim sum dumplings were consumed, actually more than many.

Fearing traffic on that Sunday morning, we went into the city early, had no delays, and arrived an hour before the rez. We stopped in at the American Folk Art Museum, a block away from the restaurant. They had an ‘outsider’ art show—some of it was just bizarro, but there were some Traylor works and a sort of tapestry by Madge Gill that I liked.

The rain that started Sunday as we were leaving the city, ended last night, and today I got outside and cut down a dozen or so broken bamboo stalks, tied them to the top of the Subaru and hauled them to the town dump. When I got back to the house, I cleaned up several broken ash tree branches, some large enough for me to need a power saw. I guess that damage was from the big storm two weeks ago. There is no snow here, in fact there was almost no snow in southern VT, MA or CT on the trip down.

We will do New Year’s Eve here, just the two of us, with our traditional meal—king crab, baked potato, creamed spinach and peach melba, also Prosecco and Riesling.


'Outside' artist Bill Traylor from the show at the American Folk Art Museum in Lincoln Square.

Cat and Dog above and below also by Traylor.

Below, part of a long, narrow fabric of female faces by Madge Gill.