Birthday Extravaganza!

Well, it has been a whirlwind week or so. The celebrating began with a week off between teaching at the zoo and starting my new position at the Brooklyn Children's Museum. During that week, I caught up with some colleagues, hung out with folks from Grenada, and generally didn't do any relaxing whatsoever.

On Wednesday, Penny and I joined some of our neighbors from Grenada for a visit to the Brooklyn Children's Museum. Ok, I'll be seeing a lot of the place for a while, but what better place to take our friends than somewhere they can touch and do everything they can reach. And there's lots for them to reach! We arrived and went straight to the section for folks under age 5 and before we knew it, lunch time had arrived. After lunch, little ones were feeling sleepy, but they hadn't even gotten to my section of the museum yet. The additional water play, tunnel under the pond and other fun stuff made them forget all about napping...for a little while. Eventually, though, the exhaustion became overwhelming and we had to leave. This was Penny's second trip and it was just as fascinating and fun as the first. We discovered all new things this time around and she had friends to show around as well.

It was really fun meeting up with my colleagues as well. It has been a few years since I've seen them and it is nice to find out what has been happening while we were away. Moving to a city this size, I kind of assumed I had to know someone here, and it is nice to find friends and reconnect. They were interesting sources of information on how folks and institutions in the field are doing. It was also really nice to get a little encouragement as I tackle my new job - getting told that I was always very reliable and timely at delivering on my promises. I've been nervous lately, so it's good to hear.

Then, as icing on the cake, my Dad came out to visit. I was a little sad because his visit was short by necessity. We had a quick visit out to Coney Island, where we also met up with my cousin Emily. We all enjoyed some Nathan's hot dogs...something that folks back home might refer to as a "Coney Dog," but is called just a Nathan's hot dog here. I remember when Dan first brought me here, I had asked if they had Coney dogs at Coney Island and he had asked what on earth that was. I guess it's sort of like going to England and English muffins are just called muffins. Sadly, it started really pouring down rain before we were even finished eating. We drove by my museum, then dropped Emily off at her place (she lives right by the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge Park - a definite must-see for anybody with kids!!).

Then on Monday I started my spiffy new job at the Brooklyn Children's Museum. I seem to choose jobs with steep learning curves, it seems. On my first day, I discovered I've got quite a lot of ground to cover and some deadlines coming up pretty soon. I'll likely take this week to tackle one or two big deadlines, then I'll have a nice spot in September to do some planning and approach the coming year a bit more strategically. So much to do and so little time...

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!!