A Day On Governors Island

After our kayaking adventure on Saturday, Roberta dropped me off at home. I rushed into the shower and then to the World Trade Center PATH. Grateful for the shade of the skyscrapers of Wall Street, I raced across Manhattan to the Governors Island ferry.

Governors Island—which is a half-mile off of the southeastern tip of Manhattan—was a US Coast Guard property for thirty years of my life. Now it's property of the Department of the Interior and the State of New York. And they like us all right, so it's a 172-acre park that we can all go to for free on ferries from Manhattan and Brooklyn.

I was searching for my friend Jessica and her family, because they were having a birthday picnic for her six-year-old daughter. I don't usually attend children's birthday celebrations, but the family lives in Seattle and was visiting, and I only see them once a year.

It took me half an hour to find them, even with the aid of text messages such as "We're near the jazz." Once I did locate the group, Jessica and I ditched them and went to look at artwork that was on display. One piece was by a friend's mother, so naturally I had to pose with the sculpture and a can of Cafe Bustelo.

At another installment, we were invited to visit the notary.

Huh?

Jessica was notarized as beginning the citizenship process to the place she loves best, which, as it turns out, is her studio, Friendly Robot Studios. I witnessed.

In the process of the assimilation, she was required to write a song about her studio. To the tune of Yankee Doodle. She did. We sang it. I quietly hit "Record" on my camera.

When it was over, we thought we'd sung okay for two people not known for their spectacular singing voices. But the notary told us we were flat.

You can judge for yourself.