Today is Friday, July 18, 2025. Elliot and I have returned from spending less than 24 hours with my friend’s son, his wife and toddler daughter. But it seemed much longer because of our interaction with “Naomi,” “Zander” and “Nalah’s” whirlwind of a daughter. When we last saw her for her birthday on May 3, she wasn’t this verbal, but yesterday and today, she was as voluble as a wind-up doll. She was actually almost a little shy for her birthday, and that was just a few months ago.

We left Forest Hills yesterday around 9:30, had breakfast at Jackson Hole, and drove straight to Princeton. When we arrived a little after 1, we learned that Naomi was in day care and we had some time to ourselves before we had to pick her up. So after the usual greetings and hugs, we piled into our host’s white SUV and drove to the Dinky Bar & Kitchen, located nearby, in Princeton. We learn that this casual restaurant serving beer, cocktails, and small and large American plates served as a onetime train station. For lunch, we shared several small plates among us and everything was very tasty. After lunch, Zander and Nalah drove us to the Main Street in Princeton where we browsed the Princeton Record Exchange and the bookstore called Labyrinth Books. Actually, I walked into these places with Zander, while Elliot sat in a park with Nalah. It was quite hot then. First, we had to have some ice cream at the Bent Spoon.

We then picked up little Naomi at her day care center which was a private residence nearby. It was then time to decide on dinner. Instead of going out again or even ordering from somewhere, we ate Nalah’s food that consisted of rice, mashed potatoes, and fish. We found ourselves watching a film I’ve seen before and have forgotten much of it, 2005’s Red Eye starring the man of the hour, Cillian Murphy, and Rachel McAdams as two supposed strangers who meet on a red-eye flight from Texas to Miami, Florida. Lisa Reisert who is portrayed here by McAdams is a hotel manager at a luxurious hotel in Miami and Murphy is a mysterious charmer. Soon we learn that he has a sinister purpose in seeking her out as they first meet on line getting their tickets back to Florida. He soon informs her that he works for a terorrist organization which is planning to assassinate Charles Keefe, the current United States Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. Lisa’s managerial responsibility at the Lux Hotel in Miami, where Keefe and his family are staying, is crucial to the plot. He also tells Lisa that an associate is outside her father’s house in Florida, who is here portrayed by Succession’s Brian Cox. If she does not carry out what he wants her to do concerning the Deputy Secretary, which is to call her hotel to tell her coworker, Cynthia, to move the Keefe family from their regular suite to another set of rooms, he will give the order to kill her father. The tension soon builds as McAdams has to find a way to fight this once-charming stranger and avert an impending catastrophe. There were some good fight scenes and moments of suspense in the film, I thought. However, Murphy does not come across that convincingly as an amoral terrorist. So the film loses something in his portrayal.

Anyway, it was a little over 11 and it was time to go to bed. I had little ability to read my new book, The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West. I had read this book many years ago and just picked it up again. I still can’t find the book I have to read for my gay men’s reading club, so I just have abandoned the idea. I’ll read anything now.

I have no time to write about what happened today. Suffice it to say we left our genial hosts right after breakfast, had coffee in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, which is well known for its association with Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. This amazing broadcast depicted a Martian invasion beginning in Grovers Mill which caused a widespread panic and hysteria among many of its listeners who took the program as the God’s truth. We had coffee in a shop that is themed around many iterations of “War of the Worlds.”

After this wonderful find, we drove back to our hosts for the day after I realized I left a charger for my phone and a bottle of water. Then we drove to Edison, New Jersey, to have lunch with my newish friend “Harvey.”

We spent a little time with Harvey in his ranch house (we met only two of his six cats) on a quiet residential street and then followed Harvey in his red sports car to a mall where we had lunch in a restaurant called Seasons.

Now we began the drive back to New York after saying goodbye to Harvey in Edison. It took almost two hours to get back to Forest Hills. I just hate the traffic you have everywhere these days.

Tomorrow we have another drive: this time going north, to Sullivan County, in Phillipsport, where we will stay over “Sue”s house until Sunday. Another sleepover!

Have a great weekend.

And so it went!

This was on the wall of that coffee shop in Grovers Mill.

A picture depicting the supposed Martian invasion at Grovers Mill.

More stuff on the wall.