halloween

this is a time of contemplation, seeing our part in the cycle of the seasons and of the world. when choosing a costume, one considers the oncoming year and what one would like to be in it. what aspects of one's self could be improved? what aspects of one's self can be lauded? morgana's and chanda's costumes this year make me think that they like to see themselves as brave and true; adventurous. morgana was isabelle from the book the invention of hugo cabret, and chanda was lucy pevensie from the chronicles of narnia.

since more than half of connecticut was without power, we didn't visit my sister this year. we stayed home and had a delicious dinner of red bean and quinoa chili, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and then traipsed about the neighborhood with our friends.

i always enjoy the display of jack o'lanterns in abingdon square park.

one of our first visits was to the chocolate bar. i love that they hand out their delicious mini chocolates to everyone.

i never liked candy very much when i was a little girl, but i loved trick or treating. it's the social aspect that is so fun. running up to neighbors' doors and peering into their hallways and living rooms and seeing how they kept their hats and coats, were there any dogs or cats , had they been watching the tv, or reading, or eating a snack, never failed to intrigue me. it's particularly interesting to me in nyc, where one normally can go years without learning anything about a neighbor. it's the only time of year everyone opens their doors to bands of roaming children, teenagers too, and greets them with a bright smile and a treat!

the day before halloween

chanda and i began the morning with a pancioc and espresso (and aranciata!) at il cantuccio.

we then went to buy chicken sausages at faicco's to take with us to my sister's home in connecticut where we're supposed to go trick or treating. however, we're thinking of maybe staying home since my sister has no electricity right now. we wouldn't even be able to cook the chicken sausages since she has an electric stove. we are also supposed to bring a few friends with us, but without power it doesn't feel like the most hospitable thing to do! of course halloween with only candles and flashlights is very beguiling to chanda. it would be nice to still go up, but we also have another obstacle in that morgana signed up for a dance workshop. life with teenagers can be a bit complicated. (sigh). my sister and i will talk in the morning to make a final decision.

today was the day the stores along bleecker and hudson streets were handing out candy to the neighborhood children. everyone was dressed in their halloween costumes. tomorrow everyone will go trick or treating from house to house.

at the nutcracker gingerbread rehearsal the girls were dressed in halloween costumes also. chanda dressed up as little witch girl from eleanor estes' the witch family, and her friend nora dressed up as cookie monster.

chanda borrowed nora's witch hat as we lost ours years ago during a wet and rainy halloween night.

one of the moms made very pretty cupcakes. chanda thought the colors were a bit unappetizing (all that artificial dye),

but morgana tried one and i had a bite also. i also had a snickers bar as another mom was handing out candy!

signs of . . winter!

it's 33 degrees out right now, and . . slushing. it's not exactly snowing and not exactly raining. walking home from third street music school, chanda and i were very wet and very cold. i only had on a wool sweater and a denim jacket! by the time we arrived home my hands were frozen. last year at this time it was 57 degrees. 1925 still holds the record, i think, at 31 degrees. but it is a record breaking snowfall. the prior earliest recorded snowfall was in 1879 on november 1st.

the trees haven't lost all their leaves yet . .

i worry about the mulberry tree branches . . with the snow on the leaves they hang very low . . and they're extra low from when hurricane irene came through . .

it's a bitter beauty . .

when we got upstairs to the apartment, it felt very cold. it was time to turn on the heat. i think this is the longest i've ever gone before turning it up. usually we have some days before a snowstorm to get used to the cold weather! this year it was like jumping into the deep end of a pool.

signs of autumn

pyracantha . . fire thorn . .

fluffy white seeds . .

pumpkins on the nature table . .

and squirrels and acorns . .

carrot soup and sweet potatoes . .

mums in windowboxes . .

chocolate bar visits!

puss in boots . . ?!

korrina's knitted dress and charlie mom

korrina knitted a dress for herself out of a lovely black washable yarn (it went in with a cold, dark wash and hung over the shower to dry . . very easy). i think she found the pattern on ravelry, and of course tweeked it to suit her own particular ideas. (i always have a difficult time doing this, but she and my friend janet are constantly taking pattern ideas from here and there and putting it all together.) it looks beautiful and has been a conversation starter (korrina to the librarian at the performing arts library, "did you knit your scarf," and the librarian to korrina, "yes, did you knit your dress?!") 

  sooooooo, we really haven't been out to eat at a restaurant together in . . a year or two. we used to go to the neighborhood chinese restaurant on hudson street, but it closed (it's now a bank . . banks and drug stores seem to be the main tenants for the high rents these days). but when walking home with chanda along west 11th street from third street today, we passed a chinese restaurant that looked nice inside. it's been on sixth avenue for years, but a bit out of our immediate neighborhood, so we had never gone (and we had always been happy with mama buddha). this evening we decided to go after chanda's party scene rehearsal since i didn't have anything ready to eat at home (and it was 8:30 pm). we met korrina there (morgana was sleeping over at a friend's house) and had cold sesame noodles, vegetable chow mein, scallops in garlic sauce, and (chanda's favorite) vegetable noodle soup. oh, and hot and spicy soup (greg's fave). it was relaxing and fun. and i loved the white tablecloth.

  the restaurant's entrance is on sixth avenue, but it angles back to west 11th street. through one part you pass a narrow corridor which they widened with mirrors on both sides of the hallway. i remember playing with mirrors like this when i was a little girl in a department store's dressing room with my mom.

ballet class?

chanda is dressed up for ballet, but she didn't attend class. we had a meeting with one of her teachers to evaluate how she is working in class. she needs to pull up more, turn out from the hip, and make sure her knees are over her toes. we think it exacerbated the osgood schlatter condition since she was rolling over too much and putting pressure on the left knee.

he also suggested exercises to strengthen her feet and toes which are too weak for the work she is currently doing in class. i think that this is apropos as there was a full year when she didn't attend class, during which she would have been building the strength in her feet (her teacher at the time had mentioned that she needed to work on her strength). i'm glad all this came up now . . and i hope too much isn't lurking in dark corners for the future . .

field trip

we made orange and ricotta cheese pancakes for breakfast before leaving for a field trip at the natural history museum.

i forgot to take my camera to the museum, so there are only pictures of our meals for the day!

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we went to the natural history museum today, and had the most wonderful tour with "kathleen." she was a fount of information and spoke very well (which means that she could speak very loud over all the other noises in the museum when necessary!) it was the first time we had a tour at AMNH. i'm not sure if we were oblivious, or if it's fairly new, or just better displayed. they had a large sign in the theodore roosevelt rotunda lobby, but not at the rose entrance, which is where we usually come in. today we went to the lobby to check morgana's bag, and thus saw the sign for the tour. kathleen began the tour speaking about how the land for the museum was bought in 1869 when nothing was in the area except central park, and the MET across the way at fifth avenue. we then moved to the rose center for earth and space and the scales of the universe exhibit which demonstrated to us the vastness of space and how small our galaxy is in the midst of it. chanda asked me, what is beyond space, which is a question i remember asking at her age, and so we got into a small whispered discussion about space, spirituality and God. our tour guide then took us to the rooms of biodiversity and oceanic life (where she explained how they made their specimans from clay, plaster, papier mache and the skin of the animal), and the fossil halls on the top floor with dinosaur bones millions of years old?! it's amazing to think how long their bones have been around for.

i had dinner cooking in the crockpot while we were gone. we had black bean chili with blue corn chips, jack cheese and sour cream. and then after dinner we just had to watch . . night at the museum!

at the pediatric podiatrist

chanda and i took a trip to a pediatric podiatrist today. he was on 20th street and was recommended by a friend. chanda's left knee has been hurting off and on for a few weeks now. she thought, at first, that it was a bruise but it's gone on for too long to be a bruise.

(this is an x-ray machine. we had a discussion about it . . i didn't think it was because i thought i had remembered the receptionist saying that we would have to go out for the x-ray. chanda was adamant, and she was right).

anyway, he diagnosed her with osgood schlatter disease. it's not devastating and is common when children grow too fast and are involved with a vigorous sport . . or dance, as is the case. basically, her bones have grown and her quadriceps muscle hasn't kept up. the patellar tendon is inflamed from excessive bone growth on the tibial tuberosity, which causes the bruise like feeling. she needs to stretch her quads and calves more, and take a week or two off from ballet class (no deep plies and jumps for a little while) and attend physical therapy. i think what is hurting most is our pocketbook (ahem).

after visiting with the podiatrist we walked over to her modern dance class. chanda noticed right away that our favorite deli on the corner had closed! we were upset, as were several other neighorhood people. we're really not sure why the "landlord has seized possession of the premises." i suppose rent has a lot to do with it.

before heading to the podiatrist, chanda did some daily freehand geometric drawings.

we ended the day at third street music school at a violin lesson. it was a lot nicer than being in the podiatrist's office.

rehearsing battle scene

saturday evening and sunday afternoons have been devoted to nutcracker rehearsals. chanda rehearses party scene on saturdays, and gingerbread and battle scene on sunday afternoons. i'm usually at work on sundays and miss out on seeing how these rehearsals go, but today i got off early and was able to watch chanda dance her gingerbread role.

since morgana is a mouse, and chanda a soldier, they can practice battle together. greg was hoping that our neighbor downstairs wasn't home. when the girls dance through the living room, the whole building shakes.

a quick catch-up

we've been apple picking out at montauk, and visiting with my cousin who came in from arizona. we've been baking apple pies and apple crumble, going to dance classes and working on math, grammar, languages, poetry, etc. i've been working a few days out of the week at a friend's restaurant which has cut into a lot of computer time. i'm hoping that will stop soon, and i'll be able to catch up better. we get cool days, and then it turns humid again, like today. our weather is changing. i feel like it's becoming more tropical . . more and more humid, like florida. all of us like crisp, autumn air! the humid days take getting used to.

friday

on fridays i usually take a walk around tribeca while chanda is in her ballet class at the gelsey kirkland academy. these are just a few of the places i pass by.


the area began as a residential neighborhood in the late 18th century (extending the boundaries of colonial nyc). by the late 19th century, it had become a center of the textile/cotton trade.

there are many interesting doors to people's homes . .

is it a store? or a suggestion? or a password?

there are so many chic clothing shops in tribeca, soho, and now the west village. i never see many customers in them, so i don't know how they stay open!

at the tile and stone store. where did they find this lovely sea goddess?

the franklin subway station. underground it has beautiful orange and grey tile work.