posting on wednesday

 there are two reasons why i haven't posted in awhile . . one is: (as usual) the days have just gotten away from me and all of a sudden a week has gone by and i haven't put anything up, and two is: our internet connection has been so slow that it takes forever to upload and save, and i don't have the patience to wait . . and wait . . . and wait. tomorrow we change to fios. greg has a summer friday off and he'll be here when the guy comes to hook everything up. on saturday morning morgana, chanda and i leave for montauk for a month, for a visit with nana and nonno. 

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so . . what have we been doing this past week? museum visits, a little roman history, open ballet classes and shakespeare in battery park. last night we met clyde and louie at shake shack on murray street and then walked downtown to castle clinton for the tempest, performed by the new york classical theatre. they move from place to place as the scene changes and the audience runs to keep up with them. this is also known as "shakespeare on the run," which we first experienced about four years ago when we saw cymbeline in central park at 117th street with several homeschooling friends who had been attending each summer for years.

 sooooo, what is happening here. morgana is informing me that there was a turkey to my left in the bushes. and also that a man was taking pictures of a baby doll in the same bushes . . (only in new york . . )

 umm . . . yeah. a turkey. in the middle of battery park. interesting.

i wonder if he had another feathered friend somewhere . . 

 before meeting greg at castle clinton, we walked along the park bordering the castle and read all about a chair competition that is being held. the parks department is having a competition to decide what kind of chairs should be strewn about battery park . . you can read about it here. supposedly, you can also vote on which design is your favorite, but i haven't figured out how to do that yet on the website. you can "like" certain chairs . . maybe that's the extent of the voting. would they really allow the public to decide something so crucial? hmmmm . . i see now on the website that the public is allowed to "comment" and "express it's opinion" by texting (424) CHAIR-55. how democratic of them.

 the middle of the play found us at the "east coast memorial." not sure what this memorial is about. they don't say on their website . . i must visit it again and ponder it some more, since my first pondering was not conclusive enough.

 admiring the sunset over the harbor.

art in madison square park, eataly and veniero's

new york based artist orly genger in madison square park . . 

"red, yellow and blue," 1.4 million cubic feet of nautical rope, covered in 3,500 gallons of paint.

ms genger wove and painted the rope by hand . . exploring the domestic process of knitting in a monolithic way . . 

in october it will be exhibited in boston . . 

afterwards, we went across the street and had lunch at eataly . . we ate upstairs in the pasta alcove, which we hadn't known about.

at home, chanda worked on her met museum colored window piece.

korrina cut up some delicious red peppers that she had roasted.

we met our friends at veneiro's for dessert.

sunday dinner at sturbridge

morgana was up at sturbridge this weekend. greg took her up saturday morning. yesterday she had games and dye pots. this morning she had freeman farm and was able to help make the sunday dinner. on the table above is pickled melon, sliced radishes with vinegar and salt and pepper, butter, bread, raspberry pie, pickled eggs, loaf cake with raisins, currant jam, and in the pitcher is currant shrub (a mixture of currants, sugar and vinegar). everything is homemade, including the butter and jam.

they are also having a wilted salad (lettuce, beet greens, italian parsley, sweet marjoram, savory marjoram, wilted with a burnt butter dressing which is browned butter and vinegar). 

also being passed around the table is curried fowl (turkey browned in a pan of lard with small red onions with flour, curry powder and water added), boiled potatoes with chives, and rice that was boiled in a buttered bag (you butter a cloth bag on the inside, put the rice in and tie a string tight around the top and put in a pot of boiling water over the fire). morgana says the food has a special flavor since it's made over a wood fire.

in this picture you can see a visitor observing the dinner which is listed on the map guide for 1 pm. morgana says that visitors often walk into the room and then walk out worried that they are disturbing the costumed historians while they eat. the workers always have to call them back in. visitors normally ask questions such as: what are they eating, why are they eating with their knives, would people normally eat back then with their knives, and what is the pink drink (which actually looks very modern). morgana also says that the men are permitted to tuck their napkins into the top of their shirts, but the women are supposed to pin their napkins to their dresses. as you can see, these women must have forgotten their straight pins.

hooray for amelia!

good news about our friend amelia!! her mom wrote me this evening that she is off the ventilator after the operation was performed to relieve pressure on the bleed. she is doing everything better than the doctors think she should from the scans, she is pain-free, and she laughed! my friend joanna sounds very relieved and happy and was even pleased to tell me that she and her husband did NOT eat any hospital cafeteria food this evening (as they had been doing for the past six days). she had chinese takeout! we're all very happy here.

 this is a picture of amelia from her 16th birthday party last november. i'm so glad i can think of her smiling at her mom again. what a scary time it's been!

 

cards for amelia and pogopalooza

deychen, morgana and chanda put together a few cards for amelia this afternoon.

and then chanda and i went to meet clyde, alex, louie and their friend wendy at odessa diner for omelettes, after which we checked out the pogo stick competition in tompkins square park.

i thought they would be timing themselves to see how long they could stay up on the pogo stick . . how wrong i was . . and they're flipping on cement . .

we had ice cream afterwards . . 

and then for dinner korrina made an arugula and strawberry salad . . it was very good! i never would have considered putting strawberries on . .

downtown yarns and dinner

we visited downtown yarns today, to buy more manos yarn for nana's afghan.

when we returned home, morgana made dinner.

stuffed manicotti!

she followed a giada recipe . . 

deychen joined us for the delicious meal.

museum visit on a thursday

we visited the met again, for a special class on chinese art offered by the met's teen education center.

first we stopped to read about byzantium and the avars, who were a nomadic tribe located along byzantium's northern border. emperor justinian attempted to negotiate with them and have them protect this area, but they tried to sieze contantinople until charlemagne conqured them in the 800's. 

ewer of zenobius: silver with partial gilding, avar or byzantine, found in eastern albania. the inscription is in greek. it may be an avar copy of a byzantine piece. the inscription in greek around the lip reads, "the voice of the lord is upon the waters," (psalms 29:3). around the bottom is inscribed, "help, lord, thy servant zenobius, amen."

morgana's ewer . . 

and mine.

golden goblet found in albania from the 700's.

 chanda also sketched a gold belt mount with loop from the same period and place.

chanda is sketching a dragon which i always think is a lion, and which always reminds me of jack.

cool air, an update, and our friend amelia

it's incredibly cool this morning. 68 degrees. i haven't felt this in months . . hints of autumn! i love autumn. i find it amusing that i love autumn, as i was always a summer loving child. my birthday is in june and i loved having my birthday in june. i loved the hot days, the warm nights . . jumping in the swimming pool with my jeans still on after a horseback riding class . . i guess there's still many things that i like about summer: roses and goldenrod and lavender, cicadas buzzing and bright early mornings, but i really look forward to autumn with it's cool nights and bright leaves and warm sweaters . . . . . . . i wonder how long this cool air will last for?

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korrina has been working at wallsé, and doing some babysitting at night. on her days off she hangs out with her friends at the beach (she went to fire island a few weeks ago) or in their neighborhood, or cooks up special pastries in the hot kitchen. morgana and chanda are taking another metropolitan museum of art class: sketching. they visit different galleries. yesterday they visited the greek and roman gallery and sketched andromeda. morgana also did the twisted torso of a satyr. today we'll go a little early to visit a cafe before the class, and then on the way home we hope to stop at downtown yarns to purchase more manos del uruguay for the afghan we're making nana.

we had some sad news about our good friend amelia. she was vacationing on the beach in north carolina with her parents and grandmother when she had a brain hemorrhage. she's in the hospital now in norfolk, virginia. i spoke with her mother yesterday. joanna said it happened on monday, and she and amelia were helicoptered from the beach town to norfolk children's hospital immediately. she says it's a wonderful hospital; both she and her husband can be with amelia all day and night, and the brain surgeon they have is well respected in the field. she's been told that amelia can make a full recovery. they're just waiting right now to see how she does on her own. the surgeon is hoping he doesn't have to operate. joanna says all prayers and good wishes are appreciated and we send them all of ours.

below is a picture of amelia (in blue) with morgana, ella, deychen and chanda at an isadora duncan dance performance this past may.