glastonbury field trip

 today we picked up nana and nonno and visited the wells, shipman, ward house in glastonbury.

 it was built in 1755 . . 

 it had a beautiful garden . . 

 and also a barn filled with tobacco growing memorabilia. i never knew it, but connecticut used to have a lot of tobacco farms.  

it was a hot day so we moved rather slowly . . but it's been so nice being all together again.

connecticut homecoming

 morgana and i drove up to connecticut today, for her homecoming with nana and nonno, and aunt kathy and uncle warren.

 they were very happy to see her and i enjoyed hearing her speak german with nana.

 signing out for a visit at aunt kathy's.

 waiting for the car . . 

 celebrating our birthdays!

 toby is always happy to sit on nonno's lap.

together again . . making music . . 

birthday doings

for my birthday we bought tickets to see the royal ballet's final performance in the new york state theatre at lincoln center. i was filming the fountain when something flew by . .


what was it?


it was chanda!




bathroom break in avery fisher hall . .




it started out as a cool day with a lot of clouds . .

while waiting for the performance time we had lunch at maison kayser on broadway at 76th street . . 

morgana and i had onion soup . . 

chanda had an omelette . . 

petite tarts for dessert . . 

and then we visited central park where it steadily grew more and more humid as the hours crept by . . 

until we were all hot and sticky and they had to cool off before going into the theatre with gelato from l'arte de gelato . .

both lauren cuthbertson and marinela nuñez performed in the first piece by wayne mcgregor, infra.


marinela nuñez and federico bonelli after dancing christopher wheeldon's aeternum, our favorite piece of the evening.

my view from the mezzanine for the first half of the night.

and then i moved into the orchestra and morgana sat upstairs for the second half. it was a magical birthday.

in the park

st. paul's kirche

 today morgana, chanda and i visited st. paul's kirche on 22nd street, a german speaking lutheran congregation.

chanda and i were a bit lost, but morgana understood everything and made some new friends during coffee hour. it was wonderful to hear her rattle away in german. thank you so much eva, for finding this beautiful church for us!

settling in

this was not at all what the day looked like or felt like. i've just had this photo on the desktop for weeks waiting to be posted. i took it during the first week of june when the roses were at their peak. it's always been a favorite time of year for me when the strawberries are ripe and the roses are blooming . . anyway, today was the complete opposite: grey, rainy and chilly! we were supposed to have a friend come visit in the afternoon, but her knees were hurting much too much and she couldn't do our stairs. i'm hoping all will work out for next week with her instead. in the evening we had our friend clyde come over, with his friend beverly.

 it felt so great to have morgana pitch in with food preparations without me saying anything. i've missed this very much. she has always seemed to enjoy helping with preparing the house for company. here she's setting the eggs to boil for a lunchtime meal of deviled eggs.

 chanda then pitched in with the vacuuming . . and greg straightened up . . korrina was already at work.

 peeling the eggs and making faces for the camera . . 

 in a dozen eggs they found five that had double yolks! what does that mean? 

we had pasta and chard for dinner with our friends (the chard was from a local farmer at the green market . . i was so impressed with the price and the quality of the greens: four dollars for a huge bunch). morgana shared her book about austria and we enjoyed seeing a picture of the artwork clyde's friend beverly does, and several pics of her beautiful garden in oakland, california. 

thursday and friday adventures

 morgana was up early thursday morning feeling very tired. we met after she had a visit with friends in the neighborhood, to meet other friends who are in town from pittsburgh. we also stopped in fishs eddy and it feels like just yesterday that i was texting her from here when she was in austria, but it was really over a month ago.

our friends from pittsburgh who are in town to dance with the isadora duncan dance company at old westbury gardens on long island.

i think lucia's camera was broken . . she was having a difficult time getting it to snap.

 family dinner with morgana thursday night! we had vietnamese lettuce rolls . . 

 today is a day we have been looking forward to for a long time. today is the day we went to see the royal ballet company at lincoln center.

 we had originally purchased tickets for wednesday but had to change plans when we found out morgana was coming home that day.

 thankfully a friend of ours bought all three tickets and we were able to get new ones for tonight!

ooooohh, just a tad happy . . 

tonight's pieces were the dream, choreographed by sir frederick ashton and danced by natalia osipova and matthew golding; and song of the earth, choreographed by kenneth macmillan and danced by edward watson, lauren cuthbertson and ryoichi hirano. 

the cast of song of the earth: lauren cuthbertson is thanking the royal ballet's conductor, barry wordsworth, who conducted the new york city ballet orchestra (which looked wonderfully full this evening . . lots of times the orchestra looks very skimpy and i always figure it's because they don't want to pay too many musicians).

edward watson, lauren cuthbertson and ryoichi hirano . . mahler's music is incredibly beautiful, and the soloist singers they had were wonderful (katharine goeldner and thomas randle). i really enjoyed both pieces very much. oh! they also had the brooklyn youth chorus there! they sang beautifully! here's a link to an instagram pic of them happily watching a royal ballet rehearsal. 

 when we left the theatre, we found the astronomy club had set up.

 they were looking at saturn. you could see the rings so clearly! it never ceases to amaze me.

admiring the fountain late at night . . 

 getting impatient with me . . morgana just wanted to go home to sleep off the jetlag . . 

two very tired sisters . . 

and here's the freedom tower arrayed in the colors of the rainbow flag of the lgbt community. everyone is celebrating the supreme court ruling making same sex marriage a nationwide right. everyone is happy here in new york city. it's a wonderful feeling. love is in the air. and sunday is the gay pride parade when my neighborhood really goes wild . . and i usually hibernate! (though i once did march in the parade with my karate school . . ).