by day the blue will pale down into white where it touches the white of the land, after sunset it has a new circumference-orange, melting upwards into tenderest purple. but the core of blue persists, and so it is by night. then the stars hang like lamps from the immense vault. the distance between the vault and them is as nothing to the distance behind them, and that farther distance, though beyond colour, last freed itself from blue. -e.m. forster (a passage to india)
when we were in connecticut i found some beautiful blue willow dishes that were only two dollars each. there were also two dishes that were priced at $12.95 each and for the life of me i could not see how they were any better than these two. i actually found their print a little two light and prefered the deeper blue of the two in the picture. there were also several nice cake plates and tea cups and saucers with a blue country scene of a man fishing beside a stream, but my cabinets don't really have room . . (however, i am hoping that they will still be in the shop when i go back in a few weeks!).
great britain bulldog and blue willow staffordshire . .
breakfast was a delicious slice of buttered michaelmas harvest loaf and a soft boiled egg . .
and dinner was salad with proscuitto bread, which is why hermione is sitting in her favorite meal spot, hoping for a prosciutto treat . . (in between chanda worked on math and italian and went uptown for an open ballet class while morgana went shopping with her austrian friend at macy's for a ball dress).
at 10 pm world ballet day began (last year we were in annapolis for it) and i stayed up too late watching the australian ballet's company class and the new zealand ballet company's rehearsal of giselle (seen here - their artistic director is francesco ventriglia and i could listen to his italian accented english all night).
in autumn saint michael with sword and with shield
passes over meadow and orchard and field.
he's on the path to battle 'gainst darkness and strife -
he is the heavenly warrior protector of life.
the harvest let us gather with michael's aid;
the light he sheddeth fails not nor does it fade,
and when the corn is cut and the meadows are bare
we'll don saint michael's armour and onward we'll fare.
we are saint michael's warriors with strong heart and mind,
we forge our way through darkness saint michael to find.
and there he stands in glory; saint michael we pray,
lead us into battle and show us thy way.
today we made our harvest loaf.
we gathered together three and one half cups of flour (a mix of white and whole wheat pastry), three tablespoons of white sugar and a sprinkling of salt, one half cup of currants, one egg, a few tablespoons of sesame seeds, flax seeds and sunflower seeds.
at the end i added the wet ingredients: one cup of milk warmed with approximately five teaspoons of yeast and three tablespoons of brown sugar and two tablespoons of melted butter (the story and recipe can be found in all year round).
we kneaded it and placed it in an oiled bowl . .
and then we set it on the windowsill to rise.
morgana and sandra got ready for their hike uptown to the cloisters . .
how long did it take them?
three and one half hours. here's their selfie with the cloisters in the background . .
and a pic of them relaxing on the lawn . . it was also a rather warm and humid day for hiking which i think made it even more tiring.
back to breakfast . . chanda and i had oatmeal this morning . .
and fresh local apples . .
we also started cyrano de bergerac and are enjoying it immensely. it's funny and i have two old movies to watch when we finish; one in french with gerard depardieu, and the other in english with josé ferrer. i've given up on finishing nicholas nickleby with chanda, though i'm continuing to read it on my own. i have many unpleasant memories of reading books during high school that i found too depressing, and chanda has felt the same about this particular dickens book. so cyrano is the replacement. thanks, eva, for the idea!
chanda finally wrote about cahokia for her history of the americas lesson book. eva and her family visited the mound city on their way home from california, which i found exciting. i'm amazed at how i learned nothing about these early americans when i was in public school, but now pre-columbian native american sites have been set aside as national historic parks and unesco world heritage sites. i visited mesa verde, home to the anasazi people, in 1990 and would like to one day visit cahokia in illinois, and also chaco culture national historic site in new mexico.
after lunch it was time to punch down the harvest loaf dough, brush it with egg and set it for a final rise before baking.
we baked it for forty five minutes at 350 degrees . .
and then had buttered slices for afternoon tea before her ballet class. happy michaelmas!
it was such a fun evening. the lunar eclipse happened at just the right time for hanging out on the street corner with neighbors and passersby.
and we had the funniest time teasing a neighbor who lost some money but luckily it was found!
the gang's all here . . ! (unfortunately, the clouds came by for the total eclipse during which there was the beautiful burnt red/orange glow around the moon, but we did get to see the first phase).
it was a lot cooler in connecticut than in manhattan! it really felt like fall and the leaves were starting to turn.
we went on a few really nice bike rides along the rail trial.
everyone was out and about . . walking their dogs . . running . . and biking.
there hasn't been a lot of rain here either and the creek bed was rather dry.
we celebrated my sister's birthday.
she chose to go to a local thai restaurant and it was really nice . . quiet! we were the only patrons wednesday night and it was so wonderfully warm inside. we had pad thai and chicken curry and then went home for dessert.
we had brought her favorite cookies from rocco's bakery, and my brother-in-law had picked up cannolis from mozzicato's bakery in hartford.
a feast!
(the candle didn't want to stay lit)
the next day we brought nana and nonno over for lunch and enjoyed sitting out on the deck in the sun, which still felt wonderfully . . . hot!
it was their 65th wedding anniversary . .
so of course we had to have more cookies . .
and another dinner out on the town at one of our favorite local restaurants . . (my parents' anniversary card from my nephew says, "sixty five years!!!")
we had scallops, crab cakes and salmon at the ordinary.
and then back home again for more cookies and a beautiful basket of mums.
the anniversary card . .
toby . .
here's a pic from saturday's walk along the riverfront . .
and a visit to a frozen yogurt shop.
it's nice because you can also get sorbet. i like to top mine off with walnuts in syrup and hot fudge.
what's this? onion rings, french fries and clam strip rolls . . it sounds like it was the traditional summer trip to . .
harry's place!
we still had ice cream even though it wasn't hot summertime, but we were all freezing after drinking a lot of shake and root beer float.
we managed to squeeze in two rounds of "may i" before bedtime. i didn't want to to stay up too late as we had to be up early the next morning.
we were at my parents' apartment at 9 am for breakfast (with the car all packed as we had to leave early to get home for chanda's nutcracker audition) . .
as my childhood friend, maryann, whom we hadn't seen in fifteen years came to visit. it was incredibly joyous and moving to see each other and we all wondered how we could have let so much time go by . . ?
