sunday's adventure

aurélien came over sunday to meet the kittens.

he had fun seeing the photos i took on my camera . . 

he found the kittens very exciting and was quite vocal in his delight. they found him a little intimidating, but he was unconcerned about their hesitancy and crawled happily around the living room investigating everything . . very much like the kittens!

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at 2 pm greg and i began our biking adventure uptown to the migrant kitchen's "housewarming" on the upper east side in yorkville. it was to begin at 3 pm and we biked cross town to first avenue, and then up the bike path to 74th street.

 

to celebrate the opening of their first brick and mortar store, they passed out free lamb empanadas, humus with vegetables and chips and a grilled chicken sandwich (korrina's contribution: citrus and herb marinated chicken on a savory bun with watercress, avocado, house-pickled cucumber and garlic whip). everything was incredibly delicious! seriously! the food was so good . . i can't wait to go back. they were also handing out cucumber mint lemonade and coffee. since it was halloween the entire neighborhood was out and everyone was enjoying the fare. it was two hours of eating and talking with friends and local folks while more food kept coming out of the kitchen to replace the quickly disappearing plates on the table.

 

the little girl was the daughter of one of the cooks and she was so helpful and smart.

 

(the local police officer checking out the good food)

i had texted our friends ron and andy to meet us as i knew they would love the food and the fun. it was such a great time. we were also able to meet josh's mom since she lives just one block away from the new space.

oh . . and there were cookies too! 

 

these two little ones were happy about that.

 

we received a tour of the kitchen . .
 

it was very compact. it's amazing at how much can be accomplished in a small nyc space!

discussing how the commercial rents had come down which made it possible to open a store.

the happy company . . 

 

and then it was time to say good-bye and head home . . 

we walked west with ron and andy towards central park and passed so many families dressed up in costume. it honestly felt like the whole city was dressed up.

stopping for a photo in front of several halloween decorations that ron liked . . 

 i find this photo of me so funny because i think i'm starting to look more and more like my dad.

(photo by ron)

the sun was beginning to set. we walked downtown to 43rd street and over to tenth avenue where we said good night to our friends and hopped on two citibikes and rode along tenth to our neighborhood. we had difficulty finding empty bike docks and had to search around for awhile. it was like trying to find a parking spot, but we finally succeeded and i was so happy to fall into bed (after feeding the animals of course).

(it was such a fun day.)

a poem for halloween sunday

 

 the poem of hallowe'en lanterns

 beautiful are the forests when the leaves are green;

beautiful are rainbows where a storm has been;

beautiful are lanterns in the night at hallowe'en.

beautiful are lanterns gilding spring's gay shoots;

beautiful are lanterns firing autumn's fruits;

beautiful are lanterns carved from winter's earthy roots.

anonymous

(from a journey through time in verse and rhyme, poems collected by heather thomas)

(photo by korrina)

halloween decorations (and costumes) and a visit to brooklyn heights

there are two houses in the neighborhood that have this large black cat on their brownstones.

it's amazing how it moves . .

i love all the pumpkins . . though it is a lot to compost afterwards!

 

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 i drove out to brooklyn today, to visit with a dear friend whom i haven't seen in quite a number of years . . 

a view of manhattan and the brooklyn bridge from the esplanade . . the day began very rainy, but by noon it had stopped and the light over the city was a silvery grey.

we went to a local pizza restaurant in her new neighborhood. she moved with her husband about three or four months ago to a new (very small) apartment around the corner from the place pictured above, and to a new job that happens to be housed in the first unitarian universalist church of brooklyn (the church whose service we've zoomed with throughout covid, and where we've all attended sunday and christmas eve service in the past). for the past few years she's been studying to get her master's degree in childhood education and recently found a job at the imagine early learning center there. it sounds like a wonderful position and she says that the children and their families are all very nice.

we had delicious pizza (very thin crust - always a mark of a good pizza according to my dad) and i had an espresso and panna cotta for dessert (she treated, and i hope to reciprocate very soon).

 

we met in 1998 at a waldorf coop pre-school in which we had enrolled our two year olds, in park slope, brooklyn . . we don't know how we got on this other side of parenting . . it warms my heart to be in touch again.

 

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chanda and emily dressed up for a halloween party they were invited to this evening. i really love their costumes. somehow i've managed to keep the little black cat hat with its pink ears all these years (you can see chanda as a child in this hat in one of this blog's side photos on the left).

she said she wasn't smiling in the old photograph; i said she was . . and she does have a little smile . . i made her smile for another photo that i took, but it didn't come out as well, so this wistful one is here instead . .

kitten care and meatballs

my arms and hands are so scratched up that i decided the kittens' nails needed to be trimmed. chanda did the honors. she's good with them; firm, yet gentle.

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the nor'easter storm that started last night continued into this morning. it had stopped by the afternoon, but i still felt inspired to make spaghetti and meatballs (the rain began again after dinner). 

the sauce and meatballs are a simple recipe from my grandmother. she and my grandfather lived in the bronx and were rather poor, ingredients were kept to a minimum (this is my father's family and they moved eleven times - grandma would always visit the prospective apartment with only one child of the four. i never got the full specifics of why they moved so often, but i think it had a lot to do with the depression and there wasn't work for my grandfather. my mother's father had a meat provision route which carried my mom's family through the depression comfortably compared to many - i remember my father commenting on this. he considered my mom's family well off financially).

integrating the cats

we ended up bringing the cats together friday night. pluto has been keeping a careful eye on the door to the room they've been staying in for weeks. every time i go in, i quickly grab them to keep them from running around the apartment. andy has finished two different deworming medicines, and both their stools have been firm, so it feels somewhat safe.

as you can see, they run rings around poor pluto . . . i think he finds them quite overwhelming.