dog walking day

 
milly is so adorable

it was such a beautiful day . . 

passing the geese on our walk . . 

these clouds!

beautiful flowers . . 

i tore two drawers apart looking for the bike room key. we'll see my nephew this weekend and i wanted to take my bicycle along . . i'll have to see if i can get a neighbor or the building's porter to open the bike room for me. (zuzu found this project very interesting.)

i did find this: not the BR (not the bike room). not much help!

wandering

 
i passed this mural on second street today . . 

and also popped into this little cookbook shop (which was just up the block from the mural) and had a nice chat with the owner who was very friendly and talking with each customer that wandered in. she had a paper list of all the local independent bookstores in the neighborhood. i was looking for the horn of the moon cookbook, but she said she sold her copy a few years ago. i think strand might have it.

i then wandered to the east village health food store, and then met kendall at the union square green market to say hello. (her sister showed up at the same time . . just out of the blue, thinking she would see kendall there - how serendipitous!) i picked up chestnut honey for marisa and a few things for the week (broccoli for dinner tonight).

zuzu in the morning

zuzu just being her cute and fastidious self.

----

this morning i dreamed of my mom, dad, aunt evie and uncle bill. we were all at home on poplar street and it was late morning. i had been sleeping and came into the living room and discovered them all dancing together, but i had slept too late and missed the fun. they were going to sit down and have a meal together and would with me afterwards. however, afterwards found me at a friend's house and when i left to try and get back home i walked out onto a high, steep, rocky mountainside that threatened to send me sliding down into the canyons below. i walked behind the house and crouched in a niche and just looked out at the view which was breathtaking (i had been reading morgana's pigeon post blog before falling asleep which of course has so many beautiful photos of her austrian family's home in the alps).

visiting vermeers

 

i went to the frick museum today to see the two vermeers visiting from dublin and amsterdam, woman writing a letter with her maid, from the national gallery of ireland; and the love letter, from the rijksmuseum. the frick doesn't permit photography in the picture galleries, so i couldn't take any photos. i did buy a few nice postcards, however, and can take a photo of them in the morning to include here.

here they are: (they were so beautiful to see)

the love letter (rijksmuseum)

woman writing a letter with her maid (national gallery of ireland)

and this one is part of the frick's permanent collection: mistress and maid

they have a very pretty inner courtyard and also two garden areas which, sadly, weren't open to the public.

afterwards, i walked along madison avenue to 86th street, and then east to third avenue and 87th street . . 

to visit barnes and noble.

i love seeing all the classic books lined up on the shelves in their handsome bindings.

a special table for "how the world works."

and a section for record albums! 

waiting to check out . .

my purchase! neither my library nor strand books had this edition which i wanted for the four short stories titled "old new york" and her memoir "a backward glance." 

back downtown . . (i caught the bus along fifth avenue and worked on my sock knitting until 10th street - surprisingly, there was no traffic! i'm not sure if that was because everyone is still away for august vacation time, or because they're keeping the bus lanes clear).

it was such a beautiful and comfortable 80 degree day.

sunday morning poem and sunday stroll

august 16

i sing of you, migrating heron.

i sing of your whiteness and your sauntering gait in fallow land.

and i sing of you, resident hoopoe.

i sing of your little crown as you gather seeds from a plowed field.

this is how i am, my song is confused,

it plants one foot in fallow land

and another in plowed fields.

sometimes i recite the resident's prayer,

other times the prayer of the traveler.

by zakaria mohammed (1951-2023) 

translated from the arabic by lena khalaf tuffaha

----

our first watermelon this summer and, thankfully, it was perfect. it was ten dollars, which is why it was the first and possibly the only one. it was also heavy to carry home. when the girls were little i remember buying a watermelon in florida for two dollars.

sunday breakfast. i had read today's poem last sunday, so this sunday we read several greek poems about cicadas. maybe i'll post them for next sunday. i heard our first summer cicada at the beginning of august and last night i heard a cricket. i find the sound of crickets chirping so soothing. we don't get many in our courtyard.

walking with greg along twelfth street (he's talking to korrina on his phone with an update on grandma who hasn't been feeling well).

we walked over to pet co at union square for cat food. he hadn't yet seen their new flagship store that opened on park avenue. he was duly impressed and we had fun peeking at the schnauzer being groomed, the german shepherd being washed in a big sink, the customers buying special wet dog food from the refrigerated fresh food section, the pet owners bringing their dogs and cats to the veterinary area and the adorable cats waiting for adoption in their glass enclosures. upstairs we saw the birds and reptiles and also picked out the canned cat food we wanted (tiki and tastefuls).

and then we walked four blocks to lyseé (a korean french bakery) so i could get their signature latte and a cookie.

we sat and read by madison park.

the inner part was a banana puree. i still like their buckwheat tahini cookie the best.

sixth avenue street fair . . 

bananagrams after dinner . . 

part of tonight's dinner discussion centered on how detrimental humanity is for earth and the downfall began with civilization, no . . they both sided with the downfall beginning with agriculture.

actually, that was at breakfast.

books, knitting and dinner

these are the latest books i've been reading. call the nurse by mary j. macleod follows her life in the north of scotland, working as a nurse for a small island community. it was a christmas gift given to me a year or so ago by kathy and warren and i'm surprised it took me so long to dive in. i loved it and found her stories to be profound and also very amusing. humanity can be so silly and so deep at the same time. the community that surrounded her was warm and supportive with many funny quirks and a long history. 

i came across the traveling cat chronicles at jefferson market one day when i returned a library book. i didn't want to put it down once i began reading it. the cat narrates his life shared with a man who one day decides to take him to visit several childhood and college friends. each visit shows us a little more of the man's life and how he and the cat understand and care for each other. it was a beautiful and touching read.

i finally began the applied i-cord border on the baby blanket i'm knitting for milly the dog's owners. their baby was born in may and i hope to have it ready to give them in a few weeks.

i couldn't resist getting fresh corn from the green market this morning and we had it with sausage and carrots. it was wonderfully juicy and sweet.

coffee and ellen

 
i met ellen today at her favorite restaurant (king) to talk about the approaching first day of dance classes and the new semester. she's beginning on september 9th. of course not everyone has confirmed and not everyone has paid! but it always comes together and she's been moving one student from thursday to wednesday and one student from tuesday to monday because of abilities, ages and their school conflicts. not too many of them, but some. she also has a new computer and is now working with windows 11 and it's been complicated because her huge email file and student lists did not translate smoothly from windows 10. however, her tech guru is working on the problems so . . here's hoping all the kinks get ironed out.

i included this photo of my coffee latte because chanda made them for us this morning at the restaurant. she's working there with janet's son lucien. ellen actually got the job for her and then the young woman she was working with quit and our friend natalie who is the manager asked lucien if he would like the position (natalie is janet's friend also). so it's all in the family now.

chilly days

i met greg after work today and we picked up some groceries before making dinner.

the black eyed susans are beautiful at st. luke in the fields' garden.

it's been very cool! late at night and in the early morning i can feel fall in the air. it takes me back to when the girls and i would visit nana and nonno in the first week of september when everyone else was starting school and we would sit on the beach at south lake and watch the geese fly past, or greet nana and nonno in the evening when they would come down to gin beach to sit with us before heading home for dinner.

i'm sitting at my desk by the open window and i can hear the leaves rustling in the wind outside.

vegetables, korrina and milly

i walked milly this afternoon around 12:45 pm.

it's been warm, but not too warm. not 98 with 90 percent humidity and dewpoint 72 (florida weather). it's been the low to mid 90's and there's always a nice breeze from the river. of course when you get home you are so sticky that you have to peel off your clothes and take a shower . . but that's normal for nyc.

she actually drank some water today. she usually doesn't, even though she's panting up a storm.

----

i met korrina at the green market this morning before she went into work. she showed me her favorite farm stands and had good suggestions about where to get the best tomatoes, cantelopes, corn and cuucmbers.

afterwards, we had coffee together at abraço because i've been craving their coffee frappé.

then she headed into work and i dropped off the vegetables at home before walking milly.

squash is my favorite vegetable in the summer . . i also loaded up on honey from our nyc honey vendor, andrew. the hawthorne valley stand had delicious looking romaine lettuce and another farm had good looking eggs.