september 11

 i alternated between watching the buglisi table of silence dance this morning (streaming from lincoln center), and the reading of the names (streaming from the memorial; read these stories from the gothamist to hear from people remembering their experiences from that time - i found them very moving and wise) before going out to meet deychen at chanda's work (where she's a barista). it was good to see deychen and hear about her august performances this summer in two shakespeare plays in vermont. she's excited because in december a play she worked on in the spring is being produced again at the public theatre. i'll have to go and see it now (greg and chanda were able to go in the spring when it was performing uptown). she'll also be doing some get out the vote work in october. she is also now part of the food coop! (and owes a shift, as does chanda! greg and i were encouraging chanda to call her and sign up for a shift together.)

i walked over to jefferson market with her and then headed east to veniero's to get rainbow and chocolate dipped jam filled cookies to take to adam this weekend. i put some aside for chanda also. she doesn't like the double chocolate mint cookies i made because i put walnuts in them. she and adam are not fans of nuts in cookies, cakes and muffins. morgan made a plum cake sans cinnamon as a facial allergy was acting up. i haven't seen the prune plums yet at my green market. i think i need to be a little more observant this coming week as it's prime time for them and they should be prevalent.

photos morgan sent . . 

looks delicious . . 

and my cookies (we've been playing may i this week and so far i've been in the lead!).

wednesday september 11th

at acupuncture . . (i listened to brian lehrer's commemoration of 9/11 on wnyc . . they mark the times when the bells are tolled and listen in on some of the reading of the names at the site).

morgan visited beautiful knitters with a work colleague during lunch break . . (a set of double pointed knitting needles was needed for the baby hat to match the cardigan) . . 

along with a stop at gail's for a treat . . they said the aroma of dessert baking at the pre-school's cafeteria was so enticing they had to walk to gail's.

sunday afternoon walk

greg and i rode the citibikes downtown and then walked around the area he works in . . where he showed me his favorite haunts (all the different places he likes to have coffee in the morning and lunch in the afternoon). when we first began our walk, i noticed this couple each taking a video of the area with their phones, ending with filming each other . . 

and then they compared notes. i thought they were very sweet together.

we stopped at the mcnally jackson bookstore . . 

and at the restaurant where we ate with morgana in december of last year.

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and in the evening . . 

victoria got ready for her trip . . 

and sent a photo of when she arrived home just in time for sunset (3 pm).

at the beach, whale watching and remembering 9/11

 
we took the cats with us to montauk which wasn't the easiest, but they did catch the mouse so they were useful (!) (i also hadn't lined up a cat sitter . . so . . ) we had to play special cat soothing music for zuzu in the car . . she doesn't like bumpy roads or trucks or going too fast.

as we started out, chanda sent us a text and photo that she was on her way to a whale watching excursion in provincetown. my sister had been on the cape all week so i called to let her know chanda would be in her vicinity (they just happened to be biking in the provincelands, just outside of p-town). a few hours later we received these photos:

they were able to say hello to her before she sailed!

it was also nice to get a photo of chanda and her roommate and fellow students . . 

and here are two videos chanda sent of the whales they saw (32 in all, with one calf) . . 

you can also see several dolphins lunging near the beginning of this video . . so beautiful and very exciting!

here's one more video . . i also love hearing the calls of the seagulls feeding around the whales . . i think these are humpback whales blowing massive bubbles up towards the surface to then catch the sand eels. the gulls share in the frenzy.

meanwhile . . back to lawn mowing . . i did the front, and greg mowed the back and sides. i also weeded along the driveway and swept the front walkway. weeding is very tiring! 

when i came back inside, i decided to film the cats . . pluto and zuzu greeted me right away . . but cricket stayed aloof . . 

i didn't notice it when filming, but you can see his little ear poke up around the corner of the hallway behind zuzu who is cleaning her paws . . 

zuzu was being so funny, flopping around on her back . . i don't think i've noticed her ever being so seemingly self-satisfied . . why was she acting like this?

because they had caught the mouse! when i finally stopped taking pictures and filming and walked around the corner, i found cricket still bopping it around, though it was quite dead. i immediately ran outside to get greg to pick it up . . he's holding it here in the paper towel and laughing at cricket who didn't want to give it up. i'm not sure how helpful pluto was. he probably just stood around and watched all the excitement. 

we buried the mouse outside.

a fish and chips dinner at one of my favorite places . . i had clams with the bellies, french fries and cole slaw.

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sunday -

a misty morning photo of woods hole from chanda . . 

and morgan sent these next two photos from a quaint, neighborhood park near their apartment:

a vacuum cleaner planter . . 

and the park itself . . it looks shady and cool for a hot summer's day.

today i took down all the canisters from the top of the kitchen cabinets to wash them and to clean up the mouse droppings i had found during our last visit. zuzu was happy to prowl around looking for any loitering vermin.

i convinced greg that we should stay an extra day and return home monday evening (meaning he would work from the house and not go in on monday) so we could spend all afternoon at the beach. it was such an incredibly beautiful day . . and i was able to get in lots of swimming (the water was a perfect temperature), knitting, sketching and reading (locations by jan morris, the first chapter titled vermont).

greg is reading a book on his phone and listening to music related to the book.

back at the house . . a cat and clean canisters . . 

once, when i was going in and out onto the deck, cricket managed to squeeze himself between the screen door and the outside sliding glass door . . thankfully, greg managed to get him out.

he's such a nut . . 

he also managed to do this . . 

i suppose we should have let him figure out how to get down . . but i also didn't want to take him to a vet for emergency bone re-setting . . 

after dinner walk . . 

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monday -

monday morning - remembering 9/11 - the fire siren went off four times . . this is the first one. i was watching the table of silence project which performed at lincoln center and began at 8:10 am (you can still view it on their website).

we tried a new place in town for lunch . . 

and greg had a sandwich . . 

and it stopped raining long enough for me to get in a short swim . . 

on the way home . .