cricket and coffee

it's another hot day in nyc; another hot 93 degree day, though i think it's gone down a little now. a severe thunderstorm is supposed to roll through and blow the hot air away. we'll just have to wait and see. above is a video of cricket drinking chanda's coffee with milk. i filmed it somewhere in this past year. to keep him from consuming copious amounts of milky coffee, we always have to cover the mugs with a saucer.

sleepy zuzu

zuzu sleeping in her little hut while i went to the laundry room to wash her new onesie which came yeterday. the washing instructions said no dryer, so i hung it up by the window. i guess it might shrink and i don't want it to be too small for her. 

we had ravioli for dinner with an arugula salad.

cleaning up after dinner and chanda is sorting the recycling to take downstairs. cricket always tries to get involved . . the cabinet door to the garbage is open, after all, and he just might be able to sneak in and sniff out some discarded delicacies.

yes, well, cricket may be annoying but he's a sweetheart.

snow day

out and about

here are some photos from running errands these past two days . . above is the tree at washington square . .

my peppermint mocha from levain bakery on lafayette (their latest spot that opened) . . 

the empire state building looking very pretty in blue . . 

a festive staircase . . 

greg walking by the fancy brownstone that is always beautifully decorated . . 

cricket looking very cute this afternoon . . 

morgan's pudding hat for little dougie!

it looks wonderfully warm and is very cute!

sour dough bread

last friday evening i put together a sour dough bread, and then baked it saturday morning. korrina gave me the starter from her work, and it was so fresh!

it made such a delicious bread. i was surprised and pleased at how well it came out. it's been years since i baked bread.

cricket and zuzu were very interested . . 

zuzu ran away when i began documenting their attempts to steal a bite. of course, cricket was undeterred. (thankfully, we have a bread bin i could hide it away in.)

korrina's starter . . i'll have to take a pic of it bubbling in a bowl next time i feed it and bake with it.

a poem for sunday

though in noon's heaven no star you see,

know well that many there must be.

and with your soul's extended ears

you'll hear the music of the spheres.

from the pythagorean liturgy, p. 163 in a journey in time through verse and rhyme, ed. by heather thomas

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i had tea and a raspberry tarte while chatting with morgan. we also watched the next episode of finding ola, which, for us, happened to be season two, episode one.

meanwhile, cricket tried to investigate greg's lunch (chips and guacamole from our favorite taco place), but i think he was rebuffed.

monday morning cat video

one of cricket's favorite things to do: drink anyone's coffee that has even the tiniest amount of milk.  

10:24 am

it was a beautiful sunny - and cold - day. the construction continued with drilling on the east side windows (which cricket is reacting to). they're supposed to do ours tomorrow, and i hope they do because i'd like this all to end soon.

friday lunchtime

 

we had leftovers from greg's birthday dinner at sevilla for lunch today.

the aroma of the paella and mariscada with green sauce taunted cricket . . 

and he was a bit peeved about our refusal to let him partake of our mollusks.

photos from sunday

a photo from london . . (with a souvenir coffee mug)  

late night pie feast . . 

always hoping for some crumbs . .

cricket hoping he can sneak some of the cole slaw i'm making (with cabbage, radicchio, green pepper and carrots). he would really just like to lick all the mayonaise from the spoon.

august 9th - knitting and an artist's talk

lots of time when i finally sit down to work on this baby cardigan, cricket likes to join me.

even with his help, i have managed to finish it. well, i do still need to sew the buttons on, but it's currently blocking in the bedroom. it may take a long time to dry, as it's very humid and hot again . . 

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greg, chanda and i attended an artist's talk at the rubin museum this evening. it's the last one in a series for their exhibit of current himalayan art (which we participated in for artist sonam dolma brauen in march).

kunsang gyatso spoke about his piece titled goddess of tangerine which began for him six to eight years ago when his parents left him a shrine to care for (they returned to nepal). when he himself returned to nepal in past years, he noticed that the mountaintops were no longer always white with snow. they had become more brown and rugged with the warming climate. for this piece he has imagined what if the tangerine were to go extinct? would we venerate it as a goddess? would we elevate it? i was also struck with the difference of living in the beauty of the himalayas with its small outdoor shrines hidden in nooks and crannies along mountain paths, and the indoor display of the museum's shrine room in a corporate glass and steel building, and then the artist's shrine to the tangerine, displayed with paint, glass filaments, plexiglass, concrete, foam and wood; so different from soil and rocks, air and water, insects and small animals. also, there must be a difference with the warm at home shrine that his parents left him and the shrine of his artwork. our museums display our cultures and the beauty we find in our cultures, but it is not the warmth of the culture itself: the physical and spiritual actuality. we have to imagine all of that. i've been thinking about this in relation to raja shehadeh's palestinian walks . . the beauty of his home, changed irrevocably by strangers claiming it to be their's -- uprooting olive trees and building walls.

i really appreciated hearing him speak . . 

chanda and i took a quick peek in the gift shop where i picked out two tea towels; one for morgan and harley and one for ryan . . all of whom have new apartments! greg was being a bear as he was very hungry. he didn't get to have a snack before leaving for the talk right after finishing work.

he was ready for some ramen from misoya, the restaurant near us (where we ended up doing take out as they were very busy and had a twenty minute wait for a table).

and it's my dad's birthday today . . he would have been 98.