brunch and cooking with the rascals

 

breakfast at oscar's . . i was too cold this morning to walk a half hour to square diner for the buckwheat pancakes i really wanted. i had a delicious waffle instead with butter, maple syrup, bacon and fresh orange juice. greg had eggs benedict with salmon.

(pinocchio has lost his head.)

greg is looking up information about john locke. he's been reading an essay concerning human understanding. 

zuzu kept me company while i made ratatouille. i had to confine her and cricket in the bedroom while i made chocolate chip cookies, however. they cannot keep themselves from attacking the butter.

cricket joined us for a little while.

zuzu is staring at the radio. she sometimes pretends that i can't see her with her head turned away.

warm days, a cafe visit and a card game

after the few chilly nights last weekend and the chilly autumn air of monday, this week it's been back to warm and humid summertime weather. the cats and i have felt quite soporific again (and it was a little difficult sleeping at night - no cool breeze!).

i did manage to walk cross town to visit with my friend sacha at cafe abraço. (it was such a nice visit and we caught up on all our news.) (i checked for chestnut honey at the health food store and at raffetto's, but neither place had it - here's hoping they replenish the supply soon!).

i walked home along houston street to see what was happening with the feast of san gennaro . . everyone was busy setting up for the grand opening which was this evening. greg and i hope to visit sometime next week.

michaelmas daisies at the garden on la guardia and houston . . 

it's a special garden as it was created in homage to the lost forests of manhattan by environmental artist alan sonfist.

this placard explains his concept titled "time landscape."

it was so warm this evening that i didn't feel like cooking . . so we just had sandwiches . . 

we're up to round four in our "may i" game. so far i've been in the lead . . here's hoping i can maintain this streak!

cats in the way (and lunch with greg)

 

sometimes it's hard to get any work done . . if zuzu isn't knocking my hand holding the pen, then cricket is continually jumping onto my lap and turning in circles: looking at me and then looking at what i'm trying to do. he can't sit still.

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here's a little coffee and leftover biscotti (from the weekend ride home) that i had after finally being able to finish the postcard writing.

 and greg worked from home today so we went together to have lunch at kawa.

summer wednesday

 

what is so interesting out on the river?

vestiges of sail 250 . . 

packing material from clothes i'm trying on . . . . 

send me to london!

blooms and cats

the magnolia is a ray of blooms outside the living room window . . 

and these two have been enjoying the warm sunshine.

holiday preparations

 
sunrise this morning . . 

stollen and tea today for breakfast . . 

and before running off to work (and doing her laundry) chanda helped with making biscotti.

cricket was able to stay in the kitchen and help also as there wasn't any butter or cream in the cookies, just eggs . . and he wasn't interested in eggs.

it's late. i'm very tired. i just got off the phone with korrina. she was home . . and i called to see if she had any biscotti baking tips for me as i overcooked my biscotti because i thought the inner part wasn't well done enough. they are too hard right now, though still very tasty! this has happened often. i remember my mom biting into a biscotti one year and saying, i'm going to break my teeth on these! every time she said that, i would say, dunk it! (in her tea or coffee). korrina remembers this also. i think i put in too many chopped almonds and hazelnuts. it made the dough too dense. they were perfect last year! i hope we eat all of these so i can try making another batch.

i did many many other things, but there's still much to do.

good night!

a cold and icy day

 

zuzu and . . 

cricket . . keeping an eye on anything that flits by . . 

everything has frozen as it's in the mid 20's today.

greg worked from home and we had lunch together (my plate is reminiscent of my breakfasts at gail's cafe in london on the fulham road where i would get a salami sandwich on a small brioche roll with a pickle).

here are a few pieces from my clay creche that my mom bought for me years ago when greg and i first moved to the neighborhood. there was a lovely shop on west 10th street, across from jefferson market library that sold beautiful pottery from local artisans and from south america. so far the cats are leaving it alone, so i might add the rest of the figures.

and on the piano . . 

greg made deviled eggs this evening to take to his holiday work party tomorrow. he even walked to the container store for three medium size containers to put them in.

they look very yummy!

i mainly packed a small padded envelope for london today . . it takes me ages to do and it will supposedly take three weeks to get there.

hello again

 
i'm sitting at my desk by the window listening to the brian lehrer show. they're discussing the latest supreme court ruling that chastises lower court rulings and the majority has been called out for running rampant with making up rules.

i didn't post when morgana was here - we spent most of our mornings having coffee or tea together - and then when they left (morgan and harley), i spent a lot of morning time moping about . . definitely not unusual for me. now i'm trying to get back into the writing rhythm again.

we had so many cool days in may and early june! and they were followed by a heat wave which no one was used to, so of course it felt dreadful. i even put the air on (we have a heat pump, which uses a little less energy, i believe, than a regular ac unit). now it's seasonally hot and i've acclimated and the air has remained off. as long as it goes below 80 degrees fahrenheit at night, the apartment stays fairly comfortable and we don't need the ac.

we had a primary mayoral election and much name calling has been going on, but many, many new yorkers are pleased (over the moon is more like it) with the outcome and the atmosphere has been happy. of course there's lots of work to do for november.

morgan and i have been watching "the residence" on netflix and really enjoying it, and i began a new book yesterday that my sister gave me for christmas a year or so ago: call the nurse by mary j. macleod, "true stories of a country nurse on a scottish isle." it's very good and i highly recommend it. (i read it outside in the courtyard yesterday while waiting for the laundry to wash.)

(oh! and i was also sick for awhile and am still quite congested from it. it was a bad cold/flu type illness. i had a low fever, no appetite and no energy, but, thankfully, no nausea.)

st. nicholas day

 

a song for st. nicholas

welcome, friend! st. nicholas, welcome!

bring no rod for us tonight!

while our voices bid thee welcome,

every heart with joy is light.

tell us every fault and failing;

we will bear thy keenest railing

so we sing, so we sing:

thou shalt tell us everything!

welcome, friend! st. nicholas, welcome!

welcome to this merry band!

happy children greet thee, welcome!

thou are gladdening all the land.

fill each empty hand and basket;

'tis thy little ones who ask it.

so we sing, so we sing:

thou wilt bring us everything!

by mary mapes dodge from hans brinker and the silver skates.

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we had a quiet morning with treats from st. nicholas . . 

and then we had a project to attend to . . (chanda ran off to school for an important presentation she was doing with a few other students, which she said went well).

it was time to take up the old rug from the big bedroom. 

it was quite a project which cricket and zuzu found very interesting . . 

lunch break . . 

it was tiring work and we were happy to finally finish and get cleaned up and collapse into bed.

(we had leftover tortellini with tomato sauce for dinner.)

cat antics

what are we doing here? i look like i'm dancing, but i was trying to get zuzu's attention so she would look up. cricket had jumped from the sink onto the shower rod and then walked along the shower rod like a tight rope walker to the shelf with the towels. zuzu was interested in the sweater that was soaking in the sink. after i took this photo, zuzu ran away and cricket jumped down to chase her. i put my camera away and took a load of towels down to the laundry room. it was a busy day. i'm trying to clear unwanted and unused things out of the big bedroom in preparation for morgan and harley's visit in december, and am also gathering ingredients to make sweet potatoes, creamed celery, gingerbread and cookies for thanksgiving in connecticut.

friday

i met greg at the ice cream shop after my afsc action hour zoom call. i ended up not eating my strawberry ice cream with hot fudge because the hot fudge froze on the ice cream. it was too thick and chunky. i ended up getting a refund. so strange. it really wasn't very good. ah, well.

the rascals are searching for the bag of dry food which they had discovered in this closet a week ago. of course we moved it to a new location to keep their claws from tearing it to bits and eating all the food.

dinner tonight was leftover hot dogs with homemade pasta salad.

korrina sent me this photo when she got home from work this evening.

a beautiful skein of yarn she bought as a special treat.