lunch with the travelers and our library re-opens

some photos of switzerland  . .

a beautiful view while having breakfast . . 

wild flowers from her cousin's garden . . 

they took a tramway up the mountain and hiked to the edge.

chanda stopped by to have lunch with us . .

 

(which which was quite a feast including chili, pasta with pesto,  a green salad, cole slaw and also sandwiches . . )

afterwards, i walked with chanda to the vet, as she had brought pluto over to be checked as he has been having very loose stools. they decided to try him on a hypoallergenic diet as they think he might be allergic to chicken (he's also been having blood in his stool off and on consistently for several months). so, he'll now eat hill's prescription diet Z/D canned and dry meal, or, at least he'll give it a try and see how it goes.

after saying good-bye to chanda, greg (he was waiting for us outside the vet's office) and i stopped in at our local library which was having its re-opening celebration today. it's been closed for three years while they put in a ramp and renovated the interior (including expanding its lobby). it looks fabulous and we're happy to have our local branch back in operation! (there were two jazz muicians playing in the right hand corner.)

they had several old photographs displayed downstairs which i found interesting. above is the library with the prison that was attached to it and situated where the beautiful garden is now. (you can see the turret of the library on the left.)

 

this is a photo of the neighborhood people who worked hard in the 1960's to get the city to make the jefferson market courthouse into a library.

celebrating the official opening of the library on november 27th, 1967.

and then in 1974 library employees and neighborhood folks had to once again work hard to keep the branch functioning as the city wanted to close it (not even ten years after it had opened!). thankfully, they were successful and we now have a lovely renovated branch.

a colorful sign by a very young patron showing how much he loves reading and his library.

oil paintings of our branch.

hooray for our libraries!

father's day

 it has been quite awhile since i've sat at my friend janet's table and helped her sew costumes.

 maybe it's been a year? she always has lovely things lying around . . homemade pottery, celery plants sprouting in bowls, avocados and apples waiting to be eaten, and an old bottle of wine waiting to be boiled down . . i never found out for what.

 she was desperate today for some sewing help, so when i called asking for advice in regard to my airbnb woes and she had to quickly hang up for a costume emergency, i decided to just go over and discuss my problems while i helped her with her's.

here she is madly searching for a missing dress . . happily, it was found!

 hot! it's been hot again after a respite of three days.

 beautiful flowers along the path home . . 

 since it was father's day, chanda and i made greg one of his favorite meals: sautéed broccoli rabe with faicco's chicken sausages. chanda went with me to faicco's and i guess it's been awhile since we went together. our faicco's worker looked at her and asked if she was my daughter. he was surprised by how much she had grown. he's been at the pork store since 2004, which is a year or two after we first began shopping there. we talked a bit about how the time goes and that all the children he knew when he first started working are all grown up now.

 since it was father's day, greg got to choose the game: dix-mille, from a box of die that he bought about a year ago (just to have extra die on hand).

 hermione melted while we played . . 

 the cats' fur floats around the apartment these days . . and when i pet them or pick them up, their hair sticks to my eyes and nose and mouth.

 you score with ones (worth 100 points) and fives (worth 50 points) and rolls of three: 2's being 200, 3's 300, etc. a roll of 4 of a kind equals 1000, a straight equals 1500.

 chanda rolled a straight!

 and i managed to get four of a kind . . 

 greg was happy because he pulled ahead of chanda's lead and won the game.

 pics of our hallway renovation which has been going on for three months now (too long!) and which i sent to morgana. 

 they've had trouble with the new stair treads that were ordered and had to try a new type. we have not heard when they will finally be installed.

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morgana is traveling once again . . back to munich to catch a plane to nice to see our neighbor victoria. she really enjoyed her audition in innsbruck. she worked privately in a workshop with a voice teacher and an acting teacher. the school had changed the audition date to a different weekend, but she already had her train ticket and insisted on going.  it was nice they still worked with her.

 on the train . . 

 she had a few hours in munich before meeting her austrian family for lunch. they were on their way home from greece where they had spent four days. the children were happy to return to papa (he had remained home to work). it had been their first time on a plane. the pic above is from a cafe she found in a technical school in munich. she had heard about this cafe, but didn't have any information on it except that in was in the school. she wandered around the building until finally running into several people with coffee cups in their hands. i think they directed her through the last few turns.

 she had heard about the beautiful view the cafe had overlooking münchen . . 

it did not disappoint . .

manhattan and münchen, and a matcha brownie

for weeks now, my friend janet and i have been trying to meet for a matcha tea at the matcha cafe on fifteenth street. we finally made it today! i arrived first and managed to do a few rows of my martina behm knitting project before she arrived. the matcha tea i chose to get was one i had never seen there before: peach purée, almond cream milk and matcha tea. now it's my favorite! i like to have my tea a little sweet sometimes, and the peach purée really hit the spot . . along with the matcha brownie!

 my friend's latest project is a sci-fi play written by our local homeschooling math tutor. greg and i attended the staged reading last year, and it's now in production with an opening night of wednesday. it's a huge cast and my friend has been frantic getting the last minute costume details together.

she's feeling a bit overwhelmed i think!

when i left her house i ran into my friend marisa and we walked and talked for the rest of the evening, ending up in our new park on seventh avenue. we stopped at the new health food store called west elm which i was surprised to see she was so familiar with, as we're such dedicated customers to the integral store just half a block away. however, integral has become so expensive lately!

i was waiting for chanda who was stuck on the train at 23rd street. she was coming back from a visit to her friend silvie's house. it felt like such a nice afternoon and evening . . having tea with one friend and "spaziering" with another, and then waiting to walk home with my youngest . .

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oh! so morgana is supposed to be in on this post too. i almost forgot. she's traveling again. she had a stop in münchen on her way to innsbruck. she's auditioning for an acting school there. here are a few of her photos: (munich is so beautiful, i think!)

 delicious and fresh raspberries from their green market . .


 of course the germans have pretty pictures on their fruit boxes!

 she sent a pic of the straw she was using since i knew her mouth was bothering her early in the week and i complained to her that she was drinking orange juice . . she has a sensitivity to citrus and can have a painful allergic reaction.

 the beautiful german (or austrian!) countryside . .

 in innsbruck with a little one again . .