voting on halloween

 
i was feeling better today and walked with chanda to the voting site. they were giving out special stickers for voting on halloween.

(a photo with her sticker . . you can see the keith haring mural at the carmine street pool to her right. he painted it in 1987. read more about it here.)

she was able to get one for me too and i've stuck it onto my ipad cover. isn't it cute! the nyc pigeon is wearing a witch's hat and holding a jack o'lantern in its beak.

i walked home along sixth avenue which had all the barriers out for the halloween parade this evening.

halloween decorations along the walk home . . 

it was so warm today (i think it went up to 79 or 80) that i wore my sandals and a short sleeved shirt. it felt like spring or summer.

i never did bake the butternut squash and "pie pumpkin" i had bought for a pumpkin pie, so i made joe frogger cookies for dessert. the recipe is from sturbridge village and they are baked with flour, sugar, butter, molasses, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. the story is that they were named by joe brown and his wife lucretia who operated a tavern in marblehead, massachusetts. you can read about it on the yankee magazine website, which also includes the recipe. an interesting and more informative account can be found on the smithsonian website.

happy halloween!

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(morgan called while i was making dinner. they had just returned to london and both travelers were very tired. i was sent additional photos of the chickens . . this one was my favorite)

at the vet

i met chanda at the vet today as pluto wasn't feeling well. we discovered that he had some kind of lesion on his tongue. he had been drooling and wasn't eating and we think he may have chewed on a wire and possibly electrocuted himself . . it sounds dreadful, doesn't it? dr. park gave him pain medication through an injection and also sent some home with chanda for her to give orally every eight hours. 

we went to mah ze dahr cafe afterwards for coffee and to discuss the situation!

it was an incredibly warm day . . 60 degrees . . and it felt like spring.

yesterday and today

yesterday, greg and morgan put up a curtain line we had brought back from austria (an ikea set manu had in her storage room that she said she wouldn't use and so we could have).

the plan was to be able to curtain off part of the room when guests are visiting, but the kittens have too much fun playing with the panels and so usually slide the pieces open . . not that we're surprised . . 

this morning harley made a delicious english breakfast for us with beans, tomotoes, mushrooms and sausage.

i had been out beforehand to pick up vitamin c from a local health food store as the sudden cold weather has all of us feeling like we might catch colds . . and harley has had a bad cough. this morning it was 29 degrees when i went out, and this sunday the weather report says that it might go up to 59.

 

korrina celebrated her birthday today with josh at a small restaurant on eighth street that used to be persian cafe nadery, and is now amélie cafe. she said the food was wonderful and it was a quiet place and not crowded.

they had baked camembert, brussel sprouts with apple and bacon . .

mushroom flatbread, steak tartare . . 

and apple tart tatin (meaning, caramelized and baked in the manner of an upside-down cake) with salted caramel ice cream. i'm getting hungry just writing about it . . (chanda said everything sounded good except the steak tartare, and i had to agree but i think morgan is another raw steak fan and would disagree). i'd like to visit the cafe just for the dessert . .

global warming?

 the sprinklers were on at bleecker street playground . . which i was glad of as it's been very warm here this week. warm and humid. we had a cool september, but it's really warmed up for these first few days of october. having the sprinklers on is an indication of global warming to me.

 morgana and chanda looked up words with latin prefixes in the dictionary today . . 

 chanda worked until it was time for her ballet class . . 

 and morgana worked until it was time for her study group job. once again she is looking after about five children while their mothers read and discuss books about waldorf parenting and schooling. today she did finger knitting with the children.

 i made a new soup for dinner tonight: asparagus soup with pearled barley. 

 global warming sign number two of the day: fan blowing in the window.

discussion this night centered on how warm it was, and nutcracker rehearsals. chanda is dancing as a flower and as a skater. she's very happy about this.