poetry and hermione

spirit of freedom, thou dost love the sea

spirit of freedom, thou dost love the sea,

trackless and storm-tost ocean wild and free,

faint symbol of thine own eternity.

the seagulls wheel and soar and fearless roam,

the storm petrel dashes through the foam;

the mighty billows heave, the tempests roar,

the diapason thunders shake the shore

and chant the song of freedom evermore.

by henry nehemiah dodge, 1899

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our dear little cat hermione died on friday. greg and i took her to our vet to be put to sleep. she had a large cancerous growth that was slowly (or, really, rather quickly) consuming her body and we felt that she was suffering. of course that friday when we took her in, she was more alert and i worry that she wasn't ready to go. however, on thursday when we were trying to make the decision, korrina and chanda concurred that she seemed in pain and really wasn't doing well. there were times during the past week that we would come into chanda's room where she was lying and she would meow pitifully, and her eyes were tearing, and she had difficulty walking, though she still had a small appetite. it's very difficult making these decisions. i went through the same concerns with our bulldog jack when he died. i found this site online which was helpful (pet euthanisa vs. natural death), and somewhere in the article they wrote that no matter what you do, you will always wonder if it was the right thing.

i took this pic of her on september 4th. it was the last healthy looking photo that i took. i remember thinking that she was sitting so well (the growth was on her bottom and she often avoided sitting and would usually lie down) and that maybe she was getting better. i guess it was just a good day for her.

i'm  always amazed at how much i miss my pets.

saying good-bye

i met korrina in the rotunda at bellevue hospital to pick up our vegetable boxes together, and then we walked home to see hermione (she was off from work today).

monday and tuesday

 korrina came by this afternoon after her japanese class to pick up her gifts that chanda brought back from prague. 

 actually, one of the gifts was from london: a hat from the globe theatre.

 the other gift was lemon curd from fortnum and mason. our jar has already disappeared. sadly.

 even though it was really hot today, i made an eggplant parmagiana, as i didn't want my eggplant to go bad. yes, we're in another heat wave and i finally turned on the air conditioner since it's been 82 degrees these past two nights. my excuse is that hermione is doing very poorly and looks so hot lying on the rug in chanda's room. i was so busy cooking and talking that i didn't take a photo of her with korrina. when we first adopted hermione and madeline, hermione was korrina's kitten, and madeline was morgana's. as chanda grew older, she claimed xena as her own (we had adopted xena a year or two before getting the kittens). xena was my warrior cat and kept away all the mice.

 greg was home by 5:30, enabling us to have dinner together before korrina had to leave.

 isn't this picture amazing? my friend janet sent it from her travels in british columbia, where she grew up. this was taken near the athabasca glacier, where she and her family walked 17 kilometers one day and 15 the next! 

 chanda asked me if the grey was mist or smoke . . and i'm actually not sure. they've had very bad fires, but it must be mist because i don't think they could do all that hiking in such smokey air.

 the athabasca glacier which looks like it's melted quite a bit.

on tuesday evening greg and i walked to chelsea market and ate at mokbar which korrina had recommended to me last time we had browsed through. she has never eaten here, but brian has and we were impressed. we had a cold noodle dish and a vegan miso ramen. both were incredibly delicious.

it was nice that there was a place to sit (chelsea market can get very crowded) and the server we had was friendly and adept.

____

 korrina's selfie that she took with hermione monday afternoon . .

plums, a vet visit and ratatouille

we've had apricots and plums in our vegetable box these past few weeks. i've really been enjoying them.

on monday evening at 6 pm, greg and i took hermione to the vet to have the tumor on her bottom checked. it's been growing again (we had had it surgically removed in april). there's not much more we can do except try to slow the growth. the vet gave her a steroid injection and gave us some steroid pills for her to take for the next two weeks, and also an ointment. she has to wear a collar again to keep from licking it (it's been very sore and bleeding again). i don't really like giving her steroids, but i'm willing to see if it helps a little.

when we walked out of the vet's office, this was the sight that greeted us . .

we wondered what was going on and first thought it was a fire . .

then we realized it was a facade collapse.

 there were a lot of bricks lying on the sidewalk . .

for us, the freaky part of it was that we had just walked along this stretch of sidewalk, beneath this building, on our way to the vet.

this isn't the first building that has had its facade loosen up along this street. during hurricane sandy the whole side of a building came off and the inhabitants had to leave. of course, that was during a hurricane. today was just a hot summer day . . maybe the expansion of the bricks in the heat caused an imbalance? here's the cbs local news account of the incident.

i actually just found a clip of the hurricane sandy facade collapse! someone just happened to be filming from across the street. you can access it here. it's about the fifth movie down and occurs about 50 seconds in.

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this evening i cooked for the first time in a week and a half (it's just been too hot and humid; i've been doing greens with salmon, chicken or tuna salads instead). even though it was still a bit hot, i decided to make ratatouille as i had two beautiful eggplants in the fridge from last thursday's fresh food box.

i used only one eggplant and one zucchini (if chanda was here, i probably would have used both eggplants and two zucchini!).

 and then i added scallions, garlic and cherry tomatoes and two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar.

it was delicious. (i love eggplant!)

 this came from our around the world cookbook . . and i always feel like watching the movie after making it!

feelin' groovy on may day

hermione had her stitches taken out yesterday morning, and this morning she finally had the collar taken off. she's back to her old tricks and feeling fine now (like, not letting me make the bed because she could stay snuggled in it all day). (she has also started an extensive cleaning of her entire self; i suppose it was long overdue.)

kitty cat surgery

povera hermione had to have a large growth removed from her bottom today. it was major cat surgery and we were all a bit nervous about it, but she came through it very well. she has a painkiller that she gets for a few days, and they gave her an antibiotic before sending her home. she had had the growth for over a year, and it just kept getting larger and more red. now i'm very relieved that it's gone.

SAT studying and soup for dinner

 for the past month, chanda has been studying periodically for her SAT exam on saturday. she has been taking sample tests on the khan academy website and reviewing their algebra lessons. this evening we were reviewing percentage questions.

 i finally pulled out the sweater i had started knitting when my dad was in the hospital in middletown, connecticut two years ago. it's the portland pullover by carrie bostick hoge, and it was printed in my taproot magazine that i enjoy getting seasonally. as you can see above, hermione was not letting me work on it this afternoon . . so i decided to make dinner instead.

i had sweet potatoes in the refrigerator from my thursday veggie box, so i decided to do a combination sweet potato/mulligatawny soup, which was basically sweet potatoes plus indian spices: curry, garam masala, cinnamon and cumin.

this curry was a leftover from san francisco! i finally combined it into the jar on the right.

i also used a special sea salt/herb blend from morgana's austrian host mom . .

along with a special olive oil from heritage trees in italy. my kitchen is a global kitchen!

ah! my sweater is finally accessible . . 

i forgot to take a dinner table pic of the soup . . here it is . . i pureed the sweet potatoes and chicken broth and added sautéed kale and challots.

new shoes

 chanda finally picked up a new pair of doc marten's. her old ones were separating at the soles.

hermione isn't impressed. she would just like some lunch.

sunday vet visit and a mini thanksgiving

 greg and i took hermione to the vet this afternoon, to have the growth on her bottom checked.

 i'm not sure who looks more mopey here, greg or hermione.

 we had a difficult time getting her into the carrier. she gave us some good scratches.

there's not too much that we can do for the growth, except put on an ointment when it seems most irritated (well, of course many tests were recommended, but we're not going to go there again. we had bloodwork done on her, along with a thyroid test, a year and a half ago, and it was expensive). we're also cleaning her ears now, and inserting an ointment for an ear infection.

 i was motivated today to cook a turkey. my butcher had a small nine pound bird still available. i also followed two recipes on my food box newsletter, and made celery root and potato gratin, and savoy cabbage roasted with balsamic vinegar.

i also made a cranberry lemon pie . . it's very tart and delicious!

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 . .