the library and summer reading, a knitting project, dinner and getting ready to leave

the librarians at the bernal heights branch of the san franacisco public library allowed me to open a visitor's account with which i was able to take out one book at a time (a very difficult task for me, and one which i don't think i've ever done, until now!). today i turned in my story guide showing i had completed twenty hours of reading, and received this lovely sf public library bag.

 it's a really nice branch and i've enjoyed picking out books to read these past few weeks. a few that i've read are:

the gnostic gospels by elaine pagels,

the evolution of calpurnia tate, by jacqueline kelly,

great dream of heaven, by sam shepard

the bohemians, by ben tarnoff (this last i have not finished, but i think i may purchase from a local bookstore as my nypl doesn't carry it, and i would really like to read it while inspired by being here in  san francisco. it's about mark twain and his time living in san francisco amongst other writers during the civil war.)

the penderwicks, by jeanne birdsall (this last one chanda and i have been listening to together with the audible app on my phone.)

it's time for the last of the library books to be returned as we are getting ready to leave on our return cross country trip home on saturday. 

these are my two shawls that i've managed to finish. i have not blocked them yet, as this house has all wood floors and for some reason i don't think laying out towels will work as well. at home i lay out a towel and then pin through everything to the rug. i should ask korrina, as she has all wood floors.

  i consider this my summer shawl . . i love the colors, and it's a very soft cottony feeling wool.

it feels great to have them done!

 the library book bag i'm looking forward to using in manhattan . . i have a wellfleet, cape cod, book bag also.

the river of doubt is also a book i finished here that i had started ages ago at home. it's about theodore roosevelt's south american journey along an uncharted river in the amazon in 1912. what an adventure! jason, my nephew, lent this copy to me as my library copy kept coming due (it's a popular book and i could only check it out for two weeks at a time . . and it has taken much longer than that for me to read). i just loved it and i highly recommend reading it.

we're trying to finish up our food, but it's not easy because people still need to eat well for classes and work! chanda's last day is friday and we leave on saturday. i originally had wanted to leave on sunday and have saturday as a packing and cleaning up day . . but we needed more time for traveling.

homeward bound

everything was so beautifully green . . .

we said good-bye to nana and nonno this morning and got on the road . . 

well, we made a stop first at the beach . . 

(she got her feet wet . . she said the water was very cold)

and we stopped at vicki's veggies farmstand for fresh herbs, basil, asparagus and spinach.

and then we stopped at the library in bridgehampton. it had been renovated over a year ago, but we still hadn't seen inside . . 

we checked out a book about man o'war by walter farley, and the king in the window, by one of my favorite authors, adam gopnik (he writes for the new yorker).

when we arrived home, greg took the bags upstairs for us while chanda and i went to meet morgana. she was just getting out of chorus. then at home i made pasta with broccoli and cream sauce . . a dish i had been meaning to make before i left. i was inspired by chanda's and my late night dinner at bus stop cafe . .

korrina was home from playwriting. she was very happy as her teacher complimented her on the latest scene pages she handed in. the teacher always felt that korrina had good dialogue, but the latest pages reflected a very real and honest writing voice.

monday and the lady gaga fugue

at saturday's orchestra concert, they played a fugue inspired by lady gaga's song "bad romance." lady gaga begins her song with what sounds like a harpsichord playing bach's fugue in b minor. she then incorporates a part of the fugue into her song. composer giovanni dettori then took the theme from the lady gaga song and created a "neo-baroque" fugue, sounding both baroque and modern. to give it a modern feeling, he says he used a special treatment of "fourths, fifths, suspensions and rhythm."

chanda's orchestra teacher then had giovanni dettori's composition adapted for his class.

xena was watching as i filmed chanda.

after schoolwork and instrument practice, i dropped chanda off at her modern dance class with ellen robbins, and went to the performing arts library to peruse the classical music stacks. i was looking for 3 to 4 minute pieces for the girls to use for ellen's end of year dances. i always feel a bit filled with awe when entering the library at lincoln center. and i always like to walk under the arch.

the moon was out over alice tully hall. it should be full in a few days.

after everyone returned home from their dance, violin and screenwriting classes, we had dinner: yellow lentil soup with sauteed spinach and yogurt, and bruschetta with rosemary and olive oil.

a jewelry making workshop at the library

there was a jewelry making workshop this evening at the library. the woman who ran the workshop is a talented jeweler, and enjoyed showing the girls how to make earrings, bracelets and necklaces. she was also wonderfully generous with all her beads. morgana and chanda had fun making different jewelry sets for friends, themselves and korrina. it was a fun night.

painting, studying and library day

we started our ancient greek mythology block today. morgana hasn't done this before, so she worked with us. however, she will read more about the ancient culture and history; areas chanda will explore next year. we did water color painting, which we haven't done in awhile so it felt different and fun.

i believe they are all different versions of mount olympus with the palace of the gods and the sun and sky. i read the creation story about gaia and uranus and their offspring. talk about melodrama and communication problems . . . it makes for exciting and fun reading!


these are the pastel drawings they made after finding my pastel pencils up in the closet over the stove. i forgot i had them there. it's good some of us snoop around occasionally.

today was a library day. (of course the two books that were not renewable were not in my bag when i got there! they will have to be returned on another day.) it's women's history month, so we chose several biographies about women which we will read during these next few weeks.

morgana also chose the audio cds for harry potter and the goblet of fire, and chanda searched for the second book in the swallows and amazons series, swallowdale, but we will have to order it from another branch.

our books today were aliki's gods and goddesses of olympus (our favorite drawing was of chronos swallowing his babies!), and tallchief, america's prima ballerina. rosemary wells interviewed ms tallchief, and it's a fascinating book about how she became interested in ballet, and how hard she worked to be a ballerina (these prima ballerinas are really incredible workhorses. they just don't stop dancing.)

korrina was working on her lab report (there were a lot of calculations, she says!) and studying for her exam which she took in the evening. of course there were a few friends going in and out while she was working . . . but she did manage to spend some time alone with her studies. well, never completely alone . . there's always a cat curled up around her somewhere.

going through the courtyard, on our way to the library, we were excited to see the crocuses poking their heads up through the leaf detritus!

thursday outing

today we drove to one of our favorite libraries: the amagansett free library. they used to be housed in the tiniest building, and finally raised enough money to rebuild a year or two ago. now they have two floors and a very cozy children's section. (i don't know where they got the bear from, but it's great!) we spent a few hours and found a nice old book by noel streatfeild called the magic summer. it was a very exciting find. we had never heard of this one. we like finding libraries that still have the old editions. we were sad not to find a book at the montauk library called i skate by margaret faulkner. we take it out and read it every winter. the librarian had pulled it to sell at their book fair. boo hoo. francine at amagansett has found it for us at one of the long island branches and will hold it until we return to the east end. she's so sweet.

we visited the bird sanctuary in east hampton. so many ducks making such a ruckus!! and then these three geese came out of the bushes with their necks outstretched and honking vociferously and making right towards us as we sat on the benches getting ready to sketch the duck mayhem. i ran away! back into the car! geese can be scary sometimes! of course they just wanted food. people like to feed them. a little girl with her mom and grandmom drove up and gave them bread, but i still stayed in the car and sketched from a safe distance!

these are the three geese that acted so belligerently towards us. the two on the right are chinese geese, and the one on the left is an embden. we were laughing so hard because we felt like the embden was imitating the chinese and trying to be one of them. we were also laughing because it was just so funny to be running from these seemingly crazed creatures who were honking and stalking us.

morgana and chanda, after seeing the little girl feed the geese, turned into brave souls and ventured from the metal chariot to throw a handful of crumbs down (we had just bought a loaf of bread from waldbaums . . at least it was whole grain!). chanda did it so quickly i couldn't get a picture . . you had to keep throwing the bread to keep them away from you!

and this is my american bittersweet vine in the winter. you can see it in the fall here. the bush grows in a small beach turnout, just before town, on the old montauk highway.