in the shoe store window

a cobbler's two little helpers 

and the sun shines again

it was raining when we left austria, and it was raining when we arrived home. today was the first day sans rain and with abundant sunshine. morgan and i weren't the only happy ones. pluto is happy to bask in the sun once again too. (photo by chanda.)

morgan walked uptown with me to my vision therapy appointment. the building is so beautiful and old that i thought they would appreciate seeing it. it's so quintessentially nyc! i'll have to post some photos one day. afterwards, we took the bus down fifth avenue to tue where we had the lunch special and happily soaked up the sun's rays at the same time . . 

vegetable pad thai with a delicious vegetable soup. we also had crab rangoon (a crab dumpling).

morgan spent the afternoon knitting up a colorful vest with my knit collage yarn, while i finally put together the proper needles for knitting a novice sweater by petite knits, which i took with me to my local yarn store's stitch night. i sat next to aria who remembered me knitting the same thing months ago . . i had to admit it hadn't worked out then, but with the addition of the drops mohair yarn (which was delivered to morgan in london in the summertime, and which korrina brought home for me) gauge was established and i can now knit happily away. i also really enjoyed talking about london with kiana, the shop owner. she loves london and we went on and on about how much cleaner it is than nyc and how wonderful the buses are . . and how smoothly they run along with the underground. (don't forget, just because i complain about new york city doesn't mean that i would live anywhere else - it's actually a meme which i'd love to link to, but too time consuming to search for. maybe i'll come across it one day out of the blue).

greg and morgan hadn't eaten yet when i returned home . . so i was able to have the delicious salmon, potatoes and kale with them that morgan put together. it was one of the best dinners . .

a walk on a grey day

i took this little one for a stroll around the neighborhood today. he slept through part of it. we visited the library where i had videos to drop off and a book to pick up, and then we walked to rafetto's for ravioli to boil up for dinner with all the tomato sauce i have (i picked out a box of goat cheese and a box of pumpkin). then i ran into an old friend from across the street whom i haven't seen since pre-covid, alberto. he raved about how cherubic aurélien looked, like he should be in a raphael painting. as we were talking two young women walked by and began exclaiming the same thing: about how classical he looked with those curls! of course he was sleeping through this whole exchange . .

the kittens' stools are getting much better! i'm so happy! finn's fecal score is now a 2 and andy's has jumped to a 3/4 score (from a 6/7). hopefully, this holds and we're into smoother days. (greg is sitting with them in the second bedroom as i write. we keep them separate from pluto for a good two weeks.)

i've been trying to finish a sweater for the dutchess county sheep and wool festival on saturday, but chores or errands keep popping up.

corned beef for dinner

 50 degrees and a bit cloudy today . . 

 an apricot tree in bloom?

waiting on line for the corned beef i had ordered last week (and practicing very good social distancing). i was supposed to pick it up yesterday, but they were closed sunday and monday to clean and restock, as the neighborhood emptied them out on saturday.  they didn't open today until 2 pm. greg and i went out at 3:30 when he could take a work break, and i waited on line for about half an hour (i was surprised all of us still needed meat). it's a small store so only two customers at a time were going in. it's 8:14 pm now and the meat is still simmering. it's supposed to cook slowly. perhaps, i should have put it off for tomorrow?

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 we ate late, around 9 pm. everything was delicious, though the meat could have been a little more tender, but still good!

 i managed to get everyone to play scrabble this evening. chanda is not a big fan of scrabble, but she had once told me that emily enjoys it, so i said she and emily should be on a team together (hoping she would find it a bit more fun). anyway . . we played a few rounds and i think we all had a good time, though chanda, greg and i could not refrain from making many sarcastic and grumpy remarks.

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an update on the apartment renovation story: around 1:30 this afternoon there was once again very loud, wall shaking, drilling. this time i went downstairs to see if i could tell if people were working there. as i was standing at the door, knocking and ringing the bell, i smelled fresh paint. no one answered, but as i was leaving i once again heard the drilling through the door. so now i know that it was the apartment below me, not above me. (this means that my upstairs neighbor wasn't lying when she said that they hadn't been drilling. ugh. i guess i owe her an apology.) once again, i called the office and after looking up the permits, they said that that apartment had only been cleared for painting and that they would investigate and get back to me. all this takes me back years ago to my neighbor heidi. she and her husband had purchased the downstairs apartment for their son josh. the day before they were having the carpet delivered (because all apartments are supposed to have 80% carpeting), she came upstairs to let me know, so that i would be aware of the noise that would be happening the next day. why can't all neighbors be as considerate? i still miss josh. he had a few parties, but was always so friendly and cheerful to the girls and i, that i never minded. he had the nicest friends and would do karaoke singing. ah. nice neighbors make all the difference. the upstairs woman may not have been drilling, but she has yet to lay down carpeting on the wood floors, as the tenant before her did. i hope she eventually does (we've already been to see the coop manager about this situation).