a summer day

it was such a beautiful day that kendall and i decided to have a salad, cheese and glass of wine at cafe cluny this afternoon. it went up to 80 degrees, and the wind also picked up and blew the flimsy curbside restaurant partitions so hard that they rattled and creaked and seemed to almost fall apart. of course aurélien woke up not too long after we sat down, but he stayed calm, and was happy to sit on my lap while we talked.

afterwards, i walked to the library to pick up the movie i had put on hold. as i walked south on seventh avenue, i caught up with the tunnel traffic. i was surprised to see it, as it has been non-existent during all of covid, and now, suddenly . . voila! here it is again on the first warm day. as i was filming this little movie, chanda called out to me. she and emily and a co-worker had just turned the corner onto seventh avenue. work was over for the day and she was on her way to get a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant.

i mailed two batches of voter registration letters to arizona yesterday, and today i printed out twenty more at the fed ex store before heading home.

late afternoon cafe date

in the distance is the empire state building, lit up in a beautiful bright red tonight as seen during my walk home.

i met ellen at la durée this afternoon. it was great to catch up with her . . tomorrow she heads uptown for her second covid vaccine dose. she's been teaching two students a little ways upstate every saturday morning. one of the children's father is a chef with a big barn in which to have dance class . . allowing for good social distancing.

chanda, deychen and morgana love this restaurant, but i'm usually left a little disappointed. this was a cafe viennois: espresso with chantilly cream. the espresso was more like weak coffee and the chantilly cream was fresh, but a little too sweet for my taste. i also had a slice of pound cake which was a little dry.

it was still worth being there, however, as the garden area is peaceful and pretty. we sat next to a woman visiting from boston with her daughter. they were picking up the child's norwegian passport. the mom grew up in oslo and is hoping to visit again in the summer or fall. they were leaving soon to visit the father's buildings on the upper west side - he was a real estate developer. i cringed inside myself, as i'm very critical of developers . . they're usually demolishing beautiful old buildings which i believe should be renovated instead. glass and steel monstrosities go up in the place of these historic brick structures. steel and glass structures into which migrating birds often crash. (sigh.) well, while i was unhappy with the woman's husband's occupation, the woman and her daughter were lovely, and ellen shared about george deem's paintings in boston - one of them being in a law building the woman was familiar with. 

it was a wonderfully warm day to sit outside and chat with nyc visitors. it went up to 52 degrees, with no breeze and just warm sunshine. the walk home at 6 pm was a different story as the wind came  up and the temperature began to drop  . . i think it's supposed to go down to 23 tonight.

i have another sierra club zoom meeting tonight that will discuss the next round of letters we're writing to the biden administration, this time requesting that they support the thrive agenda which you can read about here.

in the evening . .

 kendall and i like to sit outside at the whitney on their terrace cafe (when it's not 97 degrees out) . . 

 and watch the lights come on over the city . . 

and the moon rise . . greg would like this too . .

waiting for the halloween performance

i got morgana some soup while we waited for 5:55 pm, when we would have to be back at studio maestro for ellen to call us in to observe chanda's class' halloween performance. it was so incredibly warm that we sat outside in the lincoln center triangle, across from barnes and noble. i managed to mess up my feather and fan shawl and had to pick out three rows, while she commented on the video advertising by the subway stairs.

it was announcing the new harry potter movie that is coming out in a few weeks in november. she actually won't see this one yet. she's reading them year by year. she's fourteen, so she just read the 4th book, goblet of fire.

i'm hoping that i will get to see part one of the final book with greg at a special screening at his work. i saw the last one that way, and really enjoyed sitting in a cozy screening room in an armchair!