cat pics, volunteer work and spring cleaning

 i was out at vision therapy this morning so all cat photos were taken by morgan . . 

(except this first one!)

cricket is always very persistent with his attempts to consume any dairy or meat that comes out of the refrigerator. (here he's trying to get at morgan's yogurt smoothie.)

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greg cleared mugwort from several areas on randall's island today with other co-workers from his company for their yearly volunteer session. the plant is invasive and the parks department is trying to make room for more native species.

and morgan cleaned out quite a few kitchen cupboards today, along with my spice rack. it's so much easier to find things now.

cleaning out a bookshelf

 korrina came over today to pick up mail (she still has some mail delivered here) and to clean out a bookshelf that has been a storage area for her papers, books and momentoes for the past several years.

 first i had to admire the shawl she just finished. it's the dust of snow wrap by helen stewart, knitted with sweet sparrow yarns advent mini-skeins. i love it and am now thinking that i would like to sign up for a yarn-y advent calendar this coming christmas!

 she held a strand of mohair along with each mini-skein.

 she and i have also talked about finally opening this bottle of champagne that has been around for as long as the bookshelf has been a storage case . . four to five years?

 (admiring the t-shirt i gave her from brooklyn industries several christmases ago--the cat is dressed in a pigeon costume and is sitting with the other pigeons on the telephone pole) . . 

 korrina used to do a lot of stage managing . . it's possible the bottle was given as a thank you for work on a production . . today it was opened in celebration of her sous chef promotion which came in june.

 champagne with baguette and chicken liver paté from the local butcher . . 

 getting to it! so much memorabilia . . 

 and stones, rocks, minerals, gems . . 

 pluto is curious . . 

 the old guys and dolls stage manager's notebook! (i have eight posts tagged with "guys and dolls" . . here's korrina as stage manager.)

 scene breakdown with characters . .

 an old journal . . she took a bag home with letters, journals, a few books and dvds and momentoes. greg and i will have to bring more out with the car one day . . perhaps with the bookcase itself when everything has been sorted.

hello and good-bye to dad who just got home . .

after korrina left, greg and i got ready to have dinner at tavern on jane to celebrate his birthday, which is tomorrow (except we have an orchestra concert to attend then).

we've been trying to visit all the restaurants that have been around since we moved into the neighborhood, but had never visited. tavern on jane opened in 1995 in an old building with exposed brick walls and fireplaces and a tin ceiling. it felt like we had gone back in time. we shared a tomato soup and then i had chicken tacos and greg had a burger. the food was very good and i think my sister and brother-in-law would enjoy it immensely.

make your own taco! i'm getting hungry just looking at the photograph . . (and greg's french fries were incredibly crispy!)

sunday afternoon and father's day dinner

 chanda and i got a ride to the east village with ellen, her modern dance teacher, who had been in our neighborhood in the early morning for a visit to the whitney museum (a special exhibit viewing time for members only). we were meeting our friends lucia, tsameret and moriah who were in town from pittsburgh and who were having a trampoline gym class with their friend and teacher, rudy. rudy has been teaching nyc homeschoolers for about . . . thirty years. i remember seeing a gym class when korrina was three or four years old as it was held in the same space as a nychea meeting (which a friend had invited me to). today the class was at the international school on second street, just east of second avenue, right next to an old graveyard that is kept up so beautifully.

 and i neglected to get a picture of chanda with our friends for which i had purposely brought my camera! instead, here are pics from one of our favorite yarn stores: downtown yarns on avenue A.

 we talked with lettie and kathy (rita, the owner wasn't there today) and picked out some cotton yarn to make a ballet t-shirt, one of teva durham's patterns which my friend janet gave me in a book called loop-d-loop knitting.

 galler yarns, inca-eco organic cotton, made in peru.

 shibui twig, made in japan from linen, recycled silk and wool.

 at home, greg went through boxes of family documents that he's had in the closet.

 pictures, birth and death certificates . . 

 my mother-in-law and sister-in-law in 1984. he was working on his genealogical charts.

chanda studied her lines today and went to a twelfth night rehearsal. she's working on the play with several friends (she's playing viola) and they'll perform it in a friend's courtyard monday night.

 father's day dinner: homemade pesto pasta with salad and fresh zucchini from the farmer's market.

 and sorbet and gelato . . 

it was a late meal as we were waiting for the young people to get back . . though greg would have eaten much sooner . . morgana had been babysitting in new jersey and chanda and deychen's rehearsal went late.

memorial day bike ride

 it poured during the night but the rain stopped by morning.

 in fact, the road looks dry here! i do remember passing some big puddles though.

 we biked to fika on des brosses street. greg and i came here often the summer before last when morgana and chanda had visited norway and london, and i used to come here when chanda had her joffrey summer intensive.

this is a matcha tea latte . . very green looking and very grassy tasting.

 chanda had never been and agreed that it was the nicest fika cafe. they have comfortable couch-like seats and half the store is a bakery for their pastries.

 while greg read, chanda and i texted with morgana. she and her friend had returned to bangkok after a fourteen hour bus ride from phnom penh.

 this neighborhood is really changing. 

 there are two big blocks where they blasted away the old and are starting to put up the new. i always feel so frustrated that i can never remember what the old buildings looked like when they're gone . . greg says that when he bikes down during the week to work, this section is filled with construction workers. i have no idea what is going up.

 getting ready to head back . . chanda's heavy chain and lock don't wrap easily around the bike and she has trouble with them.

i really love this neighborhood.


i love all the old buildings. not everything is landmarked . . so many could still be lost.

 do you think he had some good suggestions?

maybe so because we were soon on our way . . (note the henna tattoo from a ballet artist friend who just got accepted to FIT . . she's so talented . . i'm always admiring her instagram pics).

back uptown again . . which is really still downtown.

greg and i did a lot of dusting and vacuuming and straightening of objects in the living room while chanda was at dance class. i can't believe how ambitious we were.

it feels so good to have done a thorough cleaning.

maybe it doesn't look neater or cleaner but it is! what's important is that i know it is and it feels great and we even got rid of a few things . . (but, yes i know i have way too much wool . . . )

now to more consistently tackle other areas this summer! we even have an air conditioner if we need cool motivation . .