a beautiful and cold friday

 

we had another cold day with fat, low, pink clouds.

they looked pretty against the red brick buildings.

 chanda's teacher scheduled another lesson for her today, so she could be more prepared for saturday's music hour. his daughter was with him today. she's so sweet and the girls and i love seeing her. she was very cute and shy and wouldn't let me take a picture. jose didn't think she was feeling very well and was having a slight reaction to several vaccinations she had yesterday. she was very good and sat quietly through the whole lesson, taking turns eating her croissant, working in her math book, and reading an abridged version of dr. doolittle. i would steal furtive glances her way to see what she was doing . . !

 what is jack doing???

 he's sniffing for his bone which i gave him to chew on while i was cooking dinner. it slipped beneath the bench and he made an attempt to get it (when you're 12 1/2 you can't move too quickly). i'm not sure where it is now. i looked just a moment ago and i couldn't see it. i wonder when he finally got it out. (morgana supplied the musical ambiance for this film by holding the radio close to the camera. she thought it was perfect jack "sniffing for his bone" music).

 dinner was chicken paprikash from the around the world cookbook.

it was just morgana, chanda and i. greg was doing a coop shift, and korrina was at a friend's house.

a lesson with ina

chanda had a lesson with ina today. her regular violin teacher had a concert in new jersey, and he asked a colleague of his from another school to teach his monday evening third street students. this isn't the first time that we have met ina. in may of 2005, chanda performed at a concert in mid-town with another school for which jose taught. ina led the children through several songs. chanda was five at the time (she's in the pink dress).

i can't believe six years have gone by. ina remembered chanda playing at this concert and was delighted to see her again. we felt the same. it was a fun lesson. she worked with chanda on different phrasings for the song she's working on (double violin concerto). we'll see her again next monday before jose returns.

this evening we read the legend of st. nicholas, by demi, and about st. nicholas day in slovakia from the anabel kindersley's celebrations book. m and c left their large felted slippers on the windowsill. korrina did also. she left a high heel black shoe.

monday monday

today was a quiet, stay at home day. everyone did a little bit of personal reading in between housework and school work and music work. chanda had a violin lesson today, and after helping to finish making the lemonade, morgana went down to the courtyard to read.

then they worked on their book lists while i got dinner ready.

after dinner we went outside for a walk along the river (while korrina stayed home and talked to friends on the computer and put up her ferry beach pictures on face book). the sky was beautiful and there was the most amazing heat lightening happening within a group of clouds. it was a hot night and greg finally made his way home from florida after being diverted to detroit, and then syracuse (because of the weather). he was exhausted.