morning poem and sunday afternoon

the trees

the trees are coming into leaf

like something almost being said;

the recent buds relax and spread,

their greenness is a kind of grief.

is it that they are born again

and we grow old? no, they die too,

their yearly trick of looking new

is written down in rings of grain.

yet still the unresting castles thresh

in fullgrown thickness every may.

last year is dead, they seem to say,

begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

by philip larkin (1922-1985)

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chanda and i met marlene for brunch at hudson hound this afternoon at 1 pm. it was great to see her. she's teaching her teen class this semester at hb again.

i also met kendall and aurélien coming home from upstate and helped them bring their bags up to the apartment. she lucked out with a good parking spot!

at the beach with friends

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(meanwhile, in nyc:

greg ran into a dancefest in washington square)

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back at the beach:

janine and i stopped at an art gallery opening . . 

(lost on purpose, acrylic and oil on canvas - janine's favorite)

i saw two shooting stars saturday night, the 10th, part of the perseids meteor shower.

listening to the crickets and katydids . . 

sunday:

early monday morning:

saying good-bye to janine . .

monday afternoon . . waiting for the technician to arrive to service the oil burner . . 

reading goldfish on vacation (!) by sally lloyd-jones.

tuesday . . at the bay with jason . . 

wednesday morning . . 9 am . . last day at the shore . . 

helping jason fasten his surfboard to the roof of the his car before we got on the road home.

home again . . after hours in traffic!

happy to see greg and the cats again and to have a delicious plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

knitting and dinner and rain

almost done with this baby sweater . . today i set the second sleeve in. tomorrow i'll sew it up along with the left side seam. the right side is already completed; then i'll block it and sew on the buttons. it was such a hot and steamy day! i went shopping for taco fixings (it just happens to be taco tuesday) when it began to rain and did not stop. greg came and helped me carry things home as they weren't delivering and i had a lot of jars and cans.

chanda is helping greg beautify his taco for the photo . . 

chanda's friend was here for dinner (they both helped get dinner on which was nice) . . it felt good to have a guest. she was interested in borrowing a fun and light book to read. i recommended jacobin's daughter since she said she liked history and felt like reading a romance. it's a book my parents gave me for christmas when i was about twelve or thirteen years old. it's fun reading these old books again . . i just finished re-reading a beautiful, early edition of black beauty that my sister gave me for my birthday. 

it's still raining and i can hear thunder in the distance . . there is a very cool breeze wafting through the window . . tomorrow it's only supposed to reach 72 degrees . . today it was 91! it'll feel chilly if it isn't too humid.

hot again

it's hot and humid again and very uncomfortable.

morgana sent a pic with uncle jeff in london (my cousin is visiting for a few weeks).

i really enjoyed watching the women's all around gymnastics today . . very exciting and moving! such incredible routines . . especially the floor exercise routines . . the height the gymnasts get on their flips is astounding. 

chanda was visiting her friend natalie this evening, and natalie's very elderly cat, sylvester (who has a friend named joshua).

natalie's cat when he was a kitten . . so tiny and adorable.