voting day and spring flower photos

pluto this morning . . 

and here are the three of them before chanda and i went out to vote.

it was a special election as our local council member was elected to the state assembly and we had to vote for his replacement.

look who we met up with . . it was a voting party.

the neighborhood is looking beautifully festive with all the spring blooms . .

and greg and i ate at tartine. we figured out that the last time we ate here together was when the restaurant had a different name, which neither of us could remember. we asked the current manager who also couldn't remember, though he knew that it was in 1991!! i have eaten here several times since then with janet and with morgan and chanda. one time we met a colleague of greg's from his work, which was interesting as i cannot remember how we figured out that she knew greg since he wasn't with us. maybe chanda remembers the story.

halloween day

morgan and i were out bright and early for a special halloween parade . . 

to see this special little firefighter . .

also, chanda, morgan and i met korrina at the local middle school for early voting . . 

it was nice having morgana here to vote with us (greg was at work and will vote on election day, tuesday, november 4th).

next up on the agenda was dressing up for janet's halloween party . . morgana and i were cats cricket and pluto and chanda was our vet . .

at the party we had a nice time talking with janet's friend about london, theatre and traveling.

korrina was at work where they all dressed up in different andy warhol wigs and korrina added her knitted gremlin hat . . 

and my sister and brother-in-law made a jack-o-lantern and handed out treats to the very many trick or treaters they had.

toby cat didn't quite understand what all the hubbub was about. 

meanwhile, greg was stuck in traffic after picking the car up from the shop and missed the party. he was very tired and simply made himself a sandwich and went to sleep.

good night! happy halloween!

morning shenanigans, baking and postcards

zuzu's morning routine . . 

making a plum cake with plums bought on monday (after korrina had texted me to let me know they were available at the green market) . .  

so i walked over and purchased eighteen of them . . and made a proper cake (i had tried it with round plums and it just wasn't as good.)

a favorite breakfast . . 

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i stopped at the rubin museum in the late afternoon as it's their last week. they're closing their nyc space and will now have specific exhibitions in different cities all over the world. i think their current exhibition will be moving to san francisco once it closes on sunday. i colored a flag for their sunday evening good-bye flag ceremony.

dinner was steamed sweet potatoes and bok choy with brown rice . . 

and thankfully i found the roll of postcard stamps that the cats had been playing with (it had rolled under my desk). i wrote out fifty postcards to georgia voters from the organization students for voting justice.

a zoom and voting day

family zoom today at 12:30 . .

chanda's photo of last week's strawberry moon . . 

photos from a hike she took . . 

(that's a deer in the top right corner . . )

protecting a piping plover nest . .

a newly published book she found at the library about tackling the problem of invasive flora and fauna around the world. 

voting with korrina today . . 

and pastry and a cold lemon yuzu soda afterwards . .

(at the sleeping cat cafe . . )

walking home i passed a city worker trying to fix a broken traffic light . . 

(car horns were honking . . people were not happy).

birthday dinner with kendall at balaboosta . . (they have such good food) . . 

(baklava with pistachio ice cream gone too soon.)

voting, hibiscus and a book of maps

i saw kendall this morning before she left for upstate with aurélien in the afternoon. we walked to her early voting place and stopped at citarella and the library on the way home. .

the rose of sharon flowers are beautiful.

i had requested the atlas of the invisible from the library, a book eva had recommended, and chanda was excited to see it when she stopped by. it has maps showing how our dna connects us all, digitized shipping routes showing how they criss-cross the globe, and road trips in the usa-a map showing commuting behavior (just a few examples).

on the 28th

korrina and chanda came by today around 1 pm so we could go across the street to vote together. korrina walked in with beautiful peonies from a florist in her neighborhood (from both of them) and chanda had made a card. it was such a nice day weather wise - i don't think it went over 80, and since it was my birthday we ended up walking to chelsea market for fish tacos and then to the high line for paletas . . and then home again for their things and then two errands (the hardware store for a hammer for chanda's new apartment and the italian pork store for semolina bread, mozzarella, soppressata, olives, etc., for korrina) before they got on their separate trains.

actually, first i had several lovely text messages from friends and this message from aurélien . . 

and a gift from my cousin that had arrived via korrina and that i had saved for this morning . . 

i didn't know this card meowed happy birthday until chanda arrived and squeezed it . . 

new $50 doc martins from a new thrift store in chanda's neighborhood that they are sharing. today was korrina's turn to wear them.

ralph lee's puppets . . 

it's a very large dragon . . 

los mariscos, the mexican seafood taco spot . . 

their aquarium . . 

a shrimp taco on the left, and an especial ceviche with shrimp, clams, scallops and octopus (the corn tortilla is crunchy rather than soft).

chanda ordered the cucumber agua fresca for us and it was very good, not at all too sweet as i thought it might be.

admiring the echinacea and the honey bees on the high line . . 

hibiscus, strawberry and mango . . (i think)

wild quinine - identified by chanda with her phone (!)

astilby . .

purple smoke tree . . 

for some reason i really love this fountain. i find it funny and sad at the same time - kind of whimsical but buffoonish - and it's exactly how i feel . .  (the artist is nina beier)

faicco's . . 

korrina and i dropped chanda off at her subway entrance and then stopped at lifethyme health food store before heading our separate ways. i stopped at mah ze dahr for a blackberry basil spritzer . . and wandered home as it was dinnertime and greg was wondering where i was.

 

dinner with greg . . 

since i wasn't all that hungry we shared an ouzi: filo stuffed with basmati rice, almonds, golden raisins chicken, carrots, sweet peas and spices.

the best was the dessert . . 

saffron rice pudding and turkish coffee.

greg laughed at me because i first asked for espresso . . it was very good with just a hint of sugar.

. . and that was today.