all soul's day: remembering xena

since it's all soul's day, it's a nice time to remember xena, especially since i never did a memorial post after she passed away on june 9th.

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xena came to us in 1996, right before morgana was born in may. she was a teenager, about nine months old, and she had been living on the streets of park slope, brooklyn. specifically, she had been living outside my friend's apartment building on second street, between seventh and sixth avenues. she was very ill and one of the neighbors decided to take her into the vet a few blocks away. there they treated her for skin and eye infections, and i think a few other things i'm not even sure of. they called her "survivor" because they were so surprised that she lived. my friend had heard me complaining about the mice in my apartment and how i needed a cat to keep them away. she already had several cats, as did her neighbor, so we took xena home to 176 prospect place, brooklyn. i remember very clearly picking her up at the veterinarian's. we walked into the examining room and she was meowing very loudly from a box on the table. the vet's assistant opened it up and out poked this little black head. we didn't just pick her up and cuddle her. we kept our distance. you could tell she was a feisty little thing.

here she is with korrina in the bedroom in brooklyn that looked out onto the backyard. we lived on the ground floor of a hundred year old house on a tree lined block in prospect heights. it was a beautiful old house, but it had lots of little holes that the mice liked to crawl through. they would come out at night and traipse along the white kitchen counter, leaving little yellow footprints along the edge by the wall. it took me a day or two to figure out what the yellow footprints were! they would also leave their little droppings on the wood floor and on the rug. that would not do! not with little ones crawling around! we had tried trapping them, but of course they always came back (we used the have-a-heart traps and greg would release them at grand army plaza! . . )

but now we had . . xena!!! warrior queen! survivor of the streets of brooklyn! watch out mice! 

and, oh, she was mean. mean. mean. mean. cruel. cruel. cruel. those poor unsuspecting mice. oh my goodness gracious . . they were goners. but she would torture them! oh, she was awful. and i didn't want to interfere because i always just hoped she would finally KILL the darn thing. oh, but . . she kept my apartment clean. we never had a mouse problem again. my landlady used to borrow her when the mice were too brazen upstairs!

here she is on top of the frig. once she jumped up on the washing machine when i had korrina's birthday cake sitting there, ready for a birthday party! she jumped right onto the cake! it was good i had made a few of them . . (i used to make the six minute chocolate cake from the moosewood cooks at home cookbook).

 here she is trying to get under a napkin to sneak a taste of a sick child's lunch . .

and resting in one of her favorite places: chanda's violin case. dear xena. sometimes i'm surprised at how much i miss her. she was my helper; my protector from cute little mice. she was also an important connection to a special time in brooklyn, when the girls were little and wild and demanding and exhausting and . . blissfully pure in ways that we only are once in our lives. it was a special time and though we are living wonderful lives this very moment, when we stop to think about those days, we notice how much we miss them . . and xena.

flowers, xena, and a violin recital

a friend gave chanda and morgana lilies over the weekend. each day a new one opens.

i think marlene gave them baby roses.

the sunflowers are from francesca and isabella.

morgana helped me take xena to fifth avenue vets on 15th street. they take their pets upstate to hartsdale cemetory/crematory, rather than out to long island, and are able to charge $75 less than the other places i spoke with. before leaving, morgana worked on her cards for her ballet teachers. she used water colors and created flowers and leaves on heavy cream paper. i wish i had thought to take a pic, but i've been a little distracted. i've had a mix of allergy problems and a bad sinus infection. and then i've been so sad at losing xena. i miss her terribly. it's so odd to feed only two cats in the morning . . it's so odd not to constantly be mixing up a little salmon or steak or canned cat food in a bowl for her.

it started raining as i sat outside of the chocolate bar, waiting for morgana to purchase chocolates for her teachers. then we walked to fifth avenue vets, where the receptionist thought xena was still alive! she kept saying that the emergency doctor would come out to talk with me. and i asked, "but why does the doctor need to speak with me?" then she answered, "oh, they like to talk with you first." finally, i said . . my cat is already gone! she was apologetic, but morgana and i were in stitches, laughing. it was just very funny. she was new on the job, poor dear. she was very embarrassed. "i'm so sorry," she kept saying. "it's okay," we said!

after saying good-bye to dearest xena, i went downtown to pick up chanda from her dance intensive. then we went to her violin recital. she was in florida during her teacher's recital time, so she played at her chamber teacher's recital. she played cavatina again, and i thought it sounded very beautiful.

she played with a lot of feeling and confidence.

on the way home we passed these beautiful roses on the stairwell of liv tyler's home. she has such a lovely garden.

sunday dance recital, and losing xena

 the flowers are accumulating.

 the week has been so busy that chanda only had a chance to work on her poster this morning, before rushing off to her 10 am call for her concert!

 with ellen, after the show.

 with tessa, isabella and francesca.

 we keep adding . . bianca jumped in on the last minute.

 chanda's show was at noon. we went with francesca and isabella, elsa, marisa and tsering to le pain quotidian for a tartine before the four o'clock show (which we were all staying for). morgana went up to manhattan youth ballet to her final ballet performance, and gala event.

 isabella is working on a scarf.

isabella and her germ bracelets!

after the four o'clock show, chanda went with marisa and deychen to tea and sympathy, while greg and i helped ellen load out and take her boxes to studio maestro, along with krista and yueng hip (emma lee's dad). we finished around 8 pm and met chanda on her way home. greg went to park the car, while chanda and i talked with our neighbor who had just returned home from florida. she was telling us the story of how her yorkshire terrier, scooter, had finally died on the trip south. scooter was 17 years old, and had been ill for the past few months. we shared about how ill xena was. when we finally got upstairs at 8:45, we found that xena had passed away. greg had last looked in on her, and given her water, at 6:30 pm. chanda was very upset. even though i kept having her say good-bye to xena each time we left the apartment, she was still surprised. we are all very sad. i love my dear little warrior cat. dear, dear xena.

tuesday thoughts

yesterday in central park, the forsythia and daffodils were in bloom, and the cherry trees were turning green.

 violets! the violets in our courtyard garden have only green leaves . . 

 theras and his town, arrived this afternoon. it came from arizona, from a bookstore called "sonoran leaves and spines . . " i love thinking about this shop in the middle of the desert . . 

 chanda's friend whom she helped sew the pointe shoes, sent her a beautiful bracelet and an invitation to her bat mitzvah. today chanda wrote out a thank you, and on saturday she received permission from her orchestra leader to miss the performance day rehearsal, so she can attend the bat mitzvah. i thought that was really nice of him. i'm so glad she can go. she'll be at the temple in the morning, then dash off to third street for the 1 pm orchestra concert, then back in the evening for the big party celebration. ellen's modern dance concert pieces are also that same weekend. it will be a bit crazy!

the magnolia outside our window is in full bloom . . it's glorious.

chanda has been working on a piece by joaquim raff. it's a very difficult piece that her teacher would like her to play at the annual third street auditions in just two weeks. i think he was a bit nuts to give it to her . . it's been such a challenge. she has been working very diligently:

xena and jack slept through her rehearsal . . in the picture you can see xena on the bed and jack on the chair. in the above photo xena is in jack's bed which she steals every chance she can get. i'm always shocked when jack succumbs to lying on his own bed:

today chanda and morgana worked on their italian, latin and math. (korrina went off to babysit . . she's had a lot of free time without guys and dolls to take care of!)  then they dashed off to meet their friend deychen at the store "anthropologie" to help her pick out a dress for the annual tcm movie festival she attends each year with her mom and her aunt. this year they bought a special ticket that allows them to walk down the red carpet at grumman's theatre for the opening ceremony. deychen has shoes, but needs a dress! it's very exciting . .  for all of them . . the girls love hearing all about deychen's exploits at the festival, and about all the old time movie stars she sees. i enjoy the stories immensely also.

a funny friday

greg and morgana left today for connecticut. they'll be staying with my sister and her family while commuting to sturbridge for morgana's internship. korrina and chanda went on a field trip to the tenement museum. they did a workshop about the roles of a building inspector and a landlord. i stayed home and cleaned up the kitchen after everyone left. the animals did not leave me alone. jack wanted water, and xena wanted food from the frig.

february new year's dinner

we had two crackers left from christmas time!

cornbread, brown rice and black-eyed peas, collards and onions.


sweet potatoes too.

these little piggies are from sturbridge. morgana made them with her co-workers for the holidays. they were a tradition in the middle 1800's!

we had anzac cookies for dessert from the around the world cookbook. we ate early in the day as morgana ran off to a ballet rehearsal, and korrina ran off to meet several friends for the evening.

chanda worked on her greek history with some help from xena.

it was her argonautica synopsis which was finally ready for the lesson book.

 

in the evening, when morgana returned, we had milk and gingersnaps while playing the hobbit game.

we had long discussions about the rules!!

it's good there were cookies for sustenance.

sewing

we finally finished evangeline, and all of us enjoyed it, more so than the song of hiawatha. i felt that mr. longfellow was more in his element with the acadians' story, and it was also a bit shorter.

morgana finished sewing in her zipper today.

now she's obsessed with making the cloak. she has the material for it; she just needs some help from her friend on how to cut it out.

i didn't get much done today. we've been listening to the star of kazan. but, thankfully, we came to the end of the story!

chanda's bodice for her dress is also finished. now she just needs to hem the neck.

i made one of our favorite dinners tonight: spaghetti with broccoli sauce. it's a recipe of my dad's that he got from a friend.

korrina has been stage managing at the herbert berghof studio up the block. she gave notice at burger king when her screenwriting certificate class began again at the new school.