so busy on montauk

 i woke in the early morning to a beautiful sun shining into the dining room.

 i sat down to have earl grey tea in nana's oriental teapot.

 after breakfast chanda worked on her geometric shapes . .

 she thought it came out looking like a bulldog face.

 a rocket ship.

 morgana worked on her odysseus story.

we went for a walk around the block to gather twigs. chanda made friends with the dog up the street. nana and nonno know this dog well. he often comes to visit them.

 reaching high for a branch for this huge tree . .

 chanda got distracted by a pothole . . i don't know what she was finding . . 

 back home again . . 

 we went around to the backyard to climb on the favorite climbing tree.

and to stand on the favorite rock which i remember standing on when i was younger than chanda . . and the trees were not around! it's funny how in the 1960's there wasn't all the vegetation . .

 we gather acorn tops, forsythia, berries, dandelions and twig branches.

 and then we took a ride to the beach.

 they came back to work on their daffodil drawings . . 

 the clouds were so beautiful!

 morgana sliced her daffodil open to observe the unripe seeds.

the filaments of the stamens are grown fast to the sides of the tube, enough remaining free to press the anthers close to the style. the ovary is triangular in outline and is large enough to hold two rows of white, shining, unripe seeds. each of these cavities is partitioned from the others by a green wall.

 i began making dinner.

 it was a full moon.

we had spaghetti and meatballs. i think we brought them from home.

to the sea

we went on a field trip to the natural history museum on tuesday. i was too tired to post about it tuesday night. yesterday we came out to visit at my mom and dad's, and to breathe in a little sea air. it took a long time to get here as we weren't able to leave until after a babysitting job and a play rehearsal, so we hit a lot of traffic. but the roads finally cleared and the moon was shining bright, and this morning the birds are singing a big greeting. many classes are on break. it's nice to not have to run out every afternoon. have a good rest of the holiday week.

the babysitting job before the journey

chanda and i took tsamaret and moriah to the river park to run around a little. it was such a beautiful day.

 the blue star flowers all nodded their heads at tsamaret and moriah . . 

a wednesday dinner on montauk

 nana and nonno went to connecticut, so chanda, morgana and i came out to montauk for a visit.

 we had sparkling water and ginger beer with a homemade pizza.

amnh field trip

the american museum of natural history . . we were there at 10 am this morning, waiting outside the rose entrance for the doors to open. our first experience was a movie: journey to the stars. i fell asleep during this planetary experience during the summer, so i was glad to have had a cup of coffee before starting out this morning! it began with the theory of the birth of the sun, when gravity compresses atoms of interstellar gas and fusion occurs. the movie showed our galaxy amidst the vastness of the universe and for a moment one had the sense of how small we really are; and then you walked out of the theatre and once more into your own everyday cares. i thought about how wonderful it is to be a cosmic scientist and studying images from the hubble space telescope every moment.

from the vastness of the universe we next focused on the importance of caring for our earth. born to be wild followed two women, dr. biruté mary galdikas in borneo and dame daphne m. sheldrick in kenya, as they cared for orphaned orangutans and elephants, rehabilitated them, and returned them to the wild. it was truly an inspiring movie, and we couldn't stop talking about it all day. the animals have an special intuitive intelligence that only some humans still seem to possess, and their territory on this earth is rapidly dwindling.

the heartwarming stories of the two doctors set us up perfectly for a meditative moment in the butterfly observatory. the cabinet in the picture above (that we viewed before entering), contained specimens gathered in the past of the butterflies currently fluttering around in the tent.

this is a zebra longwing (heliconius charithonia), of the brush-footed family. it is found in the southern states (in 1996, the zebra longwing was declared the official butterfly of florida), and central and south america.

the girls were very obliging to pose for a picture in the conservatory's humidity! the mamas lasted longer than the children.

evan, waiting patiently for a butterfly to say hello . .

i have not been able to identify this one as yet . .

morgana with sofe and evan . .

paper kite butterfly: idea leuconoe. they are also commonly called rice paper butterfly or tree nymph butterfly. they are of the family nymphalidae, or the brush-footed butterflies, and are found in southeast asia.

swallowtail pupae . .

this is the owl butterfly, found in rainforests and secondary forests in mexico and central and south america. they prefer to fly at dusk when their avian predators usually aren't active. they are in the genus caligo, which means darkness in latin.

this is the mexican (or mountain) longwing, heliconius hortense, found from mexico to ecuador.

they like to eat passion flower vines, and their brightly colored wing patterns signal their distastefulness to potential predators.

after seeing the butterflies, we went outside on the rocks for a picnic lunch.

after lunch, we saw a little of the current exhibition called beyond planet earth . . i hope to return in the next month to see more of this.

morgana went with our friends to her ballet class. chanda and i returned home. we were surprised to find the west 11th street park had finally reopened! it lost a lot of trees during hurricane irene. after being a very shady area for so many years, it feels strange to have it so sunny.

korrina was home from her burger king job. we snacked on guacamole and chips from whole foods.

and then it was time to make dinner . . and go to bed.

setting up the week . . and the summer

i did a lot of studio scheduling this morning. the girls' dance teacher has been reminding us that they need to work on their dances. this scheduling is time consuming as i compare their teacher's calendar with the dance studio's calendar and my calendar. i also finalized the payment for the field trip which is happening tomorrow. morgana worked on her guitar and greek while i did this, and chanda worked on her geometry. korrina was at work. we're also trying to coordinate summer activities: morgana's sturbridge village internship, chanda's swimming lessons, korrina's ferry beach bridging, a possible vacation at my mom's, possible dance intensives, a free metropolitan museum of art painting class, and a visit to my uncle in annapolis. mixed in with these summer activities is apartment cleaning . . i need to clear out the top of the loft bed so we can get m and c bunk beds this summer. oh! i also need to make window curtains. our curtains are either torn or the strings are broken. there's probably lots more i could think of, but it's time for bed . . !

palm sunday

we went to bed late last night, but still managed to get up to attend a palm sunday service at st. luke in the fields on hudson street. the service began in front of the church with a distribution of the palms, and then we all walked in together. it's a beautiful church, with old wavy glass windows, but warm! they must have a good heating system! and everyone is very nice. morgana, chanda and i especially enjoy the quiet, the songs, and the peaceful fellowship we feel there. it was a beautiful start to the day. afterwards, we walked to the car, thankfully parked only three blocks away, and drove morgana up to 68th street for her warm-up dance class before her two performances. then chanda and i came home for a bite to eat before driving off again for her rehearsal on the upper east side (12:30 to 5 pm!). it was a long day. i sat and knitted and talked with linda, whose son is performing as a pirate with the girls. it was a nice afternoon, and when we got home korrina and her friend tyler joined us for a pasta dinner. korrina has been working at burger king for the last two weeks. many mornings she is up at 6 am and out the door by 7:15, followed by her classes in the evening.

greg has been reading game of thrones. he has often commented on the brutality and wildness of the time period. i have been questioning the author's references and greg's acceptance of his depiction of events as fact. (what are the author's primary sources!) today he went to strand and came back with rites and religions of the anglo saxons, by gale owen. i was reading a little about funerary rites . . and it was . . pretty wild. but now, of course, i question the translations.