schoolwork and a photo contest

morgana created a mandala from cut out construction paper left over from one of chanda's geometry lessons.

chanda worked on a crossword puzzle from her latest cricket magazine.

the finished mandala that morgana managed not to blow all over the room by laughing.

she also worked with geometric shapes . . 

and angle measurements. she's catching up with geometry lessons that i missed doing with her.

during the summer, chanda entered a photo contest through the cricket magazine subscription she gets. she chose to enter a picture she took during our summer visit to the metropolitan museum of art.

the photo was mailed from montauk in june, and we didn't have an easy time mailing it off! we had gone into town to print it out, but the printing store was closed. in front of the store i met a woman who was also wanting to visit the printing store. she had a printer at her home, but no printer paper. i had printer paper but no printer! so, for several sheets of printer paper she invited us over to her place to print out chanda's picture! 

we know the picture arrived at the magazine a day late, but luckily they still allowed it to be entered. chanda won third place along with two other children, and it was fun to see her pic in the magazine. you can view an upclose shot of it here.

nor'easter

 it was quiet in the early morning, but by the afternoon a heavy rain had turned into a wet slushy snow. 

 it was cold! i huddled inside a cafe across from chanda's ballet school with another friend whose daughters were also in ballet class, and sipped a steamy ginger tea.

 sneaking pictures inside the ballet school . .

chanda working with her teacher . .

 on the way home . .

 worrying about the trees . . we did not have much of a fall. though some of the leaves have changed color and fallen off, there is still much greenery on the branches.

 as we crossed greenwich street, we heard a large branch break off a ginko tree. when we turned to look we saw that one of it's branches had already broken off. this weather is so difficult for our trees! 

 korrina came home for dinner from a new stage managing job, and morgana returned from ballet class.

dinner was butternut squash soup with spinach salad. the cold weather makes us hungry, and the early darkness makes us tired. and all the storms make life feel a bit strange. we were thrown from a warm fall into cold cold winter. of course, i wouldn't feel surprised if it warmed up this weekend to 70 degrees. i wouldn't like it, but it wouldn't surprise me. the weather is so crazy.

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by the time we went to sleep it had stopped snowing and the wind was quiet. the storm disappeared as quietly as it had arrived. i hope everyone in our other nyc boroughs fared alright.

korrina votes! and hip hip hooray for obama!

 

we walked across the street this morning to vote at 6:20 am. it was korrina's first presidential election!!! she's been looking forward to this.

 hmmmm! perhaps she looks just a tad sleepy?

 lots of early risers!

our polling site had lost power and we didn't think it would be available, but it was. spread the word!

(i love that . . )

tonight, chanda was very engrossed in listening to wnyc with us about the election results.

 it was close there for awhile, and then the swing state results started coming in!

 hip hip hooray for obama! another four years in the white house!

thanks to everyone who voted. walking around the city today, i could feel the positive energy for people to get out and exercise their right to vote.

vote . . OBAMA!

baking and clean up

korrina is so happy to have power back and to be able to cook again.

she made these delicious garlic knots.

chanda had modern dance class with ellen and greg picked her up while i went home to try and get dinner together. i stopped at food emporium on sixth avenue to pick up butter. i forgot that they hadn't restocked yet! uptown everything is normal. downtown is only starting to get back into the swing of things.

the tree was gone, but the broken bench is still around.

the building with all the water in it's basement has started to clear out the rubble.

west village halloween party

our friends were supposed to have their halloween party tuesday evening, october 30th. however, sandy postponed that!

it was finally decided to have it this evening. we came as quick as we could after nutcracker rehearsal.

a lot of effort went into the decorations, the food, and the haunted house!

it was really a wonderful party, and the haunted house this year was my favorite of all the years so far. there was a fortune teller, a mummy, a graveyard in the garden, and a ghostly bedroom chamber. it was impressive!

towards the end of the evening, everyone played "mafia" upstairs.

when i finally manged to round the girls up to go home, this little mouse was the last one to say good night!

still no power

when we woke friday morning, the 2nd of november, we were all very cold and craving a hot cup of tea and a warm breakfast.

so we all got dressed and began our trek northward! here we're passing the fish store in chelsea where they were cleaning out their old fish from the frig which still had no power. we also passed a restaurant having to dump old soup . . it's sad to see food being thrown out.

we still had no power for the traffic lights, so traffic cops were at many of the corners.

korrina and i snapped photos on our way north . . 

we decided to visit westway diner on 9th avenue at 43rd street. 

we had a great breakfast, and hot coffee and tea!

korrina and tyler walked with us to the drama bookstore before heading east to visit their friends.

the last time i had visited the drama bookstore, it was still a small doorway on broadway and a tiny elevator ride to the second floor. it's now a storefront on 40th street.


morgana, chanda and i then headed back downtown.

we passed people waiting for a rare bus that would go downtown . . land of no traffic lights.

normally, we are not permitted to overcrowd the bus like this! but with the downtown subways not running, it's difficult getting around. it's impossible to get to brooklyn . .

these people are charging their cell phones and computers.

many people went out of town . . i suppose staying at hotels, or with friends, or with family. it's unusual to see no cars on 11th street.

the streets and sidewalks were quiet . .

we visited our friend deychen for tea, and then our friend janet for tea. then we went uptown for nutcracker rehearsal.