tuesday morning at bryant park

 

 i'm not sure if she's lamenting the bad fall she had on the ice, or the fact that she ate all of her chocolate croissant.

 we always pass the marc jacobs store on west 11th and bleecker streets on our way home. for years we have never liked their window displays, but today we did! we even liked the dress the mannequin was wearing.  it's a picnic scene with giant ants eating the picnic food.

a little bit about monday

 it's been cold outside each morning.

 morgana often begins the morning playing her guitar. when she finished, we drove all the way into brooklyn for a quick coop shop. we made it back at 12:30, just in time for me to park in the no parking monday and thursday 11 - 12:30 section. we then had lunch and did some work.

 chanda finished her craft from gabriel's party.

 

 janet cut up an old pair of leather pants she owned. chanda's piece was the bottom flare, which made a nice shape for the bag.

 exploring triangles and reviewing how they were used for measuring the earth.

 morgana then worked on her bag.

 her bag is made from the pocket section of the pants, which gave her an extra part for books and pencils, phone and metrocard.

she's in the middle of the return of the king. after this she ran off to ballet class, and korrina went to her rehearsal for guys and dolls.

we haven't had much snow, but i've been enjoying the steady 25 degree days. this picture is taken on 67th street, looking west, just off of columbus avenue. after ellen's modern dance class, chanda had a violin lesson. afterwards, we went home to a dinner of acorn squash, potatoes and faicco's italian chicken sausage which morgana had put together.

a dusting of snow for sunday

it was nice to wake to snow on the ground, though it wasn't very much!!

i think this is the third light dusting of snow we've had.

i took chanda uptown to a special concert at carnegie hall with the west eastern divan orchestra, comprised of youth from the middle east of egyptian, israeli, jordanian, palestinian, iranian, lebanese, syrian and spanish backgrounds. her school had free tickets for its students. she said it was an incredibly beautiful concert. they played two beethoven pieces.

on the way home, we passed central park on our way to the train.

 

here is the artisans' gate.

and here are the horses waiting to ferry tourists (or natives) through the park.

candlemas day: concerts and a birthday party

it was such a busy day today. chanda performed in her music hour beautifully, and not so beautifully. she faltered at the end and lost her place in the song. she found it again, and ended well, but she was a little upset. unfortunately, this music hour was a little rushed. she could have used another week to work on all the details. the next one is in march and she'll begin working on the music monday, so she'll have more time to prepare.

 

while she was in repertory and orchestra, i walked to barnes and noble at union square to pick up a book about the hobbit movie for my friend's son, gabriel. he had a party this evening for his twelfth birthday.

the school had two orchestras visiting from philadelphia today. chanda played with the intermediate one.

they performed two songs by eric ewazen called four royal dances conducted by their teacher, steve rochen.

they performed "a spanish piece by a russian person" that was conducted by the philadelphia school's teacher (capriccio espagnol by rimsky-korsakov), and plink, plank, plunk, by leroy anderson.

the advanced orchestras performed with a composer who played the bandoneon.

his composition was one of the most beautiful pieces of music i've ever heard. today was a rehearsal, so i'm hoping to hear the piece again for the philharmonia concert in may. hmm. i just looked at third street's calendar and i see this concert is may 11th from 1 to 2:30. our friend deychen is also having a concert on this day; at noon. it's a special solo concert and she's supposed to play several pieces, totaling an hour. this is a big conflict! stay tuned!

in the evening, after the "playthrough," we quickly walked to gabriel's birthday party.

the goodie bags, decorated with drawings from the hobbit.

janet made a delicious salad and sloppy joes.

for christmas her mother had given her a computer dancing game. she was a little concerned when the package was first opened (not being big on computer games), but the children had so much fun with it and danced together for hours! so, it was a big hit.

after playing several group games, the dancing game was put on and it was fun to watch them.

getting the cake ready.

bilbo's hobbit hole! it was a chocolate cake with marzipan decorations. 

then it was time to sing happy birthday.

what should gabriel wish for?

he blew his candles out carefully, one by one.

now . . how should one cut such a beautiful cake?

camille played music from the lord of the rings on the piano . .

this is the special "shire" theme.

on the way home, we found it had snowed!

morgana slept over with the other children, but chanda felt very tired and came home with me through the snow. she'll return in the morning for the craft and pancakes.

candlemas

 it's a sunny day. looks like we're in for a few more weeks of winter. i know we wouldn't mind some snow.

happy candlemas. have a beautiful day.

a beautiful and cold friday

 

we had another cold day with fat, low, pink clouds.

they looked pretty against the red brick buildings.

 chanda's teacher scheduled another lesson for her today, so she could be more prepared for saturday's music hour. his daughter was with him today. she's so sweet and the girls and i love seeing her. she was very cute and shy and wouldn't let me take a picture. jose didn't think she was feeling very well and was having a slight reaction to several vaccinations she had yesterday. she was very good and sat quietly through the whole lesson, taking turns eating her croissant, working in her math book, and reading an abridged version of dr. doolittle. i would steal furtive glances her way to see what she was doing . . !

 what is jack doing???

 he's sniffing for his bone which i gave him to chew on while i was cooking dinner. it slipped beneath the bench and he made an attempt to get it (when you're 12 1/2 you can't move too quickly). i'm not sure where it is now. i looked just a moment ago and i couldn't see it. i wonder when he finally got it out. (morgana supplied the musical ambiance for this film by holding the radio close to the camera. she thought it was perfect jack "sniffing for his bone" music).

 dinner was chicken paprikash from the around the world cookbook.

it was just morgana, chanda and i. greg was doing a coop shift, and korrina was at a friend's house.