saturday activities and meetings

actually chanda had a music hour this afternoon. her orchestra rehearsal was cancelled as the teacher was ill. however, i've had this movie from the saturday before her sturbridge interview, so thought i would put it up for today (in music hour she played concerto in g minor, third movement by vivaldi).

they're been practicing a piece called "the ideals of pegasus" by richard myer and "the mountain chase" by alan lee silva (above is "the mountain chase").

 on our way home from music hour we ran into morgana!

 

 i was surprised because i thought she was at her me and my girl rehearsal. i forgot that she first had a chamber music rehearsal. she just rolled her eyes at me.

 chanda made a delicious dinner this evening of gnocchi with butter and thyme sauce . . . .

. . . along with a romaine heart/arugula salad with pepitos and dried cranberries.

human bones?

one of my favorite parts of the the book eight cousins by louisa may alcott, are the lessons their uncle alec gives them with a real human skeleton. he even has a story describing about who the skeleton was, and how it came to be hanging in his study. in an email about today's class at the museum, it was mentioned that the students would get to meet a real human skeleton. however, it was not presented in that way and morgana and chanda were skeptical of it being real human bones. i would find it incredibly exciting to see a skeleton made of real human bones. wouldn't you? i've asked them to be more observant of the skeleton's texture next week so they can describe it to me in more detail. i wonder if it is the skeleton in this photograph?

while they were in their lesson, i learned about the discovery of ancient human remains in africa (turkana boy is the most complete early human skeleton found and is 1.5 million years old), and the migration of people out of africa. one of the places they discovered bones was under the ruins of the medieval town of dmanisi in the republic of georgia. the bones found here were the earliest human bones found outside of africa, and because of the shorter stature, indicate a type of hominid ancestor different from "homo ergaster," who until now scientists believed had been the first to migrate.

 this is a "homo erectus" skull found in a speciality shop that sells fossils here in new york city in 2001. scientists at the museum determined that it came from java, and subsequently returned it to scientists there.

thursday reading and knitting

morning greeters . . 

morgana and chanda read from david macaulay's book castle this morning (after reading the "chivalrous knights" chapter in gombrich). i worked on my "follow your arrow" shawl.

it's not easy for me to imagine people building these castles. i don't know why. i can imagine them building churches . . there's something about putting all that effort into one building for one person, but maybe they saw it as protection for the town. you needed your lord and his knights to keep the town safe . . chanda is reading king arthur and his knights of the round table by roger lancelyn green.

chanda worked on her feudalism lesson.

 morgana's drawing of peasants harvesting the grain . . 

and her writing . . she's currently working on a report about eleanor of aquitaine.

dinner tonight was colorful: carrot soup with beet salad.

korrina was off early this afternoon from work and stopped by. i got to hear all about her jury duty adventures yesterday and the day before. she's so glad to have it over with. now she says they can't call her for another six years. while we talked i worked on my shawl and finally finished the first clue. she was on her way to a knitting group at la casita yarn shop in brooklyn.

bean pot dinner

chanda and i were on our own tonight for dinner. i made baked beans in our redware bean pot from sturbridge.

 we had it with fig bread from eataly, and brussel sprouts sauteed with garlic (eataly has a nice selection of produce).

 by the time morgana and greg came home, we were both asleep. can you see jack sleeping in the above picture?

running errands

 today began with lots of sunshine and our daffodils nodding on the windowsill. they're doing very well. these are the dwarf daffodils that will poke their heads up in another month or so in the laundry room garden. i really love them. they seem very hardy.

 i didn't want to dig the car out to go shopping in brooklyn at the coop, so we ran errands around the neighborhood today. on our way we passed these trees on thirteenth street by integral yoga which looked like they were from wonderland or seussland with their snowy caps. 

 dancing shoes at onstage dance on 35th street . . morgana picked out character shoes and tap shoes for me and my girl, which she rehearses every thursday and saturday, 4:30 to sevenish.

 we had first stopped at the chacott store on 20th street so chanda could get new pointe shoes. we were actually twenty minutes before opening time, but the manager likes chanda (he thinks she has nice feet) so he let us in (this is a major miracle in manhattan). she had to get a different shoe with a higher vamp. 

after getting morgana's shoes we walked back downtown to eataly for a lunch of focaccia and tea. then chanda and i went shopping at whole foods while morgana went to her acting class. it's nice to have food for dinner plans again. i was going to make split pea soup, but after cleaning out the refrigerator, there was only time for pasta with leeks and sausage and ricotta.

bleecker playground

 . . bleecker playground under a blanket of snow . . greg ran into chanda coming home from her modern dance class with ellen, and took this picture of the park.

snow day

morgana's poem that she chose to read yesterday morning:

stopping by woods on a snowy evening

by robert frost

whose woods these are i think i know.

his house is in the village though;

he will not see me stopping here

to watch his woods fill up with snow.

my little horse must think it queer

to stop without a farmhouse near

between the woods and frozen lake

the darkest evening of the year.

he gives his harness bells a shake

to ask if there is some mistake.

the only other sound's the sweep

of easy wind and downy flake.

the woods are lovely, dark and deep.

but i have promises to keep,

and miles to go before i sleep,

and miles to go before i sleep.

then greg read this poem by wallace stevens:

the snow man
one must have a mind of winter
to regard the frost and the boughs
of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

and have been cold a long time
to behold the junipers shagged with ice,
the spruces rough in the distant glitter

of the january sun; and not to think
of any misery in the sound of the wind,
in the sound of a few leaves,

which is the sound of the land
full of the same wind
that is blowing in the same bare place

for the listener, who listens in the snow,
and, nothing himself, beholds
nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

 it was a beautiful day . .

i actually spent the day in bed due to my cold and sinus infection. but i still had to get up to walk the dog after everyone had left for afternoon classes. i managed to step out after the walk for a few photos:

korrina stopped by for our knitting hour . .

 she's much further along on the knit-a-long than i am.

 she also finished a sock . . (it's her subway knitting).

 greg's picture of bleecker street playground under street lamps and snow.

candlemas

i think we're in for six more weeks of winter . . 

 inspired by eva, i saved all the birthday candle ends to melt down this candlemas. but we also had a big block of beeswax which morgana cut up to add to the candlemaking.

 breaking off the wax is not easy.

 putting in bits to melt . . 

 eva and her family used cookie cutters last year for different candle shapes. we chose a cat, tree and moon.

 my favorite is the orange cat: a combination of natural and red birthday beeswax candles.

 in the afternoon, before they went to their macbeth rehearsal, we read from a biography of balanchine by bernard taper. the chapter about how he would work was especially interesting.

 i haven't been feeling well (a sinus infection has returned as it usually does at this time of year), and i felt pleased to be able to put together a simple dinner so quickly. the cupboard is a bit bare as we haven't been shopping in awhile, but greg picked up broccoli and chicken parts to go with the potatoes we had.