poem for a sunday morning

i started early, took my dog,

and visited the sea.

the mermaids in the basement

came out to look at me.

and frigates in the upper floor

extended hempen hands,

presuming me to be a mouse

aground upon the sands.

but no man moved me till the tide

went past my simple shoe

and past my apron and my belt

and past my bodice too

and made as he would eat me up

as wholly as a dew

upon a dandelion's sleeve;

and then i started too

and he, he followed close behind;

i felt his silver heel

upon my ankle, then my shoes

would overflow with pearl,

until we met the solid town.

no one he seemed to know

and bowing with a mighty look

at me, the sea withdrew.

by emily dickinson

knitting in the park

i met kendall in the park today and treated her to brunch at the whitney cafe as thank you for taking care of the cats a few weeks ago.

i've been working on this shawl for chanda's ballet teacher . . 

and i bought a kazuya print of jefferson market library and bigelow pharmacy.

chanda had acting (and no ballet so she could be there for the full class which i'm sure marlene must have been pleased about), and saw the joffrey trainee recital at the alliance française.

hot days

yesterday morning felt so hot to me . . maybe because i was also so sore from carrying allegra around for three and a half hours. i'm not used to that, though i slept well. chanda and i were supposed to do some water color painting . . but we were moving so slow that it was never accomplished before korrina came over. we had a really nice lunch with her instead. her shawl is really looking beautiful, and it's so soft.

she had been looking for her tabs from the monster cans she has saved since she was a teenager (don't ask me what monster cans are . . i've really never paid attention . . i think they're a very strong sweet coffee drink). the company is offering a promotion where if you send in so many tabs you get a t-shirt. she wants to get t-shirts for brian and herself. i think it's so funny that she has saved them all these years. what's even funnier is that they were able to be found in her room where things have been moved around so often!

chanda had her last ballet class yesterday evening, and went out with a few of her ballet friends to peace cafe, a vegan restaurant on twelfth by university, and then had amorino gelato. she has some nice end of year pics i'll have her send me so i can put them up.

(here's one . .) 

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morgana is in phnom penh . . staying with a lovely student and having a fun time viewing the city from the seat of a motorbike and the deck of a boat. phnom has the tonle sap river, the mekong river, and the bassac river. from what i can see on the map, there are also many other small bodies of water; either lakes or ponds.

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today is incredibly warm again. greg says it's supposed to go up to 90 degrees. right now there's a nice breeze and it feels cooler than yesterday morning. i closed the curtains yesterday morning. it just felt too hot with the sun shining in . . i suppose i should do the same now. 

duncan dancing and babysitting

today was catherine gallant's annual isadora birthday celebration in central park at bethesda fountain. catherine is a nyc based dancer and choreographer whose company dances by isadora attempts to show modern audiences the style and abandon of isadora's dancing. catherine studied with julia levien  (ny times article can be found here) who was a student of anna duncan, one of isadora's six adopted daughters. it's a quiet celebration that happens every year (depending on the weather) at 4:30 in the afternoon.

today was particularly warm and hazy!

 chanda and ella danced prelude (chopin) with their teacher loretta.

dance of the blessed spirits with music by christoph gluck from his opera orfeo ed eurydice.

the isadora duncan archive has a list of her dances and the music she used. it's a wonderful resource.

 everyone doing classical duet together at the end.

i was really hoping to film a few dances, but i ended up babysitting chanda's ballet teacher's little girl. she was a little unhappy during the performance so i had to keep singing and rocking her a little distance away on the hill. though it was a nice vantage point from which to see the dancers, i wasn't able to take pictures and depended upon my friend's knowledge of my camera which didn't include the movie button. i am so grateful for her above photos of the dancing.

little allegra really took a liking to ella.

and chanda had a lot of fun with her.

 she's beginning to walk.

 finally time to leave . . chanda met her friend on 39th street to buy material for their section of the modern group dance they're doing. the dance is called swatch, and is based on different fabrics. they're working on a piece called silk. i took allegra back to her mom at the dance school (and then i went home and took a bath . . it went up to 88 today). (i finally put up a post about the ballet recital that happened last saturday and a post about our visit with my cousin and her family that happened on sunday, and morgana's birthday pics from cambodia).

travels with morgana

 morgana and her friend have been traipsing about angkor wat and angkor thom. 

i put a lonely planet book about cambodia on hold at the library, but i keep forgetting that i also took out an "ebook" which i suppose i can read online.

a summer-like spring day

 it was really warm today and chanda went uptown to her twelfth night rehearsal in shorts. i went out to see my friend jeanette in the first short sleeved t-shirt of the season for me. it went up to 87; tomorrow it's supposed to be 88. summer is here.

breakfast, lesson pages and new pointe shoes

it's been warm and the strawberries from california have been really good; especially with cream.

chanda and i have still been doing some chemistry reading.

and pointe shoes arrived today from the freed store.

these are the ones they adjust for her by lowering the vamp and adding more glue to the tip.

rainy morning pics

 once again a week has gone by so quickly. saturday and sunday were busy days with a ballet recital and a visit from my cousin and her family and monday morning we actually managed to get out for a bicycle ride with greg. i'll put up those posts later today. right now it's dark and rainy. i'm glad we don't have to go anywhere.

 i took a walk yesterday evening right before dinner (consequently substituting bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches for the dinner plan instead of lentil soup) to our favorite yarn store in the east village: downtown yarns. chanda had been lamenting that she didn't have a nice end of year gift for her ballet teacher. i had actually knitted a shawl for the teacher a year or so ago, but never liked how it came out. so for a good portion of the afternoon i searched ravelry for a shawl i could knit up in three days . . and finally settled on one i had made before: 22 little clouds by martina behm. i liked how another ravelry knitter used a particular yarn that downtown yarns carried. i was surprised to find that they had the same color! i'm combining shibui pebble in fog with sensei mohair in smoke. the ballet teacher enjoys wearing black and grey and so i think she will feel elegant in wearing this small shawlette. chanda is looking forward to knitting on it also. (the green mohair is suibui cloud which rita, the yarn store owner, had the last two of in apple. i'm hoping to make one of my feather and fan shawls for a fundraiser here in my housing complex for a local family that needs help.)