friday night dress rehearsal

 this is an interesting looking table, and an interesting looking dinner. morgana is eating ramen noodles after cleaning and dressing a wound with hydrogen peroxide and gauze. i can't remember how she hurt her finger. chanda is in her room getting together rehearsal clothes. it's nice to see books on the table that must have been read earlier in the day.

 giving some notes to morgana after a practice run of her dance.

i decided to come along and try taking pictures with my camera. actually, i gave my new camera to another of ellen's students who is very good at taking dance photos. she took some beautiful shots, and then i tried to do the same. i guess i'll pick a few out to put up later.

 when i first arrived at the theatre, i found chanda in the dressing room, stretching morgana's legs.

all ready to roll . .

i think the rehearsal ended about ten o'clock, ten thirty. chanda and i both felt tired and hungry and stopped at westville on 17th street, which is a small restaurant/cafe that we've been wanting to try for awhile. it's very nice as the food is good, but it isn't expensive and we could sit comfortably and casually at the bar.

friday morning call to the consulate

for awhile now morgana has had to get information on what kind of visa she needs to work as a ski instructor in austria.

hmmm . . . i'm not sure if there is enough time to get the proper kind . . well, i'm sure she and manu will figure something out. they usually do. or manu does.

picking up the vegetables with morgana

 morgana finally made it all the way to first avenue and 26th street to pick up the vegetables today (last time we started out too late and she had to leave for an appointment).

 we had lunch at little river cafe afterwards. i had the chickpea stew . . 

 korrina had the frisée salad and morgana had a tuna sandwich.

it's a beautiful space with lots of sun shining through it's glass walls.

 then korrina went off to work and i showed morgana the covered containers for summer veggie growing that surrounds the complex.

 and then i walked home and morgana went to a dance rehearsal . . or a meeting with a friend . . there's usually something . . 

but first i took a pic of her outside of an interesting house in gramercy park. there's so many beautiful old apartment buildings, hotels, houses . . note the slate sidewalk.

honey, knitting, tech rehearsal and . . . it's still holiday time!

 morgana brought back honey from her austrian mom's bees. it is wonderfully delicious and is now one of my favorite honey flavors along with chestnut and sage (we had the sage just this summer in san francisco). i'm enjoying it this morning in a cup of christmas tea.

we've been working on knitting napkins for morgana to take back to austria. they're a little larger than normal, as her austrian host mom likes using them as a place setting.

last night was tech rehearsal for saturday's show. here krista is hanging special lights for morgana's dance.

 

morgana is using one of the chairs that go with nana and nonno's country dining set that sits in the basement out on montauk. we didn't have enough chairs here at home, so i "borrowed" a few . . i'm a little trepidatious about having her use it, which annoys her tremendously.

chanda took the above pics. she was supposed to take a few of her own dance that she choreographed for the show, but i don't see any after uploading this morning. i'll have to ask her later (she did a group piece that she isn't dancing in). below is a pic of their friend amelia's dance. chanda is just to the left of amelia, in a pink dress (photo taken by morgana):

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also, i have declared it "holiday time" until morgana returns to austria this coming tuesday. what does this mean? it means that i can still play my favorite christmas music (nomad christmas this morning) and drink christmas tea (i've already finished the christmas coffee that san sent) and eat christmas cake. at first i thought there wasn't any christmas cake to be had this morning, but then i remembered the apple cake that was sitting on top of the refrigerator:

morgana  made a loaf of this last year and i thought that maybe she had put in a little too much fruit and nuts, but now i realize it's kind of like a fruit cake that my mom used to make, but without the candied citron. it has lots of figs and hazelnuts and is very good.

merry christmas! happy new year!

a quick note

i was finally up early this morning, but now it's already 8 am and i need to wake chanda so she can get ready for her dance class. morgana was out at 6:30 to meet her friend for tea before heading to the civil courthouse for a day of jury duty. greg finally went back to work this morning also. he was home sick every day last week! the girls have been busy rehearsing for their dance performance this weekend, which my sister and brother-in-law will come into town for on saturday, which is also the day of the women's march. morgana and i have been shopping for gifts for her little austrian host family sisters. we went to gymboree yesterday and picked out two outfits for the two youngest girls (six and ten years old) with several point cards i had received in the mail. we also had friends over for dinner last night, and the night before their dance teacher, ellen, came over to wait for a leotard that i had been dyeing bright yellow for her. she has a little bumblebee dancing in her family matters program (chanda and morgana are dancing in her alumni program). this is the first morning i was able to get up so early. i've been going to sleep consistently at 1 am and waking at 4 am, and then falling back to sleep at 5:30 am . . which puts me still in bed at 8:30 am . . at which point i finally wake and get up in frustration that i haven't managed to get up before everyone else to have some alone time on the computer. last night i fell asleep at 10:30 pm, and slept until greg's alarm went off this morning at 5:30 . . seven hours of sleep. i feel so wonderfully rested. 

time now to feed cats and get chanda up for class.

pics from our dinner with friends

two poems for a sunday morning

if i wanted a boat

i would want a boat, if i wanted a

boat, that bounded hard on the waves,

that didn't know starboard from port

and wouldn't learn, that welcomed

dolphins and headed straight for the

whales, that, when rocks were close,

would slide in for a touch or two,

that wouldn't keep land in sight and

went fast, that leaped into the spray.

what kind of life is it always to plan

and do, to promise and finish, to wish

for the near and the safe? yes, by the

heavens, if i wanted a boat i would want

a boat that i couldn't steer.

the wasp

why the wasp was on my bed i didn't

know. why i was in bed i did know. why

there wasn't room for both of us i

didn't know. i watched it idly. idleness

can be a form of dying. i did know that.

the wasp didn't communicate how it felt.

it did look confused on the white sheet.

as though it had landed somewhere in the

arctic. and it did flick its wings when

i raised my legs, causing an upheaval.

i didn't want to be lying there. i didn't

want to be going in that direction. and

so i say it was a gift when it rose into

the air and, as wasps do, expressed itself

in a sudden and well-aimed motion.

almost delicious was its deep, inflexible 

sting. 

by

mary oliver

(from blue horses, 2014)

 we're heading into tech week for ellen's almuni and family matters concerts. my sister and brother-in-law will come for the show and stay over next saturday night, so i guess i considered this breakfast as our last small family breakfast with morgana for awhile (she flies out of jfk a week from tuesday).

we had german pancakes, though i see a fried egg on chanda's plate . . (morgana chose the poems this morning, from her book of mary oliver poems she received from her friend deychen).

german tea and minerva

 morgana and i finally had our german tea today (while chanda was at her saturday dance classes).

 i had picked up brown sugar cubes and heavy cream yesterday. i haven't been able to find the rock sugar here in manhattan.

we had it with apple cake and tate's chocolate chip cookies from the hampton's. i miss buying these when out visiting nana and nonno. i miss visiting nana and nonno . .

 greg attended to a work emergency while we had our tea.

i started my temperature blanket . . 

and morgana started the scarf she received for christmas (yarn and pattern from quince and co).

in the evening chanda and i visited minerva . . 

and made sure she had everything she needed . . 

for a cold night without her human partner.