losar - tibetan new year

here are greetings from his holiness the dalai lama for tibetan new year 2022,

the year of the water tiger.

figaro shenanigans - wednesday

figaro has been fascinated by my little baby aloe plant (the great grandchild of a plant i bought many years ago in florida).

apparently he thought it needed to be caught and teased, as i found it on the rug by the door, looking very bedraggled and forlorn. poor thing.

pluto says he had nothing to do with the incident.

playground date

 

after this morning's music together class, i took aurélien to the playground (making sure to pick up a cup of green tea and a slice of banana bread on my way) (and, yes, filling in for a nanny again - are they dropping like flies?) 

this fellow is so friendly and always has a smile, a wave and a hello for everyone.

the music class was at greenwich house music school, which i haven't been in for about . . fifteen years? it felt strange and i couldn't remember where the stairwell was for the second floor! or maybe i was just disoriented from struggling with the stroller and wearing a mask (it interferes a little with my vision as it causes my glasses to be slightly askew).

cake and place mats and a clean up day

i've been enjoying our beautiful place mats from san which arrived saturday.  her work is so lovely, the stitches so fine and sure. (sewing skills are not my forté - my machine always ends up eating all the bobbin stitches so that i end up with a matted mess which is why i'm often in awe of people's skills with a machine - and with a needle as i always manage to prick myself and so relate to the expression "all thumbs.")

(thank you san!)

i've also been eating many slices of whole wheat flax seed banana bread from the new cafe in the neighborhood . . some furry little creature is also very interested in it . . 

in braiding sweetgrass i'm reading the chapter about franz dolp, an oregon resident who began a project of planting an old growth forest on a patch of logged out timberland in the oregon coast range. his home in the midst of this forest is now part of the spring creek project for nature, hosted by oregon state university, corvallis:

 

 . . his ambitions ranged beyond physical restoration. as franz wrote, 'it is important to engage in restoration with development of a personal relationship with the land and its living things.' in working with the land, he wrote of the loving relationship that grew between them: 'it was as if i discovered a lost part of myself.'

(from page 285)

kimmerer goes into depth with the intricacies of the relationship between soil, sun, roots, leaves and water to once again nourish the land into a renewable existence, after it has been stripped bare by the logging industry:

industrial forestry, resource extraction, and other aspects of human sprawl are like salmonberry thickets--swallowing up land, reducing biodiversity and simplifying ecosystems at the demand of societies always bent on having more. in five hundred years we exterminated old-growth cultures and old-growth ecosystems, replacing them with opportunistic culture. pioneer human communities, just like pioneer plant communities, have an important role in regeneration but they are not sustainable in the long run. when they reach the edge of easy energy, balance and renewal are the only way forward, wherein there is a reciprocal cycle between early and late successional systems, each opening the door for the other.

 

the old growth forest is as stunning in its elegance of function as in its beauty. under conditions of scarcity, there can be no frenzy of uncontrolled growth or waste of resources. the "green architecture" of the forest structure itself is a model of efficiency, with layers of foliage in a multilayered canopy that optimizes capture of solar energy. if we are looking for models of self-sustaining communities, we need look no further than an old-growth forest. or the old-growth cultures they raised in symbiosis with them.

(from page 284) 

----

meanwhile, chanda came home this evening suddenly motivated to sort through the many (many!) board games (very dusty!) piled on the top shelf of her bookcase. subsequently we have a very large pile for the salvation army, and a smaller pile that will stay with us with a few things i thought kendall might like. i actually had a plastic bin of cut out paper games from the click/ladybug magazines the girls received for years, each game in its own envelope. i'm surprised at how organized i was.

in the midst of the mess, pluto found a colorful strand of metropolitan museum visitor pins which he happily hopped into the living room with.

a sunday poem for february

 

 february twilight

 

i stood beside a hill

smooth with new-laid snow,

a single star looked out

from the cold evening glow.

 

there was no other creature

that saw what i could see--

i stood and watched the evening star

as long as it watched me. 

by sara teasdale  (1884 - 1933)

 

----

 

kendall's nannies have been canceling due to illness or death in the family. it's been a bit worrisome! this morning chanda and i stepped in and since chanda overbooked herself, aurélien went with her to her charge's drum lesson. i took over when they returned (he's smiling at greg standing to my left).

a sunny day and the coffee store

 

i left a knitting meeting talking about tubular cast on and ran out to meet greg for a walk to porto rico imports (where he likes to buy his coffee).

 

every day has hovered around 28 to 35 degrees. 

this is our favorite store at which to buy coffee beans.

 

he usually gets "alex's blend" and today he also chose the guatemalan blend (one medium roast and one light roast).

 

we walked back along downing street to bedford and then to leroy where we parted ways. he went home . . 

and i stopped at the library to pick up several books i had put on hold. they look good, don't they?!

 

here i'm passing merriweather cafe where it was very busy inside. chanda and the other workers always feel a little bit on edge when all the patrons want to sit inside . . especially on such a nice day. (they kept the door open.)

the sunshine felt warm and uplifting, despite the traumatic news we've all been getting from ukraine, along with the continued troubles in syria, yemen, armenia and afghanistan . . and places of which i may not be aware. they're in my prayers every day. how do we stop the people in power from making weapons of war?

another rainy day

i walked with kendall to union square for buckwheat cherry bread (also: carrots, scallions, mussels from the fish vendor, and maple syrup). i was a little surprised at how cold it felt when i stepped outside, though i had checked before leaving: 31 degrees. it only takes one 60 degree day to make anything less feel like five below.

the cats had fun running around my water color paper this afternoon . . 

a woman in the online knitting club i meet up with shared some water color techniques that she uses. i did a little bit, but mainly watched . . and threw figaro's toy for him (he likes to fetch, which is rather fun).

christmas gifts

i realized yesterday that i hadn't put away my christmas gifts from my sister (i found them in a bag in the second bedroom): the socks are soft and warm and the apron is a lovely april cornell, and the blue willow bowl matches another soup bowl i have. i'm also enjoying the short fairy tale stories in the lady and the linden tree. the girls read many of the "royal diary" books when growing up, but i'm not sure if they read weetamoo, who lived in the 1640's and 50's in massachsuetts and rhode island.

my last deliciously ella nut ball from morgan . . 

and dinner tonight was tortellini en brodo which came out so well. i sautéed pancetta, garlic, carrots and celery and then added fresh chicken broth; allowed them to simmer for thirty minutes, added the tortellini for 3 minutes, followed by the baby spinach. oh! i also simmered it with a small parmesan heel.