morning poem and an excursion

advent

the gift of light

i thankfully hold

and pass to my neighbour

its shining gold

that everyone may

feel its glow,

receiving and giving

may love and grow.

anonymous

----

greg, morgana and i rode citibikes downtown to the world trade center and walked through the oculus on our way to south street seaport.

the oculus . . all decorated for christmas . . 

greg is explaining how when he was working at brookfield place he would walk from that building to the oculus and come out via the steps to which he is gesturing. he didn't have to walk outside to get to the subway, which is always nice when the weather is rainy or snowy or . . too hot . . or too cold . . 

vestiges of the prior building and it's facade (i'd have to do some research as to what businesses were the original occupants).

our destination . . mcnally jackson books at south street seaport.

aurélien has one of the escargot books (there are three) which i love reading with my pathetic but amusing french accent.

at the cafe in the bookstore where i was hoping to get a tea and scone, but greg was too hungry for such so called trifles so we left to search for a taco place (something more substantial) which they thought was in the area . . 

time for a google search on morgan's cell phone . . the wharf is just to our right . .

beneath the fdr drive . .

morgan is leading us to a restaurant once visited with sami, a homeschooling friend.

cowgirl sea-horse . .

we had a lot of fun reading the menu: "cowgirl's famous ice cream baked potato, a sundae that looks like a baked potato, crafted with house-made hot fudge and mont blanc tahitian vanilla ice cream." there was also: "peanut butter pretzel pie." 

we chose coffee . . 

and biscuits with chili jam and honey butter . . (i knew greg would go for the biscuits)

greg chose a quesadilla with guacamole and jack cheese and morgan had the slow simmered black bean nachos with jalapeno peppers, jack cheese, guacamole and sour cream. i had two sunny side up eggs to go with the biscuits . . and shared some of the nachos.

the entrance to the brooklyn bridge was not far . . 

we thought the menu was so fun that we had to send pics to korrina . . and she sent one back of her building's holiday decorations which had just been put up.

looking up the best train route to head uptown . . morgana was on the way to meet victoria to help with the ongoing organizing and clearing out of her apartment.

the building on the far side of the bridge ramp is the david n. dinkins manhattan municipal building.

the jenga building lit by the setting sun . . 

and the snowflake decorations were up . . 

----

at 6:25 i met morgan at the subway entrance to ride uptown for a dance concert at which three of ellen's teen students were dancing . . 

 

it was the fourth night of a special festival sponsored by the american dance guild at the alvin ailey center. choreographer h. t. chen, who founded chen dance company, was honored, along with christine jowers, dance critic and author of the online journal the dance enthusiast.  many local companies and dancers were asked to perform, and ellen chose three of her students to present their original work.

it was a fun night with much laughter and camaraderie.

afterwards, outside the dance center ellen showed us an article written by a past student of hers for a japanese newspaper.

the photo on the left is her student as a young child performing one of her solo pieces, and the photo in the center is of a young ellen. we'll have to get a translation.

a library exhibit and a birthday celebration

 

we visited the main research library with ron and andy today for an exhibit of virginia woolf's writings. (we haven't been since pre-covid and they now have a large gift shop/coffee shop which was very busy.)

 

every face, every shop, bedroom window, public-house, and dark square is a picture feverishly turned--

in search of what? it is the same with books. what do we seek through millions of pages?

she wrote in her journals prolifically, even pre-dating them so each day would present a blank page for her to fill. 

they had original photos from her half-sister's photograph album . . these are pictures of her with her sister vanessa and two of her brothers (not specifically identified).

 

 afterwards, we walked past the tree at rockefeller center and had a bite to eat at westway diner and then bought a small coconut cream banana pie to celebrate ron's birthday.

happy birthday ron!

 

(another fun trader joe's card)

heading home . . the holiday lights are so pretty . .

cat care day

remember this curmudgeon? yes, it's ridley who was in a very bullish mood as a new cat was introduced into the space he shares with nina and sakura.

black cat raven is sweet and friendly but had to stand tough against pushy ridley. they hissed at each other for two hours before settling down . .

here ridley is being his cranky self with sakura . . both hoping for an early dinner from their caretakers i think.

carlito and carmen were both adopted while i was there . . little two and three month old kittens. three month old tuxedo kitten shirley who was in the cubby above them was adopted too.

rio and franky . . 

rio is really very sweet and friendly and crawled right into my lap for cuddles and pets.

nina . . who was just as grumpy today as ridley.

evening walk with my neighbor toni to rafetto's for tortellini and ravioli and then dinner with greg and victoria (morgan was at ellen's alumni class).

errands on a sunny day

yesterday was grey and rainy, but today was beautifully breezy and sunny - which was good as i had to walk to my vision therapy appointment (which went surprisingly well . . i actually showed some improvement on two of the exercises). i ran a few errands on the way home and passed the reading of the names of those new yorkers lost to aids, as it's world aids day today, and it was the first time since covid that there was a public gathering at the memorial . .

and then i was out again in the late afternoon to meet chanda at trader joe's . . (where i like to buy butter as it's priced better than anywhere else in the city).

it was a pretty walk home in the evening (though the groceries were heavy!) . . i love the old building that bed, bath and beyond is in (on the left in the photo above). also, the trader joe's building is quite old too and once housed a barnes and noble bookstore with a cafe on the mezzanine.

morgana had never been to the ramen restaurant so we decided to eat there tonight. we shared a miso curry broth, spring rolls and dumplings and then morgana went off to see the complexions dance company again (a different program) while greg and i went home. victoria had gone to the public theatre to see performance artist penny arcade and learned that she and ms arcade had a mutual friend in playwright harry koutoukas, whom greg was friends with too (harry died in 2010).