skiing pics from austria

here are a bunch of pics of the beautiful ski slopes of the austrian alps . . 

nikolas and anika

m finds a large icicle . . 

the exquisite lärchenbaum!

this is the favorite tree of our friend stefan. it's a deciduous pine and it's needles fall off leaving behind a seemingly ghostly image of it's summer self in the cold winter air. you can read about the tree in english here.

it looks very steep, doesn't it!

our friends say morgana skiis well and they are impressed with how quickly she learned.

more pics from austria

 morgana's saturday morning breakfast (homemade bread and an egg from one of the chickens in the yard).

followed by a visit to innsbruck (above is the inn river . . innsbruck is literally "bridge over the river inn" is that right, eva?)

 an afternoon ice cream . . stracciatella (rags or shards of chocolate drizzled into churning vanilla ice cream).

 a bakery window in innsbruck with real bunny bread.

 elizabeth of austria, wife of franz joseph I and empress of austria and queen of hungary, 1837 - 1898.  morgana likes checking books out of the innsbruck library.

 here is a cup of hildegard of bingen tea! i'm not sure what herbs are included. i'll have to ask her.

one of the beautiful streets of innsbruck. note how there is no garbage on the paving stones. i wish new yorkers could be as conscientious (especially the people in my apartment building!)

an early morning photo from the house's upstairs balcony, with a little bird house made by grandpa and his youngest grandson for mama for christmas.

our sunday excursion

 not a speck of snow in sight! but it was a very cold and windy day!

 today, at nine am precisely, individual tickets went on sale at the metropolitan opera house for american ballet theatre's spring and summer season. prior to this day, only subscription tickets (minimum of three shows) were available. chanda and i, and many other balletomanes, were on line and eager to spend our precious hamiltons and jacksons.

 what did we get? it's really very exciting! we got tickets for xiomara reyes' final performance!! she'll be dancing giselle with herman cornejo! how could anyone miss that? (if you think back, you'll remember that chanda had xiomara for a teacher during the youth america grand prix semi-finals in philadelphia! you can see that post here.) we also bought tickets to see misty copeland dance romeo and juliet! she'll also be doing swan lake and la bayadere; maybe chanda can get student rush tickets for those, but we wanted to make sure we were set for romeo and juliet. i think that will be sold out.

our next destination was the yumiko store on 46th street to which chanda had two gift certificates.

it was busy today! and they only had two dressing rooms . . chanda had a difficult time deciding between these two leotards. which one do you think she chose? 

----

we also texted this picture to morgana, but she didn't get back to us until we were on the bus ride home. this was the texting conversation i had with her:

morgana: i say the long sleeve

me: me too!

morgana: so she got that one

me: well, it was 50 dollars cheaper

morgana: wow

me: yeah. the colors are so pretty on her. sea colors. like montauk.

morgana: good. it's really pretty. doesn't she have like 10 now

me: well. not quite . .

morgana and me together: 

maybe 9!

0h 9 sorry!

me: chanda is very serious that she doesn't have 9 yumiko leotards

morgana: :)

me: she has . . 

morgana: oh, i'm sure she does

me: . . . are you ready?

morgana: yes!

me: 6!

morgana: (funny emoji face)

me: (more funny emoji faces)

morgana: no! that's wonderful! she is a true spoiled nyc ballet girl!

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yes, chanda is a true spoiled nyc ballet girl. very lucky and very blessed. however, she did point out to me that the two other teenage girls in the store today bought three yumiko leotards each at one time. and that, my dear friends of this great big universe, is the true state of the economic market in new york city today.

poem for a sunday morning

the chambered nautilus

by oliver wendell holmes

this is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

sails the unshadowed main,

the venturous bark that flings

on the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

in gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

and coral reefs lie bare,

where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

wrecked is the ship of pearl!

and every chambered cell,

where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

as the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

before thee lies revealed,

its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

year after year beheld the silent toil

that spread his lustrous coil;

still, as the spiral grew,

he left the past year's dwelling for the new,

stole with soft step its shining archway through,

built up its idle door,

stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

child of the wandering sea,

cast from her lap, forlorn!

from thy dead lips a clearer note is born

than ever triton blew from wreathéd horn!

while on mine ear it rings,

through the deep caves of thought i hear a voice that sings:

build thee more stately mansions, o my soul,

as the swift seasons roll!

leave thy low-vaulted past!

let each new temple, nobler than the last,

shut thee from  heaven with a dome more vast,

till thou at length art free,

leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

it was just korrina, chanda and i for breakfast this morning, as greg is still away in florida, where he has combined a work visit with a visit to his parents. we read the chambered nautilus (which induced beautiful visions of cape cod to run through my head!) and had a quiet moment together before k ran off to work, i to a brunch with a friend, and chanda to work on her monday monologue and written lesson book page. meal time is always what draws us together for reflection and support.

saturday afternoon

chanda's acting teacher asked her to fill in for a student who was going to be away for the final demonstration of the HB pre-teen acting intensive. she's been working on memorizing her lines all week. (she did this intensive last year, but has now moved into the older class). the scene was written for the students by a member of the playwriting course. he always creates something wonderfully funny and age appropriate. this scene depicted several friends making up a charity for people to donate towards in order to make an easy buck. the charity was: texting thumbatosis. chanda played a savy big kid who makes the little kids include her in the spoils. it all gets blown when a tv producer wants to put it up on a telethon and the friend pretending to have the disease finally finds his conscience and refuses to go through with the scheme. it was very cute.

saturday morning

 it's still a winter wonderland around here.

first day of spring

(at cafe grumpy)

(at an archery class in ozone park in queens)

just a lovely first day of spring!!

pointe shoes and the peacock cowl

 it was time for new pointe shoes again, so chanda and i walked over to the freed store on 20th street. she's been wearing their maker shoes for the past year now, and has been waiting for several pairs of maker L's shoes to come in, which has not happened. 

 she wanted something with a lower vamp, but just as boxy, so they brought out maker "rising sun" in size xxx (she has wide feet). this particular pair has been around for a few years. you would think that maybe there was something wrong with them, on the contrary, they talked about these shoes as if they were made of gold. maker rising sun has gone back to japan, and these shoes can never be duplicated "so don't ask me for them again" warned our favorite salesman! he held them in his hands a moment before passing them to chanda and commented on how clean the lines were, and how sturdy the box was and (believe me . . my eyes are rolling dizzily in their sockets now) how you cannot find such beautiful shoes anymore because he is not making them. why isn't this dude making these shoes? because he went back to japan! how do they know all this? because the other salesperson in the store met him when he came to new york several years ago!! i am not kidding. this maker was one of the premier makers of freed pro line ballet shoes, and the guy went back to japan to be with family and is now making the factory line of shoes for their chacott brand. ah! what a waste! so why aren't these shoes five hundred thousand dollars? i don't know. i don't ask questions. i just stand around humming and nodding my head and then whip out the wallet and make everybody happy, because chanda is happy she has the most comfortable and beautiful pointe shoes on the east coast of the united states of america and probably the world! and the salespeople are happy because they got to venerate one of their favorite makers and finally sell a pair of shoes that they didn't think would ever make it out of the shop because THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER PAIR MADE! and what ballerina in her right mind would buy a pair of shoes that they can never wear again? well. my ballerina. and she's still hoping they get in several pairs of maker L shoes. but who knows? maybe maker L has moved to antartica and they just don't know it yet!!!!!

 oh my goodness. aren't they pretty?

 rising sun, triple x, made in england . . with a life span of approximately one month, longer if she re-glues them well (many ballerinas go through two pairs for one performance). stay tuned for the next chapter of "what maker will chanda wear next?"

 and what on earth is she doing here? burning her ribbons? just lovely. yes, one burns the edge to keep them from fraying. 

 back to some serious stuff now . . real life important stuff . . vedic math and the european geography report which i corrected so it can finally be written up for the lesson book (yes, eva, it can take forever!).

 and i blocked my psychedelic peacock cowl that korrina got for me from her yarn co store.

i'm very pleased with it, but am waiting for slightly warmer weather as i find it too bulky to wear with my pea coat. i'd like to wear it with my down vest.