sunday morning birthday poem

sea fever

i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

and the wheel's kick and the wind's song

and the white sails shaking,

and a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

i must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

and all i ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

and the flung spray and the blown spume,

and the sea-gulls crying.

i must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

to the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

and all i ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

and quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

john masefield, salt-water ballads, 1902

birthday cappuccino with oatmilk . . (we'll watch the unitarian universalist general assemply service this morning at 10) . . (and the royal ballet has woolfworks up on their youtube channel . . i watched it friday and posted about it here.)

green market morning . . and a london update

 the tiger day lilies are always in bloom in time for my birthday . . 

 since i've been feeling so dizzy, i asked greg to help me carry home the veggies and fish and the pie(s!) from the green market this morning . . 

he's very good about wearing his mask . . i pull mine down when no one is about . . 

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 morgan and jenny attended the black trans lives matter march in london today. i think they marched from wellington arch, near hyde park, to parliament square.

 

we must all take care of each other.

an online premiere of woolfworks

 i was incredibly excited for woolfworks to premiere on the royal ballet's youtube page today at 7 pm london time, 2 pm new york city time.

 

 chanda was the lucky one to see this performed on january 21, 2017, when she was in london. you can see photos from her visit here (look for pics of eva and family!).

max richter composed the music and wayne mcgregor choreographed.

these little snippets don't do it justice, but they're fun to see . .

this is the beginning of the final section . .

which you can see in rehearsal above (posted on the royal ballet's youtube channel in april of 2015)

it's a very beautiful and sad ballet, and alessandra ferri is luminous (to quote one of the reviewers) in the main role. it's on the royal ballet's youtube page until july 10th, and i highly recommend that you watch it before it goes. in a review i read, the writer mentions how the ballet is one she will never tire of seeing, and i have to agree.

under the weather

i haven't been feeling well these past few days. it finally got very hot and humid and i think i had a difficult time adjusting. i also was having allergy symptons (runny eyes and nose and lots of sneezing), all of which caused me to experience extreme dizziness, or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. i've had to be cautious about how i turn my head, and how i get up out of bed, as if i move too quickly, the room will suddenly spin and i'll get very nauseous. bending over has been impossible. i sometimes wonder if it's meniere's disease, as i have a constant low tinnitus, or ringing in my ears, along with moments of imbalance. i was reading online about holistic ways of alleviating these symptoms, so i think i need to be more diligent about my diet to see if there's any improvement. i've also been wanting to visit a naturopath who was recommended to me by a friend, but i've been waiting for chanda to finish up with her eye therapy sessions. i think she only has one more left, so perhaps i can set that in motion.

greg and i had gone to montauk last friday to sunday. i posted about that here.

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 this evening i made italian sweet fennel sausage with onions and peppers. chanda picked up the ingredients from the italian pork store for me this morning. it was so good, and korrina came by after her volunteer work to join us.

 we had it with delicious seeded semolina bread, marinated mushrooms and green cracked olives.

master pluto is always looking for a tidbit.

primary tuesday

 i had sent away for my absentee ballot, as i thought it was the only way i could vote in the primary. however, the polls ended up being open. we also had early voting this year, but we voted on primary day.

a three day weekend

one of the outcomes of the protests and discussions that have been happening is the recognition by our state of the celebration of juneteenth, june 19th, the day the union general gordon granger arrived in galveston, texas, in 1865 and proclaimed all who were enslaved there free (read about the day on wikipedia here). since our governor declared a holiday for all state employees, greg's work did the same and he had a day off. texas was the first state to recognize the date in 1980, followed by california, wisconsin, illinois, georgia, washington d. c., and just this past week, virginia and new york. people have been working to get it recognized by the federal government as a national holiday since 1996. there are only three states that currently haven't added it to their holiday list: hawaii, north dakota and south dakota.

 

we were planning to drive out to montauk on saturday, but were able to do so a day early. our first stop was home depot to pick up a lawn mower that was on sale. i had called thursday and asked them to hold it for us.

we next stopped at michael's, as i needed to get a pair of size 15 knitting needles . . it's so nice to be able to shop inside stores again! (though greg waited in the car, and all stores have signs up requesting customers to wear masks). we both remember visiting this store years and years ago when the girls were little. i took the photo above as i remember perusing this exact aisle on that day with them . . we picked out several rolls of sugar and cream cotton yarn for making napkins at my mom's.

wood needles aren't cheap .  .

having a chocolate croissant snack that we picked up from chanda's cafe before we left the city . .

it was sunny along our drive to southampton . .

but once we hit the strip before montauk, the fog set in. i didn't mind. i love the fog, though it's not the best to drive through . .

we can eat upstairs again now . . (lunch was from the hampton coffee shop).

 curried chicken salad with sweet potato chips . .

 and a delicious rosemary, mint, sage and green tea kombucha . .

a foggy view . .

we can also do laundry upstairs again. sadly, this is about ninety days worth of greg's and my laundry. we didn't want to go down to the laundry room at the apartment during the worst days of the pandemic . . well, actually greg did two small loads for us one weekend, but that was it. i divided three stuffed bags into ten loads: clothes, towels and linens. i managed to get one load in on friday before . .

trimming the bushes. thank goodness the mowing company had come by as requested a few days before we arrived. the grass had just been too long and i had called in the order two weeks ago. they must have been very busy to get to it so late.

i also cleaned the kitchen floor with a special wood spray and mop that we had bought at home depot. i'm sorry i didn't take a photo of my efforts! i thought it came out well. i also had to clean out beneath the stove and inside the pot cover drawer. the whole oven needs to be taken out so the sides can be cleaned. so much food gets in between the counter and the appliance. greg went around turning on all the water for the toilets and flipping some of the circuit breakers we had turned off. he also trimmed the top of the forsythia bush for me as i couldn't reach it. i also remember him cleaning something out that was rather gross, but i can't remember what it was . . oh, the top shelf of the freezer.

we drove to the wharf for a fisherman's platter for dinner: shrimp, clam strips and a white fish (pollack or mackarel?) with french fries.

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saturday was wonderfully sunny and warm . .  we visited the bay as we thought there would be less people there than at the ocean side . .

 

 and i did manage to get myself into the icy cold water for a swim. once you're in, it always feels incredibly refreshing.

all the beach roses were in bloom . . 

 we visited the cemetery before picking up dinner . . my sister has been thinking about what kind of stone to get for my mom's grave, however we just found out from the cemetery that she and my dad are sharing a plot and can have only one stone. we've already added my dad's stone as we didn't realize this, so now we need to get a whole new stone with both of their names.

dinner this evening was a shrimp cobb salad from the point restaurant, which we've eaten at in the past. oh! i also did all eight or nine loads of the laundry that was left from yesterday (insert smug faced emoji here).

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sunday . . 

 knitted napkins . . chanda and morgana contributed to about five of these . . but  yes, i knitted all of these over the past . . ten years . . ?! . . (i'm sure some of these were made with the yarn from that michael's store . . )

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we tried to get an early start on the road so as not to run into too much traffic . . but we still ran into traffic . . 

we stopped first at the overlook so i could walk in the salt water. i had scraped my toe rather badly yesterday at the bay (on a twig stuck in the sand . . so silly) and i had refused to wash it with tap water . . of course it was covered again with sand by the time i returned to the car, but at least it was clear of dried blood.

 it was another beautiful beach day . . a perfect day for swimming! (i didn't swim, though . . )

 honeysuckle?

 coreopsis? yellow cosmos?

 bittersweet vine and beach roses . . 

 lunch at hampton chutney . . classic masala with spicy potatoes, tomatoes, avocado and jack cheese . . 

 bathroom and coffee stop . .

 the clouds were amazing . .

 and the view was clear . .

 the verrazano bridge is just to the right of the pole at the horizon . . 

back at home, the met opera was showing akhnaten from saturday evening into sunday evening. i had a few more hours to watch it . . it was wonderful and i was was so happy to finally see it.

7 pm!

good night . .