Kitten, summer, long-lost friend, sailors

The kitten has been hunting, though she let this one get away (like fishing for sport I guess).



I went for a bike ride and sat right next to the Hudson River yesterday, which was really the first day of summer, I made iced tea and everything.



Do you realize it's been THREE YEARS since Mandy Martens left Toronto? That means, until four days ago, it's been that long since I've seen her. Very weird. Not that I knew her that well to begin with, though I've always liked her and I miss hearing her sing. She was around the city to help me and LL celebrate my six months in New York (at a psycho Indian restaurant with more chili pepper lights than you ever thought could be put in one room before, especially since you've probably never thought about putting chili pepper lights in a room in the first place).



Also, somewhat surrealistically, the city is filled with sailors, since it's Fleet Week. I wonder how often they have to do laundry, or if there are drycleaners on board.

Many things, including Y is for Yale

Dear reader, I have several updates to offer you. First, last weekend (after a sizing drama and a strong bout of indecision) I bought a gift for myself to celebrate six months in NYFC:



BEAUTIFUL SHOES from an AMAZING STORE.

Also this past weekend (continuing in the footwear theme) I started some socks. Seems that I knit about one pair of socks per year. I'm learning new stitches! It's keeping me interested (remember the neverending socks for sister last year? Oh my), I'm pretty sure I'm motivated almost entirely by curiosity.

Here's where we're at:



In the background there you see Connecticut, which brings me to yesterday. I went to New Haven to see Sharon, Jerome and their new addition, the lovely Cayley Rose (recipient of this quilt). They live in Cambridge now (no need to qualify which Cambridge now that I'm living in the US), it was great to get out of the city and see them.

Funniest picture in the world

Ok maybe not quite but certainly up there for funniest cat.

With special notes to Tom and Enoch and all those nice folks.

New York Saturday

One of the things that I love about New York is when you drop by the office on a Saturday afternoon to print out discussion questions for tomorrow morning and a knitting pattern, and instead of the usual Ninth Ave business there is a street fair that stretches maybe 20 blocks.





So I bought a crab cake sandwich, a lemonade and a tiny pecan pie.

More on the new knitting project next week. Now off to buy my six-months-in-New-York best-shoes-ever.

:)

Something's growing

My peas have come up!!!!!

Also, I've been home the past couple of nights, and so I've had nice time to read, let the cat out, and even sew.

I started a new quilt ages ago; I'm trying to figure out how best to mount a working area on my wall so that I can play with layouts, but since my working area is in our living room (the largest room in the house, Molly and I both have work spaces in there) it needs to look reasonably nice. Perhaps LL will come over and help me out, once all her visitors leave and her work is less psychotic.

Furthermore/Garden

Two extraordinary things about my Manhattan apartment are that (1) I have a backyard, and (2) the backyard has a tree* in it. When I tell people, they immediately become jealous. We're pretty lucky.

Sylvia said something when she and Brian were visiting a few weeks ago (they've been living on a co-op organic farm near Toronto for three-ish years) that keeps coming back to me. She said she's becoming increasingly aware that the most important thing they're doing by being farmers is preserving knowledge: knowing how to grow food naturally. They initially moved out to the farm to live out their environmental convictions (I think), but that's fading in importance. After all, we're approaching a food crisis. Doesn't hurt that these people have PhDs and are really good teachers.

My mom always gardened when I was growing up, but I never cared anything about it. But now something about the sanctuary of the backyard, and feeling like I own that space (God willing, for years to come), makes me want to work in it and make it beautiful.

And productive! I planted some peas (Sylvia's suggestion). I hope they grow.



(They're in pots rather than ground because someone is supposed to come soon to dig up the rat burrows that are EVERYWHERE. Apparently it's illegal to harbour rats in your yard.)

*A third extraordinary thing (for me, growing up where I did) is that our tree is an elm. I've never lived in a city with elms, they all got killed by Dutch elm disease.

Other stuff from the homeland

Well, just one more thing. LL was in Toronto this past weekend (she had some work meetings on Monday) and brought this funny/fab button from Enoch. I love it and am wearing it today. Speaking of LL we met up in Central Park yesterday after work -- it looks like summer here! No jackets, skirts, full leaves on the trees. We sat on the edge of some body of water near the Bethesda Fountain and watched turtles poke their heads out of the water and the gondola man row around people drinking wine.

(I don't think one actually "rows" a gondola; but what is the right verb? Anyone??)

I stumbled on the Hell's Kitchen flea market on my Sunday walk to church. Didn't pick anything up, though was tempted by a decorative plate depicting the signing of the constitution.