My husband made dinner!!

We are experimenting with vegetarianism.  It has been two weeks and Mr. made dinner tonight-check it out!  Chana Masala, chickpeas in Indian spices with coconut rice and sweet taters.  Soooo yummy!!!

babies and cookies

The first finished craft item of the summer.
C. is pregs and her baby shower is tomorrow.  I offered to bake her favors and here they are.  Three different kinds of shortbread: plain, lemon poppyseed, and pecan.  It makes me want to open a bakery instead of face the prospect of a grueling job search...I have sort of been a cookie machine lately.  On Wednesday I baked 9 dozen cookies for the students at the school where I finished student teaching.  This culminated in a concert Wednesday night where I conducted three (!) pieces.

Bowery Boys

My favorite podcast is the Bowery Boys, NYC history.  They are adorable and chatty and gossipy and cover a new topic weekly.  Recently they covered the history of Roosevelt Island, which is a slender island in the East River.  You can reach it by a bridge from Queens or the F train.  But the more fun route is the Tram!  This lighthouse at the north end was built by occupants of the lunatic asylum.
There was an amazing! community garden and the roses were all in full bloom.
The Good Shepherd chapel and baby geese!

We accidentally improv everywhere

After we looked at the ruins we walked up this hill and found this open field...so lovely and so random.

Then it began to fill with hundreds of people with colored t-shirts and earphones in.  They begin to run around and move with synchronicity.  Turns out we were in the middle of an Improv Everywhere event and all the participants had downloaded a Mp3 with directions.  We left.

Roosevelt Island

I am not sure you can always go all the way to the south end of the island, but it was open the day that we went and there are great views of the UN building and Queens.
These are the Renwick ruins, the remains of a smallpox hospital.  The island was a repository for the infirm, the insane, and the criminal.

Excursion

I am sort of sneaky with my husband. I often have plans in my mind, but I don't ask him if he wants to go. I say mysterious things like, "There is this place that I want check out, it is just around the corner". Then when we are standing in front of it, I jump up and down and clap my hands saying "Can we do it???". And then he can't argue with me. This is the Mount Vernon Hotel or the Abigail Adams Smith Museum. The hotel part means that it was an old fashioned "day hotel", sort of like a country club. The Abigail Adams Smith part means nothing...her husband owned this land and intended on building a country home but did little more than getting the foundation done before he sold it.
This is located on the Upper East Side and our original destination was Roosevelt Island. But... this really was right around the corner.  When we rang the bell a little old guy named Bob opened it and looked at us quizzically.  We asked if there was a tour and he hesitated and then said..."yes, just a minute".  Then he took the two of us on an hour long tour of the eight-room carriage house!  It was absolutely lovely, one of my most favorite things.  If you look very closely at the stonework you can see the date 1799 imbedded on either side of the circle.

Food

Mr. and I are gonna try vegetarianism. This is a layer of parmesan polenta, mozzarella, ricotta, arugula, and eggs in purgatorio- or eggs poached in tomatoe sauce. Really good. Oh, and onion soup too.
My girlfriends, S and C, came over the other day. After we played instruments, ate lunch, walked the dog, and ate dinner; we made whipped cream&raspberries for dessert. We all had too much cream and were addled by the sugar so we just kept stirring and made...BUTTER!