dinner with clyde

our very good friend clyde came to visit today. he comes into town every summer to paint and museum hop. this is c's short, little cinema verité of our evening. the ending is poignant and amusing . . just a bit of sisterly love!

later on in the evening the chair in which clyde was sitting collapsed with him in it. unfortunately, i couldn't stop laughing. he looked so funny as everything toppled . . it all seemed to happen in slow motion. i don't think clyde thought it was quite as funny . . i guess this is a warning if you come and sit at the table with us . .

june twenty eighth

i grew up in a corner house on a suburban street. the house was surrounded by trees. there were olive, plum, mountain ash, crabapple, pine, poplar and birch. every june they shaded the beautiful tiger lilies that bloomed all around the foundation. i remember waking on early summer mornings and running outside to say hello to their happy orange faces.

birthday eve

my dear friend janet created the most delicious dinner in honor of my birthday. m says what she made is called thai wraps. you soak very thin rice pancakes in a bowl of warm water and then fill them with thin rice thread noodles, and everything else in the photo below! (avocado, mango, mint, cilantro, jalopeno, shrimp, toasted coconut, arugula, cucumber, sweet red peppers . . is your mouth watering enough? . . ) she also made mint lemonade and we ended with cheesecake from magnolia bakery (along with hot hibiscus tea). (sigh). it was very good! (and so nice for me as i rarely make a dinner for which you need to dice so many items!) it also was a very peaceful evening. as we ate and sipped our tea, the night descended outside the windows and clothed the kitchen in shadow.

mammatus clouds

i think it was about 6 or 7 pm this evening that c called us over to the north window to see the clouds. we had never seen these amazing cottonball-like clouds before. i immediately began looking for my camera, but it was nowhere to be found! k had it out for the day (hmmm) but, luckily, she took a photo of the phenomenon. they were amazing and it was the first time i've ever seen these clouds. i googled "cottonball clouds" and came up with an explanation on wikipedia. mammatus is derived from the latin mamma for udder. (perhaps cottonballs weren't sold so plentifully in drug stores in the days the clouds were named, or maybe people just hung out with more cows back then) . . anyway, they're very rare and usually accompany a severe thunderstorm. well, i can't remember how severe the thunderstorm was that preceded these clouds . . . but i suppose it was bad enough.

hidden treasures from the national museum, kabul

this was such a special exhibit to see. it's laid out in wonderful detail with elaborate maps of afghanistan and the silk road, a film telling about the excitement of opening the underground bank vaults in which the treasures were hidden for twenty five years, photographs of the mountains and steppes and deserts of afghanistan, catalog books which i used to locate a specific object, and well lit display cases. there is also an interesting computerized representation of the graeco-bactrian palace that is found at ai khanum in northern afghanistan. of course it's the objects themselves that are the true beauty. i was entranced with the waterspout below. it was found in working order on "the fountain of the oxus" at ai khanum. it is a reproduction of a comedic mask worn by the character of the slave cook and represents the greek cultural theatre life found in the city. i sketched it and managed to take a photo. i also became enchanted with a statue of aphrodite .. at least i thought it was a statue. it was actually a small applique and it took me a few trips around the exhibit to find because it's really only about two inches tall. i thought it was about a foot tall! it was found in the region of bactria at the archeological site of tillye tepe where a tomb was discovered of a nomadic chieftan. following the burial practices of the time, he was accompanied by members of his household (five women surrounded the chieftan's figure . . what are the chances of five women dying at the same time as the head male figure . . weren't they probably sacrificed? i get shivers down my spine just imagining the emotional atmosphere leading up to the burial) and various treasured objects. the aphrodite figure is special as she embraces elements of greek, indian and iranian culture. she has the facial features of india and iran, wears abundant bracelets and has a bindi (the third eye or sixth chakra in hindu tradition) on her forehead. she also has a grecian drape to her robes and the wings of nike. there is still so much more to see in the exhibit. i wouldn't mind going again.


we visited the greek and roman wing after the afghanistan exhibit. i really loved the terracotta statuettes found in many burial sites in attica (made in the fifth to fourth century BC). the one below is of a character actor found in plays and reminded me of the waterspout.

summertime

past summers
knot up my heart
and take me out of now

what AM i knitting these days?

i'm working on ysolda teague's liesl with lionbrand wool in grey. it's taking me forever. i'm not sure why . . or what else i want to say about it. maybe i'm in a knitting funk. i'm not working on anything else these days . . on another subject . . xena seems to be doing alright. here she is trying to get at c's yogurt. we gave her some cream to make her happy.