JULY WINDS DOWN TO A BLUE MOON

Gifts of embroidery

 from Julio's mom

 The neglected church garden still blooming Friday the 25th

 sweet

 Saturday

Once electrical problems were repaired

I put the kitchen in order

 Construction in the neighborhood

 Sunday

Temperatures soar into the nineties

 He had the sweetest voice

Lexington Avenue #6 at 23rd Street

 Changed at grand central and arrived

at Lincoln Center Damrosch Park

 for free Judy Collins concert

 Someone filmed the last bit (not me) a little talk and sing along 

"Amazing Grace"

(rough footage but her voice is solid)

https://youtu.be/tcYd6f32cgc

Monday

The outside color changed suddenly

Storm weather, but no rain, only flies

 This is my fly catcher

 Tuesday in the neighborhood

(collapsed)

 Someone turned the stone Francis

dragged it off it's central place

(unsuccessful thieves)

 Weed trees growing in three street containers

 Wednesday

Temperature hits high nineties-over 100 with heat index

"Every law not based on Wisdom is a menace to the State"

 "We must not use force unless just laws are defied"

 My friend Michael

 Appellate division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York

Design by James Brown Lord 1896

 Madison Square Park

Free Concert

 Happy despite the heat index

 With her daughter and grandchild

 He's proud of his plane

Energetic dance move

 The judge for the dance contest was the original 'cowboy'

from

The Village People

 barefoot dancing despite the heat

 The dance-off on stage

 One winner is picked

 by a process of elimination

Thursday I stayed home with air conditioning

Tonight is a blue moon Astronomically speaking
https://youtu.be/XyBp-EYrwTA

One more day to August

~*~ 

THIS WEEK SO FAR

MONDAY

Amma was in New York for three days.

Here's a 5 minute CNN piece from 2007

http://youtu.be/GusGhuMu1FI

TUESDAY

Read this again before  packing it to send to a friend
"Shadows In the Sun"
Essays on the Spirit of Place by Wade Davis

Monthly banking accomplished and bills paid

A new warning: as the poor get poorer they get cleverer

Late at night, unable to sleep, I wandered downstairs to the street to watch the storm approaching

 
Watched this library-loaned video

So enjoyable.  It made me think of Grace Forest

http://youtu.be/1yg9kkqCul0

WEDNESDAY
A storm damaged tree lays cut up on the sidewalk

Looking in on the newest construction next to my local library
Yet another high rise condominium starts with excavation (sigh)

What a busy sky today, like flocked cloth

A domestic detail was accomplished

 Mahonia in flower on East 22nd Street

THURSDAY
An oh so helpful visit to the studio of
Ellen Saltonstall
(click on Kinetic Awareness)

 She who helped me so much in the past, has me back on a regimen of 'Theraputic Ball work' for my shoulder and neck injury, and I already feel the difference.

I walked home happy and lighter knowing it was good to wait, and good to stick with homeopathic remedies, and naturopathic solutions like body work.  Passing Styvesunt Square park three blocks from my home, I noticed a sign:

WOW
Free Mind body movement and more at lunchtime Wednesdays, Movies Thursday nights and  Tango Sundays, and some garden volunteer opportunities too!

FRIDAY
I'm meeting the friend, 'Archangel' Michael for a visit to The museum of Natural History Rose center (a promise I made to Grace forest) to the Halls of 'the Universe',  'Earth' and 'Biodiversity'

Post Script
Blogger is malfunctioning
I can't make the background color fill the post page
 
"It's the imperfection that lets the light in"
(Ha-ha-hrumpf)

NOT A FULL WEEK

 It just felt full

ATMOSPHERE
 
Several friends stressed, myself somewhat sleep deprived, world news disasters and their aftershocks, the neighborhood sagging under the weight of garbage in clear,  black,  and blue plastic bag, vehicle-traffics swoosh, beep, thud, clatter and screech, students rolling in waves and gaggles, pouring into the many schools, into the streets buzzing with construction noise, into chain stores and thrift shops, into the bars and clubs, into apartments no longer silent.  Illumination of the electrical sort obscures night, while the lack of it obscures day behind storms of activity
 

ELECTRICITY
I've adjusted somewhat at last.  Liberated this hotplate gem from the topmost kitchen cabinet, memento of past emergencies

Time to make a hot soup, so

stripped three ears of raw corn

 steamed Carrots, Fennel. Onion.Garlic

added a quart of chicken broth and enjoyed a bowl

Even the compost looks pretty enough to eat.
 
CONSTRUCTION
Commences at 7AM-ends at 4PM daily
Cracked place on my floor

 Since the ceiling's been removed
I see right through to the apartment below

 Another cracked place

 In fact, my floors suddenly have a whole lot more creaky places than they had before the work began down there.  This is the third D/R in the past eight years.  I'm wondering how much more of assaultive events the old prewar structure can take before imploding.

 AIR AND LIGHT
 Walked around the church garden

 Sat in the shade,
thinking about butterflies

This bush ready for Monarchs

GAS

Can you see the tiny arching blue spot
at the center of this shot? 

It's the flame at the back of my stove!
Con Edison came, without warning, this morning, accompanied by our unhappy Superintendent, whose life has been made miserable these past weeks, not just by the lack of gas for his wife to cook with, but also due to the extra labors he's been forced to perform for all the apartment dwellers.

Thus ends the outage
July 23rd through August 22nd
not with a whimper, but a flame.

WEATHER
Cool reverted to hot and humid, plus the charge of energy swirling around me has me dreaming of more vegetative landscapes, wider skies and the company of critters with straight forward agendas, little baggage, and not constrained by fear of extinction. 

Like deat Melanie, who lives at a local store

YOGA
Had a restorative hour with others at
'Gentle Marvins' 


FRIDAY
Lucked out with this 'gladiola' discard
free from Trader Joe yesterday

Lotus like color

softens the view

Onward to the weekend, where an essay on friendship, two dinner invites, and a friend's birthday for which I'm making an organic vegetable soup await my pleasure, and, if external weather and internal energy allows, I'll cut back the ragged edges of the garden, throw a bit of plant food around the flowering perennials, and gather in some Echinacea.

Thanks for keeping me company friends.

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." --Ralph Waldo Emerson--

FRIENDSHIP

by Cole Porter according to Lucy and Ethel

http://youtu.be/n_fZP_AzfAE