On Friday April 27th, Trevor and I headed downtown to check out the open studios at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. They offer free studios and a stipend to artists who get accepted into their program. (Trevor recently applied to it and should find out soon). We found time to imitate the golden heads at the subway station before going in the building. The studios are just about a block away from the World Trade Center site and we could watch the construction from out of one studio's window. Trevor got into the construction spirit a little too much:) Actually, one artist had transformed his studio into a construction site - equipped with hard hats and all.
With the weather getting nicer every week, we have had our windows open a lot more and I am growing a little herb garden on the window sill. However, the best window for growing plants/has the most sunlight is also Simon's favorite window. Needless to say, it is a very crowded window with a big orange tabby squeezing himself between several plants... while bird watching! Poor Simon - we realized that while Isabelle has been on airplanes, gone dog modeling, and ridden the subways, he hasn't left our 446 square foot apartment in two years! He did get very brave and venture out onto the outer window edge...thats about as crazy as he gets folks.
The following Saturday night Steven Keene's family invited us to a performance of Streb, www.strebusa.org, in Williamsburg. They are a small dance troupe that was founded in NYC in the 70s(?) by Elizabeth Streb. It is an exciting mix of performance art, modern dance, and circus acrobatics. It was the most amazing show! At the intermission, little Flora Keene (she's 6 years old) performed with her class; she takes lessons there during the week. They ended the show with a pool splash performance outside on the sidewalk. They only perform on Friday/Saturday/Sunday nites for about three months during the year and then they go to tour the country/world for the remainder of the year. How did we not know about his before?!

lovely Barbara

April 15th. It rained all day Sunday but we had to get out of the house, so we went to get the makings of a delicious taco dinner. So here is Rachel with her taco salad, I made regular tacos. That was the highlight of that dreary, rainy weekend so we were definitely ready for the great weather that was on the way.
April 22nd. What a beautiful day! We left the house heading towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the met). We got some slices of tasty pizza in our neighborhood and saw an old car. Then we walked to a nearby thrift store that Rachel spotted from the train one day. Now, I've been in alot of thrift stores in plenty of places and seen lots of junk but nothing could prepare me for this. WHOA!! These pictures don't really convey all the stuff. There was only a narrow trail as though you were between two cliffs. Chairs, mattresses, games, furniture, bicycles, lamps, books, frames, electrical wires, lots of stuff, more stuff, some junk and then more junk just piled high and then a little more on top. Rachel asked how much a bike was and the lady said $160, which was too much. Leading us to the theory that she has a hard time letting this stuff go. She places too much value on it. She thinks if she has a book that someone might pay $5 for then maybe someone else will pay $6 or more. So now it is just out of control. But it sure was entertaining for me.
We walked around Central Park before heading to the Met. Everyone was there, more people than grass. The months of cold make these days extra special. On the side steps of the museum was a puppet show that I had to watch. Two guys had a cardboard castle and would make the puppets "sing' to pop songs. Though we love visiting the Met for nothing in particular we were on a mission that day. Rachel had to find a drawing before 1807 and then copy it for her drawing class. We walked all over realized that this would be harder than previously realized. We even walked though the open storage section, which is where visitors can see the abundance of early colonial American stuff. It was much better organized than the thrift store. She finally decided on some Egyptian artifacts. When we left the museum I got to watch the puppet show more while we ate ice-cream treats. Then on the way to the train station we were able to add one more celebrity to our list. We saw Barbara Walters, which excited Rachel more than I thought it would. You can find her by the large arrow that floats above her head. She was quite wrinkly.