Yesterday the girls had off school for Eid Al-fitr (Muslim holiday to
celebrate end of Ramadan fasting.) You gotta love religious diversity if
you grow up in New York schools. I only got Christian holidays growing
up in Kansas. To celebrate in our own way we decided to make a list of
all the amazing things we saw and did. I told the girls to be on the
look out. Here's what we found:
1. For breakfast we ate an
unknown but delicious fruit/vegetable that we found in the secret garden
yesterday. It was reddish-yellow and round in shape, like a small
squash. But it didn't taste anything like a squash. It had a semi-hard
skin on outside and inside the texture and crisp taste of cucumber, but
tangier, like a cucumber/tomato hybrid. Perfect with a little salt.
2. Sofia was coloring in an outline of Van Gogh's Starry Night when the
same image came on as Mister Rogers' "picture picture" (as Sofia calls
it.) The first season of Mister Rogers is now playing on Netflix as of
this month. I'm floored at how good it is, much better than I remember.
Yesterday we noticed that the picture on his wall, the one that slides
back to reveal the Neighborhood of Make-believe, is different every day.
So it was amazing to Sofia to be working on Starry Night and then see
it appear on Mister Rogers wall.
3. Stars on a starling's wings.
Walking to the 7 train we saw a Starling. I pointed out to the girls
that you could tell it was a starling because there was a constellation
of iridescent stars on its black wings.
4. On the way to the 7
train we opened up the Free Library (a re-purposed newspaper stand on
Queens BLVD.) There was no book. But there was a torn off back cover of a
book showing cow jumping over a new moon, amidst a sea of stars.
5. On the 7 train we sat next to a woman in her early 20s, wearing
glasses, a black dress with a floral pattern on it and reading To Kill A
Mockingbird. I asked her if it was the first time reading the novel.
She said she was reading it again in preparation for reading the "new"
Harper Lee novel, Go Set A Watchman. She said it was so good reading it
the second time. We talked about things we had enjoyed as children that
held up and got better with age. Like Mister Rogers. She said Lemony
Snicket held up for her. And the TV show Wishbone. She also recommended
the children's theater Ta Da!
6. At the Times Square Metro
station we saw a tile mural in which a gentleman was handing a woman a
fruit/vegetable that looked suspiciously like the mystery one we had
eaten for breakfast. Sofia said the woman was looking at the man like,
"Really? For me? I can't believe it!"
7. Once we got to the 1 train we saw another tile mural, by a different
artist. This one was sea turtles swimming through a subway station. I
told the girls that's what it would be like if Manhattan was underwater.
She asked what the art was trying to say. I told her I thought it might
be saying that life goes on, even if everything is underwater.
8. Lucia said she noticed something amazing. I asked her what and she said, "the wind blowing her dress up."
9. I got into a conversation at CMA (Children's Museum of Arts, our
destination) with one of the staff, Annie Moor, as the kids were making
art. At one point, during a pause in the conversation, she started
singing Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight." I got chills that went
all the way down to my marrow. It was so beautiful, what I imagine the
song would sound like if Billie Holiday sang it.
Meanwhile Lucia painted
10. Annie Moor
suggested a podcast to me that she was involved in called We Love
Bedtime Stories, wherein actors play out stories told by actual parents
to kids. Definitely going to check that out.
Sofia painted
11. Another mother
that was sitting next to us overheard the conversation, one thing lead
to another and she was recommending the Smithsonian Folkways recording
of Lord Invader, Calypso In New York. Lord Invader? Calypso music? Gotta
be great.
Meanwhile funhouse mirror
12. One of the great things about CMA is the ball
pit, a room full of giant exercise balls, one of the girls' favorite
places to play in the world. I asked the girls if they were ready to go
up there and jump around and a boy, about 8 or 9, said that the balls
were gone for this month and had been replaced by scary chairs. I asked
him why they were scary and he said, "You'll see!" So we went up to see.
The chairs were giant toys that you could sit in and spin around like a
top. They toppled easily and a few kids did get hurt. But the danger
was part of the fun and the laughter of girls playing on them for over
an hour was, indeed, amazing.
13. Sofia wanted to make a
painting, but couldn't find paper. A grandma overheard and said that
they had brought their own paper and offered Sofia a piece. Sofia made a
lovely splatter painting (see below) and then gave it to the woman as a
gift for having given her the paper. Very sweet.
14. Lucia
painted one of her little people. When we went back to pick it up one of
the staff showed me that she had copied Lucia's drawing because she
liked it so much. I liked her version, but she still had a way to go to
reach Lucia's mastery.
15. Jil Weinstock, who does the curating
of the gallery section of CMA, does a stellar job. The last two themed
shows I've seen there, "Far Away" and "Pixilated," were both
outstanding, and this one, "If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home," which had
the theme of mapping, was equally amazing. Hat's off.
16. We
stopped to eat a snack at James J Walker Park, on the way back to the 1
train . There was a co-ed softball game happening. It seemed pretty
amazing to me to be watching a softball game in the middle of Lower West
Side Manhattan on a Thursday afternoon.
17. As we were watching
the game I asked Sofia if there was anything else today I should mention
for our list, and she said the apple cinnamon rice cakes we were eating for a snack were pretty amazing.
