Well the cross-country adventure looks like loads of fun. Are you reminded at all of your trip out west as a young'un about which Gr. Ann took loads of notes (from which, I believe, we know that Patty was studying up on grasses?)?

New York has suddenly got very cold after a week or so of lovely spring (75 degrees!) weather. I have been working a lot, Shawn (Izzy's mom) has been away on a lot of business trips, so I've been overnight at Izzy's almost every night for the past two weeks. As hosts of the critically acclaimed cooking show "Marva and Marvin" (she's Marva, I'm Marvin), we have been doing a lot of work in the kitchen. We might be most proud of our chocolate cake with homemade buttercream frosting, although Shawn was not quite so pleased when she got home to find five gallons of buttercream frosting in the refrigerator. Apparently there was some fine print under the recipe reminding people that this was a restaurant recipe, meant for serving in bulk.

Renee has been in town for the past week and treating me to her insider's knowledge of the city. On Sunday we indulged in some delicious tarts from the adorably named "Once Upon a Tart," in SOHO. We tried savory and sweet tarts and there is no doubt in my mind that this quaint little joint will end up being twice, or maybe thrice upon a tart... heh heh, get it? Cause I'll be going back...

After lunch we went to see short films at the NY International Children's Film Festival, and it was fantastic! Granted, we were the only adults there without children in tow, but let me tell you, those jaded new yorkers who may have dismissed this cultural icon at the term "children's" really missed out on something great. Some of the creators of the films spoke after the viewing and they all said that they did not have children in mind when they set out to make the films, they were made for all audiences. Actually, some of them were a little over my head. Perhaps I have not taken an English class in too long, but there was definitely some symbolism that was lost on me.

I also had the pleasure of Renee's company yesterday, for an afternoon on the Upper East Side. We met at this amazing bakery/gourmet deli called Yura on 92nd and Madison, I had a croissant and Renee had zucchini bread, and we both had Renee's signature steamed milk, which, if you have not tried one, are scrummy (like that Cailin, how I used a bit of English slang?). Nourished, we proceeded to the Jewish museum, which is essentially a celebration of Jewish culture and contributions to art, and features artists of Jewish backgrounds. There was an amazing exhibit on Houdini, who, if you didn't know this, was a Rabbi's son. The exhibit included everything from paintings inspired by "the king of handcuffs" to his actual "water torture chamber" to the handcuffs he escaped from to posters advertising his shows to a cage exhibit with 7 live pigeons and a glass coffin on which the pigeons defecated, meant (according to the description on the wall) to symbolize the brevity of life and some analogy about life having you in chains that vaguely relates to houdini's escape acts. But I didn't really get that one.

There was a school group there and we sort of followed them around because they had a great tour guide who was telling really cool houdini anecdotes and things, and also because kids say the darndest things, and Renee and I were getting quite a few chuckles out of the comments. There was a lot of "I know how he did that! He's hiding the key in his pocket!" and "I could do that." Also a touching moment (awwwww) when a little boy raised his hand and said, "I think if I saw Houdini do that trick then I would believe that nothing is impossible."

There was a new installation at the Jewish Museum that we got to see, an exhibit by the artist Maira Kalman. She had instructed the paintings to be hung side by side, all squished together with no empty space between the frames, so looking at the exhibit was like reading a story book about her life. You could really see how different things in her life were influencing her work, like after her husband died there was a series of really sad artwork.

Then we popped into the Cooper Hewitt museum just one block away. It is a branch of the Smithsonian and the national center for design. The new exhibit there was an installation of hundreds of Van Cleef and Arpels jewelry pieces, absolutely amazing, just diamonds EVERYWHERE, probably billions of dollars worth of jewelry in one room.

Upstairs there was another exhibit on the artist Sonia Delaunay, a real avant garde tastemaker in the 1920s who made textiles with really big, bold, graphic shapes and colors. Her whole concept was that "color is the skin of life" and that by placing colors and shapes strategically next to eachother you created movement. The exhibit actually inspired my curriculum for art class later in the day, where I had the kids look at some of the pamphlets from the exhibit and then create their own textile patterns. Yes, I was quite proud of myself for coming up with that one.

Right now I am at KC and Baldur's babysitting the kidlets. It is Baldur's birthday, so they are out with friends. There are revolutionary developments happening in the Martin-Gudbjornsson-Baldursdottir household: Freyja and Katla are now sharing a room, which has been going pretty well for the most part, except for tonight when KC all of a sudden heard screaming from the room and went in to find that Freyja had thrown a huge plastic babydoll in Katla's crib and hit her square in the head. After much crying on both their parts I thought they had fallen asleep, until at about 8:00 (they were both supposed to have been asleep for two hours at this point), I hear a creaking of a door and some padded footsteps, and a little voice saying "Hi!"... Freyja had decided it was time to play and was absolutely adamant about not going back to bed. Hard to say no to a little kid in footed pajamas holding her blanket and looking up at you with enormous eyes, but I did eventually get her back to bed and all has been silent since. She is probably in there playing dress up.

Love to everyone! xox