Diary of a Manhattan Toddler—Part One

I just got home from a week of  following granddaughter Amalia, who’s nearly three, on her daily rounds on New York City's Upper East Side.  I served as social secretary, carriage pusher, snack provider and diaper changer, and although I was exhausted every night, (check out “How to Put A Toddler to Sleep in 100 Easy Steps”—I think “Honest Toddler” is eavesdropping on us),  I realized that—while New York toddlers can’t run out into the back yard for unsupervised play or catch tadpoles in the nearest pond,  Manhattan has more opportunities for toddler fun than anywhere else.

Here’s Amalia in her new (bigger) apartment—in the same building as before, but on a different floor.  After breakfast with dinosaurs, she’ll make her plans for the day.

Yoga at the nearby children’s store “Sprout” happens on Tuesday mornings and some Thursdays, and Hip Hop Dance plus Yoga happens at 4:30 on Mondays, with the same teachers: Rachel and Samara.  They can be found at lilyogisnyc.com.

Toddler Story Time, ideal for rainy days, is at 10:30 every weekday morning at the Metropolitan Museum’s Nolen library, and it’s free and open to all!

Barnes and Noble on 86^th Street is also popular on bad weather days—there’s a whole play area with toys as well as books on the lower level.

Here’s Amalia sitting in on a trial visit to Kidville, at 163 East 84^h Street between Third and Lexington, which has every kind of lesson and playtime for preschoolers (for a price),  even summer day camp.  This lesson was called “Messy Lab” and while it was indeed messy, it was meant to teach about various properties of water.

Central Park is Amalia’s personal playground every day that it’s not raining. She’s crazy about the penguins and seals at the Zoo and has worked up the courage to ride on the chariot on the carousel (not the horses.) 

One day we encountered Nathan the Bubble Man who was making giant bubbles in front of the Band Shell.  (He says his secret is “Dawn” dish soap.)

Amalia was so excited about chasing after the gargantuan bubbles and popping them that we got Nathan’s phone number in case he might be available for Amalia’s next birthday party.

On the way back, we stopped to look at a horse and carriage and Bethesda Fountain—Yiayia Joanie’s favorite spot in Central Park.

And we threw bread to the ducks in the Toy Boat Pond.  (This is probably illegal.)

On another day in Central Park we managed to get an inflatable kite (featuring Doc McStuffins) up in the air.

As Amalia climbed rocks in her patriotic dress, passing Asian tourists snapped her picture.

With the hot weather—at last!--the sprinklers have been turned on in Amalia’s favorite playground in the park, and the little ones are flocking to them. 

One day Amalia came wearing her bathing suit and carrying her friends Nemo and Boots to see if they could swim. (They couldn’t.)

She changed into dry clothes and introduced them to the sandbox…

where she buried Nemo, but we managed to find him and dig him up.

After so much exertion, she wanted ice cream and we had to go to the front of the Metropolitan Museum to find it.  She chose the Hello Kitty ice cream bar (because it’s pink) but when she got it, she wouldn’t eat it, because the ice cream didn’t have yellow eyes like the picture on the wrap.

But at least we got to enjoy a free live concert.

Back home, Amalia had lunch and decided to take a power nap in her new bedroom before embarking on the afternoon’s activities, while her animal friends watched over her.

Next: "Diary of a Toddler Part 2"--Amalia's tips on restaurants and museums. 

Greece is Going to the Cats

(This is a re-post from last summer's visit to Hydra.)

Five years ago I published a book called "The Secret Life of Greek Cats" based on feline photographs I'd taken over the years, which told about Greek history, myths, traditions and superstitions from the point of view of the cats who are so much a part of the Greek landscape.  As I wrote in the book: "Everywhere you go in Greece you will find a cat...Cats are the punctuation in Greek life...During their catnaps they dream of the days when they were worshipped by the ancient Egyptians and didn't have to rely on the kindness of strangers for food." (The book is still available--for $10-- on Amazon or  by clicking on the book cover to the right.)

Many of the cats in the book were photographed on the island of Hydra, including Vasili, the cat on the cover, who dreamed of jumping on one of the boats in the harbor of Hydra and sailing away to see the world.

On a recent trip back to the island of Hydra, I was curious to see if the economic crisis in Greece had affected the island's feline population.  The harbor cats were there, as numerous as always.  They were gathered to greet the tourists, patiently waiting under the taverna tables for handouts, and agilely avoiding being trampled by the donkeys in the harbor, who are the only form of transportation on the island.

Every time I'd comment that the Hydra cats seemed thinner than before, daughter Eleni would point out a fat cat who clearly enjoyed a regular meal schedule.  (Some of the Greek islands, including Crete, have  organizations which collect contributions to help with the spaying and care of the island's feral cat population.  As far as I know, Hydra does not.)

On many Greek islands the cats have become so numerous and so popular that they are now featured on touristic items like carrier bags.

The  best fed and happiest cats on the island are, of course,  house pets and store cats.

The harbor cats have a harder life, but they regularly greet the fishing boats as they come in in the morning, hoping for scraps when fish are cleaned.  They also keep an eye on the private boats anchored in the harbor-- to the point of mastering tightrope walking, if it will win a tasty bite.

Even the wildest of the feral cats, when the sun begins to set, have to stop a moment and wonder at the beauty of their island, and take a moment to wish for good hunting and a full stomach tomorrow.

Free Father's Day Cards

An encore from a popular post in 2012:

Some time ago I designed some Father's Day cards using antique photos from my collection. 

Here are three of them.

Just in case you haven't gotten around to buying Dad a card yet -- Father's Day is June 15 this year--feel free to assemble your own card by printing one of these, pasting it on a blank piece of folded paper, and writing a sentiment and your name inside, with lots of "X"s and "O"'s.

Free Father's Day Card.

Take that Hallmark!

 (Inside: "You rock!  Happy Father's Day!")

(Inside:  "That's my excuse.  What's yours?  Happy Father's Day.)

(Inside: "Happy Father's Day from your dog.")

Amalia visits Papou’s Greek Village of Lia

The second chapter of Amalia’s Greek odyssey, after Mykonos, was a visit to the Greek village of Lia on the Albanian border, where her grandfather, Nicholas Gage, was born.  As he wrote in the book “Eleni”, the village was occupied by Communist guerrillas during the Greek civil war, and in June of 1948, when the guerrillas prepared to collect the children and send them behind the Iron Curtain to re-education camps, Nick’s mother, Eleni Gatzoyiannis, organized the escape of her 8-year-old son and three of his four sisters, in the hope that they could eventually join their father in Worcester, MA.

After the escape, Eleni Gatzoyiannis was arrested, imprisoned in the basement of her own house along with 30 other prisoners, tortured and eventually executed by a firing squad.  Many prisoners were buried in the yard of the house, which the guerrillas had taken over for their headquarters. After the war ended and the Communists were driven back over the border, the empty house fell into ruin.  In 2002 Eleni Gage, Nick’s daughter, spent a year in the village rebuilding her grandmother’s house, a saga she recorded in her travel memoir “North of Ithaka.”

The photos above show three generations: Nick, daughter Eleni Gage Baltodano,  and granddaughter Amalia Baltodano, posing on the terrace of the Eleni Gatzoyiannis house, which has been decorated and furnished just as it was during Amalia’s great grandmother’s lifetime, including traditional clothes of the period. 

The plaque over the door lists three dates: 1856 when the original two-room house was built by an ancestor of Nick’s father, Christos Gatzoyiannis, (a coin with that date was buried under the cornerstone), 1924, when Christos expanded the house by adding on a large room and hallway, and 2002, when Eleni Gage rebuilt her grandmother’s house with the help of Albanian workers, using the same stones that had fallen into the foundation. 

Inside the house, over one fireplace, is a photograph of Nick’s mother and father, when they were first married in 1926.  In this main room there are also an iron bed, a wooden cradle and a carved and painted casella  (dowry chest).  

A guest book records the names and comments of people who have come from all over the world to see the place where Eleni lived and died.

On a low table called a soufra, Amalia found a giant spoon,

Which she discovered would also work as a hat.

After visiting the house, everyone went to see who was sitting in the square outside Lia’s Inn, where last summer Amalia had so much fun sailing flowers in the spring. 

last summer

She practiced walking on the ledge around the plane tree.

And she showed Vangeli, one of the elders of the village, how to play “Endless Alphabet” on her I-Pad.

Vangeli likes to call himself the “psychiatrist of the sidewalk” because he’s usually sitting in the square watching the world go by, but he was not experienced in the use of the I-pad that Amalia was carrying. 

He caught on fast to “Endless Alphabet.”

Dinner at the house of next-door neighbors Dina and Andreas Petsis is always the highlight of a visit to the village, because Dina is a world-class cook, incorporating into her dishes wild greens including nettles, seasonal treats from her garden like stuffed squash blossoms, and her own chickens and eggs.

This is just part of Dina and Andreas’s collection of antique hammered copper and brass, the traditional craft of this area of Epiros.

Amalia used some of it to make a tea party for herself and their little dog Rudy.

When it was time to leave the village and move on to Corfu, Amalia stopped by the courtyard of the Inn to tell everyone good-bye and to promise that she’d be back next summer.