A Red Tongue & Rana

Madeleine and I pass time at the mall awaiting Eitan, who is with his Monday tutor. Madeleine rummages the toy store and comes away with a frog, pictured, though she insists it is a lizard. Well, I think it is a frog which also seems appropriate given the frog eggs (update: we observe with excitement the spawn elongating towards tadpoledom). It is hard to convey, dear reader, how a green rubber with red tongue can provide hours of amusement.

Madeleine gives me her glow-in-the-dark skull which I clip to a belt loop. I embarrass her by growling at passer-bys but she is on the inside of the joke: Dad might be a weirdo but he is an adult and can do these things. Presumably. Eitan's tutor, Stephanie, a very stylish Brit with black knee-high boots. She raves about the boy, who takes his medicine with head held-low. Secretly, I know, he is pleased with himself. Madeleine next.

We end our day in Primrose Hill for dinner with Rana and her new fella John, who has published ten books and has never lived outside Boston. Yes, he is a die-hard Red Sox fan and his eyes glaze over when he describes the 2007 World Series. Purrr. Rana recently made Deputy Editor of Newsweek Magazine and on her way to Copenhagen where she will present at a conference. She tells me that CNN's cable business, under threat and in decline, generates $2 billion of revenues while the CNN website, the most popular news source in the world, produces less than $60 million. Rana is one of the Good And The Great and our democracy desperately needs her fully engaged.

Back to work.