A Beautiful City

Oxo Wharf

We say a sad farewell to Auntie Katie and the holiday season, which crept up on us slowly, stayed for a bit too long, then ended rather abruptly.  Same as forever.

I visit my office, Sonnet takes down the Christmas tree and the kids do some revisions. Work and school boot up Monday and Tuesday.

"Great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies!" 
--Boris Johnson describes the London Assembly members who voted not to debate his budget amendment.

London Skyline

From Richmond Pk

While we are at it, Madeleine's sushi menu (prepared by Madeleine with sou chef Katie)
Starters:
Salted peas
Miso soup

Main course:
Salmon nigiri (Plain salmon on rice)
Treasure of the sea (salmon caviar and rice)
California hand roll (carrot, rice, avocado and mini caviar and salmon)
Cuttlefish nigiri (plain cuttlefish on rice)
Salmon and tuna handroll (salmon, tuna, rice, avocado, grated carrot and mini caviar)
Salmon sashimi (plain salmon)
Tuna roll (plain tuna wrapped in rice)
Inside out roll

Business Owner

The holiday routine continues into the New Year: Sleep until 11AM, some coffee, a bit of exercise ..  dog walk, television.. vodka martini, dry, with a twist (or olives, if Katie).  Next week's gonna be a shocker.

Eitan makes busy preparing dinner:
Butternut squash soup with bread and cheese
Seasoned Chicken breasts with potatoes and cabbage and tomato and goat cheese salad
Chocolate mousse with lemon glazed fruit salad for dessert

Surrey Hills

We ramble in the Devil's Punch Bowl, a large natural amphitheatre near Hindhead, Surrey. An ancient story claims that two giants clashed here, and one, scooping up earth to throw at the other, made the landmark before missing the throw and creating the Isle of Wight. 

In any case, the kids whine and complain since they would rather stay inside and play with their gadgets.  It does not help that, en route, there is torrential rain.  Sonnet rolls her eyes.  Rusty has the time of his life.

Movie Night

Oxo Tower

Grace picks a movie, which she has brought from California: "The Wind And The Lion".
Sonnet: "Will you go get your son?" [Dad's note: Eitan is watching "Made in Chelsea"]
Madeleine: "Is it in black and white?"
Me: "It's about old people. The average age is over 50" [Madeleine looks at me in horror]
Grace: "Oh cut it out. Don't let your father tease you like that."
Me: "Put the movie in and let's get this thing over with."
Sonnet: "I had a dream of Sean Connery last night." [Dad's note: the movie stars Sean Connery.]
Me:
Grace: "That's nice. Was it a good dream?"
Moe: "Great opening scene, Grace" [Dad's note: Moe lies on the couch where he will fall asleep]
Katie reads a book: "There was no Internet in 1904" [The movie takes place in 1904]
Grace: "Just watch the movie."

Gracie's Book

My mother's book, "Think About It! Reflective Communication Skills for Early Care and Education Professionals," is published by Minuteman Press and we could not be more delighted and proud of her.

Katie and I take our parents to Terminal 5 where they return to Berkeley after a week that flies by too quickly.

Sushi. It's What's For Dinner

Hu-waaaaaa town

Madeleine prepares sushi, something planned for over a month, and so we head to New Malden where there is an Asian center which strangely combines Korea, China and Japan which is a lot of territory to cover, if you ask me.  Madeleine picks the fish, including tuna and salmon, octopus and a few other things I don't recognise.

I stumble across some Sriracha Super Hot Chili Sauce which Roger and I discovered in college and put on bologna sandwiches.  We called it "Hu-waaaa" sauce while making Asian-faces which I agree is pretty immature and Roger did merry Greta so I think we are off the hook.

A Lull In The Action

Katie samples an avacado

Katie, Eitan and I run a 5k in Bushy Park so the boy can qualify for the London mini-marathon in April.  The only thing worse than running a race is running a race out of shape.  The dog drags me across the finish line (Rusty in first place, for dogs). Moe and Grace cheer us on.

Eitan crosses in 19:01, which would be enough to qualify him but, reading the fine print, the race must be be completed between 4 Jan and 22 Feb, so he will have to do it again.

Post Xmas

The Lawyer

Me: "Madeleine what do you say about Christmas?"
Madeleine shrugs: "I don't know."
Me: "That all?"
Madeleine: "Where's your Panasonic thing?" [Dad's note: Dad got a camcorder]
Me: "It's charging."
Madeleine: "What are you going to use it for?"
Me: "Do you really need to ask?"
Madeleine rolls her eyes.
Me: "How about if you dance around like a nut cracker?"
Madeleine: "I'm good."

A Merry Rusty Christmas

What would the fox say?

Christmas Cracker

Katie: "What are some things Norway is known for?"
Me: "Gravlox."
Moe: "Fjords."
Grace: "Reindeer!"
Katie: "Yep. What else?"
Us:
Katie: "Give up? Santa Claus, of course."
Madeleine: "I thought he was from Greece."
Kate: "Dad, how many countries have you been to?"
Moe: "I don't know, 30 maybe ?"
Me: "Greece?"
Eitan: "I've been to America. And England, and Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Greece.  And Wales."
Me: "Wales doesn't count."
Grace: "Wales isn't a country ?"
Me: "I didn't say that. Only that it doesn't count."
Madeleine: "That's where we got Rusty."
Grace: "So it counts for something."
Rusty:

Xmas Eve

Barnes track

I get the kids (the hell out of) the house for some exercise.  Eitan runs a mile time trial in 5:50.

Madeleine: "Can we park here Dad? Is it legal ?"
Eitan: "It's not allowed."
Madeleine: "Are we allowed on to the field?"
Eitan:
Me: "Just squeeze through the gate here, no problem."
Eitan: "We really aren't supposed to be doing this."
Me: "We're not robbing a bank, for Pete's sake."
Madeleine: "I am not going to jail on Christmas Eve."
Me: "No one is going to jail. We're just going to run a few laps around the track."
Eitan: "Come on, Madeleine, no one's going to catch us."
Me: "That's the spirit."

Checkered Shirts

We are in town for a play then an early dinner at Cecconi's where I sit next to Gracie and we drink martinis (mine: vodka, dry, with a twist; hers: gin, dirty with olives.  My grandfather George was also a gin man - in the Midwest, this is old school proper).  Madeleine looks at me bemused.

From here, it is home to watch a scary movie, "The Women in Black," which Eitan has been pestering me about for weeks (me: "is she really in black? Is she?"), which is discussed the next day over the breakfast counter since it is the creepiest movie ever, according to Eitan (Dad's correction: Eitan says it is not, actually, the creepiest movie ever, but "I have not seen many creepy movies")

Me: "This dog doesn't know the half of it."
Eitan:
Rusty: "Woof."

And She's Off

Aneta returns to Czech.

At least Aneta is flying. When she arrived it was by bus - 18 hours.

I never really did the Greyhound in those younger years. Oh, sure, sometimes I took a bus from NY's Port Authority to Providence, post college, to see my post-college girlfriend, but mostly it was the train when on the Eastern Seaboard.  By Jr year I had a car (three, in fact) so the indignities of a "Silverside" mostly lost on me.  Still, it is hard to beat £20.60 to Prague one-way.

Me And The Boy

We sit around the living room watching "The First Great Train Robbery", one of my mom's favourites, which is somehow appropriate as Ronnie Biggs died last week (Biggs involved in The Great Train Robbery of '63).  A best thing about the movie is the rendition of the Victorian period - costumes, accents and all - a good hanging, too (crowd chants: "Oh, my, someone's gonna die"which is pretty creepy stuff).

We are with the Clarks and welcome Michael home from Annapolis.  He wears his 'choker' and takes q & a , composed and secure that boot camp behind him and he can focus on the academics, where he excels.

Moe explains the legal actions surrounding gay marriage in the US. The fight is not over.

Me: "Do you think I'm weird ?"

Madeleine: "Yes but in a good way."

Self Portrait XXXIV

Heathrow

Madeleine and I pick up Grace and Moe, who arrive following a delayed flight and a long journey.  We are delighted that they are with us. Katie arrives Monday.

Eitan has been begging to go to Primark - "a room full of cheap clothes" he enthuses - so this afternoon we are there.  Madeleine and I bored within minutes while Eitan checks out the various styles. I handle a pair of shiny pointy boots - could they be dress shoes ? - while Eitan goes for a "kind of cool geeky" shirt and "pretty fly" jacket. Score.

Una Vez Más

The boy at 13. I could not be more proud of him.

The Malaga airport is absurd : recently built and modern, size of a military hanger, too big for retail and barely half a day of flights mostly from the low cost airlines.  This is where Spain spent its borrowings. Following a week of extraordinary food we break down and hit Burger King (which is worth the price just to hear the Spanish cashier pronounce 'whopper')

Puente Viejo

The Old Bridge

We visit Ronda where Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles spent many summers in the old town quarter "La Ciudad." Hemingway famously loved the bull-fighting machismo. Eitan and I check out the Old Bridge which was built from 1751 to 1793 and is 120 metres above the canyon floor.

The Guadavalin  River runs through the city, dividing it in two and carving out the steep, 100 plus meters deep El Tajo canyon upon which the city perches. Eitan and I scale the mountain wall then go for a five mile run alongside the river. Magic.

Eitan: "That's not very funny, Dad."

Me:

Eitan: "You like to laugh at your own jokes, don't you?"

Me: "Sometimes I laugh because you don't get my jokes."

Eitan:

Me: "Or because they make you laugh. Or because I find them funny."

Eitan:

Me: "Aren't you happy that I laugh all the time?"

Eitan gives me a weird look.

Pablo

Picasso Museum

Eitan hates my stretching which I often do from the sidelines of the football pitch or some other equally humiliating place. The airport, for instance.  At least now he rolls with it.

Me: "I haven't had a bath in two days."
Eitan: "That's nothing."

Alora

Day 1 finds us on a train, 8AM, to Alora, a typical pueblo blanco, a whitewashed village nestled between three rocky spurs topped by the ruins of a castle built by the Phoenicians. The train station empty accept for a lonely cafe where the proprietor informs us, using gestures: go up.

A zig zagging trail leads us up the hillside and there is Alora which looks like a favela and Eitan and I wonder: What the hell? Once inside the village, however, we find a hustle-bustle and sparkly shine - the town center filled with the well-dressed elderly people and the young, presumably unemployed, what do they do? one must wonder.  And orange trees filled with fruit.

Our random walk takes us to an olive grove underneath a serious mountain topped with a cross that overlooks  us and the valley beneath.

We return to the station for a perfect tray of anchovies, cured meats and coffee. A table of men play cards.