Brad

Brad visits London for four hours, and for the first time, on a stop-over traveling to Mount Kilimanjaro which he will climb. We have lunch at the British Museum, overlooking the 'reading room,' then visit the Elgin Marbles including, of course, the Rosetta Stone. Brad and I met in First Boston's Natural Resources and Energy Group (known simply as "N-R-G" to us faithfuls) back in August 1989. It was generally known to be the busiest in a busy firm, and the most miserable for its underlings. Our bond of friendship stems from a shared heritage of Berkeley, where Brad went to undergrad 'out-of-state' and the entrapment of investment banking. Today, Brad is a Managing Director at Countrywide, the 8th largest bank in the United States, where his team of 25 oversees $30 billion of assets. When not running money, Brad leads the good life in Santa Monica and still occasionally surfs the warm So-Cal Pacific's waves nearby his home.

Year-End Footie

Today the last Saturday of football before the winter holidays (team coach and organiser Loraine off to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro for charity). The kids are organised into teams and a tournament played for Madeleine and Eitan's age groups. Afterwards, Christmas arrives with our Santa-dressed coach who congratulates the kiddies for a season well done - chocolate biscuits all-around.

Eitan selected as the Player Most Valuable in the tournament, which his team takes with three wins. A proud moment for him; for me, the the dad's pat my back.

Eitan: "Do you know how I can tell three billion, five billion and seven billion are odd?"
Me: "How?"
Eitan: "Well, it is because three, five and seven are odds."

Madeleine asks me (while I'm taking a bath) if I want to play dogs-and-owner. She chooses to be the dog. OK, I say, let's go for a walk outside. She: "Nooo Dad! That is NOT how you play!"

Eitan (and Madeleine) are excited about Eitan's bunk bed, which arrived this week. Sonnet sets the rules: 1. No jumping from the upper bunk to the floor. 2. No rough-housing on the upper bunk. 3. No socks to be worn when climbing the ladder. Eitan, Madeleine and I agree to her rules.

Ho' Down

Sonnet meets me at work, and we drive to the kid's school to pick up Madeleine and Eitan from "Disco Night." We arrive with 30 minutes to go, and are treated to the auditorium filled with hyper-active 4 to six year olds dancing to Michael Jackson, the Bee Jees, Beyonce, Madonna, and other modern fair, middle-age friendly tunes. Eitan races about pink-cheeked with his pals Harry, Oscar and Samuel. Imogen, Emily and Jackson are also present. Madeleine took a few lessons from Aggie, and danced away on the stage, completing a tres cool foot-step and finger point a la Travolta '77. Madeleine falls off the stage - dramatic for watchers - but head mistress Elaine and I are there to give her a hug and put her on her feet. Now we watch Scooby Doo and look forward to the weekend. Life is good.

Words To Live By

"I've been on the other side to these wild and woolly sluts that we are seeing around our lives these days and I've taken the other side. I started my life out as pretty wild but I have decided, after much growing and living, that it's time that we got nicer. I'm wearing underwear, in fact a lot of underwear. In fact I'm wearing all the underwear that those girls are not wearing - at least two bras and several pairs of panties. Get a life, get a grip. I mean someone should sit those ladies down." Bette Midler, on Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears

Twister

A Tornado hit the north-west London suburb of Kensal Rise yesterday injuring six, and damaging at least 100 properties (photo from The Telegraph). Rooftops were ripped off and cars were badly dented when the freak weather struck at 11am. Elsewhere and nearby me, a massive storm passed overhead dropping buckets of hail and rain. Sonnet was running in Richmond Park and had to take cover avoiding trees for fear of lighting. Britain, believe it or not, has more tornadoes per land mass than any other country in the world. Go figure. (photo from www.abob.libs.uga.edu)

Sonnet takes two days off from work to organise herself for the holidays. The last two nights we have school related drinks, and mingle with the other parents from the neighborhood school. Tonight is the Holiday School Disco for Eitan's class: 6PM to 7PM in the auditorium drop-off, though parents invited to stay - ha! The older kids go to 2100. I await with eagerness the boy's outfit, which he has considered the past several days.

School Noel

The Christmas production is in full swing this morning, and the theme is "Global." The story of Baby Jesus is told from around the world, while the children are transported to different countries and the state of Hawaii (Sonnet and I wonder if this in error). Eitan's Year One class represents India, and Sonnet on her lunch break several weeks ago goes to Brick Lane in the East End to purchase an Indian camisole four sizes too big (I tell my neighbors it is a shalwar kameez, and meant go to the ankles). Madeleine's reception class is China, and the red dress she proudly wears from Letty. The kids belt out their numbers and a cowboy theme is used for America (surfing for Hawaii, of course). Madeleine and Eitan have been working on this Top Secret song-and-dance project for some months now, and are pleased as punch to see Sonnet, Aggie, me, and an auditorium full of glowing parents.

Krishna Rajamannar (12th century)

Today I visit the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly, Mayfair, to see "Chola: Sacred Bronzes of Southern India." A small but comprehensive exhibit presents bronze and stone sculptures from 850 to 1200 A.D. when the Chola Empire came to power unifying South India, Sci Lanka and the Maldives. Very erotic, as you can see from this scanned post-card. I take the opportunity to buy a CD "Chola Music of Southern India" which Sonnet cautions me not to present to the kids as a gift.

I tell Eitan that all the cool cats wear their polo coller's up. He: "you don't know anything about being a kid." I threaten to sing on the way to school, which really bothers him. At the playground, a mum asks Madeleine about her weekend and she tells her we saw a movie about "rats in the sewer." I quickly add that this is the Hollywood film Flushed Away.

Sonnet is going to the ballet tonight with Dana and Tabatha, so I'm with the kids solo. I promise something fun ("television!" they shout in unison) and look forward to an early evening of it.

NSM

Eitan in the industrial wing of the NSM in front of a 1950s Japanese car (unfortunately I don't have the model). He is particularly interested in how the giant turbine, built in 1795 and located in the front hall of the museum, works. We watch the earth move beneath a pendulum hanging from five stories, and observe the elevator weights moving people up and down between floors. After the museum, the kids and I play on the grounds of Imperial College, where I have parked the car. In particular several England lions, chiseled from portland stone, draw our attention for a good half hour.


Madeleine brings her stuffed 'doggie' along for the day, but s/he stays in the car for my fear of it being lost, and Madeleine's dependency which I am trying to ween. I give in eventually when we go to the movies and Madeleine brings "dog" to sit next to her in the theatre. From our very Catholic English school, Eitan and Madeleine are aware that Christmas portends to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. When I note that we are Jewish and have a different set of beliefs, Eitan ponders for a moment and weighs up the risk of switching teams - Santa Claus does bring presents afterall. Sonnet and I contemplate this, but religion is not a big part of us, so likely not for the kids either.

2001: A Space Odyssey

This is a rather creepy photograph of Arthur C. Clarke, taken by Madeleine at the National Science Museum (it's a billboard). Sonnet still plays catch-up at work. Clarke's image appropriately adorns the entrance to the space travel, and we learn about rocket boosters, planets and satellites and the space race. Did you know, for instance, that Saturn's famous ring is only 150 feet thick? The museum is crowded as it's Sunday, and Madeleine gets herself lost for about three minutes which has me and her in a frantic tizzy until she turns up in tears. She tells me she was afraid of "staying forever " at the museum. The late afternoon is spent at the Movies in Richmond where we cheer on a bunch of rats in Flushed Away. Sonnet is home for dinner, and I blog in front of the T.V. while Eitan does his homework.

Christmas Fair

Sonnet volunteers for the annual school event and is surrounded by a crowd of kids doing their arts craft. The day before a group of mothers spent hours preparing for today's affair - we have dinner with two of the organisers last night. Interesting for us, the evening is entirely English. Normally these things are a mixture of countries drawn from our ex-pat community. Following four years, the PTA and kiddie play-dates, we are now (mostly) accepted as locals by the community. While our American attitudes are of course different, Sonnet and I appreciate the British sense of humour (subtle), organisation (superior), and reserve (famous). I observe that England's welcome to newbies is longer then, say the United States - the British are generally wary of foreigners or perhaps transients - and invitations of friendship more cautious than the American style of open hospitality and puppy-dog enthusiasms (their perception of us with some truth). Any case, the evening was enjoyable with champagne cocktails and cheer.

This photograph of Harry, Eitan, Billy and Oscar (hidden) on the spinning tea cup amusement ride.

Anto

"Uncle" Anthony has been a part of our house since we worked together at my Internet company eZoka.com during Web 1.0. Anto is from Australia, has an Italian passport, and lives in the cool part of Islington with three other lads. He splits between the nightlife and adulthood, and recently joined a software company for the entertainment industry and is proudly employee Number One in the UK. When with us, the kids have a run around and burn off some energy. On this particular occasion, Anthony bravely joins us for the school's Christmas Fair complete with Santa's Grotto, mold wine, and a thousand reved up mums including Sonnet who volunteer their afternoon to the holiday affair.

Xmas List

Eitan pastes his Christmas List above the fireplace. He has written the selection himself- see if you can match his words with his wants:

1. camr not toy
2. thunbrds
3. gardnign cit
4. sord and sheeld
5. pantign cit
6. u wokign santclos
7. bunch uv rings for magnomen
8. u wotargun
9.a cumputar
10. set uf ces

a. set of keys for the house
b. a computer
c. a water gun
d. bunch of rings for Madeleine
e. a walking Santa Claus
f. painting kit
g. sword and shield
h. gardening kit
i. Thunderbirds
j. camera (not a toy)

Answers: 1j, 2i, 3h, 4g, 5f, 6e, 7d, 8c, 9b, 10a

Postcard story

Grandma Silver sends Madeleine this post-card, and challenges her to turn the photo into a story. Here she goes:

It.... is.... the.... Eiffel Tower, and the windows are made of glass with snow on the top. And the blue thing coming down is an arrow dragon. The arrow dragon goes side-to-side on the windows and snow. The black things are cannon. The arrow dragon burrows down under the snow to find beatles to eat. If he's unlucky, the beatles will pinch him. The little lines on the 'X' are a cut in the building from the snow dragon. The other lines are for the snow dragon's house. The little black mark is the path the mommy dragon takes to work. The blue dragon knows his mommy because of those lines. The gap means that they are in danger from a grizzly bear. The bottom black line means the snow and the snowflake are friends.

Hot

This year 2006 is proving to be the hottest in England since record keeping began 350 years ago.

The summer saw near-record breaking temperatures that, while not surpassing 2004, were sustained over unusually long periods of time. Further, it has been the warmest extended summer period on record, according to the Met Office - and temperatures look likely to remain unseasonably high for the rest of autumn and early winter. Gardeners have seen their summer flowering plants lasting longer, late migrating birds are feeding up on bumper numbers of insects, and Mediterranean moths and butterflies are heading to Britain. According to Met Office figures, between May and September the average temperature was 16.2C. That is 2C warmer than in any year between 1961 and 1990. July was also the warmest month ever, September hit record temperatures, and now the first half of autumn has seen temperatures about 3C above average.

Kyoto, Mr. Bush?

Early days

Here's Eitan at less then three months. From the start he has been a happy personality and pleasure, including his big smiles which instantly bond him to us and, more pragmatically, to Sonnet's boob.

Last night we have dinner at the River Cafe in Hammersmith and one of London's finest. The restaurant, adored by foodies of all shapes and sizes, was opened by Chefs Rose Grey and Ruth Rogers, and has trained up many culinary stars most famously Jaimie Oliver. We join friends Dave and Tabitha Claydon for a four course Italian meal - the food is as simple and unpretentious as Italian should be, with great kicks of lemon, parmesan, tomato or chili. Tabitha and Sonnet became friends around babies in North London, and our paths nearly crossed at Columbia where Tabatha was a TA for Jimmy Rogers popular class on value-investing. Jimmy and Tabitha travelled together on a pair of BMW motorcycle, visiting 180 countries in their trek to establish a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, which they did. Rogers wrote a book, "The Investment Biker," which can be found on most MBA book shelves, though I don't have one. Today, Tabitha and Dave have three children, a house in St John's Wood, and a country home in Bath where Sonnet and I have visited with the children on a number of warm occasions.

The Moon And The Sky

Madeleine and Eitan display their own interpretations of the world surrounding them. These paintings created yesterday, Sunday, during a rainy day inside. Madeleine's painture above presents the moon-lit sky with stars and street lamps on our block. She cuts off the corner edges for some reason. Eitan shows the night-time sun in the upper left corner, a smiling earth and the Milky Way on the bottom right. The blotches of blue-black and red are stars, and the wiggly lines and pointy dots gravity. These treasure now hanging in my offices.

Sunday Chatter Boxes

Madeleine, talking to (grandma) Gracie in California this evening, asks to speak to "the cat," also known as "Sweetie Pie," which she does for several moments then promises to draw the cat some pictures.

On our Sunday afternoon drive in Richmond Park we pass a buck mounting a doe. Madeleine pipes up from the back seat: "Look! The deer are hugging!"

Eitan, drawing quietly at the dining room table, starts: "Aw, man- I peed in my pants!"

Madeleine: "Daddy will you have square eyes forever?"
Me: "What are square eyes?"
Madeleine: "Square eyes are when your brain goes mush, you can't think properly, and you have to wear glasses."

Me (to kids arguing about some toy): "Stop fighting - we share everything in this household."
Eitan: "Well, you don't share your computer!"
Me: "That's because you don't know how to use it."
He, storming off, slamming door: "I do know how to use it. I use it at the library where I play catching-parcels!"

And it continues....

Eitan to Madeleine: "You don't know how to play the computer."
Madeleine, indignant: "I do to!"
Eitan, matter-of-factly: "No, you don't Madeleine."
She: "Yes- when you are at school, I played with Aggie's six times."

Madeleine at the table playing with her waffles: "Look mum, I've made a boat with people on it."

Eitan's favorite story: 'There is a bear in the woods having a poo. He is standing next to a rabbit. The bear says to the rabbit "does poo stick to your fur?" The rabbit says no, so the bear wipes his bottom with the rabbit.' This gets the usual guffaw, and especially effective when told at a dinner party to our older guests like last night's Thanksgiving. Another funny I have taught him is to break a rubber band, wrap each end around a finger, and pretend sneeze separating hands quickly so rubber looks like snot.

Wet

We endure a rain-soaked, and cold morning of football at Palewell common. What starts out as a lovely clear morning turns sour - and we are stuck on the pitch with little more than an umbrella and good cheer (mostly). Madeleine scores four goals - two actually legitimate - as her side triumphs in the pee-wee division. She is the largest kid in the group and, I'm proud to say, the most nimble on her feet though she can bludgeon the ball on occasion. Eitan is slippery, and has mastered the "tackle" - he slides onto his knee, other leg fully extended, and strips the ball from an attacker. As the kids play at different hours, Madeleine and her friend Wylfie entertain themselves by climbing a tree.

On the walk home: "Madeleine, what is one plus one?"
She:"Eight?"
"No."
"Nine?"
"No"
Ten?
No
Eleven
No
Twelve
No
Thirteen?
No, you're guessing.
Dad! you always ask me the hard ones!

Rana and Kambiz, Darya and baby Alexander, and Rana's mom Ann join us for a belated Thanksgiving dinner (it's Saturday). Sonnet and Rana prepare an 18 lb. turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, peas and of course pumpkin pie. We drink champagne and talk about the war, babies and the good 'ol U.S. of A. (Ann is visiting from Indiana, and in London until January). The only thing missing is eight hours of (American) football. Afterwards, Eitan and Madeleine stay up late watching Ice Age 2, a reward for helping me rake up the leaves in the back-yard.

Gomez

I return to London yesterday on the red-eye. After a quick nap (Madeleine I find staring at me at some point), I visit my office and organise myself and make a few semi-coherent Skype calls. Sonnet and I meet for dinner (she looks fabulous) and then see Gomez at the Hammersmith theatre in London. Gomez is a British band formed in 1996, who signed their first album with Virgin Records in 1997. In 1998 they won the Mercury Prize for 'Best Album', and have continued to produce interesting alternative rock ever since. They remind me of Pearl Jam. Eric Price introduced me to the group, and while not to everyone's taste including Sonnet (we leave after one hour) I like the sound. It's groovy.

Bring it on, make it right
Bring it on into the light
Pick me up satellite
If its wrong, make it right

I drop the kids off at school , and Madeleine and I practice our West Coast slang. I tell her to ask Aggie if her lunch today is "righteous" , or "totally gnarly." She tells me matter-of-factly that she does not want to be a surfer when she grows up. I ask why? and she says "because there are Tiger Sharks, and they will eat you." This is a fair point. Eitan chimes in that "Tiger sharks are the most dangerous shark there is, but only found in Hawaii."