Saxaphone
I chat with this friendly musician crossing the Thames on the Waterloo Bridge. He is thrilled to know David and Josh play the tenure saxaphone and cracks into a wide smile when we find something of mutual interest.
London, England
I chat with this friendly musician crossing the Thames on the Waterloo Bridge. He is thrilled to know David and Josh play the tenure saxaphone and cracks into a wide smile when we find something of mutual interest.
at 18:14
Eitan's KPR in action against the Twickenham Tigers, who are defeated 4-nil. Eitan scores his first goal of the season and sets up two more with lovely crosses. He is relieved to get on the board and the boys deserve to win against an enthusiastic but outmatched team. It pours rain so us dads are happy when the thing is over.
at 13:16
at 12:28
Missing from the photo is Joseph, who spent the night at hospital with asthma. He is doing fine and joins us for dinner. Madeleine does a good job being involved without being too involved. I know it is tough on her. I promise her that these things "all even out over time." That one gets a blank stare.
at 16:25
Eitan prepares gift bags for his party: hamburger yo-yo, check. Chocolate and sour sweats, check. A stretchy man and party popper, check, check, check. He is wearing his new sweater from Sonnet. The boys arrive shortly and the Big Strategy to take the little animals to the park for football and a good fagging out. Unfortunately it is raining.
at 13:12
The British High Street has been hit hard by the recession though perhaps not has bad as it could be. Overall the retail economy's second quarter 2010 down 3.6% off the corresponding period of '09 while 2009 annual sales down 7.8% from '08 (The Blue Book 2006 reports that this sector added gross value of £127,520 million to the UK economy in 2004). The collapse of car sales the downward driver: -33.8 in Q2 '10 and -21.1% in '09 (British Retail consortium). Interestingly, I recieve a call from a German friend at Nord Bank who may lend to the McLaren Group, famous for its fast cars. McLaren will launch the MP4 in April, 2011, for a cool £170,000. Nord Bank wants the pre-sales since the company is cagey about the figures. To lend a hand, I call dealers in London, Manchester and Birmingham posing as a HNWI ("high net worth individual," dear reader). How nice to get call-backs within moments of my message! While the salesmen will not tell me their order book one fellow does offer helpfully: "it is fantastic!" To secure my MP4 by 2012, I am asked to show an "expression of interest" by giving McLaren fifteen grand. Opportunity does not come on the cheap.
at 10:57
at 07:18
Madeleine reads "Horrid Henry's Big Bad Book" and Eitan starts "Dune," which I reread this summer for the third time. It is my favorite sci-fi and important to have a fingered copy, here, which I found in my parent's house this summer.
at 07:06
I remember sitting at the John D. Rockefeller library (known as the "Rock," which was initially nick-named the "John," until a hasty response from the President's office) as a Freshmen reading desktop graffiti from the graduating class before my arrival or '84. And even more strangely: scribbled messages from years way before that. College was hard-fought, new and my own little Idaho - the thought that others had done similar or perhaps even the same thing before me un-nerving somehow.
at 12:42
at 07:19
In the past 24 hours we have celebrated two yuful birthdays: Katie yesterday and Eitan, who turns ten, today.
The boy's celebration begins last night as ManU's Javier Hernandez scores a dramatic game-winner against Valenzia in the final minutes of the all important Champions League qualifier. Sonnet, I and Joseph, who is over for dinner, hear him yelp - way past his bedtime, I might point out, but I figure the kid deserves a bone every now and again. He almost loses the privilege on the way to swimming practice as he and Madeleine fight in the back seat (Eitan denies wrong-doing but Nathanial points out helpfully: "You can see the bite marks on Madeleine's arm").
This morning Sonnet, per tradition, makes Eitan breakfast in bed. Beforehand he is in our bedroom as Sonnet readies herself for work and we have a discussion about our favorite books. Since mine may be Churchill's World War II memoirs, whose six volumes I read in two months when I was 24, we discuss Europe - thanks to Churchill, history is more compelling than any fiction I know. Eitan a rapt listener. Madeleine in her bedroom listening to Harry Potter with one thing on her mind. Guess. Tonight, per Eitan's request, we will go to Wagamama's noodle restaurant. He takes his classmates crisps - one bag each. Football slumber party Saturday.
Yep, a good day for us all.
at 07:52
at 13:54
Girls just want to have fun. This shot of Catherine and Sonnet taken Thursday, August 24, 1996, at a party hosted by Ivor and Alison before our wedding. Catherine the Maid of Honour (Definition: A Maid of Honour was a maiden, meaning that she was unmarried, and was usually young. Lady Jane Grey, for example, served as a Maid of Honour to Queen Catherine Parr in about 1546-48, when Jane was only about ten to twelve years old). I think Catherine a bit more modern than the day's title suggests.
at 09:56
at 10:08
at 19:32
Saturday early morning, Sonnet takes Madeleine to swimming practice in her black Lycras - tomorrow she will run the Windsor Half Marathon. I fire up my Blackberry and Eitan wanders into the bedroom: "Can I watch football highlights on Sky Sports?" he implores. I suggest he finish his homework since we have an hour before soccer practice and he leaves dejectedly. I find him a few moments later here, at the kitchen table, actually doing his homework. A small victory. I pour myself some cereal and we discuss last night's parents disco party at the school's Tim Bernard Lee hall - he is mortified when I show him a couple of my moves. The thought of adults dancing too much information. We then have a game of humming songs trying to identify the others and finally, I recall, he should be finishing his geometry.
at 07:54
at 16:08
Madeleine snaps my new trainers and her idea to give me the candles for our shoot.
at 17:32
Katie returns to NYC following a visit to Stanford where her Op-Ed Project has entered a partnership. On her flight are Mike and David on their way to the Big Apple for work. They share a taxi, pictured.
at 20:32