The kids have another couple weeks of summer holiday while Sonnet and I dig ourselves out of work, mail, gardening and housecleaning following America which already seems a distant memory. Looking forward, we plan to ease into autumn with Shakespeare, Brit Pop (various concerts to be seen: Fiest, Maximo Park, Editors, Frey, Chemical Brothers) and perhaps a trip or two to Europe.
Yesterday we head outside London to berry pick at the Home Cottage in Buckinghamshire - this being one of Sonnet's favorite Martha Stewart things (we will return in autumn for the pumpkins). We find blackberries, raspberries, sweet and sour plums and early cooking and munching apples both red and green. Sonnet spends the afternoon preparing berry crumble which we have with vanilla bean ice cream - it is out of this world and Madeleine's eyes glaze over as she eats. In the afternoon Eitan and I practice football while Sonnet and Madeleine ride Madeleine's bike. Madeleine no longer needs a hand getting going and is skilled on her wide turns. Nearby, our common offers the perfect manicured grassy field where falls don't skin. The common is otherwise the home of our local cricket club who meet Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays during the summer (all newcomers welcome - goofy gear not provided). I learn that the common has been a public place since 1040. It was once used as a gentlemen's shooting grounds then a ladies golf course. Almost one thousand years - go figure.
The strangely named Bank Holiday Weekend is upon us. It is the last one of the summer and mercifully the sun shines (Almost always it rains - this dates back to at least 1997 our first and wettest summer in Great Britain). Yesterday kicks off in front of cartoons, pictured, while Sonnet prepares waffles and scrambled eggs,comme toujours dessus dimanche. Saturday was spent doing serious yard-work while the kids took care of the potted plants purchased at the nearby nursery. I'm a bit sore from all the bending over - middle age, no doubt. NB, favorite cartoons are Spongebob Square Pants, Powder Puff Girls and various gross-outs which I've never heard of before but they can name character for character. Where do they pick it up, I wonder?
Eitan wears his new football sweat pants, lads style. I order him to put on shorts (hot weather). He refuses adamently, stating: "I am myself, dad!"
Photo taken by Moe on the porch of 1860 San Ramon, Berkeley. In the basement of the house, which I vaguely recall, Moe built a dark-room complete with chemicals, clocks and an enlarger to complete prints started with his Nikon F2 - the first camera to have a built-in light metering system which he purchased in Tokyo in '64 travelling with Grace after the Peace Corps. Interestingly, the b&w has two thumb tack holes so this shot was on display somewhere in the house.
Sonnet and I celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary today and the best decision I ever made. We were engaged in San Francisco in '95 shortly before I left California for New York and business school - that was a hard trip. Sonnet joined me three months later with her cat, and we haven't been apart since (me and Sonnet that is - the cat is in North Carolina somewhere). Sonnet supported us in NY working at Ann Taylor which also gave her a lovely and endless supply of new shoes. I studied away, made some good friends and was graduated in 1997. We then travelled Central Asia and the Karakorum Highway with Katie and prof. Ray Horton landing in London for Sonnet's graduate work at the Courdault Art Institute and many years with the V&A. Then: an investing job, the Internet, millions, kids, no job, no money and now Trailhead Capital. Life has been good all the way, baby.
Here's a classic taken on the 80th floor of the Empire State Building. Eitan refused to make a funny face leaving me holding the bag.
We got back yesterday morning after an eventless flight - in fact, the kids slept five hours and very proud of themselves. We're greeted at Observatory by Natasha, our new afternoon care-taker, and Sonnet and I ditch to go for a lap-swim and lunch at the Petersham Cafe, which is fabulous and unexpected. It is one of Richmond's best and only open in the mornings and for lunch due to noise restrictions in the area. Everybody to bed by 8PM and Sonnet falls asleep reading the bed-time story.
Madeleine: "I can't wait to be in my own bed!"
We arrive safely to... rain! of course. Apparently the UK has seen about six good days of weather since we left mid-July. While bad for us, it is good news for some slimy creatures and the BBC reports that the wet cool weather is optimal for slugs who now may number 15 billion (photo from the WWW). That's 161, 290 per square mile. As one gardner says: "I'm a bit cruel when it comes to slugs. I chop them in two with a shovel." Of course this being England, the BBC will most certainly receive heated messages from the animal-rights quackos. This allows for a nice segue to London's most recent WWII memorial on Park Lane, honouring the fallen animals with the caption: "They did not have a choice." No shit mister. Neither did the soldier who charged Omaha or fought to save Stalingrad. Who are these people?
I photo the TWA Flight Center on the way out. The center, designed by Eero Saarine, was the original name for Terminal 5 at Idlewild Airport — now named the John F. Kennedy International Airport — for Trans World Airlines. The terminal was groovy with wide interior glass windows that opened onto parked TWA jets; departing passengers walked to planes through round, red-carpeted tubes (think: 2001 Space Odyssey). It was a far different structure and form than Saarinen's design for the current main terminal of Washington Dulles, which utilized mobile to take passengers to airplanes.
Design of the terminal was awarded to Detroit-based Saarinen and Associates and completed in 1962 and is today a National Historic Landmark. The building was the first airline terminal to have closed circuit television, a central p/a system, baggage carousels, an electronic schedule board and precursors to the now ubiquitous baggage weigh-in scales. JFK was rare in the airport industry for having company owned and designed terminals; other airline terminals were built by Eastern Airlines and American.
Following American Airlines' buyout of TWA in 2001, Terminal 5 went out of service. The Port Authority has proposed converting the main portion of the building into a restaurant and conference center, but some architectural critics opposed this move.
Here is our return forecast, for those-in-the-care. Note the clouds by London - but finger's crossed we have the wettest behind us. And what a miserable summer it has been weather-wise for the Brits. Record rain-falls, flash floods, river breeches... It ain't California, that is for sure.
It is fair to say that the kids love water. Any day - like today - that has a pool is A-OK. They've been in lessons since age 2 and are not afraid of the deep-end. Devon and Eitan in fact swam laps. I have Grand Visions of Madeleine swimming the 200m butterfly a la Olympic champion Mary T Maegher (a Cal grad). I recall her '81 US Senior Nationals in Wisconsin where Maegher set world records in the 200 and 100 meter butterfly. The times for both records were considered astonishing, especially the 100m of 57.93 seconds which was the first time a woman was under 59 second for the distance. Both records stood for nearly two decades until the 100 was broken by Jenny Thompson in 1999 and the 200 by Susie O'Niel of Australia in 2006.
Our plane leaves JFK at 2020 arrving UK time tomorrow morning - groan. I ask the back-seat kids what they look forward to about their return to London. In unison they: "Nothing!" Yes, summer's end is a hard-knock but at least they have school and homework to look forward to.
Eitan and Madeleine pose for what may or may not be our Xmas photo (since this is not the Philip Johnson house and instead somebody's backyard where we are trespassing - hello! - the holiday allure is dead). We are greeted this afternoon by Marcia who has returned from Vermont. The easy plan for tonight is pizza take-away and television. Bedtime will be early.
We say our farewells this morning and hit the road for Bronxville and our last night in America. Sonnet suggests that we visit Philip Johnson's Glass House, an early work of his in New Canaan, Connecticut. Irritatingly, the $25 per person tours are booked solid for '07 and '08 and the in-town visitor center won't give us the address so I beg directions from a taxi who eventually tows us to a place which turns out not to be The Glass House but I take this photo of the imposter anyway. Beforehand, we have lunch on the cute little High Street and watch perfectly groomed mums, their nannies and totally hot, manicured teenagers wearing prada or La Coste moving along in packs. It turns heads, or at least mine anyway. I don't think I would last more than two hours in a place like this. At Starbucks, I comment to the cashier that New Canaan takes itself seriously to which he replies: "yeah, man, and you don't know the half of it." As I'm being served my dry, grande, light capocino a wistful mother-with-baby asks about moving to London. Grass is always greener, they say.
FYI - THIS is The Glass House which was probably 100 feet from us. So it goes.
That's me in front of the West Cornwall Covered Bridge in Cornwall, Connecticut. Litchfield County. The bridge was built in 1864 and crosses the Houstatonic River. It was not featured in "The Bridges of Madison County," Thank God. Nor does it have anything to do with Cornwall, England, which is the county farthest Southwest of our beloved Britain and home of famously named Land's End. It IS a lovely red bridge which has been servicing traffic, one way, for a long time and drawing tourists to the charming nearby town all year but especially autumn. Otherwise, Amado and I play our second game of tennis, which he wins 6-1 (my yesterday defeat: 6-0). Still, it is good to hold a racket a sunny Sunday. We end the afternoon swimming some laps at the club's 25 meter pool which prepares us for a final family dinner together on this visit. Rob, Sloan, Mary and I stay up late gossiping, googling people and dreaming of things to come and next togethers.
I ask Madeleine if she notices anything different (I've shaved my moustache). She: "Do you have new glasses?"
Madeleine in the SUV pipes up several times: "Daddy has new glasses!"
Honied yellow dripping gold,
Mary and Devon and Simon. Devon, the older one, has turned eight and Eitan looks up to him for all that he is - and especially his age. Devon plays football (check), is on the ski team (check check) and lives in New York City (check! check! check!). Simon bops in and out and the boys amuse themselves by "hiding" from us during our walk. Devon and Simon attend a primary school for Columbia profs where Amado teaches maths to 13 and 14 year-olds. He is well respected and serves as a confident, I understand. Without doubt those kids are in good hands.
Mary, Sonnet, Devon, Eitan, Simon and I walk the Pine Nob trail, which is a small piece of the Appalachian trail, which is over 2000 miles (3,200 km) long on the Eastern Seaboard extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. Along the way, the trail also passes through North Caroline, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. The trail was conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his original plan shortly after the death of his wife in 1921. MacKaye's Utopian idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms and wilderness work/study camps for city-dwellers. Our chunk is uphill for about two miles offering us a lovely view of the green leafed Berkshires (come back in four weeks and the colours do their famous change). We have p&j's and eat gorp before finishing up on an earned downward slope.
My photo of a mushroom (I think) on an oak. This was the only formation I saw like this today
I take this photo the only moment the kids are without motion - watching "Spirited Away". The first night, all share a bedroom with double-bunk beds and lay away mattresses making for a Late Night. There is too much energy to go around and at least half the crew chattering away at midnight despite threats and extortions. The adults, for that matter, are not too much better off and happily lubed with adult drinks and conversation (I groan at the morning after). The order from left to right: Devon, Jaimes, Sophie, Simon, Maya, Madeleine and Eitan. There has been a little jockeying between ages and sometimes a younger kid or opposite sex is (purposefully) left out but overall they entertain themselves nicely and with good compromise and cheer. It is fun to observe their size and change plus we have a good few years before they are teenagers.
On Sloan's marriage to Rob: somehow I am blamed for a sloppy attack he made on her at a black tie ball... but that is for another story and anyway I am happy to be a part of the legend. Sloan's Sextant Partners now employs 60 people while she remains one of the top-producing partners - this while cutting back her practice to one client. The girls immediately head out for an afternoon run and I await her mint cocktail martinis.
We arrive Friday at Mary and Amado's house on Woodridge Lake not far from Litchfield and less than two hours from the Upper West Side door-to-door. Eitan and Madeleine peel out of the car to hug Devon, Simon and Maya who they last saw in Paris. Stories of the four hour line to the Eiffel Tower are gleefully recalled then an afternoon free-for-all takes place in the backyard. Adding to the excitement is the arrival of the Sloan and Rob, who flew in Thursday with their team. Sophie and Jaimes join in the melee while us adults grin at each other and our kids. Our afternoon is spent catching up, jogging, canoing, dining and drinking vodka cocktails and beer. Rob has a go on the jumper - pictured.
Rob and I spend some afternoon discussing college football. He grew up in Columbus, Ohio, so the Buckeyes are a Big Deal - he frequently joins his friends at College Bend to see the important games. The Bears are ranked a place or two ahead of Ohio State in the pre-season polls and about ten below USC who again is #1 (ho-hum)
I buy three Hackey Sacks for Eitan and Madeleine - the third is back-up for the Inevitable Loss followed by the Inevitable Tears. Eitan understands that Hackey is a good practice for football and he becomes obsessed with getting the moves right, arguing with me and Madeleine on the best technique. Madeleine goes along for the ride happy to be doing what Eitan is doing (much to Eitan's discontent). Any case, I recall Hackey from about the 10th grade circa 1982, when Ivor Brown and a crew of malcontents picked up the game. Ivor quickly dropped the sport to pursue other Ivy League enriched activities like water polo to get in to Brown but there you have it. For me, I pick up the game for the first time now and suggest to Sonnet that this may be better than an evening martini and television - she chortles. We prepare our departure from Vermont momentarily and I sneak in this last blog from here.
World record for hackey sack consecutive kicks is held by Ted Martin with 63,326, accomplished over 8 hours, 50 minutes and 42 seconds on June 14, 1997 at the Midwest Regionals in Chicago, Illinois. He was totally stoked!!
