Aging Gracefully

Photo lovingly by Katie on way to Eitan's football practice.

Katie Apples

Katie arrives yesterday morning on the 0520h from Nairobi.  I have London to myself as I drive to T5 in complete darkness with only a few lorries on the A4. I like the mornings and would probably be productive at this hour if I had something to do. I don't, so I sleep in most days.

Eitan and Madeleine stumble in to the kitchen to find Auntie Katie seated at the breakfast table. They are over their shyness quickly and Madeleine gives Katie a big hug while Eitan bows his head and receives her affection. Now it feels like the holidays.  We meet friends for ice skating at Hampton Court Palace (it pours rain) then dinner out. 

Me: "What's a good quote?"
Katie: "What do you mean?"
Me: "A quote that you use. For my blog."
Katie: "Does anybody have any questions for my answers?"
Me:
Katie: "Henry Kissenger."

Welcome Break

How quickly they grow  .. bored.  Madeleine has been watching television since Christmas with several interruptions for food and sleep.

Madeleine: "I can get Google on my Kindle!"
Sonnet: "That's nice."
Madeleine: "Do you want to see?"
Sonnet: "No, thanks. Tomorrow, I am going to clean the house again."
Madeleine: "I know who the Vice President is."
Me: "Who?"
Madeleine: "David Limp."
Me: "Of America?"
Madeleine: "It says so right here."
Me: "Tell me you did not just say that."
Madeleine: "But it says!"
Sonnet: "He's probably Vice President of something else, Dear."
Me: "Like a potato chip company."
Madeleine: "Well I didn't mean America!"
Me: "I hope not."
Madeleine: "Tomorrow can we go down to the High Street?"

Me: "Thank you for sweeping the back-yard."
Eitan: "No problem Dad."
Me: "Even though it was a half-baked effort."
Eitan: "Do you really think I would give it my all?"
Me: "Your mother and I expect you to give everything you do your all."
Eitan: "I'm just not a chores kind of guy."

Eitan At 11

Post l'art, lunch. Eitan goes for pizza over noodles so here we sit enduring hopeless service understaffed post Boxing Day.  We discuss favourite movies, secondary school expectations, maths, Harry Potter and not girls. I re-tall a few chestnuts - anything with a bodily function gets a guffaw; the suggestion of "trapped wind" , Dear Reader, and it is all mirth.

Eitan remains at a wonderfully youthful stage of his life - he wilfully resists the possibility of change though he must be aware of it around him. He is naturally upbeat and , though a worrier like his mother, he loses himself in silliness. He is mannerly. Hobbies are anything football, reading and flash cars; favourite school subject : literacy. Above all , this kid works hard on his commitments : football, school, swimming .. exams. He wants to be his best.

Madeleine prepares homemade fettuccine.

Self Portrait XXIII

Southbank Centre

Eitan and I visit the Courtauld Art Institute in Sommerset House off the Strand.  Indeed, the Courtauld brought us to England as Sonnet received her masters degree in the history of European dress from here. The Courtauld gallery includes one of the most efficient collections of impressionist paintings in Europe or anywhere : Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, Seurat , Gauguin  ..  . many of their most famous paintings on display.  For Eitan, it is a 30-minute stroll, top speed, eyes covered at the naughty bits.

To get to Sommerset House, we cross Waterloo Bridge from Waterloo Station where I take a photo of the imposing Southbank Centre , Europe’s largest centre for the arts , attracting three million visitors a year with nearly a thousand paid performances of music, dance and literature.  Sonnet's uncle Shelton considered to run the complex when he was President and CEO of the LA Cultural Center including the Rose Bowl and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, hosting LA's opera , ballet and musical events.

Pig's Ear

Rusty sneaks a pig's ear into the living room.  A pig's ear about the size of your hand, fully extended, and thin: maybe a few centimetres thick.  After a few hours with the dog, the ear totally disgusting, maybe 10% consumed, with the rest covered in white saliva.  It is a once-a-year treat, no doubt.  At Christmas, Sonnet puts up with us all and especially the dog.

Eitan: "But I can't do this."
Me: "Sure you can. Math is hard, but it all about rules. And being organised. And you are good at these things."
Eitan: "But I can't. .."
Me: "Can you do your times tables? Then you can do almost all maths. Algebra, geometry. Even fractions. You just have to understand the questions And show your work, that is all.  And not try to do it in your head."
Eitan: "But it is easier if I do it that way."
Me: "Yes, but in the long run there are no short cuts to showing your work."
Eitan:
Me: "Or why don't you make a fist and hit yourself on the head. Ow! Got that one wrong! Ow. Got that one wrong!"
Eitan: "Ok, Dad, I get it."
Me: "So let's try to make it easier on ourselves and not more difficult. Can we at least do that?"

Madeleine's Scarf

Madeleine's Hanukkah Christmas gift, pictured, the best I have ever had. Madeleine has spent over one year weaving the scarf, begun when she received a loom from her Grandma Silver in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am as proud of my scarf, and Madeleine, as I am of anything in this world.

Want A Piece Of Me?

Always nice to see value on Amazon.com .

It's A Wrapper

Gifts From Xmas Past

My below blog has me thinking about Coleco, which followed Mattel's Football, released in June of '77 and sold through Sears (earlier that year Mattel introduced the very first electronic hand-held game "Auto Race"). Less than 100,000 units made the first run as Sears, using a computer model based on initial sales figures, decided Football would be a poor seller. Production for Football and Auto Race stopped. Within six-months, however, it was obvious that Sears' prediction wrong, and production re-started , reaching 500,000 units a week by early '78.  A Coleco hit the Hanukkah bush at 1530 Euclid Ave.

Eitan: "If Rusty had a choice of a pig's ear, or right next to him a pond, which one would he choose?"
Madeleine: "Definitely a pig's ear."
Eitan: "No. Definitely the pond Madeleine."
Madeleine: "No, Eitan, it would be the pig's ear."
Eitan: "Sorry, but he would go for the pond."
Me: "Are we actually fighting about this?"
Eitan: "Yeah, so?"
Me: "Well can we knock it off ?"
Madeleine: "We're only having fun, Dad."

Christmas!

No doubt Rusty part of the family. The dog , in fact, thinks he is one of the family.

The kids over the moon about their Kindles - thank you Gracie and Moe.  Other than Eitan's mobile (which he got for No. 11) this their first bit of personal electronica.  The Shakespeares avid readers and Madeleine devours "Harriet The Spy" and the "Diary Of The Wimpy Kid" series; Eitan in to Sir Bobby Charlton's autobiography (I note the last library stamp on this one circa 2008).  The beauty of the Kindle is its simplicity : all Dad has to do is remember the wi-fi password and Amazon account details. I recall neither. At least I don't have to assemble an erector set.

In 1978 my "must have" gift a Calico hand-held football game that chased red dots across a 2cm X 8cm green screen.  I could run up the center, one click to the right or one click to the left, being chased by "tacklers".  I did this for hours. I was the envy of our neighbourhood. I did not sleep the night before anticipating the gift.

Calico part of the first wave of personal digital crapola that included offerings from Casio, Commodore, Atari and pong, which all bring back warm memories of the 70s.  Laurence Hall of Science and its computer lab loomed large - how extraordinary that none of my East Bay friends went straight to Silicon Valley.

TV Job

Pretty much sums up the day.

I wash Rusty, outdoors, in my pants. Madeleine: "Dad! You cannot do that!"

The Day Before Xmas

Per tradition, we visit R Chubb and Son for the Christmas goose. Sonnet asks to cut the wing off "at the joint" which is an awfully brutal instruction to give the butcher. Ken allows Eitan behind the knives and the boy embarrassed that I make room for my photo

From there, we go to the boozeria so I can buy wine and Absolute for my own little holiday.  It is a long distance between Christmas and New Year's, after all. For now, the parties and people behind us and so it is me, the family+the dog, who picks up a Flintstones sized bone from R Chubb.  Sonnet busies herself with the festive cheer and I blog away for you, my dear, dedicated, reader. All 20 of you, God bless.  I also write for the kids when they are 20 or 30 or whenever. And me, too, to remember it all. It is true what they say :  time speeds up as we grow older.

Fourth Day

 

Madeleine: "Will I be having a snake or a chinchilla by January 19?"
Me: "What about the lizard? After all the work you put in to get a lizard, don't you want one of those?"
Madeleine: "I changed my mind. I told you that."
Me: "Well, I don't know anything about either."
Madeleine: "You don't have to, Dad. I do."
Me: "Why January 19 anyway?"
Madeleine: "Because that is my next Soap Box."
[Editor's note: a 'Soap Box' is an in-school public speaking excercise. The school has a "no pets" policy.]

Madeleine: "I hate Boxing Day."

Me: "Really? How come?"

Madeleine: "Every kid hates Boxing Day. It is a known fact."

Me: "But it's a holiday. .."

Madeleine: "364 days until Christmas."

Me: "You are DDG. You don't even know it."

Madeleine: "Yeah, whatever, Dad."

Me: "Don't you think so ?"

Madeleine: "You say it all the time. It's just empty words."

Me: "I may say it all the time but I only say it to you."

Madeleine:
Me: "It's true, you know. You are drop dead gorgeous. "

From The Roof Of The World

Munir Kasmi writes from the Minapin Burzil Pass in Pakistan, pictured :

"I wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hope all is well and happy recollections of our travels in Central Asia and Silk Road would still be there on your minds. The Karakoram Highway is under renovation and up-gradation these days and around 20,000 Chinese are working on it from Khunjerab Pass to Thakot Bridge, the place where you had first crossed the Indus River while going to Gilgit. Hopefully the renovation work would be completed in 2013. Yaqub Shah has moved to Gilgit from Sust and we often talk about our travels. He always remembers you and says hello to you. Things in that part of the World often change, but our beloved mountains and Gilgit, Hunza and Nagar valleys are the same peaceful and serene. The hospitality of those mountain communities is the same. I have been discussing about a reunion party in Minapin with Yaqub and Raja Liaqat of Minapin and they are also enthusiastic about it. Shah sahib is living in Barr Valley working on organic farming and is in good health. His son has started his own hotel business in Minapin under the name of Osho Thong Hotel. All the rest is Ok.

With best Wishes,
Munir
"

The Dude

Earl Cambell's stardom coincided with my keenest interest in football : 1978-82, when Cambell played for the Houston Oilers and coached by 'good 'ole boy' Bum Phillips. I sat at the back of the Orange school bus, winding through the North Berkeley hills on my way to Longfellow elementary, and considered Cambell's 34 inch thighs : easily larger than my chest. I palmed Sports Illustrated and scrubbed Cambell's stats - awesome. Was this my first male love? Could be. With Cambell, the Oilers good yet never able it to make the Super Bowl; the Steelers or Raiders denied them every time.

Campbell possessed speed and power and , from 1978 to '85, rushed for 9,407 yards and 74 touchdowns along with 806 yards on 121 receptions. In 1980, his best year in the NFL, Cambell ran for 1,934 and striking distance of OJ Simpson's 2,000 yard single-season rushing record. Cambell did this despite playing against stacked defences. In '79, Cambell was All-Pro, NFL Offensive Player of the Year and played in the first of his five Pro Bowls; In '91 he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.

"Two kinds of ballplayers aren't worth a darn: One that never does what he's told, and one who does nothin' except what he's told. "
--Bum Philipps

Jacob Goldman - RIP

Jacob Goldman (standing), the dude you never heard of, yet without him, no Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs nor the Facebook guy, is dead at 90. Goldman was Xerox’s chief scientist and founded the company’s Palo Alto Research Center, which invented the modern personal computer. There is no wiki entry on Goldman. This the only photo I could find of Goldman, from the NYT.

Xerox BTW one of those companies held in my grandparents' pension from the 1960s and, with other US corporate giants like Kodak and IBM, allowed my grandmother a comfortable retirement in Sarasota, Florida. Consider how her generation benefited from a growing economy: a "balanced" portfolio of 50:50 stocks and bonds returned 12%, assuming 8% equity returns (appreciation+dividends) and 4% bond yields, for 30 years. Since 2000, equities have produced 3-4% and the 10-year govt treasury almost nil. This barely beats inflation.

What does this mean for middle-agers ? Either more risk on our investing or a longer work-life and, most likely, both+a substantially reduced retirement.

Golden Gate

My parents pre-me. My dad had yet to pass the State Bar and my mom to start her Montessori school. Before Berkeley, even.  Before Katie and all the family friends I grew up with.

First Dradle

2000, Eitan's first Chanukah Christmas. He looks as suspicious of my parenting as I am dubious of fatherhood.

The V&A Christmas party held in the grand entrance under the Chihuly and next to the Roman statues; the musum otherwise closed to the public.  What a wonderful place for a party.  A DJ spins underneath early MTV video clips : "postmodernism holdover" Sonnet notes.  Madeleine takes it all in : she is respectful and dutifully shakes hands and stands at attention. She is most intrigued by the costumes: A women in orange and pink dress with Coke cans for breasts. Another fellow as Robert Smith of the Cure. Or, wait, that is Robert Smith.  Must be difficult seeing everything waste height. Afterwards we have Madeleine's new favorite : sushi.