Merry Christmas 2018

A reasonably happy Christmas season this year. I'm wasting time writing this entry/taking a break from pre-party cleaning. At 6pm tonight our holiday season peaks with a Nibbles & Drinks party here for a few friends.

The year draws to a close with good news from all 3 of my children: Andrew & Joanna have bought their first house in Alexandria, VA and are well settled in. They are both working, Andrew for the EPA and Joanna is teaching. Adam and Geri bought their first house near Tampa, Florida. Adam is still working for the bank in NYC and commuting to Florida and Geri has her hands full with the 3 kids. Asti is working on a Munich, Germany based project and commuting periodically back to her home base in Basel, Switzerland. Her husband Jeurn's ship is stuck in Port Moresby at the moment for repairs. I'm incredibly happy things are looking up fr all of them.

Back in London, we had great eating this year with Wild Pheasant with Moroccan Spices for Christmas Eve dinner and our annual, highly anticipated chateaubriand roast dinner on Christmas day. See photo below:

Tonight at 6pm the party madness starts here. I'm off to get things ready now.

Wishing peace and joy and the blessings of the season to you all.

Some things Never Change

Clipped from Private Eye magazine.

Alan Lenton Stops UK Record Breaking Heatwave

Today, in defiance of UK Weather Service warnings and advice, Alan went for a walk at 17:00 in the 30+C heat. He wore a light short sleeved shirt, cut off jean shorts and sandals and took no protection like an umbrella. Within 5 minutes of his leaving the house, the skies darkened and shortly thereafter a low rumbling preceded a sudden massive downpour.

Long Overdue New Denomination Euro Note

Bob Whalen (to the tune of The Boxer)

(Cue up The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkle in the background)

At one time, just before he left for Tehran, The Boxer was Bob's favorite song and he seemed to play it constantly. I suspect it remained the theme for his life ever after.

Bob - Robert - Whalen was my late ex-husband Tom Byro's best friend. They lived nearby in Cupsaw Lake, NJ and were in Lakeland HS together. They remained best friends until Bob's untimely early death.

Back in 1969 when we all shared a huge apartment in uptown Manhattan, Bob worked for Bell Telephone. He played The Boxer every day in his room. Id ask him why, why always this one song, and he'd only say it was his life. Ma Bell was about to be ripped apart by the regulators and Bob was trying to decide stay and see what he'd be offered or jump at the exotic offer to move to Tehran, Iran and work on the Shah's project to bring state of the art phone service to Iran. The Tehran project offered huge salaries, paid travel including visits home and holidays, and the chance to live in an exotic cultural part of the world wide flowering technical upsurge. He packed his bag for Tehran, asked us to keep an eye on his girlfriend Jeanne and help her if she needed anything, and off he went. Bob loved Tehran. He said it was like NYC's Greenwich Village but cleaner and cooler. The girls were prettier, the music hotter. It was a coffee house culture, a night culture, and he loved it. Not a hint then of what was to come and what would be lost.

I remember so much but there's so much more I've forgotten, esp small details and time lines. Bob was supposed to visit the Isle of Wight Festival for his first vacation from Tehran. He bought a VW camper van and set out to drive there. The expected mad adventures ensured ending with his missing the festival and being asked to leave the UK. He sold the VW and flew home to NJ.

Bob Whalen with his reed thin flower power body and bright red hair in a massive afro. He and Jacko came to our wedding. He declined to be best man since he didn't approve of marriage, or marriage to me, or god knows why so Jacko was best man. Ironically, Tom was best man for Bob's wedding many years later.

Thus ends the lesson. I happened to listen to The Boxer this morning and it made me think of Bob. Rest in Peace, old friend.

Can’t a Lady Have Some Privacy in Bed?

I’ll Hold This End Down For You

Sleeping the Sleep of the Just

In Her Fortress of Solitude

What IKEA bags are made for

Is It Spring Yet?

Nil Nisi Bonum

I was thinking of George Robinson yesterday. And then I thought, with Tom dead and Dea dead, who do I have left who also remembers George? Who is left who still remembers adventures with George, dining out with George, Traveling with George, and watching ice hockey on TV with George? Well, there is Fred who first introduced us to George back in 1969. But Fred? No, he's too wrapped up in exposing the injustices of life in excruciating detail. I can't endure his multi hour rants dissecting friends and foe. There might be Mimi. She may have known George or met him, or just heard the tales second hand. I like Mimi. She's sane, intelligent, has a sense of humor but I don't think we've been in touch for over 30 years. I have no idea if she wants to be in touch. She was Dea's friend originally and then we all drifted apart at one point. There was Ken Dupuy but he's been gone for many years now and his wife Kateri never approved of any of us. (And I wonder what happened with Ken as I remember us all celebrating his receiving his PhD from The New School but in the last listings I see of him at Fordham University, it lists him as just a MA. There's a story there.

But back to memories of George. There might be Ira Donewitz; Ira's been around since way back when but I don't recall him as one of George's little circle. Ira's too nice to have been one of George's friends. There's Mark Blackman but I absolutely know for sure that Mark and George didn't know each other. They may have met at one of Fred and Dea's parties but I can't imagine them even wanting to stand near the other. And you had to appreciate a certain warped sense of humor to appreciate George. George's old fellow travelers who attended Bronx Catholic schools with him are all long gone.

This is going to happen again with increasing  frequency as we all start to age out.

Nil Nisi Bonum

Film Review: A Wrinkle in Time

(Sotto voce in the voice of George Robinson)   The Horror! The Horror!

What have they done to that charming, award winning, childhood fantasy favorite by Madeleine L'Engle? I and my classmates in 1962 read this book, A Wrinkle in Time, at the urging of our math teacher. (This and a story titled, And He Built a Crooked House by Robert Heinlein launched us onto paths of maths and science fiction.)

When I heard Disney was bringing this favorite old children's book to the screen I was hopeful. Then details starting leaking out - they were rewriting the story to make it more relevant, Oprah Winfrey was sponsoring it and starring, they were changing it into a mixed race inspirational tale, they were cutting out complicated bits, they were deleting characters and scenes - critical ones, staging ones.

And so, too they have ruined A Wrinkle In Time.  OMG it's terrible, horrible. What did Madeleine L'Engle ever do to deserve this?

Ruined.
More than a waste, its a crime.

Day 3 - The Great 2018 London Snowpocalypse*

*With thanks to Astrid for supplying the perfect word to describe the situation.

The snow continued early this morning from about 3am to 7 am. Stopped by daylight so the good burghers of London could sit back and mightily whinge about the delicate layer of white covering the streets.
Warnings on the radio cautioned of 3 hours backups on motorways, train services cancelled, flights delayed, and ased people to be wary because this was officially, "danger to life" weather. Drivers were told to avoid roads (what alternatives they should use were not mentioned) but they were told that Snow Chaos Gripped the UK,  communities will get cut off by treacherous snow, and the worst is yet to come - oh, worse did you say? Like what? Dragons and ogres and trolls?

Such amazing hysteria over a little wisk of snow. It's long over now and nothing except a very minor earthquake out in the west country somewhere to wind people up about until the next dose of snow arrives sometime late tomorrow.

Enjoy the Snowpocalypse everyone.

Snowfall in the UK

All week the news and weather services have been predicting a severe frigid mass of air from Siberia would hit us this week and bring snow - Blizzards! Deadly snowfall as much as 6" or possibly 8" in rural areas. The really terrifying prospect was that London seemed to be target central for this.
So on Monday when the outer edges first reached London, there were the brief snow showers leaving only a sprinkle that quickly evaporated. People sneared at the weather services and mocked the storm and posted sarcastic photos and comments of the light scattering of white.

Today the real snow started to arrive - real in UK terms, still a joke to most Americans - and when 2 inches had fallen in London there was the start of widespread panic. Airports cancelled flights and prepared to shut down, trains cancelled whole routes, cities paniced and closed schools and social services. People ran in circles crying out it was the apocalypse! Gritters were taken out of standby and put on 12 hour shifts scattering gravel over all the major roadsin London.

Here at chez Lenton I actually nodded off waiting for the snow, having stayed up too late last night binge watching Ugly Betty. Startled awake by Alan, who announced that it had just started to snow; I got out my new iphone that Asti  just sent me and tried out the camera.

It ain't no blizzard but that there is some real gen-u-ine snowfall, folx.

House closing in VA for Andrew

At long last, Andrew and Joanna closed on their condo in VA today. OMG this has been a huge nightmare to get here. No problem on Andrew & Joanna's part but at the final step the Sellers went full-on mad and absolute insanity reigned at the "you wouldn't believe it if you weren't living through it" level. We all despaired of a happy ending after a while and had visions of mad, bad, and brutally expensive court hearings. But at the last moment it all pulled together and voila, the keys were in Andrew's hand.
I'll get the the full story as soon as Andrew has a chance to slow down and stop the world spinning. But meanwhile we are all kvelling like crazy for them.

Why you need lots of shelves.

Happy New Year 2018

A quiet new years eve; Alan went to bed early and I stayed up and made candied orange peel. Our cat stayed up and harassed me for endless pieces of "kitty crack" which is some sort of freeze dried chicken breast cubes. She has an amazing range of vocalizations from little sweet peeps to low moans and loud barks commanding attention to urgent issues such as a kitty needing an immediate treat. 

Asti visited us for a week before Christmas which was a delight as always  and I chatted with both Andrew and Adam. Hopefully we will have visits from the boys in the coming year.

We're settled in to our new apt and the cat has claimed the garden as her fief.