Daddy’s taking us all to Regent’s Park Zoo on 18th May, to spend the day meeting monkeys and tigers and penguins and moths. Pixeldiva and Pixjunior are coming along, and possibly Mr Hg. If we can get ten people then we can get a 25% discount on the tickets, so we’d like to cordially invite you along. Unless you live in another country, in which case it’s really not practical.
What’s this one, then?
Today’s cocktails are being hosted in the children’s section of the library, which is furnished with lots of lovely squashy cushions on the floor and decorated with huge posters of The Gruffalo. We’ve banished the kids, of course.
We have a great collection of storybooks for you, and it’s fabulous that everyone’s made such an effort with the fancy dress. Okay, not quite everyone: Gordon has come as the drunk uncle Weasley, from Harry Potter, apparently unsure whether or not he has a wizard for an illegitimate son; and Lyle has come as Sevitz. We do however love his suggestion of Hemingway’s Death In The Afternoon as a cocktail. Champagne and absinthe, ladies and gentlemen; what’s not to like?
Also in the Not Really Trying category we have that stalwart of literary critique,the good Dr Pockless. Some of you may remember his teasing of the GCSE students, with long but wholly inaccurate discussions of poems featuring on the eng lit syllabus. These days, with a son of nearly-one, his most incisive comment is the not-wearing of a hat. As always, his is a pint. He’s joined by the Great House-Hunter Sevitz, who chose a good book but is another one adopting Bernard’s approach to fancy dress: any character who can get away with jeans and a t-shirt. Bernard went to the World Book Day fancy dress at school as Peter from the Secret Seven, and to the Famous Person fancy dress as Brian Cox.
Now here’s a proper effort: K has come as the Marvellous Mr Toad, complete with Harris Tweed suit and driving goggles. Poop Poop! And his velvety softness Mike is quite indistinguishable from an actual peach. Have you met the sartorially excellent little mouse krissa? That’s another bottle of champagne and another one of absinthe for you, but please don’t let K drive home.
Stuart has picked one of the many storybook characters I had a crush on, Sparrowhawk from the Wizard of Earthsea. Don’t worry, krissa, I’ve come as the Snorkmaiden, so am in quite the wrong genre to fancy him today, though I have to say that your interview on Tuesday brought a pang of adoration to every Uborkan who read it. My own adorable one has come as the BFG, towering above us much as usual, with his dorrup of frobscottle.
Asta is Eloise, a precocious six year old who lives at The Plaza Hotel. Eloise didn’t ring a bell until I did some further research, and then I remembered having a little hardback copy of this that my grandfather gave me. Excellent choice, and appropriate drink!
Swooping overhead, Clair is on her broomstick, having finally got her sports bra fastened. How she’s keeping that brandy alexander upright I do not know. Mad Hatter Mark has just let on that it’s S’s birthday, and ordered cupcakes all round. All imaginary cupcakes look like they have been drawn by Lauren Child, and contain crazy Willy Wonka-ish ingredients like edible fireworks and the flavour of a peppered moth’s dreams.
Sorry, too much absinthe. Where were we? Who let that bloody dog in here?
Edit: And they all lived happily ever after.
Once again, we’re doing cocktails in the style of a fast food drive through. I’m at this window, taking your orders, and Karen’s at that window delivering them to you in a greasy brown paper bag. You must make sure to drive very slowly between the two windows though, as they won’t be ready for 6.5 hours.
As the parent of a 6 year old who, for some reason, absolutely hates fancy dress, one of the letters that we don’t look forward to receiving from school is the one that says “next week is World Book Day, your child should come to school dressed up as their favourite character from a book!” Well, Uborka readers, today we’re being a shower of bastards and laying that on you. Along with your cocktail order, tell us which character from a kids book you are dressed as ((by the way, to assuage any fears you might have, remember that this is the internet and if you claim to be dressed as an oompa loompa, even though you’re actually not, then no-one will ever know the difference)).
Have fun! ((or don’t, who cares, have a shit time for all I care))
One of the most super things about being a parent is reading bedtime stories. My dad used to read to me and my brother, and I would annoy them by stealing the book and reading ahead, then getting bored when he was reading the same bit I’d already read. I’m going to be prepared for this when it happens to me as a parent.
When Bernard was tiny, Pete used to read to him as he fed, and he was milkily oblivious to the story, which meant we read some fairly unsuitable stuff like The Hobbit and Tales of King Arthur. Once he was old enough to listen and understand, we set about reading more age-appropriate literature such as The Gruffalo, Green Eggs and Ham, and the beautifully illustrated Oliver James books. My personal favourite was always Where The Wild Things Are, but most of these books get a bit stale by the ninetieth time you read them.
I’m guilty of pushing Bernard to listen to stories that slightly challenge his reading level, not out of Pushy Motherishness, but because as his reading age increases, his stories get more interesting. While I have tolerated the various works of Roald Dahl, I am definitely looking forward to The Hobbit, Watership Down, Tom Sawyer, and Biggles. I also like to browse charity shops and secondhand bookstalls for books I remember loving, and this has introduced Bernard to some real old favourites including Professor Branestawm, Dr Dolittle, Milly Molly Mandy, and Mrs Pepperpot. The one point to note about secondhand children’s books is that some of the unrevised language can be a little choice. I’ll tell you about the coons in Dr Dolittle at some point.
The other thing I’m enjoying is reading books that I missed out on as a kid. You may be surprised to learn that I first read Charlotte’s Web last year, I never really got into The Secret Seven, and we’re currently enjoying Pippi Longstocking: first time for both of us. The older he gets, the more I enjoy discovering new stories, and rediscovering old ones.
Are you living in the same place as in 2004/05?
K: We have moved exactly once since then, from our darling apartment in Astoria, Queens, (which was our first home together) to a lovely apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. We “own” it, which really means we’re renting it from the bank and sharing the costs of the common spaces with our sometimes crazy neighbors and fellow cooperators. Our building is one of the Finnish Co-ops that were built in this area of Brooklyn in the 1920s, and has a weird and fascinating history. Also we live on the fourth floor and NO, I have not gotten used to it yet.
S: No. Relative to both our jobs and most of the people we knew in NY, we were a bit of an outpost in Astoria, so a move to Brooklyn was a good idea. We also accidentally moved to a block with the best Vietnamese sandwiches in the city. Accidentally. The crazy neighbours have been …crazy. One guy accused me of stealing a gun. He’s just recently left the building.
Would we recognise you if we passed you in the street?
S: Yes. Be prepared for me to act a little suspicious of how you come to be passing me in the street though.
K: Other than a few extra pounds (I like to think I’ve earned them) and an increasingly expensive addiction to purses, I think I’m pretty much the same.
What do you think is the best/most important new technology/online thingy to have appeared in recent years?
K: For me, it’s the smart phone. Or, as I like to call it, the iCamera. Or also, My Precious. The Apple Device 5 is supposedly a phone with millions of apps that want to improve my life, and somewhat creepy artificial intelligence, but for me it’s basically just a camera that allows my mother to call me all the time (thanks Apple).
S: Sharing and online collaboration tools, layered over the other great software advances. I’ve travelled to distant cities to pile into a dusty trailer with a crew of builders, to argue, tease, cajole and sweat over a pile of drawings with a pencil, and there’s nothing to compare to the jocundity, ribald insults and character-building backstabbing that you get out of that experience, but it doesn’t compare to spinning 3D designs around on a screen and having people all across the world follow along with what you’re saying. That and the instant look-up for celebrity names. I can never remember who famous people are.
We all had a blog back then. Do you still have one, or are you mainly present somewhere else?
S: Proudly, I’ve never officially stopped posting at autoblography.co.uk, and have checked in every six months or so with the digital equivalent of ‘I ATEN’T DEAD’ post or a photo or two. When I was part of a writing group I occasionally posted the pieces there too. One piece, ‘Bread and Milk’ about my attempts to learn Brazilian Portuguese with Krissa, was published in the now sadly defunct Hawaiian Women’s Journal. True story. I tweet quite a lot, as @autoblography, but mostly I pull off amazing emails for work. I once moved a museum curator to tears with a technical report. Not sure if that counts. I also started writing short comedic plays as a bit of a lark lately and am trying to convince theatrical friends to give me some criticism or take one of them on.
K: Holy cowbells, petitHiboux is dead two years this May. She looks really great for a corpse! She’s like the Evita of blogs. I will admit, the death of the death of blogging as heralded by Uborka v.2 has tempted me to dust off the engine but in all honesty, my farewell post is one of my favorite pieces of writing on pH. I don’t want to cheapen the eulogy by coughing gently in the sidelines and then re-emerging on stage to an empty auditorium. I really did stop blogging organically, because when life is so well and fully lived IRL, I felt less and less inclined to write it down. (Although I will say that writing about my grief over my father’s death at the end of 2009 did feel cathartic and important, but only so that I could understand and give shape to what I was feeling.)
What achievement of the last 7 years would you most like to celebrate here?
K: I’m proud of a few things – getting my master’s degree, staying close with an incredible bunch of friends here in New York, and really celebrating my relationship with my dad when he was around – but the thing that most pleases me, every day, is staying married to Stuart. You would, too. He’s amazing.
S: Couple of things. Mostly, biting the bullet and getting my US Engineering licence, which entailed two 8 hour long exams, a year apart. They still use feet and inches over here, and fluid dynamics in Imperial units is nothing short of painful. I kept having to remind myself that my professional forebears built whole empires, railways through India etc with this system, and it only helped a little. It was like learning another language – the underlying meaning is the same but all the words are all different, including some irregular verbs… ANYWAY, I am now proudly bilingual in engineering. Second, and this is a bit of a less grand one, learning to drive. I had all sorts of deeply pocketed fears and anxieties about this, having put if off since I was 17, it was like a massively overdue library book or homework neglected for more than a decade, where messing up could be very dangerous; I’d begged off lessons in the UK before coming here, and New York is highly forgiving as a city to non-drivers, but I (eventually) did it anyway. I now drive occasionally for work and join in the collective swearing session with my fellow New Yorkers with vim when navigating the roads.
S: I think it was ‘Where the hell has this guy been?’ as I was significantly poorer than someone taking a trip to New York should be, and attempted to take public transport from JFK rather than taking a cab like a sensible person…followed perhaps by wondering how tall I am. We talked a lot, and I think it was rare of me to take a stranger to task on their opinions as I did with her that night – we talked about books a lot – and I suppose when a dismissive comment came up about Hemingway (I’ve since revised my opinion of the man, if not the writing) I pointed out a few holes in her argument and we went on from there, talking, I believe, about evocative writing. I’m not sure, as an engineer married to a Sarah Lawrence graduate, I really knew what I was getting into.
K: Oh boy! I would guess it was “gosh, this girl is pretty, but she does not stop talking, huh” quickly followed by “why did she just put her foot on my knee?”
Okay, I’ll be serious. He was jetlagged, and had spent two hours getting to Shiv’s apartment from the airport, and I was also jetlagged from my week in Brazil (I had just arrived back in the States that morning) but I know he thought I was lovely, and interesting, and when we started talking about books I know we both felt this very specific and electric connection, as though we could talk to each other forever. Indeed, we are still talking, and I still feel it.
S: First meal we shared was delivery chinese food, which arrived, to my excitement, in the little square cardboard containers like the films, on my first night in New York. A few days later, our first date was at a restaurant/bistro called French Roast in the Village, a meal we revisited on the same date for many years afterward.
K: It was October 2004, and I decided to try the nicotine patch one night out of a creeping sense that Stuart was losing patience (rightly so) with my smoking. This may have to do with him saying, in desperation, “you are never going to quit, huh.” In honor of my decision to try the patch, Stuart said if I could go two weeks without a cigarette, we could visit the shelter and maybe get a dog. Never in the history of bribery has a more effective carrot been dangled.
S: I also threatened to send the dog back to the shelter if she started smoking again. If she “only” had one, at a party or something, I would only send back a small part of the dog. This has been immensely effective. I am still slightly annoyed at missing the England-South Africa rugby world cup final on the day we adopted Nano.
K: Also, just in case he ever learns to read, Nano, we love you very much and frequently marvel at each other that we can’t imagine life without this tiny, nervous dog who seems to love us and only us. Thanks, Nano. Thano.
It also helps that I think Stuart is the funniest person I’ve ever met, that I adore his scientific mind, and that I still melt at the sight of him on the street or in our doorway. He is my lover and my perfect equal.
S: So, yes yes it’s bloody brilliant being married to Krissa. Amazing. Five out of five stars, four thumbs up, seriously guyz. Bouncing off what my better half said, however, I want to say that sometimes it takes a lot to figure out where we messed up after something goes awry. It was a massive change for me, being married -do tell us another, I hear you cry- but seriously, it was. I realized I had to turn a critical eye onto myself, my behaviour, my feelings, in a way I had never done before, if I was going to be able to figure out how not to do Stupid Stuff that Krissa pointed out to me, and also it was tough to figure out how I was going to object to Krissa’s Stupid Stuff in a constructive way. I’d always assumed I was a fairly even-keeled sort, not much emotional variation. Yeah. Not true. I was just not terribly aware or mindful of my own emotional state..which was a bit of an education. And each time one or both us messes up we spend a bit of time mutually figuring it out. That means every time it happens we walk away with a bit more understanding and (eventually) a totally clean slate, no sweeping under the carpet. Anyway. That’s a big thing for me. And the love. So much love.
Ostensibly, I bought this for Pete for Easter. If he hadn’t shared it with me, there would’ve been divorce on the cards. And we’re not even married, which makes it Pretty Serious Business.
You can’t go wrong with Green & Blacks. It’s ethical and it’s delicious. This egg was so rich we couldn’t polish it off in a single evening, and we still have two 100g bars in the stash. It’s a deep dark velvety moreish thick chocolate, with no plastic packaging. This is a Good Egg.
The Good Wife is another show that has maintained a fairly consistent standard throughout the first three seasons (which is all we have watched so far). The eponymous Good Wife is Alicia Florrick, the wife of a state’s attorney who is in prison following a sex scandal. She is returning to work as a lawyer, while also looking after her two teenage kids and trying to maintain a dignified appearance for the media.
While she is the character after whom the series is named, she is somewhat overshadowed by the supporting characters, many of whom are far more interesting than her. Kalinda Sharma is the law firm’s in-house investigator, and has an enigmatic past. Diane Lockhart is a senior partner at the firm, and is utterly captivating, thanks in no small part to the acting of Christine Baranski (remember Maryann in Cybill?). Eli Gold is first introduced as Peter Florrick’s campaign manager after he leaves prison – you may remember Alan Cumming from The High Life… nope, apparently that’s just me and my sister then. Oh, and don’t forget Michael Fucking J Fox. At risk of sounding patronising, it’s great to see him still acting, and kicking ass at it.
At it’s core, it’s a legal drama, and if you just watched one episode then that’s probably what you’d take away from it. But it’s kept going by all these interesting personal subplots, the fact that it’s actually fairly well researched (an early-2012 episode on Bitcoin had me nodding my head in approval) and that it attracts a high calibre of actors, both in recurring and one-off roles.
It’s not going to go down in history as one of the all-time greats, possibly because the premise just isn’t distinctive enough. At it’s core, it’s just a legal drama. But it’s a superbly-executed one.