Al Ain Branch Times

Friends of the Al Ain Branch, we salute you!

To sum up: if everyone came, we’d be at 90. We expect more to come this summer. Wild and wooly.

Pictures to follow. Stay tuned.

Manifatso, 2011 Edition

Well, it’s been a good, long while, for which we apologize most humbly. It means we’re busy.

To the business at hand.

Riley has almost closed the gap on dad. Ay caramba. He plays basketball whenever he can, and continues to improve. Solid post defense. Fearless on the drive.

Christopher continues to charm with his swimmer’s build and movie star smirk. Girls swoon. He waits for the legal dating age.

Jonah is a little mafioso, raking muck on all sides. But he is also a voracious reader, a great wit and a mimic, and budding writer of stories and poems, illustrating and binding his own books. Self-publishing’s a disgrace among adults, but cute when the kiddies do it.

Well, then. Manifatso.

Current status: Matt Damon in Invictus, but taller.

Goal for August: Will Smith in I Am Legend, only paler, and with hair.

(And that’s just Wendy’s goal.) Boom!

But here’s the thing: Blast the belly! Banish the bounce! Jigger the jiggle! Join us! Resistance is futile!

More to come, eventually. Don’t give up on us.

Understatements

We’ve been remiss. So solly. The semester is almost over, and our long, hot summer ahame is about to begin, so there will be more catching up, including the promised exhibition of works by our budding artiste. Here, just to whet your appetite for things roundabout, is understatement #1, coming to you from Guatemala:

Senso unico indeed.

By the way, our plans for total transformation continue apace: Riley and Jon hit the gym at least 4 times a week, with Riley doing a whirlwind tour of things that make you move your legs real fast, and currently measuring up to 5’11″. Christopher isn’t far behind, and will join us after school ends. Wendy, too.

And just in case you were curious: 16.5″ pre-workout. And couldn’t fit in a size 46 jacket the other day. Jackman, eat your heart out!

What’s up with y’all?

Funny (and we’re still here!)

Conversation via Skype with nephew Zac(h?)(k?):

“Hey, Uncah Jon! Guess what I learned this week? Something funny!”

“Hit me.”

“Shake whatcho momma gave ya!” (Giggles and general hilarity.)

“Oh yeah? And what did yo momma give ya?”

”                        .”

Nuff said.

Hey folks, we’re still here, and some good stuff has been happening, and we’ll get around to sharing one of these days. Just thought you should know.

Top 5 Moments of the Week thus far

5. Jonah interrupting a reading of his dad’s poetry because he recognized allusions to Lewis Carroll and William Blake. Geek of the week material.

4. The return of the beard. C’mon, Wendy: you know you love it.

3. Riley arguing the finer points of hydrogen versus nuclear in the context of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and holding forth on the military-industrial complex in general. He’s almost 15, people. Ay caramba.

2. Payday. Phew!

1. Hearing Christopher, strumming the basic chords of “Wild Thing,” break out in sudden, squeaky, tuneless, and exuberant chorus, sounding very much like Bob Dylan on puberty, which historians think he went through some time in the 19th century. Wild Thing, you really do make our hearts sing. Sometimes. Occasionally. When you’re not driving us round the bend.

Interim

Loyals,

We’re still here, and still living our lives. Stuff happens. Other stuff happens.

Here’s a quick snapshot:

Riley recently had his first Duke of Edinburgh overnighter in the desert, culminating in a 7 km hike. Claims a good time was had by all. No small animals were tortured. The follow up is late January, when he’ll be dropped off somewhere in Oman with a GPS locator and coordinates for the campsite 20 km away. By himself. Nice knowing you, Riley.

Christopher (and Riley, assuming he makes it back from Oman) will soon be off to youth conference, this time in Abu Dhabi: an event to which Christopher is looking very much forward, not only because it is a significant milestone in his continued maturation, but also because it will afford him the chance to meet girls on whom he might develop both a legitimate and safe crush.

Jonah is the new Basquiat: exhibition coming soon (as soon, that is, as I can get my camera phone to work: faster than scanning).

Wendy is obsessed with her new iPod (Touch!), and more particularly with her favourite podcasts and solitaire, which she plays for hours on end on the panzy setting (1). Psh.

Jon is nursing a bursitical shoulder, maybe, but screaming through the workouts anyway. He has just finished the term, has loads of work to do, and has developed an alternate personality, who hopes to publish a stimulating and brilliantly lyrical book of children’s poems in the next few months. you’ll all get autographed copies, provided you buy one and you’re ever near him and he has a pen.

Reading: Jon to Jonah–Madeline l’Engle. We’d both grown tired of Roald Dahl, but only because The Great Glass Elevator is ridiculous, and not at all sublime. The l’Engle has brought back deep and metaphysical memories (for Jon, not Jonah), and has him wondering if he hasn’t lost touch with some important parts of himself.

Christopher: Bradbury’s The October Country.

Riley: Robert Jordan and some more Asimov.

Wendy: 16 Ways of Beating Solitaire without Cheating.

Jonah, by himself, verses of Matthew nightly, as part of a general thing. He is officially literate.

And now, spot the Jon:

Shout-out: nana. Welcome. Identify yourself.

Test run, not done

But we wanted some feedback on these, which I’ll be leaving up only temporarily, so sneak a peek and weigh in. Spanks!

Pants are Silly

Pants are silly.
Really!
Dresses make more sense.
Pants just cut a bloke in two,
Each leg refers the daily shoe,
They fit too slim, they fit too wide,
They crease and scratch and pinch inside

Consider, too, the names they wear
(Dignified? Mais, au contraire!):
Jeans and knickers, trews and britches,
Shortpants, parachutes whose stitches
Face outside, and hold you in,
Husky, sloppy, stovepipe thin,

Pants that come both fast and thick
(Least that’s what Coleridge predicts),

Pants to breathe in,
Pants to freeze in,
Pants to slouch and pants when sick,
Suit pants, discos, bells (and whistles!),
Trousers, trackpants, breeks and knicks,
Woolen pants all itch and thistle.

Pants are plural,
Dresses one:
Never go out in a pant,
My son.

NYCliche’

Cheetahs nevah prospah, so they say.
And every dawg must have its day.
It’s bettah to have loved and lawst.
Don’t countcha chickens, count the cawst,
The oily boid gets all the woims,
So says my son-in-law, the goyim.

Carcassonne (Is that where we were?) and beyond! (Namely, Marseilles, Nice, Rapallo, Portofino, and the Cinque Terre. Phew!)

Alright, people. We want to know you’re a) still out there and b) enjoying the pictures. Otherwise, no more summer travel pics. It’s exhausting.

The public fountain at Carcassonne castle. Imagine the lineups on Saturday mornings. It actually snowed a little while we were there, which was very strange.

The outer wall. It really does look like this: German medieval, though in France. The Ethingtons are Carcassonne (the board game) nuts, so they were in a little bit of heaven.

Yeah. The castle proper. There is a (now dry) moat and a bridge (not drawn) and everything. Cool beans.

While we were here a visiting performer was warming up her vocals: quite lovely. The organ was impressive, too, and the church very rustic stone–homespun, except the windows.

A medieval ring road, not traveled.

No, we didn’t. But we wanted to. Awesome animals.

Marseilles was a bust: the ferry to Chateau d’If was running, but the Chateau itself was closed for bad weather. Huh. But this swordfish being prepped for market was educational. We breezed on through.

The harbour, looking west. Quiet, quaint.

More (of the same). Nice little spot. Was to have checked out the Pont Vieux, but it was a veritable ghost town this Saturday morning. Must have heard we were coming.

Jonah had to pee. So I shot this while he did his business.

Nice (the city in France, not the adjective), looking out over the Med and back to the west. Pretty nice.

La plage de Nice: quite lovely. Smooth pebbles and stones rather than sand and I think we liked it better. Wasn’t too bad barefoot, and it was nice (ahem) not to have sand up one’s nethers for the rest of the day.

Jealous?

More jealous?

One sees its charms. The place we stayed in Italy two nights later was also like this: very Club Med. But Nice was different somehow: it’s the one place on that particular trail we’d like to return and stay a little.

Even nicer, only this time in Portofino (back in Italy). We’d live there, opportunity arising.

Though it’s more likely we’d end up there, money being an object and all.

Love the Mediterranean sun, which is actually the same sun as one sees everywhere else. So let’s say it this way: love the quality of light in the Mediterranean: golden, gorgeous, and generous.

Their downtown is better than your downtown. (And they know it!) Plllssspplllsplllsslsppppssslllttts!

Boaters, take your places!

One can understand the pastoral modes in Greek and Latin poetry…

City living, nice view. (We got a million of them!)

Not Beverly–the original article. Marvelous.

Just couldn’t get enough of these buildings: never a boring one in Europe. Keep your cookie-cutter neighborhoods, suburbs-boy! We’ll order this and a side of sea.

Every week’s a pilgrimage.

Our digs in Rapallo, summed up. Price was low, but it was interesting. Called a “camping,” or “in campeggio,” this is a little site sandwiched in between a rugged hill and a super highway. We had a small trailer, and the Ethingtons were in a “caravan,” gypsy style. At least there was a washing machine–something we hadn’t seen in Paris or Barcelona, which required doing laundry a’ la vineyard in the bathtub, and hoping against hope it would all be dry (barely, sort of).

We had our moments here, too, where we were skeptical…

From Rapallo, we took a train all the way through the Cinque Terre (Chink-weh Teh-r-reh: “five earths” or “lands”) to the last: Riomaggiore, and walked and/or rode all the way back to the beginning. These are UNESCO protected townships built onto the cliffs, with no vehicular access from the oceanside (though it is possible to get into them from above by car). They are steep, picturesque, and full of character. The terraced olive gardens are the age-old source of income, and boy are they something. Enjoy (with occasional commentary).

And if the lift is out of order, the old folks can be out of sorts, whether or not the weather is bad.

It was still early in the day. We took the “Passegiata dell-amore”–a sometimes perilous walkway between Riomaggiore and the second stop at Manarola, and it was a leisurely if sun-drenched walk. Lots of views, good company. From Manarola we took the train back to Corniglia, and from there we hiked to Vernazza. The hike was supposed to be leisurely, but turned out very rough indeed. Jonah was a soldier for most of it, until he fell and scraped his knee something fierce. From then on, Jon carried him, and that was unpleasant. By the time we arrived in Vernazza, his old knees were quivering and his shirt smelled like Mumbai. Ick.

Not long ago, the system of locomotion for planting, tending, and harvesting involved hand-cranked trucks on cables and rails, or pulley systems. Now the machines are generally electric, which must be a bit of a relief for the hands, but perhaps not the wallet. Vehicle in the next shot.

Vernazza, after a long, hot, dusty, obnoxious, sweaty, interminable, and dangerous hike. Whew! The next few shots are also Vernazza, the last of the picturesque Cinque Terre, but not the very last period. We took a train (Hallelujah!) to Monterosso, where Jon and Chris (predictably) took a dip in the ocean, the elder to stop offending the world by wringing out his shirt, the younger simply because it was an opportunity to get wet). Should note that we were chased away from two spots because we didn’t want to rent a “lettino,” a sunbathing bed. Wendy was hot under the linen collar, to say the least. Jon was just plain hot.

Yeah, he got an A in that class. But it wasn’t under water. Wuss.

This week in inspiring

Check this out.

Boy, between Manny Pacquaio, Efren Penaflorida, and these guys, the Pinoy are going to start getting big heads. Well, they’ll still have little heads, but they’ll be swollen.

 

And then there’s this. Sobering.

Meow

What the Cat Dragged In

 

Tuesday: 3 brown rats

(the ones as big as cats),

1 soil-clad licorice root,

1 glove, a gardener’s boot;

 

Wednesday: rabbit stew,

a single mouse (for you!),

a half-chewed, hand-caught fish

that vanished from your dish

at lunch (you claimed

to have finished the same);

 

Thursday: on the prowl:

the wing of some poor fowl

who we said we hoped died quick

(your mother felt quite sick);

 

Friday: a badger—young,

but still she fairly sung

the epic Viking tale

in her high, witch’s wail:

a Beowulf of cats,

and rather proud of that;

 

Saturday: was ill,

and so lay very still

and let you (gently!) strum

her whiskers, rub her tum;

 

Sunday: she was out all day,

this time it was you who lay

in quiet fever, wanting her:

she brought a shushing purr

(and 3 bleached bones)

when she came home;

 

Monday: she stayed

close as cream

and twitched with you

through dreams and dream.