Miscellaneous businessIt's been a quiet week here in Schloss Zed, though industrious.
So here are a few random pics to fill in the gaps in the news!
Above is David, being irresistibly drawn into the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, NYC, which is underground, and accessed through this glass cube. This is him again (below), walking along a rainy Park Avenue in New York last month.He's been busy preparing for a trip next week, visiting Chicago for the National Restaurant Association convention, then on to Cleveland, Baltimore and New York, all on Bondi business.
:: Will, seen below in the Joshua Tree National Park in February this year (doing his impersonation of the young Bob Dylan) is preparing ... ... for a couple of school tests, putting together a paper, organising an internship for next week — helping teach art at an elementary school — and getting his work and portfolios in order for the looming end of the school year.
He is also planning to move up to San Francisco, to share a house and go to city college there (like TAFE), with a view to using that as a path into art school. This will be a h-u-g-e step for him, so we're having lots of discussions on how to do this, where he's to live and so on. At the moment Will has three friends who are all keen to share a house and go to college together, and on Monday night we met one of them, Stephanie, and her parents, to talk about it all.
It will also be a huge step for David and me — our youngest leaving home! My Will! For another city ... gulp! Especially as there's a possibility David and I may return to Australia in the New Year.
But all will be well and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
:: Lily, seen below with a sunburnt nose (tsk tsk) and gorgeous boyfriend Nick, when they were hiking in Utah during spring break ...... is quietly working away in Olympia, with faculty evaluations in a few weeks as her current unit of study — political economy and social movements — draws to an end. She's also deliberating on future units, and whether or not she can negotiate a private study contract that would get her out of the Pacific North-West over winter. She loves The Evergreen State College to bits, but finds the long, wet, cold, grey months of winter a bit hard.
:: We have Perth friends, Adrienne and Barry, arriving in San Diego today for a conference, and we're having dinner with them at the Bondi tomorrow night. Adrienne and I were at Claremont Art School together a decade ago, and I'm hoping she'll have some time over the weekend, while Barry is conferencing, to catch up. They stayed with us a couple of years ago, before the Bondi was open, so I'm excited to hear what they'll have to say about it now it's pumping!
:: Concerts
Last month, in NYC, we went here ... to see Paul Simon in concert with a host of stars, including David Byrne from Talking Heads.
It was an amazing show, an absolute treat. A humdinger.
Monday week we're off to the local Cox Arena, here in SD, to see Elvis Costello, who is the warm-up act for The Police. Yay! And we've got fantabulous seats that cost an arm and a leg and then some — but after decades of living in the wilderness, concert-wise, we consider it worth the splurge. Especially for Sting and the boys — who knows how many chances there'll be?
Next month we're driving to Arizona to see Tom Waits in Phoenix, and in August, Lily and Will are between them going to about six Radiohead concerts between here and Seattle. They very kindly, and genuinely, offered to get me a ticket and take me with them to see R at the Hollywood Bowl, and I was touched. But I was very strong and declined. I mean, I'd have l-o-v-e-d it, but who wants to go to a Radiohead concert with their mum?
The next big concert plan for Dave and me, though, is to see Nick Cave in Portland, Oregon, in November.
And, speaking of Paul Simon, which I was a minute or two ago, here's a shot taken from the taxi as we left Manhattan for JFK — over the 59th Street bridge!