This past Saturday, Democratic presidential candidates visited our fair city.

Hillary Clinton speaking on the current administration:

“Let me be very clear about what happened: The president took us to a pre-emptive war of his choosing based on his assessment of faulty evidence and trumped-up facts. He ignored the warnings of senior military advisers and he retaliated against those who tried to stop it. And once he got the authority to put inspectors back into Iraq, he ignored their findings. And it is something that will stand in American history as one of the darkest blots of leadership we’ve ever had.”

Tertia at So Close spent the Freedom Day long weekend in the Pediatrics unit of her local hospital first with one and then the other of her twins, both sick with a stomach bug.

Like other North-American readers, I was surprised that her kids were admitted so quickly — would never happen here in San Diego. Even though we have great medical benefits and a wonderful family doctor, it is hard to get to see or speak to him and doctors typically take a wait-see-and-keep-them-hydrated approach with tummy bugs. You tend to get stuck in phone purgatory, talking to receptionists and waiting for call backs from nurses. Either that or seeing doctors at walk-in clinics who don’t know your kid. Case in point, our recent three-week bout with Rotavirus.

Tertia has readers from all over the globe. And having lived in South Africa, Canada and the US, I can echo the comments on her blog posting.

Medical care in South Africa? Extreme disparity between the high and low ends of hospital care, and access to great family doctors and specialists if you have the cash or good medical aid. The cost of medical-aid premiums rests firmly on the shoulders of the individual in most cases.

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Overheard from the other side of the house. Winding down, getting ready for bed.

“Tau. You ready to get into bed?”

Brief pause. “No.”

Hmn. Let’s learn to not ask shall we?

Lazy day today. Played with the Zoo Lego that AJ and Julie sent Tau for his birthday. Managed to build a couple of creatures before they got dismembered!

Here is a slideshow of Tau and Grandad building towers last weekend.

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Na-na and Gra-dad left on the big boat yesterday.

Around the house today:

“Gra-dad?”

“Gra-dad?”

“Gra-dad?”

“Grandad and Nanny went on the big boat. Bye-bye. Remember?”

And watching Flickr slideshows: “Na-na Tau-Tau.” All smiles. “Na-na!”

Check out this nifty tool. You upload a photo and it builds a mosaic from gazillions of individual photos from Flickr.

This is what happens when you parent in isolation, away from family. The other evening, I was fighting Tau to get his teeth brushed. Like most toddlers, he opens his mouth long enough to suck off all the water and “training toothpaste” and then clamps his jaw shut over the brush and grins at me.

Dave’s mom is great, and very good at not offering unsolicited advice. After prying the mouth open with the brush and getting in a few jabs before he clamped shut again, I muttered, “Always such a fight with him!” And Mom said quietly, “You know, we just didn’t bother with brushing teeth this early.”

Hmn. And Dave has all his adult teeth. A successful, dashing man with all the requisite molars.

Never occurred to me not to at least try. Good parents brush the baby teeth. Twice a day. Right?

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Sunday brunch at Bombay Exotic Cuisine of India

Crossing my fingers and toes; Tau is over pinkeye and the bronchiolitis has cleared, so we’ve had 9 (nine) whole nights of beautiful, solid sleep. Feel like a million smackeroos.

Saturday: Woke up early and snuck out quickly to yoga. Great class: Spine twisting, limb stretching, quiet. Dave, Tau, Nanny and Grandad headed over to the local farmer’s market for breakfast crépes, fresh flowers and to see the train. Over lunch, Dave and his Mom planted a few new things in the garden. Late afternoon, Dave and I got cleaned up and headed over to La Jolla for California tapas and drinks at a place called Azul’s. Very nice. With wine and a martini we shared four small plates: warm pistachio-crusted brie cheese torte, a pear and walnut salad, grilled halibut on wild black rice, and fennel-crusted lamb loin medallions. Yum. For dessert, I had espresso crème brulée and Dave had a strawberry mascarpone terrine, both with coffee. Tau didn’t miss us for a second. Love having the grandparents to stay!

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When I pick up Tau from daycare yesterday, he’s playing out on the toddler playground. We say our goodbyes, blow kisses to all the teachers and make our way out.

Standing at the gate, grinning her head off is cutie-patoodie little Megan, one of his newest classmates.

Tau saunters by, turns with a nonchalant wave in her direction, “Bye-bye, baby!” and keeps on going.

In fact, they’ve been with us almost a week. Here are a couple pics and there are more on Flickr to the right.

Leo di Caprio and Djimon Hounsou
in Blood Diamond

I don’t write enough here about movies. We watch a lot of them. For those of you who haven’t visited our home, Dave and I don’t have cable or any of the new-fangled on-demand stuff. In fact we run a very low-tech casa. An old TV/DVD combo in the livingroom and a 13-inch TV/VCR combo in the guest room. (No snickering Declan.) I know, inconceivable; I have no idea who ought to be kicked off American Idol this week but I imagine I’ll go to my grave at peace with that one.

Instead, we use Netflix to watch movies, HBO series and documentaries of our choice and, except for March Madness, Tour de France and the odd must-see (yeah, I did miss The Police at the Grammys), we’re quite happy in our oblivion.

But what I wanted to talk about was the baggage. Last week Blood Diamond arrived in the mail. Set mostly in Sierra Leone, about illegal diamond smuggling to fund a rebel movement, this film cracks open African civil warfare like no other I have seen. Unlike the NPR interview I heard a few weeks back with a child soldier from that country, Blood Diamond is very graphic about the way young children are stripped from their villages and turned into drugged-out zombies with machine guns. And just for this, I recommend this movie: the ability to bring into focus an issue most turn their heads from the second they see it. Hollywood done good.

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Easter Brunch Table

From: Sue Xxxxx [mailto:Sue.Xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 9:41 AM
To: David Xxxxx
Subject: RE:

So much for multitasking and achieving — the point of my email was to ask you to bring home the meds and the eye drops.

I feel surprisingly normal after so little sleep.

Thanks,
Sue

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