Peter Clothier's Blog, page 182

Normally....

... on a Friday, we would be headed down to Laguna Beach--if indeed we were not already there, since we often choose to drive down on a Thursday. This is one of those weekends we'll be staying in Los Angeles: I have two speaking events, one tonight, one tomorrow afternoon, ad we plan to take the opportunity to do some gallery rounds.
George, I'm happy to report, is doing much better. We took him for a follow-up visit yesterday, which our trusted Laguna Beach had told us, Monday, was...

Today's Entry...

... will be found at a new site, as yet still under construction Persist: The Blog . I plan for the foreseeable future to spend my time between the two. As you'll see, it's intended as a collaborative venture--one in which I very much hope that readers of The Buddha Diaries will join me. Give me a couple more days to get it set up, and I'll be soliciting contributions.

Good Boy: A Fine Teaching

Today I have a story and some thoughts about one of my greatest teachers, George.

George is not well. For some time, we have been noticing a change in his ability to track and chase a tennis ball--his favorite occupation. When we're down in Laguna Beach, we take him up to a park where he can run to his heart's content off-leash, and we can throw the ball a good distance for him to fetch. Up here in LA, we're fortunate to have a long garden where he can do much the same. He has a specific time...

A Fine Teaching

Today I have a story and some thoughts about one of my greatest teachers, George.

George is not well. For some time, we have been noticing a change in his ability to track and chase a tennis ball--his favorite occupation. When we're down in Laguna Beach, we take him up to a park where he can run to his heart's content off-leash, and we can throw the ball a good distance for him to fetch. Up here in LA, we're fortunate to have a long garden where he can do much the same. He has a specific time...

A Bridge to Nowhere?

I think it unlikely that I'll read "The Bridge," the latest biography of Barack Obama by David Remnick. I did read the review in yesterday's New York Times and it sounded like a good read, but it's really a matter of time at the moment. The main thesis of the book, as I understood it, is suggested in the title: that the dominant trait of Obama's character is his drive to build bridges, to conciliate--a trait we have witnessed in abundance this past year. I gather that Remnick traces it bac...

Taxes

This week I have the not-small matter of getting re-focused on all those things I put aside for the two weeks of the family visit. I had almost forgotten about "Persist." I have four speaking gigs lined up in the next ten days, and will need to rediscover the head-space in which those can happen with fluency and ease. I need to get back in gear with my other promotion efforts; aside from my plan to expand the reach of my speaking engagements, I want to do what I can to get the book onto bo...

Goodbye...

Well, the day finally arrived for us to send our family back to England, and we both shed a few tears when the door closed behind them and the limo took them off to the airport. But first...
... we all went out for breakfast at Home, and took a few last pictures of the grandchildren. Here's Joe the Movie Star...

... and Georgia the Movie Star...

... and Georgia and Alice, both Movie Stars...


... and Mum and Dad. Movie stars? (Dad looks a trifle worried...)

... and the whole gang of us, before ...

Tourists

Yesterday we were tourists in our own town, taking the family out to see some of the sights of Los Angeles. First stop…

... Grauman's Chinese! It must be a quarter of a century, at least, since we ventured to this end of Hollywood Boulevard. When Matthew was about Alice's age and Jason not much more than Georgia's and Joe's, we'd come down here for dinner out at the Hamburger Hamlet and maybe see a movie. I'm thinking we saw "Star Wars" here many years ago.

How much the area...

Yesterday...

... was theme park day for the family. They went off to Universal City for the day. We kindly allowed them to go without us! Here they are...



The last picture, it seems, was the aftermath of an airplane zooming in to land on a patch of water in front of the audience. Matthew got soaked.
They returned home delighted with the experience of the day, and with innumerable excited stories, many of them told simultaneously over dinner. Great that they had such fun.
As for we two... we stayed...

Back to Los Angeles

No access to the Internet this morning. Ellie and I vacated our small house in Los Angeles last night, to make room for the family; our kind neighbors, currently out of town, agreed to let us use a bedroom in their house, and they have suspended wi-fi service in their absence. I'm reduced to writing my blog entry as a Word document, to be transcribed later when we get back to our own territory. Oh, the woe of it all!

Actually, the big woe this morning is the cold that has been...