Sigrid and Jim drove up from Studio City with Trevor and Chloe.  What a whirlwind four days.

I was hoping for warm weather, but it was patchy.  Actually, it was more restful in some ways to have the clouds and rain.

I made craft projects with all four kids for hours and hours.  My dining table was piled hight with construction paper, string, plastic cups that became blasters and ray guns and towers of unbelievable height.  We powered through three scotch tape holders and couldn't do anymore work!

Sigrid and I had some precious time together, shopping for a couple of hours and taking 2 yoga classes at the Albany Y.  And, we all got to watch the Academy Awards last night together at Gunther and Eliza's.  Gunther had the house to himself all day and cooked great finger food for the party.  Eliza's mom, Carmen, is also here from San Diego, so it was a 2 grandmother week-end.!

It's quiet and rainy now, and I'm happy to be back at work.  

At night I'm reading the most interesting book, Yet Being Someone Other, by Laurens Van der Post, one of the most amazing men I've ever come across.  What I'm loving is that he visited  Japan in 1926, and I am so interested in his impressions since I am very interested in Japanese people and the culture. His deep, spiritually attuned nature reports on the most amazing points of interest for me.  I wish I could have visited Japan in those days. Van der Post (who was born in the interior of Africa) just has the most synchronistic life of meeting the top intellectuals, artists from many countries, as well as knowing intimately the Bushman of the Kalahari.  His description in this book of being on a whaling boat for 3 seasons when he was nineteen was brilliant.  My goal is read everything he ever wrote.