the plague and a party

I should­n’t even joke about the plague, what with all the dire
warn­ings about bird flu, but John has been down with the flu that ate Lon­don, every­one seems to have it. Half the teach­ers at school, sev­er­al of his col­leagues at Reuters. High fever, ter­ri­ble cough, you name it. Unheard of for him to stay in bed for three days, but he did. So he was for­tu­nate enough to miss the last day of ice skat­ing at Canary Wharf on Sat­ur­day! I had arranged to take Anna, so
the Lin­szes and we met up at a piz­za place in Bak­er Street and munched hap­pi­ly, then I spir­it­ed the girls onto the Jubilee line, SO FAR down into the bow­els of the under­ground sys­tem that it kind of creeps me out, and off to Canary Wharf. From that opti­mistic begin­ning, every­thing sim­ply spi­raled down­ward. There was no doubt, as soon as we arrived, that it was far too cold to skate out­doors. The wind was sim­ply wicked, being right on the riv­er as we were. But we had bought those tick­ets, and damn it, we were going to skate. The girls’ hands were some­where between blue and pur­ple, and most irri­tat­ing­ly, they seemed to be pos­i­tive mag­nets for large adults who could­n’t stay on their feet. Six-foot-tall men were clutch­ing at them to stay upright. They stopped to have hot choco­late, and it was hard going to get them
back out. “We aren’t even skat­ing,” Avery wailed, “we’re being SKAT­ED.” A girl whizzed past me scream­ing, “I’m not even try­ing to move.”

Final­ly, mer­ci­ful­ly, our hour of mar­tyr­dom was at an end and we
repaired to the cafe where they had crepes filled with some­thing nox­ious (at least not tuna and sweet­corn) and I perused a busi­ness news­pa­per, since it was the only thing there. Dropped Anna off at her house. Poor John just a lump of misery.

Sun­day was Ange­la’s Big Birth­day Par­ty. Again cold as any­thing, we
walked down the Maryle­bone High Street to a lit­tle road behind the shops and up to Ange­la’s house. I met a lot of par­ents I had not seen before, includ­ing Jade’s elfish and friend­ly father.
class=“mobile-post”>I picked up Anna and Avery and we walked home amid a show­er of
infor­ma­tion about the par­ty. Two white stretch lim­ou­sines, Fan­ta and Sprite to their hearts’ con­tent, and a trip all around Trafal­gar Square, the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, Big Ben, the Lon­don Eye. “Peo­ple thought we were celebri­ties and they videoed us!!” Fever pitch of excite­ment. Home to piti­ful John curled up cough­ing up various
organs.

Yes­ter­day was his birth­day but we have decid­ed to post­pone it until he feels bet­ter. I com­plete­ly exhaust­ed myself unpack­ing and putting togeth­er the 90-piece lime­stone brick sculp­ture instal­la­tion by Mary Judge. It has reposed in a pile of mov­ing box­es in the din­ing room for so long that it began to look like an art instal­la­tion itself, but I final­ly bit the bul­let and set it up. Since it has a pow­dered-pig­ment draw­ing of intense pre­ci­sion on the top and sides, it
can be put togeth­er in one, and only one, exact way. So I hunt­ed through the box­es until I found the inner, blank bricks, then the labeled upper lay­er with the draw­ing on them, and after I would say two hours of back­break­ing labor, it was done. It adds so much to the room. Worth the trou­ble. I got a call yes­ter­day from an artist who is will­ing to hang all our pic­tures, after his exhi­bi­tion opens on Fri­day and he has some time on his hands. I was curi­ous about what sort of art he made, so he sent me his mis­sion state­ment: he paints dis­tend­ed brassieres with pig­ment and then makes mono­prints of them. Lots of Lacan­ian the­o­ry, ref­er­ences to both Freuds (Sig­gy and Lucian), de rigeuer in the art world of the 1980s but I would have thought a bit passe now. I think I’ll pass on his open­ing recep­tion on Fri­day, but as long as he can pound a nail and hang a pic­ture, he’s the man.

Today I’m hot on the email trail for a pony for Avery. Yes­ter­day over choco­late cake after school we dis­cussed the require­ments, not more than 14 hands 2 inch­es, a good jumper but not too aggres­sive. Actu­al­ly I’m a bit more focused on the poten­tial com­mute to
Here­ford­shire, but that’s nei­ther here nor there. Wish us luck.