Busytown by Jolisa Gracewood

For some people it's the bus; for me it's the subway. In preparation for our trip home, we went downtown last night to buy one of those suitcases with wheels on. We took the local train, which makes about twenty stops between our end of town and the huge discount shop opposite where the World Trade Center used to be. En route, in between cajoling Busytot to stay in his stroller, I eavesdropped and people-watched avidly. I can't decide who I liked best: the exquisitely dressed older woman catching a quick nap but never losing her posture or her grip on her handbag; the extraordinarily pretty deaf supermodel boys (brothers? boyfriends?) with the matching muscle shirts and the polished toe-nails, who were signing and lip-reading what appeared to be all sorts of scandalous gossip; or the tall, aloof African-American dude wearing a T-shirt that read "New York Fuckin City" -- which I suddenly wanted to buy for my Singapore-based brother, even though he'd probably have to wear it inside out.

Blatant subway people-watching always feels deceptively like a one-way street, but what did they see when they looked at me? A slightly bleary chica who hasn't exactly been getting her beauty sleep lately (or, more accurately, my not-looking-like-total-crap sleep), wearing a NZ Music Week T-shirt and some very scruffy old thrift-store jeans. I'd tried to buy new jeans earlier this week, from the Diesel store incongruously located in the ungentrified upper reaches of Columbus Avenue. This neighbourhood, known as Manhattan Valley, is where I like to go for a walk when I'm feeling frumpy among the skinny Columbia University undergrads, when I want to go op-shopping, and when I need to see something that looks more like K-Rd than Remuera Rd. Over on Columbus and Amsterdam, old ladies pinch Busytot's cheeks, lusty young mums in painted-on jeans tote the best-dressed babies in town with little gold rings in their ears, and old men drink beer on the street at breakfast time and, if I'm lucky, compliment my post-baby figure in a mixture of Spanish and English. Everything just hangs out that little bit more over there, especially in the summer, and I like it, even if I'm not quite as bold myself. In the Diesel shop, as I winced and asked for the next size up, the generously proportioned salesgals -- with not a millimeter between denim and skin, but an ample expanse of tummy between top and trousers -- rolled their eyes as if to say, "Mamí, you got it, you might as well show it off!" Alas, the pair I liked, I didn't like NZ$300 worth.

So while we were out propping up the economy last night, we thought we might as well go jeans-shopping too. And Busytot was having such a great time test-driving the suitcase with wheels on that we figured he might enjoy an extra errand. We got lucky, and happened upon a shop that was run by the most baby-lovin' denim salespeople in the tri-state region. We ducked in and out of the changing rooms, primping and leisurely comparing trousers like carefree, childless people, while a happy Busytot was introduced to everyone and borne aloft around the store like the baby Jesus. He returned waving a blue cotton bandanna, a gift from the manager, who thought it gave him that essential gangsta look. Busytot's retort to this fashion statement was to drape the cloth over his head and wander blindly around the shop like one of Michael Jackson's children on the lam. We called him Blanket for the rest of the evening.

The hero's welcome in the jeans shop notwithstanding, the highlight of the evening came as we zipped home in a yellow cab up the West Side Highway (unintentionally retracing the route of the ride home from the birthing center, a fateful event that I now see as the first kiss in Busytot's ongoing love affair with taxis). At one point we drew level with a ute that was carrying three tiny race cars on the back. Even better, a boy of about ten grinned maniacally out the window and waved at Busytot like a long lost friend. "Car! Kid!" spluttered Busytot, and as the waving kid hove into view, disappeared, and reappeared again over the next few minutes, our wee lad laughed so hard he gave himself hiccups.

I always thought the boy-car nexus was an evil sexist myth. Until I met Busytot's best and closest friend. Serendipitously, for he is never without a wheeled vehicle of some description, his name sounds a lot like "My car". He runs a fleet of toy taxis in varying stages of disrepair which he likes to line up and inspect like a general inspecting his troops, and he never travels without at least one car in each hand and two or three wedged into his armpits, pockets, etc. Busytot has caught the bug: the other morning while shopping for treats to take on the plane back to New Zealand, he firmly selected two matching toy cars. Not just cars, great stonking SUVs, the sort that eat Minis for breakfast and roll over on command. He bore them home triumphantly in the stroller, played with them over lunch, whisked them off to bed, and fell into a record three-hour slumber with one car grasped firmly in each hand using the approved unbreakable toddler-death-grip. It's a love triangle I dare not dissolve.

That said, the boy who worships diggers and concrete mixers and garbage trucks is equally passionate about softer toys. He adores his menagerie of animals -- dog, bear, panda, cat, kakapo -- and can often be heard addressing them at length about the events of the day. Showing a tender side, and a pre-lapsarian blindness to secondary sex characteristics, he will occasionally nurse his baby doll; happily, his many cars and trains are fully breastfed, too. And sometimes his cars will even nurse each other ("Maaaate, is that a jumper lead in your bra, or are you just pleased to see me?").

He's also pretty keen on musical instruments, particularly the battery-powered saxophone his Wellington auntie bought him, which belts out "Rock around the Clock" as well as "Who Are the People in Your Neighbourhood?" at variable speeds. Speaking of said auntie, Busytot's beloved semi-naked, ultra-muscular and very pneumatic Xena Warrior Princess doll -- a formerly decorative item who now finds herself sharing the toybox with deeply unironic trains and blocks -- has been rechristened "Gemma". She used to be "Mummy," on account of her dazzlingly large bosoms, but I cannot deny that her hairstyle is much more like my sister's Bettie Page 'do than my own. I think she'd be flattered. It's not every auntie that gets her own action figure.

Meanwhile, I'm assembling a backpack of treasures to keep the small fellow busy on our long flight home. Everything is wrapped up, so that he can be distracted for that extra ten seconds it takes to tear the paper off. I've got some books, stickers, crayons, the aforementioned vehicles, and a roll of sticky tape is going in too, for distraction purposes, along with an envelope of fascinating pictures cut out of catalogues and magazines. The first time we flew this route, he was a tiny snuggly bug, with no desires beyond eating and sleeping, but this time will be more interesting. Any other suggestions for carry-on fun will be gratefully received, both by me and, I suspect, the people in rows 20 through 50...

You read it here first. Turns out that I wasn't the only one mildly inflamed by bootylicious Béyoncé's saucy Fourth of July performance at the tomb of President Ulysses S. Grant. The president of the Grant Monument Association has written a blistering letter to the National Parks Service, denouncing the "lascivious choreography" I described in a previous blog. The letter-writer, a Mr Scaturro, was particularly incensed by the scantily clad backup dancers, although Grant's great-grandsons were of the opinion that the old guy "might have enjoyed it"...

Meanwhile, letters are probably already being composed denouncing a slightly different provocative outfit that was paraded around a Riverside Drive playground this morning, not far from Grant's Tomb. Busytot's London-based auntie kindly sent him a flash new T-shirt that reads, in stencilled faux-military letters, "Weapon of Mass Destruction." We think it's pretty funny -- albeit a bit of a slur on his character, as he's really one of the tidiest and politest almost-two-year-olds we know -- but according to Busytot's dad, there were several sniffs of disapproval from some of the more irony-challenged parents in the playground.

God knows what they'd make of some of the other naughty T-shirts I've had my eye on and would buy in bulk were I not sensitive to the politics of turning my kiddo into a walking in-joke that he's not exactly in on (although I suppose statements of fact would pass muster -- you can't really argue with the one that reads "My daddy is a mother f*cker", nor, come to think of it, "My mother wears combat boots").

The WMD T-shirt reminded me of something I saw recently in one of the many unsolicited mail-order catalogues that flood the mailboxes in this country. While terrible for the environment, they make for great bathroom reading. This one was from a company that deals in children's birthday party paraphernalia. We're not talking bulk supply of hundreds and thousands, cheerios, and cupcakes here, but full-on theme parties, coordinated all the way down to the toothpicks. There's name-brand cartoon character party gear as well as various other goopy concepts (including my personal fave, the violently psychedelic "Ultimate Rainbow Unicorn Party Deluxe Package", which the catalogue suggests pairing with the Beaded Tiara Party Activity for that extra queeny touch).

Anyway, in amongst the princesses and ponies and dinosaurs was a page devoted to the "Ultimate Special Forces Party." It comes with camo pattern paper plates, a body crayon kit so you can face-paint all your little commandos in concealing colours, plastic army helmets for all the troops, a jeep painting party activity, and best of all -- the United States Tank Piñata. Wow. That must be the highlight of the Ultimate Special Forces party: dress up in fatigues, hang an American tank from a tree, and whack the hell out of it till it erupts in a voluptuous debacle of candy. Bet you can't get these amazing party favours for love nor money in Baghdad...

That magnificent oasis in the heart of the city, Central Park -- which is 150 years old this year -- is big. Really big. So big, in fact, that apparently one of the acts in the New Zealand Sounds Summerstage gig in the park got lost. He set off for some fresh air at one point, and couldn't find his way back. Fortunately the park police were able to point him back towards the venue, whereupon he took the stage and got people on their feet for the first time all day. He also gave a quick tutorial on useful phrases. Like, "Are you sweet, New York?"

Sweet, indeed. The unmistakable King Kapisi was the icing on the ginger crunch of the afternoon, capping off three very nice sets from Pine, Wai and Greg Johnson. The free concert attracted a fair crowd, a good half of which seemed to speak with an antipodean accent. Now, if you were a glass-half-empty type, you might see that as a bad thing. You might, for example, grumble about the NZ government forking out good money to provide a lazy Sunday afternoon for homesick expats.

Or, like me, you might see a glass brimming with opportunities. Over the course of the afternoon, we chatted with, let's see, a film director, a make-up artist, the business manager for (among other bands) KISS, a leading academic, a major music company honcho, an international banker, a respected actor, a computer programmer, an editor, a jazz musician, a tai chi teacher, a trade commissioner, several journalists, a guy who ships fine art around the world, a mine-clearer just back from Iraq, and a dancer or two. Can you guess which ones were the New Zealanders and which the New Yorkers? No, you can't, and that's the point -- we've insinuated ourselves into every possible corner of the world, doing everything from the catering (thanks, Delectica!) to the performing, and we're mates with people who can get things done. That's how it works.

It's also about exposure. The Central Park gig was blurbed by Time Out and the Village Voice, people were buying CDs and T-shirts that spread the word, and the bands themselves will get a second bite at the Big Apple with an industry-focused showcase at Piano's on Monday night. Gigs like this are not just the pleasant soundtrack for trade negotiations and business deals and tourist campaigns, they are the business. Music is an industry, like wine, like dairying, like yacht design, like film, and is at least as worth the occasional leg-up as any of these. Plus, you can dance to it.

So how was the music? Fascinatingly diverse, to the point where you could legitimately wonder whether there's really any such thing as "New Zealand music." Pine led off with a set that took me right back to my Christchurch days (South Island reprazent!). Maybe it's the endearing happily-married Bats-like vibe of keyboardist and guitarist Hannah and Aaron, or the whole "what the heck, let's put the drum out front so the lead singer has something to do with his hands" sort of pioneer make-do that leads to brilliant innovation. There's just something really homegrown about this stripped-down three piece, and I like their tunes. And any band with a keyboard in it sounds good to this former keyboard gal. The charmingly congenial drummer/singer Stephen admitted that it does bug them when people call their sound "Britpop" (neither the Brit nor the pop really does them justice) but that they hadn't come up with a good alternative designation yet. Any suggestions?

And then for something completely different, Mina Ripia and Maaka McGregor's project Wai took the stage. If you haven't heard or seen them, imagine the St Joseph's Maori Girls School Choir fed through The Matrix (Reloaded). In this incarnation, they consisted of two fabulously gorgeous women backed by two stellar looking guys operating keyboards and turntables. Clad in cargo pants and kowhaiwhai patterned bandeau tops, they sing entirely in te reo while dancing and doing wicked things with poi, both short and long. (Their flax poi were confiscated by customs, apparently, but the synthetic white ones looked good to me -- I can only imagine how great the whole show would look under a blacklight in a more intimate venue). They're on their way through to the UK and Paris, so catch them if you can.

Greg Johnson did his thing, a good, tight, entertaining set. The guy is a professional, although he looked damn hot (I mean that literally; it was a sweltering day) in that long-sleeved black shirt. Interestingly, or not, most of his backing band were Scots (like the New Zealand String Quartet, which is three quarters American). I love his albums but can never quite concentrate on the lyrics when he's playing live. To be fair, I was chasing Busytot around the place by this point in the afternoon, and thus not in a position to pay proper attention; by the time King Kapisi rocked onto the stage, I was ready to simply lie on the grass and close my eyes, like the thousands of other New Yorkers using the park as their weekend backyard.

Busytot had a wonderful time, despite having had only the briefest of catnaps over the course of the afternoon. "Like the music, like the music," he said to anyone who would listen, including a couple of readers of this blog who were stoked to meet him in the flesh (I stood by proudly, feeling a little like Frances McDormand's character in Almost Famous). Incidentally, he's getting firmer in his opinions by the day, bulking up the old assertiveness muscles for his impending gig as a two-year-old. It's quite impressive, and not a little fearsome. "Toddler" is such a benign word, and half the day he's just that: he toddles around, he ambles here and there, planting wet kisses on things and people and making surprisingly lucid observations. Other times he's quite the authoritarian, barking orders in a stentorian bellow worthy of Mussolini in his heyday.

Today we had a bit of both. He played very nicely with a little boy who turned out to have been born at the same birthing centre, just three days before Busytot himself. Late in the day, however, he got a tad impatient. He wasn't just low on nap but high on sugar, the latter thanks to the massive batch of ginger crunch my sister and I had made the night before. Mmm, ginger crunch. We briefly thought about selling it for 25c a piece so Busytot could have some spending money for his upcoming trip home. But in the end we wandered round giving it away to anyone who recognised it and fell upon it like slavering beasts. And a few new converts, who are probably home right now trading in their copies of The Joy of Cooking for the unbeatable Edmonds Cookbook... Sweet!

You know it's time to head back to the city when the toddler stacks one of his drinking cups on top of the other and proclaims "Like a water tower!" Even so, it was a wrench to return from the land of swimming pools, woods, and back lawns, to the city of fire escapes, garbage trucks, water towers, and grimy humidity. Our week in the country was not quite as restful as planned, since Busytot managed to come down with what was either chickenpox or (pronounce this one carefully) coxsackie virus, rendering him contagious and covered in spots, although mercifully none of them on his coxsackie as such. He was diagnosed by the splendidly named Dr. Darling on our second day in Ithaca, and remained spotty, miserable, and as clingy as a barnacle until shortly before we left. Still, I can't think of a happier place for a child to be quarantined, what with a vast and peaceful back lawn at his disposal, complete with swing-set, and two willing henchdogs at his beck and call.

We arrived back in the city just in time to wish America a happy birthday against a soundtrack of shock-and-awe-inspiring crashes and booms. My sister ventured downtown to watch the legendary Macy's Fourth of July fireworks from the top of an apartment building with a fabulous view. I watched them on the telly and listened to them through the window. It was quite a disjunctive experience. Thousands of pounds of explosives thundered away outside like a virtual Baghdad, while on our minuscule television screen, deftly choreographed bursts of gorgeous stars (not so many stripes), flowers, butterflies, and the odd (very odd) smiley face lit up the sky over the East River. Deeply spooky were the smaller flares of white light that shot up into the sky, paused, then zipped up again further as a second stage rocket kicked in. It was a very clever pyrotechnic technique, but the uncanny wisps of light resembled several hundred little ghosts -- not the friendly Caspar kind, but unquiet revenants of September 11.

Most disturbing of all, though, was the official soundtrack for the show. It spliced the usual classical suspects together with a didactic narration, patriotic soundbites from famous Americans (JFK, MLK, RR – yes, Reagan) and some god-awful "music" that appeared to have been commissioned expressly for the event. "Behold! The light! Of Free-duhmmmmm!" trumpeted the chorus of one particularly nauseating piece of sub-Stryper tinsel-rock. Meanwhile the cameras panned the crowd, much of which looked underwhelmed by the lights of freedom, in particular one toddler who had had quite enough freedom for the evening, thank you (making me glad I hadn't braved the crowds with Busytot).

It was all a bit North Korean, albeit without the ribbon dances and marching soldiers and the starving populace (quite the opposite in this country). "All across the nation, dreams are coming true," warbled the jingoistic elevator music as everyone kept their eyes fixed firmly on the heavens and tried not to think about the record unemployment figures, the gloomy reports about the weather, and steadily increasing grumbles about the underpaid, overtaxed and underinformed soldiers under fire in Iraq (see for example this sympathetic account of the unhappy home front).

Instead, this was a night for hyperbole, not hypercriticism. "Welcome to the greatest birthday celebration in the world!" urged the female narrator, her mechanical voice taking on the hypnotically reassuring tone of the talking traffic lights in Bladerunner ("keep walking….keep walking"). You wouldn't have thought this had been a bit of a bad year for America, one of those years where you might choose to have a quiet night at home with a shop-bought cake, instead of going all out and inviting the whole neighbourhood. Or maybe that was the point: bread and circuses, whip up some apple pie, wave the synthetic flag that was probably made in China. Yeah, there's nothing like having a fuck-off big birthday party to let everyone know that things are A-OK, hunky-dory, just fine thank you ma'am, and the fact that elder statesman Nelson Mandela is not interested in meeting your president on his first African tour is of no consequence whatsoever...

Anyway, as the fireworks continued, a male voice read a snippet from a 1941 speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt outlining the four freedoms that make America great. For the record, they are:

• freedom of speech (tragically and unforgivably wasted on lyrics like "Behold! The light! Of Free-duhmmmmm!")
  
freedom for each to "worship God in his own way" (good news for atheists)

• freedom from want (tell that to the so-called "working poor", who will be delighted to know that the current administration is considering major changes to the laws covering the overtime pay that helps to keep them alive)
  
and freedom from fear anywhere in the world (no comment).

The whole thing wrapped up with a chorus of "The Star Spangled Banner" and of course "God Bless America", after which the television coverage cut to another of the various musical events sprinkled round the city to fill up a couple of hours of primetime. We'd had Sheryl Crow out front of the Public Library, and John Mellencamp on a barge somewhere. Now it was the turn of Beyoncé, shaking her impressively upholstered booty against the backdrop of, good lord, Grant's Tomb. It was a particularly surreal moment, as Grant's Tomb is literally around the corner from us. Thankfully, the performance was vastly superior to the official programme, musically speaking, although I thought I detected a whirring sound underneath the thumping bass. That was probably Ulysses S. Grant and his missus Julia spinning in their sarcophagi at the thought of saucy songstresses saluting the Fourth with scantily clad gusto atop an august presidential mausoleum.

Or not. One might imagine that Bill Clinton, for example, may well write in a clause not just permitting but requiring an annual booty-fest in the grounds of his memorial, when it comes to be built. Amazingly, it's six years since that well-known liberal and paragon of marital fidelity signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law, bravely protecting right-thinking heterosexuals and of course the omnipresent "American family" from the homosexual agenda. That would be the sinister agenda that goes "pick up groceries, drop off dry-cleaning, mow lawn, set up house with person I love, and expect that I might be able to visit them in the ER if I ever need to, file joint tax returns, and raise our children in peace, and a zillion other random freedoms taken for granted by everyone else." It's not (just) about the dress and the cake and the silverware: this article in the Village Voice notes that there are at least 1049 distinct advantages enjoyed by those who can legally marry.

In other words, "Behold! The light! Of Free-dummmm!" -- unless you’re gay, in which case behold the klieg-lights of the local cops blazing into your bedroom, so everyone else can allegedly sleep that much more soundly in the arms of a partner with the appropriately opposite genitalia. That's quite a public service on behalf of a whole lot of people who didn't ask for it. (Side note to conspiracy theorists and anagrammatists: the letters in "Defense of Marriage Act" can be rearranged to spell "I fear act of same-gender.") But wait! Here comes the Supreme Court to the rescue, ruling that it is (gasp) not illegal to touch the one you love (in a nice way) if you happen to both be of the same gender! Just in time for Gay Pride Week, and just as those notoriously nice Canadians to the north have decided that it would be dandy if anyone could marry someone they love. Thus proving that there is a god, and she's fabulous.

Predictably, arch-conservative Justice Scalia (who prefers his name be pronounced Scah-LEE-ah, rather than "scalier") hyperventilated himself into a tizzy about the aforementioned homosexual agenda, gasping that the court's ruling might allow -- or let in the back door, as it were -- all sorts of morale-sapping and un-American, precious-bodily-fluids-polluting tomfoolery in the nation's bedrooms (and on, in, and around the nation's shagpile carpet, kitchen tables, elevators paused between floors, etc). On Scalia's scandalized agenda of what will come tumbling out of the cupboard: bestiality, adultery, adult incest, prostitution (you're going straight to hell, New Zealand), obscenity (bugger!) and masturbation. He failed to specify which states currently ban self-pleasuring, but clearly being a wanker is not a felony in the federal district of Washington, D.C.

I particularly liked the New Yorker's take on the whole thing, which describes how those fearing the end of civilization are sneaking nervous glances northwards. Canadians are wedding in throngs, and it seems that more Americans are dashing north to freedom than at any time since the days of the Underground Railroad. Which reminds me, last week while we were up in Ithaca, we made a day-trip to the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, New York. The brave conductor of the Underground Railroad – the "Moses of her people" -- made dozens of journeys back and forth to bring slaves to freedom, stopping in at safe houses along the way. The museum to her memory is woefully underfunded, but tended and promoted with religious fervour as a tribute to a time in American history when it was illegal for a huge chunk of the population to be free. I'd happily throw a birthday party to celebrate the ballsy subversiveness of the hundreds of citizens, white or black, who built hidey-holes into their homes and donated money and food and clothes to people they'd never met before and might never see again. If only more of that history made it into the official Fourth of July razzle-dazzle, I might enjoy the fireworks a bit more.

--

By the way, if you are trying to get a handle on the USA at this timely point in the year, you must see the film Spellbound. It follows eight children from vastly different backgrounds as they prepare for the national Spelling Bee, and manages to be knuckle-gnawingly riveting from start to finish. It's impossible not to be engaged by the film, whether you're snorting in disbelief at the alternate guilelessness and ruthlessness of the families, cringing on behalf of the disarmingly geeky kids at the centre of it all, or almost barfing from tension as the competition nears its fateful end. It's a truly American story in every possible sense, and can be read as either an endorsement or an indictment of everything that makes this country what, for better or worse, it is. And best of all, it sneaks up on you, unlike the film that beat it for the Oscar, Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Where Moore spells things out, first-time director Jeffrey Blitz leaves the spelling to the kids and leaves the rest up to you. Unmissable.

Not only is it just six months until Christmas (as my beloved father-in-law ritually reminds us every June 25), but Busytot is exactly 20 months old. What an illuminating twenty months it has been. Of all the frankly disturbing tasks that arrive with parenthood – and that includes changing the very first nappies (enough to put you off vegemite for life) and all the subsequent ones (ditto peanut butter), not to mention wiping infant barf off your bare bosoms – nothing is quite as viscerally shocking as the first time you handwash a life-sized stuffed toy cat in a bucket. Actually, scratch that: wringing it out was worse. I began to doubt the wisdom of bathing the beast halfway through the initial wash'n'rinse cycle, when its wan little face swam up at me through the soap-bubbles and seemed to gargle "help!", but by then it was too late to back out.

The poor thing had been only a wee bit grubby, after all, and will just get grubbier once it's finished drying and been put back into circulation (it's currently dangling from the towel rail like something from a Stephen King novel -- remind me to alert the other members of the household before they use the bathroom). And silly me, if I hadn't washed it, it might still carry the lingering aura of the dear little girl who gave it to us -- one of Busytot's first and best playmates, who leaves town with her family this week for Seattle, via Edinburgh. We'll miss them very much. Alas, the sudsy deed is done; ding dong dell, pussy's in the well, and Emma's on a plane this weekend.

We'll probably meet again, somewhere down the line. It's a very small world, after all. Through writing this blog I've had a lovely correspondence with Natalie who lived over the road from us in Naenae when I was a little thing; she now lives in Florida and two of her kids live in New York. And easing the transition for Busytot is the arrival of his auntie, who arrived on Sunday bearing gifts (not so much gold, frankincense etc, as thunderpants, NZ Music Week T-shirts, and oh my god, heavenly feijoa vodka) as well as impressive toddler-flirting techniques.

I'd softened the little fellow up for the arrival of an extra bod in the house by looking at lots of pictures and talking about his auntie, explaining that she would be sleeping on the sofa and would take him lots of exciting places and be his friend. He fixated on the one tiny detail, and spent the entire weekend informing everyone he met that "Gemma seeping onna sofa!" including Gemma herself, when she arrived. Nice welcome: hello, luv – you're sleeping on the sofa. The morning after her arrival he cautiously tiptoed into the lounge (inasmuch as a flat-footed thirty-some pounder can tiptoe) to confirm to his satisfaction that Gemma was indeed seeping onna sofa. Glad we cleared that up.

So in my role as quasi-native guide, on my sister's first day in town I took her all the way downtown. We rode on the Staten Island Ferry – it's free! – which is a great way to see the downtown skyline, especially on the first rain-free day in months. The Manhattan skyline still looks empty without the twin towers, and sort of small; we agreed that it felt not unlike Wellington, sans the hills and the uninhabited islands, of course. But our first stop was Ground Zero, which feels nothing like Wellington. These days the site is surrounded by a fence that you can look through, surmounted by plaques listing the several thousand "Heroes of September 11." It's both bigger and smaller than you'd expect – it is an unprecedentedly huge building site, but at the same time too small a space for such a world-shaking event. It's much quieter than the last time I saw it, both aurally and visually. The souvenir sellers are relegated to surrounding streets and the posters have all been taken down, although one nearby building still bears a huge mural of the stars and stripes and a patriotic motto about deeds living in history.

We didn't know it at the time, but the President was in town, drumming up support (which is to say, money) for his re-election campaign, against the handy backdrop of 9/11 patriotism. Seems to me he might want to be cautious about how he plays that particular card, given how very grumpy the 9/11 families are getting about the Administration's epic slowness to mount an inquiry into who knew what when.

I wish I'd known George was in the 'hood so I could have tossed him a wooden nickel -- and a cowpat -- and said "That's for Iraq. And that's for the environment." In the same week that he accused people who questioned the ever-shifting rationale for war of being "historical revisionists", the increasingly hamstrung Environmental Protection Agency removed the entire section about global warming from a huge and would-be comprehensive report on the state of the environment. A vast amount of scientific data and debate was stripped down to, in the words of the New York Times, "a few noncommittal paragraphs". This wouldn't have anything to do with his mates in the oil industry or the debates over toxic emissions, of course. It's such a blatantly Bart Simpson approach to manipulating policy and rewriting history – "I didn't do it, no-one saw me, you can't prove a thing" -- that it's sort of refreshing. Maybe people will finally get grumpy this time?

Speaking of getting grumpy, here's a fascinating new set of theories about parenting. Oh I know, there's always a fascinating new theory, but I like this one because it panders to my own prejudices about the power of empathy. It's about getting inside a kid's head, as it were, figuring out what they're trying to do or say rather than just responding to the action which can be a long way from the intention; it's also about understanding your own buried responses to certain triggers. I can see it working really well with toddlers and younger kids, but I wonder if it could drive an adolescent bonkers, being second-guessed all the time.

Certainly Harry Potter's on the grouchy side these days, what with everyone else knowing more about him than he does himself (I'm only up to page 113; so far it's shaping up to be a tad more Paul Zindel than C.S. Lewis with all that angst and hormonal sturm und drang whizzing about). I bet Prince William would sympathise with Harry's over-exposed life and identity crisis. By the way, did you spot the detail that nearly got lost in the brouhaha about Wills's "Out of Africa"-themed 21st birthday party and the gatecrasher? Apparently, the prince was clad only in a black and yellow striped loincloth. Can't wait to buy that commemorative teacup-saucer-and-plate set!

Tomorrow we're off up to Ithaca again for a week of house-sitting. Once again we'll enjoy the bucolic life (after adjusting to the eerie silence – especially true this week, as men with jackhammers are currently digging up the footpath outside our building) and Busytot will form an axis of mischief with the standard poodles. I'm looking forward to seeing how he interacts with them, as he's already six months older than our last visit. Last time he laughed himself sick watching the dogs leap through the dog-door like Nijinskies in astrakhan body-suits; this time, I bet he'll be squeezing through after them, especially with summer lawn on the other side instead of a foot of snow. This summery weather, after the record-breaking rain that made for the wettest June in a hundred years, feels just right.

Incidentally, that's a phrase I've been trying to teach our resident language genius. He already knows "too beeg" and "too mall" (with regard to shoes, glasses, T-shirts, his bottom and various chairs around the place), so I demonstrated "juuuust right" for him yesterday. With mixed success. Now, when I ask "How are your shoes? Too big? Too small? Feel OK?" he says, emphatically, "Too right!"

It's like having Fred Dagg around the house...