The other morning Austin saw a bottle of Jim Beam on the kitchen counter. "What's that?"

That's whiskey.

"Whiskey? Are you going to drink it?"

Not right now, we drink that at night.

I took him to daycare and forgot about the whole thing until I picked him up again.

"Dad, it's dark outside."

Yep.

"That means it's night."

Sure does.

"You can drink whiskey now!"

See -- I told you he's half Irish.

Resolved

So, every year I resolve to be better about staying in touch. I'll keep working on it.

This year, actually starting in November 2005, I also resolved to keep my inbox small. Like 10 items or less. I still hang on to some things for an egregiously long time, but I'm trying to respond and file or delete and stop staring at the same things every day.

So far it's working out all right. In fact, if you have less than 8 items in your Gmail inbox, there's extra white space.

So write to me and rather than wait until I have time and thought power to respond in a meaningful way to you, I'll just zip back a shallow message of acknowledgement. Happy New Year!

Other photos

I will eventually write about our trip to the Northern California rain forest and post pictures, but meanwhile here're some snaps from other people in which we make cameos -- nice to see what you look like as a supporting player rather than the star of the show (as Hunter and Maia clearly are here).

Here's my cousin Ching's photos of our visit to his house -- as well as others from the holiday season. Austin was very impressed with Hunter's toys (I was impressed by how Hunter sat down to draw, and then taped his drawing on the wall). If you saw all of the photos taken from various Cheng cameras on Christmas eve, you could probably reconstruct the entire night at ten minute intervals -- and in 3-D. (Hey that should be an episode of CSI, reconstructing a crime from a photo happy Asian family's event.)

Edie also posted photos -- we're in her Christmas photos and New Year's photos (brunch and dinner!). Maia is Mari's doppelganger, born 5 days apart and sharing three letters in their name. I was worried they might explode or fuse together if they touched but instead they just patted each other nicely or (in the case of Mari) stared furiously at her mommy playing with another little girl.

For Turks and Turkish speakers

We just got back from California yesterday. Here's Austin at Logan airport. I let him sit on the bags coming back from St Martin, I think, and he asked to do it again.

As I pushed him, I kept saying, "You're the pasha! You're Austin pasha! Make way for the pasha!" He giggled and stayed still.

Later in the taxi, I asked him, do you know what a pasha is?

Yes, he says, it's some sort of monkey that lives in the woods and elephants try to eat him.

(Actually, it's an Ottoman title for a general with political power, but I liked the monkey answer.)

Saint Martin

Okay,

It's the New Year, and I need to finish some things up from 2005!

Overall, St Martin was a great trip; nice with kids, and good for adults. There are two good official websites for each side of the island, the Dutch Sint Maarten and the French Saint Martin. Each website lists lots of things to do -- a zoo, butterfly garden, watermelon farm -- but we basically did three things: go to beaches, shop and eat well. Here's my report on our week just before high season (apparently the island changes dramatically with the influx of people).

Culturally, the most interesting thing about the place was probably the split between nations. It can also be annoying since a call from one side to the other is international long distance. I should point out that the border consists of a sign that says, "Bienvenue a Partie Francaise" on one side and "Welcome to Dutch Saint Maarten" on the other. They also use different official currencies on each side, the Euro and the Guilder, but both sides happily accept and give change in US dollars. There were actually some nice "sales" on the French side with merchants who offered 1E=1$ prices.

The Dutch side seems more American, with American franchises and American style supermarkets (even a Costco-like "Cost U Less" warehouse store). Philipsburg in St Maarten also had lots of duty free luxury shopping (jewelry, clothes, electronics). The French side had little boulangeries and boutique-y shops.

The beaches are beautiful, white sand beaches on turquoise water. We quite liked Orient Bay Beach, but you should know that a nudist colony occupies the southern end of the beach so lots of naked (or near naked) people walk by. Orient Bay had lots of restaurants on the beach and drink service. Also, it's fun to watch the kite surfers off shore.

For visitors with kids, I'd recommend Mullet Bay Beach. The water there was gorgeous and very still, the beach long enough and not too crowded, and there were two cute "lolos," local vendors with grills who served barbecued chicken, ribs, burgers, fries, and drinks. There were also some neat "sea grape" trees that were easy for kids to climb. Mullet Bay is a little hard to find, though, not well marked. From the east, you have to take the second left after the pharmacy and then take your first right into the dirt parking lot. I guess I'm ruining the secret now but, what the hey, we're not going to be back too soon, I think.

The food on the island was excellent. We didn't have much Caribbean fare (we were told that The Jerk in Philipsburg is the place to go for that) but we had great European and Asian food. Everyone who had visited in the last twenty years recommended the Fish Pot Restaurant in Grand Case. I had the bouillabaisse and was very pleased (and stuffed). Julie had a seasonal special: the grouper with a vanilla bean sauce and liked it very much. And we shared the souffle for dessert. Although the restaurant was fairly formal, they were extremely nice and accomodating to our kids. Each table had a goldfish bowl on it and they brought an extra over so Mari and Austin could each watch one. And when Austin got tired, they even put some chairs together as a makeshift bed for him to lie on.

This level of gracious yet flexible service was found elsewhere. We returned to Grand Case for dinner at Il Nettuno, and Italian place whose French owner spent some time in Washington -- that explains all the Redskins fan paraphernalia. Opting for a simple meal, I had the bolognese sauce over homemade pasta. Very tasty. The restaurants in Grand Case are along the main street and on one side overlook the water so Austin had fun looking through the rails at the boats and sea.

Our best meal was at Mai's in Marigot. Located in a former colonial home, you have to walk upstairs and seemingly through a wealthy Vietnamese home to get to the tables. Family heirlooms, portraits and furnishings decorate the restaurant. The shelves are filled with Mai's family's books. Mai herself is a lovely lady who came around to our table and told us about her life travels from Vietnam where her father worked for the French army to Algiers, Madagascar and virtually everywhere the French had a military presence in the 20th century. After marrying a Frenchman who was born in Vietnam, they opened a restaurant on Saint Martin three decades ago and are still going strong. The food was absolutely delicious (I had the beef with peanut sauce, Julie had pork with pineapple) and beautifully served on unique place settings. Between the warmth of our hostess, the taste of the food and the fascinating decor, we all had a great time.

If you've seen my pictures of the Villa Robinson where we stayed, you may be wondering how we found it. The Robinsons are kind enough to donate a week at their Villa to medical charities and Joe and Mary won it in a raffle for the Mass General cancer center.

All in all, a great trip.

Val

We're in SF and Val was wondering how anybody had time to blog. This is a response to that.

Star Wars is everywhere!

We can't escape it.

We're 3000 miles from the Museum of Science Star Wars exhibit, about the same distance from Hollywood, and at least that far from the English studios where Empire Strikes Back was made.

We're in Sint Maarten, on the streets of Philipsburg, the capital of the Dutch side of the island and we see the storefront:

YodaGuy? Yodaguy.

Turns out one of the guys who was instrumental in the creation of Yoda, Nick Maley, "traded his Ferrari for a sail boat, cruised the Caribbean for almost a year and established a base" on Antigua. He paints and draws and has galleries on that island and on Saint Martin/Sint Maarten.

Unfortunately, Austin was asleep in the stroller but Mari got to see the shop:



The website is amusing, with stories of how Yoda and other creatures were built. The story of nailing a guy to the floor also has its moments. And, from his bio, I found out that Maley also directed the video for Duran Duran's "Wild Boys."

Duran Duran is everywhere!

Scared of Santa

This is a good time waster. Pictures of kids scared of Santa. The captions occasionally add humor, and are occasionally totally superfluous.

Favorite song

I'm eventually going to write something about our week in St. Martin, but until I do, an anecdote from the trip.

We were driving along the wild roads when Austin started singing "Twinkle Star." Then he interrupted himself to tell us that was his favorite song. In the quiet, we heard dozens of chirping insects and then he asked, what's that noise?

Julie told him, those are insects.

"They're singing Twinkle Star with me!"

Awwww.

Saint Martin/Sint Maarten Pictures

Here're some photos, not in any particular order:

Austin on the beach (Dawn Beach).Stop! In the name of love! Dawn Beach.
People on stilts, Front Street, Philipsburg. No idea why was happening, but I just managed to get a shot of them before they walked off.
Austin is a Bob Marley fan. Trying on a hat at the Marigot Wednesday market.
Santa Claus on the beach (Baie Oriental).
Splashing with Nana at the pool at the Villa Robinson.
The kids on the beach (Baie Oriental)
From the pool deck of the Villa Robinson, looking east.
Austin climbs a tree at Mullet Bay Beach (a "sea grape" tree).

Villa Robinson again.

Rosemary takes Mari in for a wade. She loves to splash (Mari, not Rose).

Okay, I took a lot of pictures from the Villa looking east (toward St Bart's). But can you blame me?