Back from TED

We left the kids with Jessy to go to Monterey for four days of TED. Very intense, very exciting. It will all be online so I won't make any efforts to recap, except that, in the context of this blog, I was thrilled to hear the origami man, Robert Lang, in person. Thomas Dolby's house band was also a standout. It featured Mark Stewart, a great guy we happened to meet in New York many years ago. We got talking to him at length on a street in Alphabet City-- he told us about the instruments he made, and that he backed for Paul Simon and Steve Reich. Nice guy, we thought, but, sure, Paul Simon, Steve Reich. Last year he showed up, backing for Paul Simon. Remarkably, he was on stage at the same time as Blaise and we all recognized each other.

Other highlights, more relevant for the survival of the species, will be passed on personally.

While we were away, the kids were angels. And clearly, things moved intellectually for them too. Anselm now declares his level A reading books "SO easy!" and whizzed through a level B book that he has been reading to Eliot over the last few days. Eliot has changed visibly since Wednesday and is ever more eloquent. She loves to be picked up or to stand on a stool while I am cooking, asking lots of questions-- "Is that butter? What IS that? Where is the garlic? I try it?". She walks around the house saying "I like letters!" and keeps asking me to guide her hand to write, Eliot, Mum, Dad, Anselm, Granddad, Grandma, then tries to guess which word is which. Anselm and I spent the afternoon building a complicated train track. Eliot woke up and saw the suspension bridges-- "Like Vancouver!".