the Funeral

This morning on the way to dropping Henry off at school I heard a story about a former policeman in Beijing. A few years after he joined the police force he began reading a lot of translated books. It was through these works that he began to see his views transformed. Eventually this led to his own writings, which he published on the web entitled Water Bubbles. The story goes on to say how he protested and criticized certain actions taken by the Chinese police which led to his being fired.

The part that I found really interesting is that after he was fired many people began to email him proclaiming him a hero along with offers of jobs and money. It reminded me of how easily people can be contacted nowadays, not unlike the earlier days of the postal service. What I immediately thought of was the Truman Capote's story of how he and his aunt used to bake fruit cakes at Christmas time and send them to a list of their favorite people from friends and relatives to the President and First Lady. It's a nice warm feeling of connectedness.


Rhys and I had a fun time shopping with Mary and Isabelle today. Mary came over in time to see us scrambling to get Kenny out the door for the funeral.


We left around 10. First stop was Target to get our lists done, and then it was off to Smith & Hawken (yet again!) and finally lunch at Whole Foods. I tell you if it weren't for Rhys I would still be there! It was really fun, and in the midst of it all Rhys went to the bathroom twice!

Got home and Mary and Isabelle stopped for a short bit before picking up the siblings. Isabelle came in carrying a little purse upon which Rhys suddenly took a new interest. He grabbed it from her and muttered "C'st mine!"



After they left it was close to 2:00p. I called Kenny to see where he was at, and to remind him to pick Henry up at 2:50p. When I got through to him he was on the freeway with James in tow. He offered to drive James back to the Fox lot and then get Henry. In the meantime I had some time to put together two more cactus arrangements.






Kenny came home with Henry a little after 3:00p and we all had a little snack of the apple strudel and croissants that I picked up from Whole Foods. Kenny soon left to go back to work to wrap things up with the timing and see what needed tending. Luckily Rhys was so exhausted with all the sites and sounds of earlier he fell asleep on the bench!