busker

Sentimental Journey

All young missee's idea, knowing how capable I am of losing my way - even from gangplank to terra firma.

Check out precise GPS location of Saturday's inaugural grand meeting of the Bainbridge Bloggia.

Ace directions by our hostess and only the teensiest quibble from mademoiselle pathfinder about the precise hexadecimal RGB values of the house.

We drove back via our old haunt, Chatham Cove, to check the elders' progress in driving out everyone under 60 and were just cresting High School when A tugged my sleeve to pull over.

Yes, indeed - there was the old FAO Schwarz bear from 6th and Pine.

I knew it now guarded some Bainbridge Isle kindergarten but was
hazy on the precise location.

I also recalled some silliness at the time in the Letters columns about the bear not facing the 'right way' i.e. that it had its back to the road. Anna and I did a full inspection and agreed there was no possible reason why the frontward view should be squandered on drivers whizzing by when the whole point of the bear was for the benefit of staff and pupils.
But what memories flooded back for both of us, and what a reminder of Time's wingèd chariot.

I used to work just across the road from Schwarz and would give that big ol' bear's brassy rump a good luck rub each time I passed by. At Christmas, of course, the lights were up and the whole block was a-chatter with children, including one year a wide-eyed Anna. There's something about going round a toyshop with a child that banishes all cynicism and takes one back to one's own early Yules. In fact, there's something about Christmas - period - with children. My Schwarz equivalent Aladdin's Cave was London's world-famous Hamleys.

So there we were - dad and daughter - on a bright Sunday afternoon, suddenly transported back over the years.

But back to Saturday and the glittering highlight of my calendar - I'm all a tizzy !

As any reader of clever Mr Gladwell's Blink will tell you, page 213's coverage of FACS cannot be ignored, with its insistence on "contracting units six and twelve (the orbicularis oculi, pars orbitalis in combination with the zygomatic major)" - or risk social ignominy.

And why did I ever buy the Demarais book on perfecting First Impressions?

I've made some progress on the 'Four Universal Social Gifts' and can do a passable imitation of 'Accessibility' but - shock horror! - 'Conversational Dynamics'? And woe is me on the chapters on

• Faux Listening
• That Reminds Me of Me (ouch!)
• Oversharing can be Costly (gulp!)