#314. Lucky the Summer Streets was yesterday...

... because there was record rainfall today. The 9th wettest day on record, apparently. We measured 98 mm at 9 am this morning (the highest rainfall since we have been here). Nothing like Sydney, but it has continued raining all day. They had > 250 mm out on Long Island. "Summer Streets" is when they close off Park Avenue to traffic on the first 3 Saturdays mornings of August. you can walk, jog, ride all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a beautiful day for it yesterday. A couple of bonus pictures of Xavi thrown in!

#313. 8 weeks old today

He is going really well. Feeding well and also has a 60 ml shot of formula before bed. Now 5.3 kg. Very alert and happy and makes cooing noises. Sleeping better-last night went down at 9 and woke at 3 then 6. prefers to be facing out when carried. Has started dribbing and tries to suck his thumb but just can't quite get it right. Loves having a bath



this is his latest accoutrement: rocks, plays music and vibrates. falls asleep in it everytime
siesta time

#312. Last Sunday - first post-natal visit to Maialino, il ristorante Italiano nostro preferito

we don't have a car seat yet, so taxis aren't safe; we have to take the subway or bus...
waiting at the bus stop

on the buses

Lower East Side

CSI Lower East Side

the evening was not a complete success at Maialino, but the food was great as usual

#311. WHAT NEXT? Raccoons Invade Part Of Queens, But NYC Not Helping Fix The Problem

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — There’s a major pest problem in Queens.

That’s where residents say raccoons have made themselves at home in several neighborhoods.

As CBS 2’s Mark Morgan reports, a local lawmaker is now getting involved to combat the invasion.

Raccoons have become an annoyance in some neighborhoods and residents here want the city to remove them.

They may look warm and fuzzy, but raccoons can be a nuisance and a health risk.

“My main concern is the kids that are running around. This is a really residential neighborhood. There’s a school right down the block. There’s a pool,” Bayside resident Alex Cho said.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) has proposed a bill that would require the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to capture and remove the critters.


“It would mandate that the city has to come out, trap the animal, neuter it and then release it back into the wild someplace,” Avella said.

Currently, the city’s policy is to remove raccoons only if they are rabid or dead. Normally, the only obvious sign a raccoon is rabid is the animal foaming at the mouth. The Department of Health said Avella’s bill is an “unfunded mandate” and that non-rabid raccoons can be controlled with community involvement.

Morgan surveyed one lot that has been vacant for seven years, and residents told him a family of raccoons has taken over and is wreaking havoc in the neighborhood.

“We’re afraid to let the kids out, especially at night. People come to visit as I had said before and they’re afraid of raccoons chasing them,” Pearl Vazeos said.

Vazeos lives right next to the lot. She paid a private company charged more than $1,500 when raccoons took over her garage.

“It cost be a fortune to get rid of them and nobody would do anything with the city. We had to get a private person come trap them,” Vazeos said.

Area residents feel they shouldn’t have to battle the nocturnal masked bandits alone, and that the time for the city’s involvement is now.

Senator Avella said he hopes to bring the bill to a vote in the next legislative session in Albany, at the end of August.

Do you think the city should be required to remove troublesome critters like raccoons? Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below.

#310. On the High Line the Saturday before last. Great day for a popsicle

#309. Xavier is 7 weeks today

Now weighs almost 5kg. Goes 3-4 hrs between feeds. wakes twice between 10pm & 6 am. has some tummy time every day but can't lift his head much. Submitted his U.S. passport application yesterday; once he has had his 2nd whooping cough vaccination in October, he is safe to fly.





Exhausted after watching Souths' amazing comeback against the Dragons. Rabbitohs record now 4-from-7 for Xavier (beat Titans, Broncos, Roosters and Dragons).

NY Times Editorial | The City Life: Where Rats, Hawks and Children Abide

By FRANCIS X. CLINES
Published: August 1, 2011

What would John James Audubon do? The naturalist who shot birds before he painted them ended his days, 160 years ago, studying and shooting rats in New York City, vowing “not to expose the inhabitants in the vicinity to danger.” This city’s rats continue to flourish, with particular enthusiasm at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village, where they can be seen scuttling nonchalantly near the children’s swings and inside the sandbox.

Videotaped highlights by alarmed parents and TV news crews feature one determined rodent hauling a ripe red tomato to his rat hole, while others dart in and out of gaping nest holes massed like prairie dog villages along the park garden strips.

There’s a dilemma at the heart of the brazen traffic because a red-tailed hawk lives in the park. By city policy, it must be protected, so no poison can be laid for rats that the hawk might eat. The raptor occasionally scoops up a rat for a meal but hardly at a rate to daunt the packs.

New Yorkers are their own study in nonchalance, passing the daily wait for the subway by idly eyeing rats darting in the track troughs. But the scene at Tompkins Square has put a dark Hieronymus Bosch edge to that coexistence. Alternative controls are being promised, mainly stronger waste bins in the park and, possibly, toxic measures whenever the hawk’s travel season arrives.

The overriding fact is rats thrive on human garbage. Special pleas are being extended to park humans to stop feeding pigeons and, even more, cease carelessly discarding food wastes all about. There’ll never be enough hawks to take up the slack from slovenly humans. Audubon depicted his red-tailed hawk soaring imperiously, clutching a bloodied prey. But it was a rabbit, not one of the hearty Norway brown rats scurrying across the good life in New York. FRANCIS X. CLINES