September 2008 The annual Ganesha festival at the Sri Ganesha Temple on Broome Street in Manhattan early in the month involved much satisfying daily chanting, and was made yet more satisfying by the company of nephew Max, who afterwards accompanied me to Montreal on his first visit to Canada.

From Quebec to New Hampshire, and the Moses Family home, where I skimmed (and enjoyed) the first volume of the Bartimaeus trilogy, and read two worthy books: Bone, the first-rate graphic novel by Jeff Smith, and The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn, the first book in the Samurai Detective series.

From New Hampshire to California, and a road trip with my sister & our “honorary sister” Roshni, on the occasion of the latter’s 70th natal day: up Highway 1 from L.A. via Santa Barbara and Big Sur to the Monterey Aquarium, thence to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, then back to L.A. Among many notable moments: a night I spent outside Yosemite’s western gate at El Portal, sitting on a rock in the Merced River, singing loudly (the river’s racket covering the majority of my voice) as a large bird or bat flitted by …

At month’s end, ready to return to Northern California, I pondered the Revenge of the Africans, via the Kenyan connection: the presidential nominee of one party being half-Kenyan, and the VP candidate of the other party having a Kenyan spiritual adviser (Thomas Muthee). Either way, Kenya is destined to figure prominently in the next US administration. What fortune that I joined Kenya’s Pokot tribe 35 years ago last June!

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