Art and Medicine

This is one of two so-called "shell huts" in Lower Grosvenor Gardens, a park near Victoria Station that I walked through on my way to the hospital yesterday morning. They are quirky little buildings decorated with shells from France and Britain, and a site called "The Londonphile" has an article about their unusual history. I thought they were perhaps Victorian, because the Victorians loved their shells (remember the shell grotto in Margate?) but they were actually built in 1952 when the gardens were re-landscaped after World War II.

One of them is used to store garden tools, and I saw a gardener working from it, but apparently the one above is kept locked.

I also walked through Upper Grosvenor Gardens, an adjacent park that features this sculpture, "Lioness and Lesser Kudu" by Jonathan Kenworthy. It's a relatively recent installation, from June 2000.

The hospital where I went for my capsule endoscopy was right behind Buckingham Palace on Grosvenor Place. I couldn't see the palace -- only the well-fortified walls topped with barbed wire encircling its trees and gardens. I was there at 8:30 a.m., ready to get this thing over with.

I was taken for a preliminary CT scan, to make sure the test capsule was no longer in my system (it wasn't, and I told them that, but whatever) and then given the real thing by a nurse. It really is a little miracle of science, a half-clear capsule with blinking lights inside. I was surprised by the lights, but of course it would need some kind of light source. After all, it's dark in there. So while I went about my day, that capsule was strobing away and my innards were partying like it was 1999!

I had to wear a padded belt and shoulder harness for the unit receiving the transmitted images from the capsule. It was comfortable enough at first, and the image recorder was no larger than a Walk-Man (if you remember those). After swallowing the capsule I had to walk up and down a hallway for a while, to get my gut moving and set the capsule traveling on its way.

The hallway was decorated with these bright artworks by Leon Polk Smith from 1968 and 1973. I'd never heard of him but I guess he was known for these sorts of hard-edged, colorful graphic images.

They're very '60s, and therefore I like them.

I know you're all wondering whether I was able to watch the progress of the capsule. I saw some initial images, because the recorder had a display screen and the nurse activated it to make sure the capsule was moving along. I could see inside my stomach and the beginning of my small intestine, but honestly it didn't look like much -- just a pink-beige tunnel. The screen didn't stay on, and I was scared to try to push any buttons to activate it later, so that was the only time I saw any pictures.

I was sent home around 11 a.m. My jacket covered the recording unit, so I wore it home on the tube with no problem. The rest of the day I spent lounging around the house, because I wasn't supposed to do a lot of bending or stooping. I couldn't eat until just after 2 p.m., and even then only a tuna sandwich thoughtfully provided by the hospital. (Hospital food at home -- yum! Yes, that was sarcasm.)

In the afternoon I watched "Fortune and Men's Eyes," a 1971 movie about prison life with gay themes. I'd read about it somewhere and it sounded interesting as a sort of cultural time-capsule, which it was.

But by this time I was feeling pretty terrible. The thing about capsule endoscopy is that it disrupts life for about 72 hours -- my diet the preceding two days had been bland and then liquid, and even after my tuna fish "snack" at 2 p.m. I felt like hell. (I wasn't able to have any coffee yesterday, probably my chief complaint.) It's much less invasive than a colonoscopy, and capable of seeing more, but man, including prep time it takes forever to complete.

Finally, around 6 p.m., I could eat normally. Hallelujah! And at 9 p.m. I could take off that infernal belt, which I had slowly come to despise.

Today I have to take the recording unit back to the hospital and then, assuming this all shows no abnormalities -- which I won't know immediately -- I will be glad to get on with my life!

You may be wondering about my friend the spider from the previous post. Last night when we went to bed it was tucked up next to a wooden molding by the window. I looked up a couple of times during the night and it was still there, which enabled me to sleep soundly, but this morning it was gone. It's a harmless house spider (Tegenaria) but I'd still rather not touch it and I hope it has disappeared for good into some dark hidey-hole.

Apostrophe and Comma

I looked out yesterday morning and saw these rose-ringed parakeets on our bird feeder. I was surprised they were so brave, as Mr. Russia was up on the terrace banging around again. They must have been hungry.

They reminded me of two parentheses -- or of that line in Sandra Cisneros's book "The House on Mango Street," about the man whose little dogs were always jumping in mid-air, looking like an apostrophe and a comma.

Or maybe a pair of synchronized divers?

Yesterday was dreary, food-wise: An egg and a white roll in the morning, some cheese toast for lunch, and then nothing else. Plus the whole cleansing thing in the evening. This morning I can't have coffee (the worst bit of all this so far) and shortly I'll be off to the hospital to receive the sacrament of the capsule. Why do I believe it will be glowing when they hand it to me, the light shining upward into all our faces, as angels sing?

At lunchtime I'm supposed to be able to eat a light meal, and by dinner I'll be back to my normal dietary habits. And none too soon.

(Trigger alert: Stop reading now if you are an arachnophobe!)

When I got up this morning, I went to open the back door to let Olga out. Then I went to get my glasses, which were on my bedside table, so I could blog. And I saw this:

I had pretty much the same expression as that owl.

Where that gigantic thing came from and what it's doing on my bedside lamp I'll never know. I imagine I disturbed it with all my cleaning on Saturday. I just left it alone. Maybe it will go back where it came from. The question is, will I ever be able to sleep soundly in my bed again?

An Autumn Video

I'm getting a late start this morning. The dog woke me up at 5:30 a.m. to go out, and I let her out and just assumed we were up. But then, when she came back in, she went straight back to the warm bed -- so I did too. I only woke up about 20 minutes ago.

In lieu of a photo I'm giving you a short video of the back garden, showing the colors and leaves and sounds of autumn. I worked Olga into the clip, and I especially love the line of pigeons sitting atop the white apartment building behind our flat, spaced so evenly they could be gargoyles.

I managed to avoid filming Mr. Russia, who was working on the terrace above our living room spreading some volatile compound. He's been talking about the need to re-seal it so I'm sure that's what it was. Every time I open the back door, Dave says, "Close the door! That stuff stinks!" And it does.

I had to swallow this yesterday. This is not THE capsule, the one with the camera. It's just a dummy, a sort of test capsule to make sure my gut is capable of passing the camera later. I don't swallow the camera until tomorrow morning, at the hospital. If it's the same size as the dummy, known for some reason as a "patency" capsule, it should be a cinch. The dummy was no worse than a vitamin pill.

But I am on a low-fiber diet, which is pretty dismal. Yesterday for breakfast: white toast and an egg. Lunch: white toast with leftover ground beef and cheese. Dinner: skinless chicken and white dinner rolls. This is not the way I usually eat and I am dying for some broccoli. Dave bought carrot cake as a dessert treat, forgetting that carrots and nuts are off-limits for me at the moment. Oh well -- Monday night!

I walked Olga on the high street yesterday and did lots of housekeeping -- two loads of laundry, thorough vacuuming (including under the bed), plant-watering, windowsill-cleaning and other odds and ends. I don't know how there's always so much to do around this place when there are only two of us and a dog. How do people with children do it?

I'm trying to catch up on my New Yorkers, or at least make a dent in them. I was nine issues behind, having been diverted by "Bleak House." I've since dispatched two, and I'll take care of a few more today. Fortunately I'm off work tomorrow, but I doubt I'll clear the coffee table entirely!

A Note for Blind J

Since I don't have a whole lot to say today, how about another post of random photos? I haven't done one of those in a while. Here are some images that have stacked up over the past several weeks.

First, a lost cap not far from school. It's gone now so hopefully whoever lost it found it again.

Here's some graffiti that appeared on a utility box in my neighborhood, by the writer who goes by the name Tramp. I've photographed some of his/her messages before, which usually focus on race and class.

This one says:

For this country to get back on track, we need to be allowed to be proud of it. I love this city, especially this bit of this city. I love that you can hear four different languages on the tube. I love that after Brexit, now any human has the same chance to come here and call this home no matter what color or creed or background. So to show how proud I am I picked up my flag and waved it. But I was then called a racist and my new neighbors feared me, so I put it down. Later I saw one of my new neighbors waving their flag. I went over to ask them to stop being racist and put their flag down and was told to stop being racist.

Satire or sincerity? You be the judge.

Kind of a weird photo -- I was experimenting with the reflection in our kitchen window of a Scottish shot-putter on an oatmeal box. Here's a whole article about the history of this image on the box of Scott's oats. Apparently there was controversy when he was updated a few years ago and critics called the new Scott's oats guy a "soyboy."

Someone tracked this ginkgo leaf into the library. I love how yellow ginkgos get at this time of year.

When I went for my doctor's appointment last week I passed this car near Regent's Park. Wonder what the story is there? From the haphazard parking to the filmy layer of grime and collection of fallen leaves, it looks like this vehicle hasn't been moved in a while.

A curious message, apparently for "Blind J," from someone who has gone to Tesco for "bitch training," whatever that is. At least they helpfully left a phone number. There's also a note for passers-by: "Please don't be a c--- and move the sign."

Of course, if "Blind J" is really blind, you gotta wonder how helpful a sign will be.

Someone scattered yellow rose petals around the base of a tree at the top of our street. I'm not sure if this means anything or they were just trying to beautify the cigarette butts.

Spotted on my walk home last night. Ever the optimist!

Death and Taxes, Minus the Death

We're at that time of year when a lot of my photos are taken in the dark, since my walk home happens after the sun sets and walking the dog in the morning occurs before (or around) dawn. I'm inside at work during nearly all our daylight hours!

I've always liked this apartment building (above) in West Hampstead, but I seldom get a clear shot of it because there are cars in front. Last night I happened to catch it at a good time. I love the stained glass windows in that central stairway.

I am back in income tax hell here because I'm trying to file UK taxes for the first time. This has to do with income from my portion of my mother's estate, which I recently inherited, and I hired a tax adviser to compile my British return, since I'm unfamiliar with the system. She has done so, and let's just say my tax liability is higher than I expected. I'm still trying to understand why this is, but apparently it's because the UK taxes certain income at a higher level even if it's already been reported in the USA. I'm supposed to have a conversation with her next week to go over things, so hopefully I'll understand more then.

My feeling is, if I owe it, I owe it. And I'll pay it. But I do want to make sure we're minimizing the liability and I'm not filing incorrectly in the states in ways that leave me exposed here.

Sometimes living overseas is a huge pain in the neck. Not to mention expensive.

And then the question is, what's the best way to pay the tax bill? I'd rather not convert my American money, which would mean losing a percentage to the banks, so the alternative is to pay it from our British accounts -- and at this rate, a couple of years of income taxes on my American investments would drain our savings here. Obviously that's not sustainable.

Argh!

I don't think every year will be like this year. I think this is an especially heavy burden because of distributions I had to take from my mom's retirement accounts after her death. But still.

I took this photo yesterday in the library. Remember my purple heart plant, a type of Tradescantia? It's a relative of the plant now often called a "wandering dude." I have one here at home that I've had for many years and mentioned several times on the blog.

Well, every time pieces of it break off, I root them and stick them in a pot, which I then take to the library. This is the result -- we have at least six purple hearts on the library windowsill, along with various other plants from here and there. It's getting a little ridiculous, to be honest. I guess I have to be less soft-hearted about saving every cutting!

The Capsule

Here's another shot of the cleaners' shop around the corner, taken Tuesday evening as I was walking home. When it's lit up you can better see not only the contents but the leaded windows and the mosaic doorstep.

And here's the electricity repair on our street as of yesterday morning. As you can see, they dug out the hole a lot more and installed that weird torpedo-shaped connector thing. (I believe that's the technical name.)

I got more news and info about my upcoming capsule endoscopy. (Feel free to skip all this if you're squeamish about medical/bowel stuff.) For one thing, it's not happening Friday, but Monday morning. Apparently we needed a little more lead time for preparation. Starting Saturday morning I'm supposed to eat a low-fiber diet (which I'm going to hate) and only liquids from Sunday noon. I also have to swallow a dummy capsule about the size of the camera, as a test to see if it gets through my body without complication (apparently virtually guaranteed). On the off chance that it gets stuck, it won't cause harm because it eventually dissolves. And Sunday evening I have to take bowel prep (ugh) but only one sachet, so it's not quite as intense as with a colonoscopy.

Then I swallow the actual camera capsule on Monday morning at the hospital, and I have to wear a little monitor all day to collect the transmitted photos. So as it turns out I'll be taking Monday off. The nurse says the capsule, which goes down the drain at the end of all this, is the size of a large vitamin pill. We shall see!

This whole thing sounds wild and although I am not looking forward to the prep, I'm very curious about the experience (not to mention the results).

We've Got the Power

I came across this wine and liquor shop on Old Compton Street in Soho when I was down there a week or two ago. I was intrigued by the Southwestern motif on the sign -- apparently inspired by a bourbon called "Horse With No Name," which is made with habañero chilies, among other ingredients. I'm not really a brown liquor person, but if I were I'd be intrigued. (The web site is quite elaborate, once you verify your birth date -- and what's the point of that? Anyone could make up anything.)

Dave and I finally had a normal night's sleep, with no malfunctioning burglar alarm or dog. Hallelujah! It was wonderful to go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 5:30 a.m. with no awareness of the hours in between.

So, yes, the power is back on. Here's what it looked like out in the street yesterday morning as I walked to work:

Doesn't really tell you much, but at least you can visualize the repairs. I think the power didn't return until early afternoon. Dave and I were both at work, but before we left we shut off the circuit breakers serving the burglar alarm, so it wouldn't go off and freak out the dog. I checked the Olga-cam a few times in the morning and it wasn't working, but around 1:30 p.m. it was up and running -- which means we had power and Internet by that time. And Olga was asleep on the couch, untroubled.

I promised you an Olga video and here it is. I'm sure I've posted videos of her dreaming before. I always find it poignant to think that in her dreams she's still young, chasing squirrels across Hampstead Heath.

Stone Age and Space Age

I am blogging from my phone, so God only knows what this looks like. We’ve been thrown back to the Stone Age here in West Hampstead, or at least on our side of the street.

At about 1:30 am our burglar alarm went off, which usually happens when the power goes out. We scrambled around to find the code to shut it off, and after a few minutes things were quiet again. But we realized we had no power. It flickered on once or twice, momentarily, before dying completely.

I went out in the street and found all the houses on our side dark, the streetlights out. A guy with the electrical utility walked by and explained something about a fault blah blah and they tried to fix it and it failed again blah blah. Anyway, they called out a crew to dig up the pavement a few houses down in order to replace a cable (I think?). I had an early estimate that we’d have power back by 6 am, but now, at 6:27, i’m thinking not.

I did manage to make coffee by boiling water on the stove, after hunting through multiple cabinets and drawers for our lighter wands. We don’t use them anymore since we got a hob that lights itself, but of course that function doesn’t work without electricity. Thank God i hadn’t thrown them out — i was afraid i had!

(Why doesn’t my phone capitalize “i” in the text? I’m doing a kind of kd lang thing here.)

Now i’m hearing jackhammers. This may be a while.

Well, i had an Olga video cued up for you but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I had my doctor’s appointment yesterday to follow up on my elevated calprotectin. This new doc, who seems great, suggests i do a capsule endoscopy in order to look at the small intestine, which is basically the only part of my innards that hasn’t yet been endoscopied. This requires swallowing a tiny camera that surveys the length of the digestive tract. It sounds very space age — is Raquel Welch going to be aboard? — but i don’t yet know all the details. He doesn’t seem at all concerned about the dreaded c-word given that i’m healthy otherwise, so that’s good.

Also, I FINISHED “BLEAK HOUSE”!!! All 880 pages. It did finally come together in a more or less comprehensible fashion but i’d still argue that Dickens could have done without about 30 percent of those 65 or so characters.

(Photo: Near my doctor’s office on Portland Place, yesterday morning.)

Shopfront with Sagging Pumpkin

Walking Olga yesterday morning, I noticed once again this picturesque dry cleaning and alterations shop around the corner. The dresses in the window caught my eye (they didn't do a Halloween display this year) and I loved the tied upstairs curtains and the soft-looking jack o' lantern on the ledge between the windows. The original shopfront, with its leaded glass and Welsh dragon mosaic on the doorstep, is always eye-catching. I've shot this same view at least twice before, in 2016 and 2022.

After dropping Olga off at home, I grabbed my camera, walked to the corner and took a few shots. On the way back, I happened to see one of our famous neighbors; I kept the camera down with the lens cap on, so she wouldn't think I was stalking her.

Back at the house, though, I realized my pictures were all unfocused, because I'd set the camera to manual focus for an earlier shot and then forgotten. Argh! So I reset the camera to autofocus, went back to the corner and took my pictures again. A photography teacher years ago taught me to always reset the camera when you've changed your normal settings, and I didn't. Lesson learned! At least it was a shot I could easily retake.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day at home. I've got 80 pages left in "Bleak House." I couldn't finish it over the weekend, as I'd hoped, but I am so close.

I did some garden clean-up, cutting back dead stuff and trimming the part of the neighbor's extremely large and vigorous rose bush (aka "the monster") that overhangs our patio. Mrs. Russia came out on her terrace and apologized for Saturday's power-washing; she said she and her husband hadn't even thought about the effect it might have on our windows. She offered to clean them but I declined. They're not that dirty this time around, and I'll do them again in spring anyway. I appreciated her kind offer, though.

I also trimmed the front garden a bit, but only as a temporary measure to let more light into the dining room. (The huge hebe bush was blocking about a third of the window!) I've got to find out where that issue stands. Remember, the front garden is supposed to be the landlord's responsibility, and we've asked for a trim but I haven't heard anything in months.

Olga was up and down all night. At first we thought she was sick, but I think she was actually hearing foxes. She went out this morning and ran around barking and wheezing and generally making a geriatric scene. So fierce!

Wabi, Sabi and Bobby

Here's the Dowager Duchess of West Hampstead, in her autumnal domain. You can see that things are looking quite weedy and seedy out there. I trimmed back three more of the dahlias yesterday and put them to bed in the shed. Only one is still out -- the red one, which still has green leaves and doesn't quite seem dormant.

And although I'd pledged to spend yesterday reading, I wound up doing a bunch of other gardening, too. I took some toadflax out of another dahlia pot and even though it's basically a weed, I put it in its own pot. Now, when the dahlia goes in the shed all winter, the toadflax won't die. It might die from the shock of being repotted, but hey, I tried.

And I potted up the violas I found last week:

These are on the front porch, where the Gaillardia and Osteospermum used to be. I moved those two to the back patio. I also have a hanging basket of violas outside the back door.

It may be mid-November, but there's gardening to be done!

I also moved around some plants in the living room, in an effort to make space for the citrus tree, which will eventually need to come inside. It's not getting very cold yet -- only into the 40s F -- but I'm thinking ahead. I wiped down the grimy walls and floor around the plants by the back door...

...and revealed Wabi, Sabi and Bobby, who have been pretty much hidden by the jungle up to now. I haven't mentioned them since 2017 but they're still standing sentry, and Olga is still wary of them. Those big eyes freak her out. Bobby's pink ribbon, which was tired even when we first got him, has completely faded to a sad shade of gray. I've considered buying him a new one but I like his world-weary persona.

Oh, and Mr. Russia was pressure-washing their terrace AGAIN! Remember how he spent four hours on it just a few weeks ago? I actually got quite cranky with him, since last time I had to wash all the windows afterwards, but he said they'd found more problem spots. This time he only spent an hour and a half on it, and our windows are still more or less clean, thank goodness.

And yes, I did read about 100 pages of "Bleak House," despite having trouble concentrating over the hum of the pressure-washer. Progress!

Not Much to Tell

That's what it looks like here at the moment. Many if not most of the leaves have fallen; the sidewalks are strewn with them, the grass invisible beneath a leafy blanket.

I don't have much to report today. Yesterday was pretty chill and I actually got some reading done in addition to all my regular duties. I have 280 pages left in "Bleak House." I'm going to do my darndest to finish it this weekend, or at least Monday. I'm getting a little more enthusiastic now that I'm within striking distance of the end, and I do have some curiosity about how (or if) Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, the interminable lawsuit at the center of the plot, is going to be resolved. Will Lady Dedlock's secret be revealed? Will Esther marry her benefactor or the dark, sexy doctor who's just returned from India? Will the purposeless Richard sink farther into debt and dissipation? Will I ever figure out how all the other characters are connected? So many questions.

Here's the crazy girl, in case you're wondering what she's up to. This was on a walk up to the corner last Sunday. Just a day or two after I took this picture, the occupants of that blue-and-white shopfront put up a huge blue canvas awning over their front forecourt. It's a shop that specializes in cleaning supplies, which seems very specific, and it's one of many businesses around here whose viability I doubt. And yet they hang on.

No Politics Today

These pictures are from a wall of student art that I pass every day when I go down to our Lower School. I love the variety and the harmonic colors. Looks to me like a teacher set out some flowers in vases and had the kids paint a still life. It's fascinating how each person has a distinct vision or style, even at a very young age.

I'm making a no-politics vow today. To quote the title of Roz Chast's memoir, "Can't We Talk About Something More PLEASANT?"

How about the fact that I solved my home movie crisis? Remember how I recently discovered that the thumb drive that held the digitized version of my family's old Super 8 movies had died, and I'd somehow failed to back it up? So then I was left with DVDs, which are better than nothing, but I wanted a video file I could post online and edit as needed.

I couldn't copy directly from the DVD because the files were locked and/or in a strange format -- VOB, or something like that. So I took the DVD to work and one of the computer guys there figured out a workaround. Et voila! I now have the movies in a simple MP4 file, which I have posted privately to YouTube as a backup (minus a scene of me in the bath as an infant, which I edited out, because YouTube gets squirrely about naked children and rightly so).

Or how about overdue books? You may be wondering if I have successfully retrieved all our summer checkouts. The answer is still no, believe it or not, but I'm down to only about five kids who are holding out. One of them has his book in his bag, according to Mom, but he has yet to drop it off in the book return -- a process that should take a fraction of a second but that for some students takes weeks. It's always amazing to me that a kid would rather needlessly carry a book around in a backpack than drop it off in the library.

Or how about rescuing plants? My favorite topic! I had to walk to the post office yesterday to return a book the library accidentally bought twice. On the way back, I found part of a flat of violas next to the trash bins on the St. John's Wood high street. They were wilted but otherwise fine, so I brought them home last night and I'll pot them up this weekend. Violas are good cold-weather annuals so they should last well into winter. I guess someone bought too many bedding plants and simply discarded what they didn't need.

I've also been reviving the Christmas (Thanksgiving?) cactus at work, the parent plant of my own cacti. It had a terrible mealybug infestation -- every time I looked at it it made me itch. So I treated it with alcohol a few days ago and then laboriously lugged it outside to hose it down. It's much better now but it's going to need repeat treatments. As if I don't have enough to do!

Election Thoughts, If You Can Stand It

Well, reality is settling in around here. Both Dave and I felt a sense of resigned equanimity yesterday morning, but for me that feeling turned into a profound dread through the course of the day. I wasn't shocked like I was when Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. I knew it was very possible that Trump would emerge from this election victorious.

But the thought that he will run the country with essentially no checks and balances, with both houses of Congress under Republican control and half the Supreme Court doing his bidding, and with evangelical supporters whispering in his ear if not pulling his strings -- well, that's pretty scary. The USA may be closer to "The Handmaid's Tale" than we ever imagined.

I thought Elizabeth Spiers in The New York Times did a good job analyzing the misogyny at the heart of Trump's appeal to many male voters. But a surprising number of women voted for Trump too, so although I've been calling this election "the revenge of the men," the results can't be entirely laid at our door. I can't imagine why any woman would support Trump, but I know plenty who do.

I bristled at Bret Stephens' assertion that the modern Democratic party has alienated voters by "stand(ing) for the forcible imposition of bizarre cultural norms on hundreds of millions of Americans who want to live and let live but don’t like being told how to speak or what to think." He doesn't specify which cultural norms those Americans might consider "bizarre," but I can easily imagine gay marriage is one of them. It seems to me the Republicans are the ones who emphasize extreme hypotheticals at the expense of rather ordinary reality. ("They'll marry their pets!")

Stephens acknowledges that the Democratic party at its best stands for fairness, but then says Democrats have dwelled too much on "social engineering according to group identity" -- which to me means fairness. Go figure. Is the Civil Rights Act "social engineering"?

Anyway, I'm glad I'm not a recent immigrant to the USA, and I'm glad I don't work for the Department of Education. Hopefully my marriage won't be obliterated, but at least here in the UK I think it will continue to be respected for the time being.

We liberals still have a voice, and there are plenty of powerful people on our side. Let's try not to lose heart. I still think most Americans are in the middle, politically speaking, and we need to focus on working with those moderates. And let's think about how we can oppose extremism on the right until the pendulum swings again. I for one am going to continue donating to opposition groups on issues that matter to me -- minority rights, civil rights, reproductive rights. In fact I may double my donations.

And now, because we could all use a laugh, how about a motorcycle-riding Elmo in Soho Square?

Work has been madness for the last few days, but I am trying to keep up in blogland. Be patient with me!

(Top photo: A picturesque pub in Soho.)

Unicorns

I came across this nonchalant-looking unicorn in Soho over the weekend. It's called "Uninhibited," by the artists DollyOlli. They have a lot of playful sculptures and sculptural furniture on their web site, including a sofa that looks like a giant derrière (dubbed the "Ass Sofa").

You got to laugh to keep from cryin', right? That's how I feel this morning looking at the election results so far. While most of the big swing states are still in play, it's not looking good for Harris and The New York Times sets Trump's likelihood of winning at 93 percent. When Dave and I went to the pub on Saturday, we were talking with the waitress about the election, and I told her to watch Pennsylvania -- whichever way it swings, so will swing the election. I still think that's true, even if it's not exactly ground-breaking insight on my part.

There's nothing like an election to make me realize that the things I hold dear -- my morals and values, my ideas of right and wrong, my sense of the balance between social responsibility and personal freedom -- are not necessarily the same for a vast swath of my fellow Americans. And every time, every time, that kind of surprises me. I don't know why. I guess I feel like my perspectives are not all that unusual, despite being a childless urban gay man living overseas, which I certainly realize is not the standard American demographic. Of course there are plenty of people who do share my perspectives, so there's that -- but it seems they are often not enough to win an election.

So, yeah, at this early hour when the race hasn't yet been called, I am feeling once again like an outsider.

I do think we Democrats have a long-standing and persistent problem in selling ourselves. For decades we have allowed the right to define us, whether that means Newt Gingrich sneering about "liberals" or Donald Trump talking about "Democrat hellholes." We've never been good at getting in front of our message and our goals, at making people see what we stand for and how we intend to help them. Not since FDR, anyway. Maybe Obama, though the Affordable Care Act is hanging by a thread.

And government often does shoot itself in the foot. Did you all see the sad story of P'Nut the squirrel? The Republicans have touted it as an example of government overreach in a Democratic state, and I gotta say, they are right. This poor guy raised an orphaned squirrel for seven years, and then a bunch of jackboots take it away and kill it?! Come on, now. Be sensible and have a heart. Sheesh.

Anyway, back to unicorns. Remember the discarded rocking horse/unicorn that I photographed lying in the autumn leaves a couple of weeks ago? Well, it has lain there ever since, next to a trash bin in front of an empty house. Yesterday, walking home, I grabbed it. I know, I know -- I am a 58-year-old childless man with absolutely no use for a rocking horse, but I just couldn't stand to watch it lie there and deteriorate. I'm thinking we'll turn it into a plant stand, maybe?

Intrusions

When I was shooting pictures in Soho on Sunday, I twice had bicyclists ride into my frame at the moment I snapped the shutter. It's OK -- it's not their fault, after all, just an accident of timing. I guess it gives an accurate impression of how busy the streets were.

I got a flu shot yesterday -- woo hoo! I got it through work, and I wish they offered a Covid booster too but alas they do not. I haven't suffered any ill-effects.

I had a doctor's appointment in the late afternoon, to get a referral letter to see a gastroenterologist again. I am doing my best to get to the bottom of my gut discomfort (and fatigue and related issues). Many of you have given me hints about probiotics and that kind of thing, and I appreciate all the feedback. But I still feel like I need answers about the cause of my elevated levels of inflammation, you know? We shall see.

Then, in the evening, I had a zoom call with a lawyer in the states in my continuing effort to create some kind of will or trust so if I drop dead tomorrow, all my vast wealth (ha!) doesn't get tied up in probate. This is also an ongoing process that I've been working on for months. Dreary, but necessary.

Olga is doing well and went out with her dog-walker yesterday for the first time since her "episode" a week ago. The dog-walker texted me afterwards: "She did pretty well, slow and steady, bless her! No sign of discomfort." She ate well last night, and this morning she's bright-eyed and chipper. So I guess we're back to our routines.

A Soho Photo-Wander

I decided to get out and do some photography yesterday. It wasn't the best day for it, with a flat gray sky and subdued light, but since I'd spent the whole previous day basically on the couch, I had to get my body moving.

I took the tube down to Bond Street and walked through the fancy shopping area, which I may revisit at night once the holiday decorations are all up and lit. I explored a few quiet side streets until I crossed Regent Street into Soho.

I can never resist a self-portrait!

I saw some interesting characters wandering around, including a big bearded man in black palazzo pants with a bejeweled broach on the front of his stylish turban. I also saw a whole busload of guys dressed like Bedouin sheiks in flowing robes and scimitars, and at first I thought they were Middle Eastern tourists -- but I think they were actually part of a film shoot.

This elaborate sidewalk mosaic commemorates John Flaxman, a British sculptor who lived nearby. Wikipedia says he was "a sickly child, high-shouldered, with a head too large for his body." But he apparently overcame his infirmities, had a distinguished career, married and died at 71 in 1826.

I would like to have taken a photo of the whole thing, but it was too big. You can even see it on Google Earth.

I walked over to Covent Garden, passing the obelisk at Seven Dials. I popped into a shop called Magma that had some interesting photography books -- I bought one by Stefano Samà called "People Buying Plants," which he shot over a year at the Columbia Flower Market. It is exactly as the title describes -- pictures of people buying plants, which I thought was a pretty fun idea for a book.

Finally I made my way via St. Giles and Denmark Street back to Soho, where I walked up Carnaby Street. I suppose those big boxy things are holiday decorations, but they remind me more of Skylab. Maybe I have to see them lit to appreciate them.

Otherwise, I did a load of laundry and plowed through a bit more of "Bleak House." Dave and I started two shows last night, a documentary about the Yorkshire Ripper and a drama called "A Confession" on Netflix, and only after watching a couple of episodes did we conclude that we'd seen them both before. We don't really remember them, though, so I think we'll keep watching! Everything old is new again.

Birthday Report

Well, yesterday turned out to be mostly me lying on the couch reading. I tried to catch up on blogs -- I was so busy late last week that I lost track of pretty much everyone's posting -- and I made progress in "Bleak House." I'm up to page 507 (of 880). I had a flash of desperation while I was reading a scene involving Mr. George, Phil, Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet, the shooting gallery and Grandfather Smallweed when I could not figure out what was going on -- who were the Bagnets again? -- but then I read an online synopsis that distilled it simply enough for me to absorb it. Occasionally I need Cliffs Notes.

Olga got antsy around lunchtime and wanted to go for a walk, so I put her on her leash and we ambled up to the corner. This was her first neighborhood walk since her "spells" on Monday night, and though she was a bit unsteady she did well. I think her senses -- sight, hearing or both -- may have been affected by those episodes. She acts like she can't quite perceive certain things in her peripheral vision, for example. But it's hard to tell. She's eating well and gobbling up treats as usual once again.

Last night, Dave took me out for dinner to The George, a pub near Oxford Circus. I snapped that picture of the All Souls Church, backed by the blue-lit BBC headquarters, as we walked from the tube. Dave chose this particular pub because it reportedly had good martinis. I liked them well enough to have three. (They were small -- that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

I had winter squash risotto for dinner; dave had some kind of meat pie. We also had really good rolls, Welsh rarebit croquettes and Dave got a banana split for dessert. How long has it been since you've even seen a banana split? In our case it had been a long time. Anyway, we were happy with the food overall.

We checked on Olga via the remote dog-cam during dinner:

You can see her at the edge of the frame, lying on her bed and looking expectantly toward the door. She's usually up on the couch, on her blanket. (That's not a video, by the way -- just a screen grab from my phone.)

Anyway, that was my birthday, along with the usual plant-watering and vacuuming associated with a weekend. Fun times!

Another Birthday and a Home Movie

I am having one of those mornings, technology-wise. Olga woke me up at 5 a.m. and as it turns out, it's a good thing she did, because I've been doing nothing but wrestling with the computer since then.

Today is my birthday. Woo hoo! I am 58, which my friend Jennifer would describe as my mid-late 50's (as opposed to 57, which was my early-late 50's, or 59, which will be my late-late 50's). Dave has cooked up some kind of birthdayish plan for this evening but I have no idea what it is, other than that it involves a martini. Which is really all I need to know.

(David Schwimmer is also 58 today -- my celebrity birthday mate.)

In celebration, I thought you all might like to see what my very first birthday looked like, back in 1967:

At least, I'm pretty sure that's my first birthday. Don't I look like a one-year-old? And there's only one candle on the cake. (There's no sound, so do not adjust your speakers.) My great-grandmother gave me that stuffed dog and I had it for about 40 years, before it finally disintegrated into a plastic baggie full of sawdust. I don't remember that pink toy at all so it must not have lasted long, but I do have photos of me wearing the green outfit.

That's me with my dad in our backyard, with our first dog, Beans, in the background. My mom always said Beans was crazy.

Anyway, that home movie clip is what put me through techno-hell this morning. Some of you may remember that I had our home movies professionally digitized many years ago, and they were stored on a thumb drive and on CD. I thought, "Oh, I'll just trim the home movies video file in iMovie -- easy as pie."

Except that when I plugged the thumb drive into my computer, it didn't work. It appears to have died. And I had no way to transfer the CD file onto my computer because of course computers no longer come with CD drives (and haven't for about ten years). And apparently, in my great wisdom, I somehow failed to back up the video file on any other device.

I wound up playing the CD on our television and recording it with my phone. Ridiculous! I'm not worried about losing the movies -- I can transfer the file off the CD at work. But what a pain.

Anyway, in other news, I had another crazy busy day yesterday. I got to school about an hour earlier than usual for my interview with the 7th graders -- they seemed fairly uninterested but I tried to be mildly entertaining -- and then had a busy morning. I raced home for lunch to let Olga out, because Dave had an afternoon medical appointment and we didn't think either of us would get home until 5 p.m. or so, which seemed too long to let the dog languish on the couch. As it turns out, Dave got home early from his appointment, so that was all unnecessary, but oh well.

I spent a few minutes in the garden with Olga, trimming dahlias. The foliage has already died back on some of them, so after cutting them back I put them in the shed for winter. I was going to take them out of their pots for storage but maybe I'll just repot them in the spring.

And Olga wanted me to throw her Kong, which is a very good sign that she's feeling better. She carried it out to the garden and dropped it and barked. When I did throw it a short distance she didn't chase it, but hey -- baby steps!

(Photo: The "Beatles Cafe," which is actually called Helter Skelter, at the St. John's Wood tube station.)

The Sound of a Euro

Yesterday was a bear of a day. I mentioned sitting at my desk and reading on Wednesday -- well, let me add that most days are not like that, and yesterday definitely wasn't. We were processing a bunch of new books, and that involved me labeling, stamping and covering them all. I also put up a new display, worked an hour or so in the Lower School and re-shelved a ton of stuff, in addition to staffing the desk.

At home, our change bowl was filling up with coins once again and I wanted to deposit some of them -- the pounds, anyway. Here in the UK, as I've written (and complained) about before, quantities of coins are put into tiny plastic baggies rather than in rolls. Well, I put twenty pound coins into a baggie and took it to Barclay's yesterday afternoon. The teller weighed it as she usually does, and then she set it down on the desk. She picked it up and set it down again.

I thought something was wrong with the weight, so I said, "Did I miscount?"

She said, "No, you've got twenty coins. You're going to think I'm crazy, but they don't sound right."

And with that she opened the bag, thumbed through the coins and extracted a single Euro. A €1 coin is visually almost identical to a £1 coin, particularly when counting money quickly, so it was an honest mistake on my part. I told her I was shocked she could hear a single Euro in a bag of pounds!

"I've been doing this job for far too long," she said, laughing.

(I was reminded of Lucy Van Pelt in "A Charlie Brown Christmas": "Boy, what a sound! How I love to hear that old money clink! That beautiful sound of cold hard cash! That beautiful, beautiful sound! Nickels, nickels, nickels! That beautiful sound of clinking nickels!")

Anyway, fortunately I had another pound in my pocket, so we switched the coins, I made the deposit and got out of there. I wonder who passed off that stray Euro to us. I guess I'll save it for my next trip to the Continent.

I thought of my mom, who used to get annoyed when someone would slip her a Canadian coin because they weren't worth as much as American coins. Now there's someone who took her change seriously.

Here's Manny Two, producing a brand new leaf. He's got a few of them, actually. He appears to be happy in his new home.

And here's a creepy pumpkin that's sitting on the windowsill across the street from our flat. When I posted yesterday, I didn't think of the fact that it was Halloween until after I'd hit publish. So I forgot to include the Halloween photos I've stocked up.

Better late than never!

(There are more, but since it's Nov. 1 I'll only inflict those two on you. You saw the spider last year.)

As usual, we had no trick-or-treaters here. Dave and I sat in the back of the house and watched TV with the porch light off. Bah humbug!

Now I'm off to speak to a seventh grade class. As I understand it, they're interviewing me. Hopefully they're bringing the questions, because I have nothing prepared.