This Way to Disillusionment

I pass this tastefully decorated house in St. John's Wood on my walk home from work. I'm sure I've photographed it in previous years because I remember the deer, but I can't find that picture now. I don't remember the big bow, so maybe that's new. (Or maybe my memory is questionable -- much more likely.)

Another killer of a day at work. The less said the better.

Here's our library Christmas tree, decorated by yours truly. It's a real tree -- you can see the needles on the floor. Not exactly a wildly innovative decorating job, but I'd call it thorough. I wish the colored lights were working. We do have some lights decorating the shelves behind it to the left, as you can see. I suppose in a fit of creative frenzy (which I am unlikely to have) I could wrap those around the tree, but it's hard with the ornaments already on.

My co-worker Staci had to go to the American embassy yesterday to deal with some passport stuff. When she got off the tube at the station, she found arrows directing pedestrians to various locations:

But wait -- what's that sticker on the embassy arrow?

When Staci came back to the office she showed me her photo and we both had a good laugh, and she gave me permission to blog it. The Instagram account basically shows all the locations those stickers have been deployed. Many of Trump's erstwhile followers are beginning to feel this way, it seems. What happens when cults die?

Flat Quirks and a Mutant Camellia

The hideous camellia has a weird, sort of mutant knot of flowers hanging from one of its branches. This is not the time of year for the camellia to bloom. It has no other blossoms. I wonder what triggered these flowers to go for it at this dark, insectless time of year?

I had a crazy day at work yesterday. I had to cover a couple of stacks of new books -- it seemed like 100 volumes, but about 25 is probably a more reasonable estimate. Many of them were novels-in-verse that are going to be used for Middle School classes today, so there was no time to waste. Do you ever read novels-in-verse? In other words, works of fiction that are written in a poetic style but follow a plot? They're not my favorite thing but they're big right now, particularly among books for young people. The cynic in me thinks they're popular because in this era of fragmented attention spans they can be read rather quickly.

Anyway...I also had to inventory the books for those classes and put them on a spreadsheet (my favorite thing!) and today we'll have to manage checking them out. It will be slightly more complicated than checking out normal books but the reasons for that are uninteresting even to me so never mind.

Plus, of course, all my regular daily duties including lots of re-shelving. When I write it all out it doesn't sound like much. Am I being whiny? Maybe.

I also received an unexpected and thoughtful letter from a blog reader, responding to one of my recent posts. I was so surprised that this person took the trouble not only to write me, but to write three pages, print them out and snail-mail them. It shows their level of passion about the subject at hand. Never mind the details but I will write them back once I've had a chance to compose my thoughts.

The other night I was closing our bedroom drapes, as I always do, and clipping them closed with the clothespin that always dangles from one side. We've done this every night for more than a decade because otherwise the drapes gape open slightly. It made me laugh at the persistence of this silly problem, and I got to thinking about the other quirks of living where we do.

There's our bedroom door, which will not stand open unless propped by some object. We use a pot that I made in pottery class about a quarter-century ago. It fits perfectly into that little space between the carpet edge and the door and holds it just right.

And there's the door to "the hole," the closet underneath the stairs going up to the flat owned by the Russians. It sticks because of repeated paint jobs, and it has a ridiculously small knob -- so small that it's impossible to grip, making it impossible to open the door. So we keep a bread knife handy on an adjacent table, to trip the latch and get the door open.

There are other issues -- the bathroom door that won't fully close because it doesn't fit the frame, and won't fully open because there's a radiator in the way; the sink that's too small to be truly usable.

I suppose every house has little oddities like these -- too minor to repair, but not optimally functional?

Colorful Lights at Harvard and Yale

I noticed yesterday while wandering around the garden (between intermittent periods of rain) that the red hellebores are just beginning to bud. Signs of life in a mostly dormant period for plants!

I had another quiet day yesterday, thank goodness. I cleaned in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day mostly on the couch. I finished a good chunk of "Super Sad True Love Story," which I'm really enjoying. I've already mentioned how prescient this book is, envisioning the United States as an authoritarian dystopia -- where the only civilian job opportunities are in security, consumer credit, retail or media -- at war with Venezuela. Well, the dystopia has morphed into a civil conflict, with the government fighting its own people. It sounds dark, and it is, but weirdly the book is also funny.

One line really stood out for me. A Korean-American character writes to her friend: "This country is so stupid. Only spoiled white people could let something so good get so bad."

Dave, meanwhile, conducted the high school band's winter concert yesterday, so he was busy. I often don't attend the winter concert. I usually wait until the final concert of the school year in late spring.

Oh! We made our summer vacation plans for next year. Believe it or not -- and this will surely mark me as the senior citizen I am slowly becoming -- we are going on a cruise. We've booked a trip that takes us through the lake country of northern Italy and then down the Adriatic coast of the Balkans, around to Sicily and up the west coast of the "boot." Dave has never been to Italy and he loves the idea of a cruise, with his hotel room basically following him around. I chose South America a few years ago, so it's his turn. (I've been to Italy but I haven't seen the parts we're visiting, for the most part, so I'm excited too.)

I thought you might like another "holiday lights" video, this one from our neighborhood. Nothing as grand as what we saw in my earlier London lights video, but still nice, with music once again by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Among other things, we see the colored doorway lights of Harvard and Yale Courts, the apartment buildings behind our flat, as well as "snow" paintings on the windows of the veterinary practice where we used to take Olga, and the Christmas tree on West End Green.

A Dark Season

Well, I am getting a late start this morning, aren't I? Dave cooked some short ribs last night and I made a pumpkin pie, and those activities combined generated more dishes than our dishwasher could handle. This morning I had to unpack the first load and start the second before I sat down to blog. I hate having to clean the kitchen when I first wake up.

I passed the doorway above on my way home from work last week. I loved those colored lamps in the entrance hall. At this time of year I notice light fixtures, lit windows and that kind of thing because it's almost always dark. I realized last week that I was leaving home in the dark every morning and returning home after dark every evening. It's kind of bizarre to go a full week without seeing your house in daylight!

I should show you my pumpkin pie:

Pretty fab if I do say so myself! I did not make the crust. It's a roll of shortbread pastry dough that I fitted into the pie pan because, at least in my grocery store if not in all of the UK, ready-made pie shells are apparently unheard of. The staff members I asked looked at me as if I had two heads, wanting such a thing.

I was inspired to make the pie because, as with our recent cranberry sauce encounter, we had an ancient can of pureed pumpkin to use up. If not now, when?

It turned out pretty well, though Dave overdid it on the whipped cream! The black specks in the pie are cloves. The recipe called for ground, and we didn't have any pre-ground so I put whole ones into our spice grinder. What emerged was a bit more gravelly than powdery, but it works.

Also yesterday, I downloaded the wildlife cam. It's been a rainy week, and you can see water droplets on many of the passing animals, if not outright rain coming down. High points include:

-- First, Guy Fox and then Q-Tip pass the camera.
-- At 00:28, we hear that weird sound that I thought was an owl, but now I'm just not sure.
-- At 00:33, weather.
-- At 00:42, a photo-bombing pigeon.
-- Then various foxes mill around, each on his or her own, until 02:16 when Blackie the cat huddles beneath our garden bench.
-- At 03:16, Pale Cat crosses the screen then comes right back the other way, huddling watchfully atop the bench.
-- At 03:52, a wet cat (Tabby, I think).
-- At 03:58, a daytime shot of Q-Tip back by the fence, scratching and preparing to jump over. (Not sure why the camera didn't capture his jump. When do these foxes sleep?)
-- At 04:19, Mystery Cat is back, also looking rather damp.

Holiday Overload

This sleepy fox, cozied up to a mug of tea, adorns the window of the paint-your-own-ceramics shop on the high street. A suitably wintry image! I'm not sure how any of our garden foxes would react to a snazzy star-spangled sweater.

Every so often this studio puts unclaimed or rejected work out on the street for people to take home. I usually don't take any of it but it always disappears, so someone does. I did snag a plate not too long ago, bearing the obviously smudged image of a stick-figure family, because I figured I could put it beneath a houseplant.

Yesterday was madly busy. We had a steady stream of high-school science classes coming through the library, picking out their winter reads. Every year the 10th Grade students read a science-related book over the holiday break and report back to their teachers in January with a review. They also give us a little sign with a condensed version of their review which we can post on the shelf next to the book. It's always amusing to see the kids trying to find the smallest, least-threatening-looking book possible. As far as I can tell, that's pretty much their sole criteria, even though we consistently try to explain that a small book about a boring subject is far harder to read than a big book about an interesting one.

At about 1 p.m., the school Christmas tree (which was supposed to arrive on Tuesday morning) was finally delivered, and it lives in the library. So I had to whip that thing into shape. I tested our two strands of lights, and both worked, so I wrapped the tree in the lights and decked it out with ornaments. Some high schoolers, taking pity on me, asked if they could help, which I thought was very kind. And then I turned on the tree and one of the light strands simply will not come on. I have no idea why.

After all that plus a stint in the Lower School, I was ready to go home -- but no! It was time for our annual faculty/staff holiday party! The library was cleared, food and drink brought in, and I stayed for another hour or so chatting to co-workers and mingling. (Dave cleared out before the party.)

And then I had a Christmas panto to attend last night. This is something the school's faculty/staff LGBTQ+ affinity group does every year -- we go to a bawdy gay panto down by Charing Cross. This year's theme was "Beauty and the Beast" and it was quite fun, as usual. Let's just say my new mug would have fit right in.

After all that, I'm feeling a bit shell-shocked this morning. I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend of staying home and reading!

Luna and Cat

I woke up about 3:30 a.m. and went out to the kitchen for water, and noticed light pouring into the living room from the full moon.

The back garden was lit up as well. Plenty of light for fox photography with the garden cam if they came around last night! We'll know this weekend when I download the images from the cam.

And of course I couldn't let such a gorgeous moon go to waste without getting a proper photo of it!

Blogger Mitchell posted a video a few days ago that brought tears to my eyes (in a good way!) when I watched it last night. Have you ever seen videos by Playing for Change, an organization that virtually unites musicians around the world to perform together? I heard about them 15 years ago, after attending one of their concerts with my blog pal Barbara, who some of you might remember from Blogland. (I haven't spoken to Barbara in years, not since she stopped blogging, but I still see her husband on Facebook.) Anyway, Mitchell found a Playing for Change version of "Peace Train" that features Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens himself as well as many other musicians, and it's very poignant, considering the state of the world today. When I heard that unforgettable voice again it gave me chills. The video is on Mitchell's post here (below the pictures of his adorable cats).

And just for the heck of it, here's a link to my personal favorite Playing for Change video, the Indian folk song "Chanda Mama." Both of these are well worth watching and show that music really does unite us, in the face of all our other differences.

And Vulgar Hilarity Ensued

This woman was in front of me on the escalator as I came home from my Christmas lights expedition on Tuesday night. Someone's been to IKEA!

Now, you know I usually run a family-friendly blog here at Shadows & Light. I try to keep profanity to a minimum, not because I don't use it in real life (I do) but because I'm a believer in being polite. Some people are bothered by four-letter language, and I generally tend to think it's best to try to avoid offending my readers. Or anyone, for that matter.

This is one reason why I'm so mystified by the right-wing's refusal to respect gender identity, for example. If someone says they're a woman or a man, who am I to argue? Isn't it a simple kindness to acknowledge their truth? At a bare minimum, human rights considerations aside, it's the polite thing to do.

And this is one reason I just can't tolerate Donald Trump. He relishes angering people; he draws power from it. A disturbing number of his followers do too. A huge amount of public policy is being made just to "own the libs" and infuriate Democrats. How is that the way to run a country? How is it acceptable to have a leader who declares any segment of the population "garbage"? (Which, by the way, is Nazi-speak in its rawest form.)

So yes, I like to be polite. That ability is part of what makes us human.

But having said all that, I found the funniest thing on my walk to work yesterday morning:

I'm trying to imagine the circumstances that led to this mug being discarded on the street. Was it a gag gift at a "hen do"? Regardless, I sent Dave a picture immediately and we both had a good laugh.

Reader, I kept it.

Probably not something I can use "in polite society," as my mother would have said.