Hephzibah

Here's another shot of our Brugmansia, still blooming up a storm despite (or maybe because of) ever-chillier outdoor temperatures. It's 47º F out there this morning (8.3º C) which is pretty darn cold for a tropical flower. This is another plant I'll eventually have to bring inside, though where I'll put it I have no idea.

Yesterday, by afternoon, it was warm enough for the bees to come out and gather pollen from the Michaelmas daisies.

I took the dog to the cemetery in the afternoon. On the way, we passed a woman in a black handkerchief skirt, walking with a little girl. The girl was eating an ice cream cone, and the woman -- with one earbud in her ear -- was singing "I Only Have Eyes for You" loudly enough that I heard her from the next block. I wondered if she meant the song for the little girl, who seemed unconcerned.

I was intrigued by this headstone for the Esdaile family, including wife Hephzibah. Now there's a name you don't see much anymore. Some "old lady" names have come back in fashion, but I'm not sure I've ever run into a modern Hephzibah. She married John, a church rector, and lived to be 80, dying in 1886. The stone also mentions two sons, Channing and James.

You can't walk through a cemetery, especially if you pay attention to headstones, without musing a bit on mortality. I know nothing about the Esdailes so I don't mean this as a commentary about them specifically, but for some reason I thought of Pete Seeger's song "From Way Up Here":

From way up here
The earth is very small
They shouldn't fight at all

Down there upon that little sphere
Their time is short

A life is just a day
You'd think they'd find a way
You'd think they'd get along

And fill their sunlit days with song

I'm a Spider Taxi

It's looking awfully autumnal out there. I moved our coleus plant (a rescue from a trash bin at the cemetery) to the front porch, the better to show off its colorful leaves. It replaces the Chinese lantern, which is not looking so great. Apparently my killing streak with those plants is continuing.

More of the same yesterday. I read in the morning and took the dog for a long walk in the afternoon, as usual. Before we set out, I pulled an old hoodie of Dave's from the back of the bedroom door -- where it's been hanging for years -- and put it on, thinking I'd try to wear it more. It's one he got from the Shanghai American School, way back when we went to China, and I think he wore it about twice since then.

Anyway, I noticed that it really needed to be laundered first, so I took it off, put on another sweatshirt and headed out into the street. I got a few blocks from home when I began feeling like people were looking at me strangely. I glanced down and realized I had a HUGE spider on my shoulder! It must have been living in the Shanghai shirt, and somehow stayed on me when I switched to the cleaner garment. I brushed it off onto the lid of a rubbish bin by the side of Finchley Road, where it was no doubt confused by its change of circumstances. (Can spiders feel confusion?) I feel a little guilty about displacing it from its comfortable home, but it couldn't ride on me. Then again, I guess being left on a rubbish bin is better than drowning in a washing machine.

You'd think someone would have said, "Excuse me, but do you realize you have a HUGE spider on your shoulder?" But no -- not in the city, where the urban rule is one of non-engagement.

At one point, on Hendon Road, Bailey and I walked beneath a gigantic fig tree, dropping its ripe fruit to splatter on the pavement. I reached up and picked one -- not easy, as I couldn't reach most of them -- and brought it home. It was ruby red and quite tasty. I wish I owned that tree -- I'd be out there harvesting every day. (Our own fig tree had figs for the first time this year, but none of them reached ripeness, thanks to the dry summer and/or the squirrels.)

I also found a couple of hard rubber dog toys, being discarded along with a dog crate by the side of the road. I brought the toys home, ran them through the dishwasher to kill any contagion and gave them to Bailey.

She's gnawing on that big blue one as we speak.

Dave is gone most of today for a jazz festival at school. More dog-walking for me!

Walking, Plants and the Death Penalty

Lots of walking yesterday! I was feeling a bit sedentary after sitting around all day Wednesday, so while Bailey went on her dog walk with Josh, I went out on my own and listened to my podcast. It seems a little silly to pay someone to walk the dog when I'm going to be walking too, but I can't really have AirPods in my ears and walk the dog at the same time. I took my old route down toward school, as if I was walking to work, and it felt good to get my blood moving.

On the way back I found a tall IKEA barstool set out with the trash, and I grabbed it thinking it might make a good plant stand. I brought it home and cleaned it up, and indeed it will work to hold a plant somewhere. I'm always in search of things to elevate plants nearer to windows, particularly in the winter when there's so little light.

I brought the rubber trees inside for the winter and elevated the Thanksgiving/Christmas cacti into a place where they'll get better light and visibility. They're already forming buds, so we should have flowers soon!

I also began Anne Hull's memoir about growing up in Central Florida, "Through the Groves." I am loving this book so far. It describes life in rural Florida in pretty much the same years that I was a child there, and though I was several counties away from Hull (who was living in Sebring at the time) our experiences were not dissimilar.

Then, in the afternoon, I took Bailey for a long walk around the Thameslink station (above) and up into Cricklewood. I think we both enjoyed stretching our legs on such a bright, sunny day.

I've been in touch with the charity where we adopted Bailey to get a referral for a trainer. The woman who runs the charity told me that Bailey came to them after she was dropped off at a vet's office in Hendon, just north of us, by someone who said they found her. I think it's funny that she's practically back in her old neighborhood -- Hendon is very close by.

Found this on our walk through Cricklewood. What woman could resist such a heartfelt, carefully composed proposal?

A couple of news articles have rankled me in recent days.

First, there was President Trump, saying: "I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could have done very, very bad things to Joe Biden. I could have done very bad things to Barack Hussein Obama. I thought it was inappropriate to do so because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect...I view the presidency as a very sacred position, a very sacred position, very important, very sacred, a position where it has to be treated properly...You can’t treat the presidency with disrespect. And again, I’ve had my shot and still do at Biden, at Hillary Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, and I’ve had plenty of people say, ‘Let’s go get ’em,’ and I said, ‘No, you can’t do that to the presidency.’”

And what all that blather really means is, "I got nuthin'."

Second, there's the attempted execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee. All executions are appalling in a supposedly civilized society, but Pike's was especially so -- and if there's a better argument for the barbaric nature of the death penalty, I'm not sure what it is. All the authorities have managed to do is torture and gravely injure her, perhaps permanently. And yes, I know Pike tortured and killed her own victim back in 1995, but as the famous saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. Trump and his followers have shown a special bloodthirst for the death penalty, now pledging to execute a mass shooter in Texas by firing squad while live-streaming the event for all to see. What could possibly be the public purpose of such a display, and who would watch it? This isn't justice. It's death as a public spectacle -- and it turns my stomach.

A Hatful of Rain

The weather was dreadful yesterday. We got 7.4 mm of rain, which is more than we've had on any other single day in months -- and though I'm thrilled to get the rain, I didn't want to be out in it! Josh the dog-walker took Bailey out in the morning and she needed a thorough toweling when she came home.

Also, nighttime temperatures have plunged into the 40s F, so that's pretty darn chilly. The trees are beginning to take on a yellowish cast and suddenly it's looking and feeling very autumnal out there.

All this is a long way of saying that I stayed inside most of the day. I had plenty to do -- more laundry, more reading. I also moved the Rhipsalis or bird's-foot cactus back indoors after giving it several weeks outside. I need to move the two remaining rubber plants back indoors as well.

In the afternoon, prompted by news of the death of Eva Marie Saint, I watched the 1957 movie "A Hatful of Rain," which I'd heard about for years but never seen. It's the story of a Korean War veteran on the Lower East Side who gets hooked on morphine, and how that affects his family. Not exactly an uplifting story, but well done, and Saint was good in it alongside Don Murray as the troubled addict and Anthony Franciosa as his brother.

Is there anything better than an old movie on a rainy afternoon? I don't think so.

Finally, after the rain stopped, I went to the doctor. I have a rough spot on my lower lip that needs attention from a dermatologist. I think it's just a keratosis, of which I have many on my head from sun exposure over the years, but they do need treatment because they can morph into skin cancer. I've never had a keratosis on my lip before so it will be interesting to see how they treat it. My dad used to get them frozen off periodically, but in the UK they prescribe a sort of slow-acting ointment that needs to be applied for weeks -- not really a workable solution for a spot on one's lip.

I also asked the doctor about my squirrel scratches, and he confirmed there's no need to do anything except make sure they don't get infected. No rabies shots for me! This summer, while on vacation in Massachusetts, my friend Sue woke up in a bedroom with a bat, and though she had no apparent scratches or bites she had to go through a course of rabies shots just in case. (Apparently close contact with a bat almost always warrants rabies shots.) I'm glad I don't have to deal with that.

Afterwards I walked Bailey and came across both the rusty metal fence in the top photo and the passionflower above.

We also found these old advertising posters flapping from a wall on Finchley Road. People go around putting up these posters in the spring and summer, mainly, and then somehow fail to ever take them down again.

After dinner, Bailey was in a very playful mood, bringing me toy after toy. She gets like that after she eats. Food seems to immediately rev up her energy levels.

Up to now she's mostly ignored Olga's old Kong toys. Bailey typically prefers toys she can pull on, like bits of rope or her dog blankets. But last night she began gnawing on one of the Kongs and seemed quite infatuated with it. Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

A Cemetery Serenade

This photo is from the Black Path along the railroad tracks, where I walked Bailey yesterday when she should have been getting spayed. Yes, once again, we've had to delay her surgery because she's still in "false pregnancy." Can you believe it? The vet said it can take three to four months following her "season" for that to end. We got her at the end of July, and supposedly she'd been in heat not long before that, although I'm fuzzy on exactly when. At any rate, it's apparently still too soon for spaying.

Honestly, I wonder whether we should spay her at all. We're not going to let her mate with any other dogs, so the likelihood of puppies is pretty much nil. I suppose it might help tone down her behavior, and will also lessen any urge she might have to escape. (God forbid!)

Anyway, we had a good walk. Then I came home and did a bunch of stuff around the house, involving cleaning and plants and blogs and whatnot. I'm still catching up from my time away.

In the afternoon I took Bailey back to the cemetery, where we encountered the women who hang out next to their car and blast music. This time it was "Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On," by Daniel O'Donnell. They seem to like their Irish crooners!

I made this video so you could experience what it's like to walk Bailey on her long lead accompanied by a musical soundtrack. As you can imagine, it's not easy to deal with the 10 meters of lead and a squirrel-obsessed dog while also recording a video! You'll see the women and their car in the background -- one of them was feeding pigeons -- and you can also hear kids playing sports on a nearby athletic field, on the other side of the cemetery wall.

And then we had some real excitement. We rounded a corner and saw a squirrel sitting in the middle of the path, about three feet on either side from two clumps of trees. I knew Bailey would bolt for it, but she was on her lead and the squirrel had easy cover within reach, so I thought, "Why not?!"

Bailey shot after the squirrel, and the stupid thing -- in the blind panic characteristic of all squirrel activity -- ran not at either clump of trees but at ME. It flew up one of my legs! I was so startled I shook it off, which of course put it at peril of being eaten, so it flew up my other leg. Once again I shook it off and it ran, Bailey hot on its tail, and all might have ended disastrously if I hadn't pulled back on the lead. The squirrel bounded across the grass and up a tree.

I have scratches on my legs from the panicked squirrel's claws. (I was wearing shorts!) This led me to research my beliefs that squirrels don't carry rabies and also that there's no rabies in the UK, and both beliefs appear to be true, so at least that's something I don't need to worry about.

Serves me right for using that squirrel as a dog toy.

Skirmish on the Porch

Well, I was a bit of a zombie yesterday, but I managed to keep myself moving and to stay awake. Dave did a pretty good job keeping up with things while I was gone, watering the plants and doing the laundry, but I still found plenty of jobs to tackle on my own.

I vacuumed and took care of some fading plants in the garden. I cut down the cosmos (almost dead) and some of the dahlias, which are yellowing and covered with powdery mildew. Soon they'll all go back in the shed for another winter. (That's assuming they'll fit -- I divided several of them when I repotted them in the spring, so we have even more now!)

One plant that isn't fading -- at least, not yet -- is the Brugmansia, which has exploded in another flush of flowers. These look a little paler, perhaps because the plant is getting less sun. But they're still impressive.

In the afternoon I walked the dog on Sumatra Road, and found that a new building has gone up in the gap where an old house collapsed several years ago. The site has been shrouded in scaffolding and tarps for a long time, so this is the first I've seen of the replacement. It seems to fit in well architecturally, but you can tell it's new.

We had some unfortunate excitement last night when I was talking to our upstairs neighbor on the front porch as she was preparing to take her dog, Wally, for a walk. Our door was open, and Bailey shot out of the house and jumped on Wally. There was a skirmish, with growling and yelping, and while no dogs were hurt, I was horribly embarrassed. I know better than to leave the door open and I know how Bailey reacts to other canines, so it was my fault. We really do need to get her some behavioral help. As Dave said, "She's damaged!" I think she believed Wally was on her territory and didn't like it.

The neighbor took Wally to the vet to make sure he was OK, and he is, thank goodness. They've been great about it. We offered to pay the vet bill but they said it was a small amount -- they even came down to say hello to Bailey afterwards, to make sure she and I were OK. Ironically I was the only injury -- my right hand got hurt as I separated the dogs, and this morning it's quite sore.

Bailey is going to be even more damaged after today, when I take her to be spayed. For the next ten days or so we'll be treating her with kid gloves.

Cake at the Airport

Here's my obligatory photo of Phoebe, the flamingo sculpture at the heart of the Tampa airport. I didn't try very hard with that picture -- I was sitting down and literally just turned around and snapped. But then I thought I should give it a bit more effort, so I got this:

That black smudge reflected in the silvery ceiling is me.

I was at the airport well ahead of time, to turn in my rental car -- always a relief -- and to have a leisurely coffee after navigating security. When I got to the gate I was surprised to see some of the Tampa gate agents set up a table complete with balloons and cake. That was followed by an announcement recognizing the 41-year relationship between the Gatwick flight crews and Tampa airport staff. I asked around, and it turns out that British Airways is ending its direct flights to Tampa from Gatwick on the 24th, and the following day they will move to Heathrow (which apparently involves staffing them with a different crew, for reasons I don't understand). I take these Gatwick flights all the time, but I can't say I'm sorry about the change -- Heathrow would be more convenient for me.

Apparently the Tampa airport is hosting several events like this one to say goodbye to all the Gatwick crews. Once they'd all had their cake, the passengers were offered slices too -- so I got some free cake. It wasn't bad, though it had that commercial frosting that can be a little cloying. (Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?)

The flight itself was uneventful. I watched "Against All Odds," which I happened to have downloaded on my computer, and plowed through a couple of New Yorkers. It was the emptiest flight I've ever taken from Tampa, I think. I got to stretch out across four seats for some shut-eye.

Oh, before I left Tampa, I went to Shelly's diner down the street from my stepsister's, where I found this car in the parking lot. I can only think of one person fitting that description. (The side windows said, incongruously, "Go Knicks.")

And Dave sent me this picture of Bailey, which cracks me up. When I got home this morning she wasn't yet back from her walk, and when the walker dropped her off about 15 minutes later she was out of her mind with excitement. She tackled me like a linebacker. I felt very appreciated!

The Murano glass owl vase that I bought in Avon Park made the journey safely and is now on the windowsill in our dining room.

I'm going to do my best to stay awake all day, but we'll see!