A Swim, but Not for Me

My fever was pretty much gone yesterday, thank goodness. Whatever I had, it was basically a 24-hour bug. (Some of you asked about a Covid test, and yes, I took one -- and it was negative.)

Still, I felt like a wrung-out washcloth, partly because my appetite isn't quite back. So I stuck with my plan to stay home as Dave set off for Norfolk. Just before he left to catch his train I decided to take Olga for a walk, thinking we'd just circle the block.

Well, Olga had other plans. She took me for a long meander through Hampstead (where we spotted the colorful patio above) and all the way to Hampstead Heath! This dog is full of surprises. It may seem strange that the dog dictates where we walk, but she firmly communicates which way she wants to go, pulling one way and resisting the other. I guess I figure it's her walk, so why not let her decide the route?

She rolled in the Heath's high grass while I admired the bright pink fireweed (aka rosebay willowherb) and the yellow ragwort painting the fields. She then made a beeline for Vale of Heath Pond, where there's a little beach ideal for dogs. It was pretty warm yesterday, and I'm not sure how Olga even knew about this pond, because it's not something we typically passed on our many Heath walks. Maybe she smelled it, or distantly heard the other dogs there. She got right into the water and I could feel her sense of relief. (Incidentally, sorry about all the barking in that video -- that little white dog would not shut up!!)

Could it be that Olga took us all the way to the Heath because she knew she could swim there? Am I attributing too much intelligence to my dog?

Anyway, we didn't stay long on the Heath itself and we took the Overground train home.

I spent the afternoon working on my photo archives -- an endless task, especially if, like me, you have something like 75,000 photos. I keep all of them backed up on hard drives and the better ones on Flickr, as well as many on old-fashioned CDs. I also have Dave's old photos archived (such as they are -- he usually leaves the photography to me). They're all only useful if they're organized.

In the evening I watched "The Towering Inferno," which (like all '70s disaster films) is cinematic comfort food for me. I was raised on those movies and they take me right back to childhood. I love watching all the old Hollywood stars and I still feel the suspense even though I know not only what's going to happen, but most of the dialogue!

I will say, though, that "Inferno" has darker overtones now because of 9/11. When it was made, the specter of a disastrous fire in a supertall building was pretty much theoretical. You see the firefighters doing things like setting up a command station in the lobby and you want to shout, "NO!" And when, near the end, the fire chief warns that some day a high-rise fire could kill thousands -- well, 27 years later, we all lived it, didn't we? (Obviously, 9/11 wasn't just a fire, but still.)

Also, can we talk about the spaceman music headphones that "Bobby Brady" wears in his scene with Jennifer Jones early in the movie?

What the heck are those?! Even to me, a child of the '70s, they're ridiculous.