Rain and Chemistry

Rain, glorious rain! We got a long, slow drenching yesterday -- steady rain all morning, followed by a short break and then an afternoon downpour. Both Dave and I commented that the day felt autumnal. It was about 62º F in the afternoon (17º C) and I experienced that first little sensation, on an almost cellular level, of seasonal change. Soon we'll have to haul out the dehumidifier.

The garden is turning a corner, too. As you can see there's still plenty in bloom, but most of the flowers are past their peak. That big teasel by the bird bath has already turned brown. (We're leaving it for the birds, and because it's so sculptural.)

Here's how I spent most of the day -- under a blanket on the couch, with Olga snoozing at my feet and Dave working on his computer (and simultaneously cooking a lasagna).

I read most of that book, "To Battersea Park" by Philip Hensher, which is good but very strange. It's about the Covid lockdowns of 2020-21, and begins as an apparently factual account of the writer's life on his South London street during that time. It eventually broadens into snippets of other (fictional?) people's lives, and then becomes a dystopian tale of two men walking through a lawless, ravaged landscape in Kent -- I suppose taking the pandemic to an imaginary extreme. I'm about to start the fourth part, and we'll see how it all comes together, or if it does.

I have to show you how well our avocado tree is doing! It loves being outside in its bigger pot. It looks positively lush. I'm shopping on Amazon for some large fleece blankets to wrap it up on frosty nights in the winter. It's going to have to stay outside for the first time in its life, and we'll do what we can to pull it through.

I saw in the NYT that Helen Fisher has died. She studied the science of human attraction, was an advisor for Match.com, and developed a test for people seeking mates or companions that was used on Match's sister web site Chemistry.com. Chemistry is where Dave and I met back in 2009 -- we both filled out Helen's test (Dave and I are on a first-name basis with her, at least in our imaginations) and presumably based on an analysis of our answers, the web site prompted us to get in touch with each other. The process is foggy in my memory now, but I remember after we both showed initial interest, we had to work through another series of back-and-forth questions before we were allowed to communicate directly and arrange to meet up. And the rest, as they say, is history. Anyway, for years we told people that we were introduced by Helen Fisher. We were joking, but I suppose on some level it was true. RIP, Helen!