Sidewinder

This is our garden Buddha, which my former co-worker Joanna gave me several years ago. He's been knocked around a bit and his head's been broken off and reattached -- all before we got him -- so I can never take a very good picture of him. He looks like a Buddha from the wrong side of the tracks. But Waterlogue hides his deficiencies nicely.

I suppose in the true spirit of Buddhism I should take him as he is, rather than hold him to my idea of how he should look.

Oga continues to improve. She got up this morning, went outside, explored the garden and came in for a treat. She seems almost normal, except for a sideways tilt of the head and a slightly drunken walk.

Her nystagmus -- the rapidly shifting eyes -- has subsided entirely. We cancelled her walk again today but we might let her go tomorrow if she seems up to it.

See what I mean? Dave called her "Sidewinder" this morning, which made me laugh. He's got a knack for coming up with the perfect nickname.

Remember the mermaid sticker? Well, here are some more stickers from a nearby pole, all across the street from the South Hampstead overground station. The bugs and bear are amusing, but that blue one intrigued me. It looks like the work of the same artist who did the mermaid, doesn't it?

And sure enough, when I looked up that artist's Instagram account, I found a matching image -- someone holding a bouquet of carnivorous flowers. The colors in mine are faded, as they were with the mermaid sticker, so you don't get the full effect of the blood dripping out of the plants' stems. But it's definitely the same picture.

Someone apparently generated stickers of work by this Korean artist, who goes by Kim Sanho, and plastered them on poles in that neighborhood. There are probably others. Don't worry, I won't photograph them all, but I do find the work interesting.

I had a pretty low-key day yesterday. I sat and read "Bleak House" at my desk during down times. I know my boss doesn't love it when I sit and read, but I argue that I'm modeling the behavior we're trying to instill in our students. And several of them did, in fact, ask me what I was reading. They probably thought it would be something hot and trendy! (That is my vibe.)

Recovering Slowly

First things first: an Olga update! She is still unsteady but seemingly improving. She walks with her head tilted to one side, which is funny to see and is apparently very characteristic of vestibular disease. This morning when she woke up she licked my face enthusiastically, as usual, and we did our standard back-scratching, bed-stretching routine. (She gets scratched and stretches, not me.) But she wouldn't stand up or climb down from the bed on her own, so I put her on the floor and she ambled out to her dog bowls, and there she scrabbled around a bit, trying to get her footing. She came out to the living room and laid on the rug, and I brought her the remains of last night's dinner, which she didn't eat in its entirety. She ate more of it this morning.

So, she's eating -- if in smaller amounts -- and she's moving around. She's able to go to the back garden on her own and seems interested in sniffing and exploring as usual. She still drinks water from plant saucers and the bird bath. I cancelled her dog walker again today. I'll try to come home at lunch.

Now she's lying on her bed under her pink blanket watching me type.

I sat with her on the couch yesterday morning and read "Bleak House" before going in to work around 11 a.m. It was kind of nice to have a leisurely morning, though I've course I'd have enjoyed it more in the absence of vestibular disease.

Dave is election-obsessed. Last night, when I paused a TV show to get something from the kitchen, he started playing a speech by Harris on his phone and I actually groaned. And she's my candidate! I told him I just can't stand to hear any of it any more. I can't imagine what the poor people in Pennsylvania and other must-win swing states must be enduring.

(Photos: The steeple of St. Andrew's church on Finchley Road, with some colorful sumac; maple leaves found on a recent walk home from work.)

Falling-Down Dog

Dave and I were watching TV with Olga last night, as we always do after dinner, when Olga suddenly got a wild-eyed look and began squirming around and panting. She got off the couch and began walking in agitated circles in a strange, hunched posture, and fell down a couple of times. It was like her legs weren't working right. We got on the floor with her and tried to keep her calm, and noticed here eyes were rapidly shifting back and forth, as if she were dizzy.

It was scary as hell. We were sure she was having a stroke. She had been a little "off" all day, from falling while climbing the front steps in the morning to being hesitant to eat her dinner. We thought she was just shaky from old age, but maybe something else was going on?

Dave called the 24-hour vet and we were going to take her in, but then, after about ten minutes, she seemed to calm down. We thought putting her in a cab might agitate her again and maybe keeping her calm would be better, so we decided to try to wait through the night and bring her to our regular vet (literally around the corner) in the morning. She went to bed with us as usual.

But then, in the middle of the night, another crisis -- and this one worse than the first. Dizziness, panting, falling down, vomiting. We called the vet again, and this time we got a cab and took her in, at 2:45 a.m. We had to carry her up and down steps and into and out of the car. We both thought it might be the end.

Surprisingly, the vet gave us potentially good news. She said there could be something going on "intracranially" -- in other words, a stroke -- but it could also be vestibular disease, or basically an ear infection. She cleaned Olga's ears, which were filthy (I feel the guilt of a bad parent), gave her an injection to combat nausea and gave her antibiotic ear drops, and sent us home with instructions to use anti-inflammatory medication (as well as continue the drops). So we'll see what happens.

Needless to say, we are both exhausted, though we did get a few hours' sleep after getting home around 4 a.m., £380 poorer. The photo is what Belsize Park looks like at 3:30 in the morning, in case you've ever wondered.

My boss was very kind about this and she suggested I come in late this morning, so that's the plan. I'll stay home with Olga this morning and then Dave will come home in early afternoon. We've cancelled her dog walker.

Museum of Vanished Pottery

This is one of the leaves of our canna lily. At some point during the Spring of Insatiable Slugs (SOIL), when the leaf was young and still tightly rolled up, something burrowed straight through it. When the leaf unfurled, this was the visual effect we were left with. There are actually a few places like this on the plant, where it looks like we took a hole-puncher to it. The pattern looks too neat to be from a slug, but I have no idea what the pest might have been.

Yesterday was pretty quiet. The morning was sunny and mild, so I walked the dog on our long loop around the neighborhood and through the nearby housing estate.

She was very patient with my photography, but you can tell she's thinking about barking.

I also made my way through another 80-something pages of "Bleak House."  At one point I was reading a scene and struggling to keep track of who the characters were and what was going on. I looked at the character list and counted 34 major characters and 23 minor -- Dickens really outdid himself stuffing this book with people! Anyway, I was able to sort out who was who, at least, but some of the relationships are still vague in my mind -- and some are supposed to be unclear, for purposes of the plot.

I'm still not loving it, but I am going to finish this book. As much as I complain about it -- and I am going to complain -- I also want the challenge.

I thought about putting my Botswana photos on Flickr, as I mentioned the other day. I dug out the hard drive and was going through all my old photos and realized that I actually have quite a few that I never put online. I don't necessarily need others to see them, but Flickr is how I view, organize and manage my "archives." (I have more than 40,130 photos on Flickr, including a handful of videos, and I've tagged them and organized them into chronological folders, so when I search for something it usually pops right up.)

Anyway, I didn't start the Botswana photo project, but I did find some interesting stuff, like these pictures of pottery I made back in 2005, during a class I took in New York:

I only have one of these pots now -- the rounded vase in the middle in the last photo. I have no idea where the others are. I'm sure I gave them to friends and family. I remember particularly liking the one on the left in the middle photo -- the beige speckled pot with the green rim.

I wonder when I crossed the 40,000-photos threshold on Flickr? I used to see how many photos I had right at the top of my "photostream," but Flickr has now taken that number away and hidden it in my stats, which I never look at. When I finally got around to it yesterday, I was amused to see that among my top ten most recently viewed photos are those titled Tits, Boner, Busty, Sexes, Desire and Boobs. Gee, what could people be looking for online? (Most of those are graffiti-related, except for Tits, which is a picture of birds.)

Snowflakes and a Massage

I was going to start this post talking about my Sunday lie-in, because my bedside clock says it's 7:45 a.m. and I never sleep that late. But then I realized British Summer Time ended this morning, so the clocks jumped back and it's actually 6:45. A trick of the universe to make me feel slightly less lazy!

Yesterday was a day of domesticity -- three loads of laundry (I had to catch up!), vacuuming, that kind of thing. I know I said I was going to read "Bleak House," and I honestly tried right after lunch, but I could barely keep my eyes open and my mind wasn't on the book. I'll try again today, maybe when I'm not in a post-prandial haze.

Oh, and I got something fun in the mail from blogger Ellen!

No, not taco shells. It was a slim envelope containing two flat pieces of cardboard, which happened to have been taken from an Old El Paso box, taped together. Tucked between them were these:

If you read Ellen's blog, you'll recognize these as crocheted and starched snowflakes made by her sister, Pam. Ellen kindly offered them to blogland pals in a recent post, so I spoke up and she mailed me two. (Looks like the two on the far right in the photo she posted to her own blog.) Thanks, Ellen!

Getting these in the mail prompted another bout of housecleaning. I hung them in a living room window, and I was going to take a photo for the blog, but the glass was filthy -- because, you'll recall, Mr. Russia power-washed the upstairs terrace not long ago. All the dirt and debris from there came raining down on our patio, and the windows looked like someone had held a monster truck rally in our garden.

So I went out with a squeegee and the garden hose and wiped and rinsed all the exterior glass around the patio (some of it, out of reach behind the plants, I just sprayed from afar). It all looks much better now, but the task made me grumpy. (Or, in Russian, сердитый -- pronounced "serdityy.")

To help relax I had a massage in the afternoon. I went to the Thai place on the high street and once again had a very good massage experience, though it was deep-tissue and occasionally it hurt. I always have to tell masseurs to go easy on my calves -- my calf muscles don't like fingers digging into them. She even massaged my jaw muscles, which I also could have done without. But seriously, overall, she did a great job.

(Top photo: Nicole the Nicotiana is still blooming away!)

Medical Stuff and Abandoned Signage

I'm bringing the blog back to London today, where as you can see things are looking very autumnal. It's a good thing I could write a couple of posts looking back at significant trips and memories, because not much has been happening here. Just work and home, work and home. And home hasn't been very interesting because Dave had to work several nights this week -- so it's basically been me on the couch with Olga, watching "The Lincoln Lawyer" and eating a can of baked beans and a fried egg sandwich.

I did go to the hospital on Thursday morning for my blood tests, and they've all come back normal. So whatever is causing my raised calprotectin levels (389 on the last test) isn't affecting my blood counts, kidney or liver function or anything else. Which I suppose is a good thing, but it deepens the mystery. Also, I'm feeling not so great, which may partly be due to anxiety about the calprotectin -- which measures intestinal inflammation -- but could be other things too. My obvious concern, as I've written before, is colon cancer, but it would be very odd (but not impossible) to have cancer only four months after a clear colonoscopy, and a total of three clear colonoscopies in the last eight years.

Now I'm waiting for a consultation with the NHS gastroenterologists, which is supposed to happen after they review my case on Nov. 1. I'm going to call my health insurance company and see if I can speed things up by going private.

Fun, right?!

Anyway, my blood draw on Thursday morning made me slightly late for work, which always throws my boss into a tizzy because since my co-worker's departure at the beginning of the month we're down a person. I took a bus back to work, but the bus pulled over in Belsize Park with instructions for the driver to wait a bit to space out the service. We sat for a while and I was dying for a coffee, so I got off and went to Costa for a take-away cup, and figured I'd catch the next bus.

The next bus was mighty slow in coming, though, so I did what I never do and caught a cab. The driver was so intent on telling me about his upcoming fishing trip to France, where he camps with friends and catches carp out of a stocked pond in Normandy, that he missed the turn to school and we had to turn around. Aside from that little mishap, I can see why people take taxis. It felt positively luxurious and it got me to school much faster than the bus.

When I came home Thursday night I mowed the lawn, which may be the last haircut it gets for the rest of the year.

Now, I'm looking forward to a restful weekend and more "Bleak House," which I have ignored most of this week.

Oh, and remember that water project on our street? Well, the project is done, the workers have gone and they've collected and removed most of their signs -- but look what they left at the bottom of the hill! Honestly! I am not taking responsibility for these. They're far enough away from our house that they can stay there forever, as far as I'm concerned. (And they might.)

More Victoria Falls

Posting that photo from Shutterfly yesterday prompted me to look up more photos from my visit to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, in August 2006. For some reason I never uploaded these photos online, and I should, because right now they all live on a hard drive and they need a backup. Maybe I'll make that a weekend project.

I went to Victoria Falls as part of a trip through South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe with my Peace Corps friend Liz and her friend Jessica. We went with a safari company called Drifters, sleeping nightly in tents and rumbling around the countryside every day in a covered truck with open sides. Except for sleeping and eating, we pretty much lived on that truck, along with a bunch of Italian, Dutch and French people, mostly about our age. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of wildlife -- elephants, giraffes, zebras, antelope of all types, warthogs, wild dogs, you name it.

Victoria Falls came at the end of our camping safari, a rare opportunity to stay in a (modest) hotel in a town with tourist conveniences. As I wrote in my journal at the time, "I have never needed a shower so badly in my life!"

Victoria Falls are on the Zambezi River where it tumbles into a deep gorge along the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Blogger Dana (aka Bug) also visited Victoria Falls when she lived in Zambia back in 1988, almost 20 years before my visit. She posted about it much later and mentioned the ubiquitous rainbows at the falls. We saw them too!

Here I am near the gorge. It is a massive, deep cleft in the earth, and there are no guardrails. You can walk right up to the edge if you're foolish enough.

A highlight of the trip was visiting the colonial-era Victoria Falls Hotel, where as I wrote in a blog post at the time, "you half expect Robert Redford and Meryl Streep to come strolling through the lobby, with all its Rhodesian memorabilia." Yes, I know, "Out of Africa" took place in Kenya -- but it's the same vibe.

We had coffee on that massive veranda and my memories are tainted by the fact that I was incredibly hung over from a party the night before. Despite the beautiful surroundings, I was in agony. I don't think I've had a worse hangover before or since. Something about that African beer!

The hotel is perfectly situated to look up the gorge toward the bridge that crosses into Zambia. You can see the mist from the falls at left, but you can't see the falls themselves because the gorge bends to the left after the bridge. To look up the length of the falls, you have to cross...

...into Zambia, which is said to offer the best overall view. Unfortunately this picture doesn't really capture it because I was shooting into the sun, but you can imagine the Zambezi River, on the right, thundering straight into that gorge.

(I still have that t-shirt, though it's quite ragged now!)

See that pedestrian footbridge behind me to the left? There are people walking right along the cliff on the Zimbabwe side. Again, no guardrails!

And just for fun, here's a photo of me with a chameleon we found while walking through town. I think it was just hanging out on a tree or a bush. We put her/him back after taking his/her picture.

The photo I posted yesterday, of me, Liz and Jessica at the falls, is indeed also one of mine. I haven't looked at any of these in so long!