Easter

Dave is planning to cook up a storm today for our Easter dinner. He had an elaborate menu planned featuring squid, scallops and some other foods that he was ultimately unable to find at our grocery store (having lost them to earlier customers during the Easter rush). So we're having lamb instead. I always feel guilty eating lamb, because I picture, well, lambs.

As I mentioned the other day, our friends Marilyn and Jason are here from the states, and we've been showing them around town a bit. Last night we went down to the Thames to show them Parliament, Westminster Cathedral and the London Eye after dark. Today we'll mostly just eat, I think!

I was about to write that we don't really celebrate Easter in the Christian sense. But maybe that's not quite true. Obviously, and most literally, Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. But it also marks rebirth, new life, and reawakening in the natural and spiritual worlds -- all of which I feel quite comfortable celebrating.

So happy Easter, everybody!

(Photo: An eggshell (robin?) and catkin beneath a tree in Shoreditch, March 26.)

Petals

Spring is winding down already for the magnolias, most of which have shed their blossoms. I noticed the other day that the petals perfectly preserve the footprints of those who step on them -- so you see fallen petals with zigzags and spots and other sneaker patterns.




Our freezing weather never really materialized. The weather forecast called for temperatures to get down to about 30 degrees last night, but when I woke at dawn, the thermometer was hovering around 43 degrees. Quite a difference! Maybe out in the countryside things got chillier.

Visitors

We're getting our first overnight visitors today, our friends Marilyn and Jason from New Jersey. They cared for Ernie and Ruby for three months last summer while we got settled in London, and in return we pledged to fly them over for a visit. Dave and I are going to meet them at the airport at 9 a.m. They're staying for a week, though they'll be in a hotel their last few days.

We have a perfectly good guest bedroom, though it is equipped with an extra-firm mattress that Dave hates. Hopefully Marilyn and Jason aren't opposed to a firm mattress. Otherwise they may be in that hotel faster than we planned!

This starts a steady stream of visitors -- my friend Pam is coming in late April, my friend Ann's daughter Sarah is coming in early June, Dave's parents are here in July and August, and our friend Adam is visiting in August too. Plus we've got those bloody Olympics to contend with. (No, we're not going. Dave and I aren't sports people. In fact, we're thinking about getting out of town. If we owned our apartment we'd rent it out!)

(Photo: Sunrise from our bedroom window, looking eastward toward the apartment towers of Westbourne Green. It's clear and cold this morning, though I don't think it got cold enough to freeze, as was forecast.)

Scars

I read an article in a recent issue of The New Yorker in which the writer described his scars and their sources, with the overall idea that our scars illustrate our lives -- our adventures and, of course, misadventures.

I thought about my own scars, and what they show. Surprisingly, though, for a 45-year-old man, I just don't have that many.

I have one on my chin from a bicycle accident when I was in middle school. As I recall, I was riding behind my brother and my front wheel sideswiped his rear one, which sent me flying chin-first into the asphalt. It was a nasty wound that left me with a bright red spot on my chin in my school photo that year.

A few years later I buried a pencil lead in my right wrist while running to my friend Kevin's car, carrying a high-school science project. That's not quite a scar, though -- more like an inadvertent tattoo.

On the front of my right calf I got a serious road-burn while bicycling in the early '90s. I was looking down rather than watching where I was going, and I hit a curb and went flying. I remember being so dazed that I rode all the way home -- a distance of a few miles -- before realizing I'd left my keys and some other possessions back at the accident scene. I had to ride back with my bloody leg and pick them up. (Fortunately they were still there.)

I have a few spots from a childhood case of the chicken pox. I have the same smallpox vaccination scar carried by a million other babies born in the '60s. (At least, I used to, but at the moment I can't seem to find it and I realize I haven't really seen it in years.)

That's about all. I have been very fortunate (so far) in not collecting more scars. I haven't had any surgeries, any broken bones, any dramatic mishaps with kitchen appliances or power tools. (I seldom use either one!) I've never even required stitches. Does my lack of interesting scars imply that I haven't lived to the fullest? Do I need to take more risks?

(Photo: Lamps on this very photogenic shop.)

Spock's Brain

When we had our recent dinner party with Liz, Sally and their families, we wound up in a conversation about the worst Star Trek episodes of all time. (I'm talking the original series here, which is really all I know.) Sally's husband, who knows his Trek, voted for "Spock's Brain," from the third season, wherein Spock's brain is stolen by an alien race to power their civilization and Kirk has to get it back.

Apparently this opinion is widely shared. "Spock's Brain" is regarded by many fans as the worst episode of the entire series. William Shatner agreed, according to Wikipedia, and Leonard Nimoy said he frequently felt embarrassed during the filming.

I didn't remember much about "Spock's Brain," so Dave and I watched it yesterday. (Yes, I have all of the original Star Trek on DVD.) And I must say, it's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. It is pretty absurd how Spock has surgery severe enough to both remove and re-install his brain, and yet never shows a single scratch or incision -- and, in fact, keeps all his hair. And when his brain communicates telepathically to Kirk, it speaks with Spock's voice -- which makes no sense, since his vocal cords were surely left behind in his body. And why does his brainless body make clicking sounds when it moves?

Anyway, aside from all that, it's not so bad. It's actually kind of camp.

My personal vote for worst episode might go to "A Piece of the Action," when the Enterprise visits a planet full of beings who think they're mobsters. I always hated this episode, even as a kid -- and even though it never appears in lists of the worst episodes. Part of what makes it so bad is its sheer mediocrity.

Do you have a least favorite episode from Star Trek's original series?

(Photo: Setting up a market stall on Portobello Road.)

Practice

Last night we went to dinner with one of Dave's coworkers, Lorraine. She had just come from a weekend retreat led by Buddhist monk and writer Thich Nhat Hanh, and she was brimming with the new awareness that comes after three days of practice. She talked for more than half an hour about the workshop, which was geared toward teachers and youth workers, and all the things she'd heard that impressed her. You could hear a new quality of mindfulness in her voice and see it in her face.

Being the killjoy that I am, I told her it would all pass. And really, it always does. Whenever you leave a retreat you feel so permeated with calmness, and then you have to go to the grocery store or sit down to pay bills and that calmness begins to seep away. But for me, that's part of the lesson of retreats -- the return to the real world. Re-entry. Impermanence.

Anyway, I began thinking about my own practice. I haven't been sitting at all lately. I went to the local Buddhist center once, back in January, and despite the fact that it's within walking distance I haven't returned. I always think, "Well, I'll go later this week," and then there's always a reason I "can't." I haven't even been doing any reading about the dharma. I suppose at this point I have genuinely lapsed.

I don't mean to be a dilettante. I want to practice meaningfully. So my goal for the coming week is to sit a little, to get back to the Buddhist center at least once, and maybe to find one or two new dharma books to read here and there.

(Photo: Spring blossoms in Notting Hill.)

Friday in the Park

This was the scene in Kensington Gardens on Friday afternoon, when I took my book and a thermos of coffee to the park and sat beneath a tree. It's a good thing I took advantage of our recent warm weather for lots of outdoor time. Apparently it's supposed to get cold again. Our iPhones are telling us it will be 32 degrees on Wednesday night! I'll have to bring the plants inside!

Yesterday I went to lunch with our neighbors across the hall, Chris and Linda, at our local gastropub (i.e. a pub with better-than-standard food). We talked a bit about the loss of their adult daughter five years ago to epilepsy, an experience they discuss in this video for the organization Epilepsy Bereaved. (I'm sure they wouldn't mind me publicizing the link, as they're very interested in raising awareness of this condition.) I can't imagine how agonizing that experience must have been for them. But we also chatted about far more pleasant topics, and overall it was a nice lunch.

Dave has been feeling under the weather this weekend, so we pretty much stayed in and watched movies: "Aliens," "Alien 3," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Leaving Las Vegas." I hadn't seen the latter since its theater release in 1996, and I was once again impressed with Elisabeth Shue. What ever happened to her, anyway?