Drizzly Low-Key Saturday

Despite the damp weather, Olga and I had some adventures yesterday. First I took her for a brief walk in the morning, before French class, and she was obsessed with running around this tiny neighborhood playground. I don't know if she smelled a cat or a fox or someone's cookie crumbs, but she was mesmerized.

Then I went to class, which went well, and while riding the bus home I saw that despite the rain, the tourists were out in profusion at the Abbey Road crosswalk and in front of the recording studios, farther down the street on the left.

In the afternoon I did a bit more garden cleanup. I finally cut back our decrepit wildflowers, and I raked the lawn with our terrible rake, which came with the house. It's plastic and all but about four of the tines have broken off completely. It's not very effective. Still, I managed to collect a bagful of leaves.

While most of our flowers have died back, our cardoon has just bloomed. Cardoon, you may remember, is the same plant that we ate last Christmas (or tried to). It's much more pleasing as a garden flower, related to both the artichoke and the thistle.

In the afternoon, I took Olga to Fortune Green and the cemetery, and I'll spare you the pictures because I'm feeling a little self-conscious about the number of headstones I depict on my blog! But we had fun. She wore herself out and slept all evening while Dave and I watched "The Thin Man," which I've been meaning to show him for ages. The quippy Nick and Nora Charles are never tiring. Dave has kind of a mental block when it comes to old movies, though, and I'm not sure he enjoyed it as much as I did. (As Dave will readily tell you, a good movie -- to him -- must include ray guns or photon torpedoes.)