Burnets

Thanks for all the advice yesterday about my forehead swelling. I don't think it's an infection or anything -- there's no fever or redness or tenderness. It's just facial puffiness. I now look like this.

Seriously, I expect it to subside on its own in a few days. I read online (where the information is always reliable) that swelling is at its worst two to four days after a procedure. So I'm almost at the point where it should begin waning, but if it sticks around I'll go to the doctor. And if I have to travel with it, so be it.

As long as the airline doesn't make me pay for an extra carry-on.

Olga and I went back to the cemetery yesterday, giving me a chance to check out the butterfly garden. (Which in fact isn't a garden so much as an unmowed corner of the cemetery, full of wildflowers.) We found these six-spot burnet moths fluttering around, feasting on the thistles and knapweed. They have a red underwing, and when they fly, they look vividly red and black. Aren't they beautiful? One of my favorite summer critters.

There's a community festival in West Hampstead this weekend, at Fortune Green. Olga didn't understand why I wouldn't play Kong with her there, even though there were about 100 people milling around in the small park! Food stalls, tables of bric-a-brac, costumes, charities. After we came back home we'd occasionally hear snippets of songs from the festival's live bands drifting in through our living room windows -- "Back in the USSR" was one tune I recognized.