A Sunflower, and Tsarist Photography

Here's our volunteer sunflower in all its blooming glory. It's very small, not much bigger than a field daisy. But it's still a nice addition to our almost-September garden.

Wow, is it nice to have our house back. Chris and Gary were the perfect guests, but there's nothing like being able to sit on the couch with Dave and not "make conversation." Getting back into our routines last night, making dinner and watching TV, felt wonderfully comfortable. That makes it sound like Dave and I don't talk, which isn't true at all, but you know what I mean. Entertaining, as much as I enjoy it from time to time, adds a layer of artifice to home life, doesn't it?

Dave ordered sushi for dinner so he wouldn't have to cook, but I was insistent on eating our leftovers, so I cobbled together one of my peculiar "clean out the fridge" meals -- a fried egg over lentils and vegetables, with a side salad. And watermelon for dessert. I bought a tiny watermelon at Tesco last week that's no bigger than a cantaloupe and it's good -- and practically seedless.

Today, on my way to work, I'm going to take the sheets and towels from our visitors up to the laundry and drop them off. I can pick them up tonight, all clean and folded, and believe me it's totally worth it.

Have you seen today's Google doodle, which honors a Russian photographer named Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky? I'd never heard of him before. He pioneered color photography in Russia during the time of the last Tsars, and I found it fascinating to page through his photos on the web site of the U.S. Library of Congress. (Donald Trump hasn't gotten around to dismantling it yet.) Talk about a window onto another age -- peasant girls in colorful skirts and head scarves, the emir of Bukhara in his embroidered blue silk coat, miners with horses and wagons, a woman from Samarkand in a head-to-toe blue burqa. Click "view all" on the linked page above to browse through the online gallery.