Fox, Unfazed

Yesterday morning Olga and I were sitting on the couch when she suddenly leaped up and ran to the back door, on red alert. She stood on her back legs, paws on the glass, watching intently. I looked outside and saw this fox trotting nonchalantly across the garden.

The fox could see us through the glass but it didn't seem too concerned. It eventually headed back towards the "wilderness area" at the back of the garden, and I waited plenty of time after it disappeared before letting the dog out.

Nature in the big city!

My main task yesterday was to take a patch of dead ivy off the front of the house. The ivy had been growing there since we moved in nine years ago, but several months back Mr. Russia cut it off at the base to discourage it from climbing up the wall. It died, leaving an unsightly brown snarl. I gave it time to dry out, so it would be easier to remove, and then yesterday put up a ladder and painstakingly scraped it off the brickwork.

I'm a little paranoid because when I pulled down the dead vines, they took some paint chips off the upper floor of the house, and I'm afraid when the Russians see that they'll go ballistic. And no one wants ballistic Russians! I did my best to be careful. The front of the house could stand to be painted anyway. It hasn't been painted the whole time we've lived here.

We are having very balmy weather, with temperatures in the mid-50's F (about 13º C). I worked outside in shorts and a sweatshirt. The daffodils and snowdrops are coming up already, and nighttime temperatures aren't projected to dip below 41º F (5º C) for the next two weeks.

Oh, and Plumber No. 2 did come to fix the leaking pipe upstairs, and we never saw him -- so I guess he didn't need access to our flat after all, despite what Mrs. Russia said.

Here's our cambria orchid, Nelly Isler Red Velvet, in full bloom on the kitchen windowsill. A nice surprise in the dead of winter.

Last night we watched "White Noise" on Netflix, a movie by Noah Baumbach with Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig. I'm not sure what to think about it. The dialogue felt stilted and weird, which may be because it was apparently taken almost word-for-word from Don DeLillo's 1984 novel. It centered on a professor in a small college town whose family must evacuate when a nearby train crash creates a "toxic airborne event," and the learn-as-you-go nature of that emergency seemed to presage Covid -- at least in my mind. It was also an exploration of media and misinformation. Overall I found it intriguing and then tiring. It seemed long. The end credits were fantastic, though, and possibly the best part of the whole film.