Pride Flags, a Portrait and Beads

I had some errands to run yesterday, and fortunately they were all the fun kind. Well, first I had to drop that student's AirPods off at school -- I suppose that wasn't too fun. But after that, I headed down to Covent Garden for some shopping!

And there, the Pride flags are flying, as you can see above.

It was antiques day at the Jubilee Market, and I wanted to find some more interesting old snapshots. So I browsed around a bit and found one guy who had this rather intriguing portrait, which I bought for two pounds:

I don't usually go for formal studio portraits, but I like the clarity and detail in this one, as well as the indeterminate ethnicity of the woman.

Here's the back, proclaiming the portrait a product of the Studio of Theodore Waltenberg of Bethnal Green Road.

Anyway, a good start for £2. And then I found a guy with a box full of old pictures and I rummaged through those. As I looked, bent at a rather painful and awkward angle over his too-low tabletop, the proprietor sat behind it and talked to me CONSTANTLY. He kept asking me questions: "What's the main difference, do you think, between Americans and British people?" "Why are there so many guns in America?" And telling me about his travels to Florida because, of course, he'd been there.

Now, I don't mind some friendly banter, but this guy was non-stop, and it was hard to concentrate while being quizzed about NRA policy. I went through all his pictures at lightning speed because I just wanted to get the heck out of there. (Actually, I've found that's a good way to evaluate pictures -- I go on my first impulse. If it doesn't interest me right away, I drop it.) I wound up spending £11 for 25 pictures including a beautiful old 8x10 print of Trafalgar Square, taken some time in the late '60s or early '70s. I'll share some of them tomorrow.

Then I moved on to the Apple Store where I bought my own pair of AirPods. Woo hoo! And they are wonderful. I walked around with them in my ears for the rest of the morning. I've fallen out of the habit of listening to music as I walk, but I really enjoyed it and I can see they will make my daily walks to and from work much more pleasant.

Finally, I went to a bead shop near Hatton Garden, London's jewelry district. I needed some stretchy beading cord, because I had a couple of bead bracelets that had broken and needed repair.

Ta-da! The skull bracelet was made by a friend of mine at the Zendo where I used to practice in New York, back in my Zen days. I bought the big brown glass beads in Singapore. And I got the small ones in Burkina Faso, where they were on a single long strand I later gave to my mom (or was it my stepmother?). Anyway, whoever it was didn't wear them and they eventually came back to me, and yesterday I made them into three separate bracelets.

I don't wear bracelets often but it's nice to have them usable if and when I want to.

I was home by lunchtime, and I spent the afternoon reading blogs and waiting for the delivery of our new microwave oven. Our microwave finally died. It's been sputtering and doing weird things for a while -- it was about 12 years old, and it got daily use. The other day it began running for a microsecond before shutting off again, and its digital display looked like the cover of the "Ghost in the Machine" album by The Police. So we knew it was time for a replacement.

And now it's raining again! There's even thunder! How exciting!