Hunched Cat, Flying Fish

I passed this cat on my walk home last night, sitting in the (garden?) of an apartment building on Finchley Road. It steadfastly refused to look at me, even though I made the pss-pss-pss-pss sound that I learned in Morocco is guaranteed to draw a cat's attention. Maybe it was watching something through that fence. It looks to me like whoever runs that building needs to get a structural engineer in there stat, or at least some competent repair people.

It's chilly this morning, about 40º F. I'd like to mow the lawn this weekend, but we'll see if the weather cooperates. Here's what it looks like at the moment:

Maybe better than that (garden?) in the top photo, but only slightly. I think we'll continue to leave that area at the right unmowed, like we did last year -- there are about 25 teasels growing there which will be interesting in summer. (Not sure how the neighbors will feel about them!) See Olga patrolling her jungle, behind the tree at right?

Dave is back safely from Berlin. He came in about 10 p.m. last night, just in time to fill me in on the high points of his trip before collapsing into bed. Now he's about to go to school to help unload the truck containing the band's equipment and instruments. (Not alone -- there will be plenty of people helping, and in fact Dave still can't lift because of his recent hernia surgery so he'll be mostly pointing and giving directions. When he was released from the hospital he was told not to lift anything heavier than a half-full tea kettle, which we both thought was an amusingly British but strangely ambiguous description.)

Anyway, I've enjoyed my quiet time. Last night before he got home I watched "Condominium," a lengthy TV movie from the early '80s set in Florida that Dave would not enjoy but I consider more cinematic comfort food.

Speaking of nostalgia and Florida, here's the book I'm reading at the moment. Don't you love that cover? It's a young adult book from 1979 that takes place somewhere near Sarasota -- I picked it up in an antique store in Jacksonville last summer. Since the kids in the book are exactly my generation and their parents go through a divorce (like mine did), I thought it might be an interesting read -- and it is. Apparently there's a sequel which I might also buy if I can find a copy online.

My only stumbling block is that the characters talk like no one I ever knew. At one point, one of the girls says: "My mother's in a fantod because she can't find him." And I thought, "What the heck is a fantod?" I have never heard that word before in my life. (Dictionary: "FANTOD: n. informal, North American: a state or attack of uneasiness or unreasonableness.") It seems an unlikely word for a 13-year-old to use, though admittedly this girl wants to be a writer and thus has an impressive vocabulary.

The same character later says: "Well, they seem like normal desires to Amanda, and she hates him for immuring her in his castle." This just seems like trying too hard.

The mother, at one point, says: "I'm not your household helot, and I will not be doled out household expenses." (HELOT: n. A member of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta.) Another word I have never heard.

And the father says of a ringing phone: "Junie, the phone's running over." And the mother replies, "Let it run over. See if I care." This quirky expression is new to me. I wonder if it's a regional thing, though certainly not to Florida. Have any of you ever heard an unanswered phone described as "running over"?

Finally, another girl -- also 13 -- occasionally calls her younger brothers "honey" and even "darling," and that just does not ring true to me. Unless it's meant sarcastically, which it is not.

Anyway, I don't mean to run down the book. In fact, I'm enjoying it a lot, and those 13-year-old characters would be exactly my age now, so I feel a connection to the story, which is also all about growing up amid the birds and sea life of natural Florida. If anything, the peculiar language makes it more interesting.