A Baby Bird, and Politics

Here's one of this year's new baby birds -- a starling -- demanding food from its harried parent.

FEED ME! FEED ME! FEED ME!

The funny thing is, the bird feeder is directly below these birds, hanging from that hook. You'd think if the chick could fly to the top and perch there, it could also fly to the feeder itself.

Well, I knuckled under last night and mowed the lawn. I had to rebel against the tyranny of "No-Mow May." As I said the other day, we're keeping about half the lawn unmowed, mostly in the back, so we're doing our part for the insects. But not mowing anything was just getting too out of control, and the slugs and snails were having a field day.

Also, Dave saw what he thought was a rat on the back patio, and we sure don't want that. So we need to beat back the wilderness a bit. (Maybe I need to welcome those cats I complained about yesterday?)

As you can see, there's still plenty of greenery out there. I set that lupine on top of a milk crate to try to keep the slugs away from it. It looks trashy, but hey, I'm from Florida.

(In fact, I found that very milk crate in Florida when I was about 13 years old. I was collecting beer cans with my brother in some woods near our house and it was abandoned there. I brought it home, cleaned it up and I've kept it ever since, through all my moves. For years it was my laundry hamper. Now it's a staircase for slugs!)

Did any of you see Ezra Klein's column in The New York Times about "why Biden is losing"? It's very provocative. The part I found most interesting, as a former newspaper journalist, was this:

In April, NBC News released a national poll breaking the race down by where respondents got their news. Biden led by 49 points among voters who relied on newspapers. He led by 20 points among voters relying on national network news. In the slightly archaic-sounding category of “digital websites,” Biden led by 10 points. If the election were limited to (these) voters... he would win in a landslide. 

But Biden is behind, and here’s why: Among voters who rely on social media, Trump led by four points. Among voters who rely on cable news, Trump led by eight. Voters who get their news from YouTube and Google favor Trump by 16 points. And voters who don’t follow political news at all favor Trump by 26 points.

It shows in stark terms that Trump's supporters tend to be less well-informed, or (to be generous) more distrustful of mainstream media and perhaps media in general. I'm not sure how people who don't follow political news at all could even bring themselves to vote. Perhaps those less-involved voters just won't come to the polls.

Nonetheless, it was a sobering column and one that Biden and his supporters should take seriously. I think the Democrats need a big shake-up before November. What it should be, I'm not sure -- but given the abhorrence of Trump there's no reason this race should be this close. It's an embarrassment, and one the Democrats must remedy.

That Darn Cat

It's ladybug (or ladybird) season again. We saw four of them on our buddleia yesterday, on a military patrol in their bright red uniforms. I guess there must have been some aphids around. More power to the ladybirds!

I was about as lazy as a person could be yesterday. I thought about going for a walk, taking some pictures, but ultimately the garden was so nice I couldn't bring myself to leave. I spent the day reading "Mr. Nobody," and I'm almost finished. I should be at the point of peak suspense, on page 320 of 344 pages, but instead I temporarily ran out of steam. It's an entertaining book but it seems less and less plausible as it goes along. I'll finish it off on my lunch break today.

This was my view from our back garden bench. It was an ideal day, with perfect temperatures. Our teasel forest is growing like mad!

Olga was certainly content to stay home. We walked around the neighborhood in the morning, but when I tried to take her to the cemetery in the afternoon we only got as far as the tree in front of the house before she turned around. She preferred her bed in the sun-dappled yard.

Toward the end of the afternoon I did manage to crank out some chores -- I vacuumed the house and dusted some areas where there was a visible film. I didn't manage to get to the bathrooms. A person can only do so much.

Around 4 a.m. this morning I woke temporarily and heard a cat loudly meowing. I thought it was in our garden -- the garden cam has captured three different cats passing through now and then -- and I don't want cats in our garden because they kill the birds. Particularly at this time of year, when nests and fledglings are vulnerable. So I put on my robe and went out in the garden to chase it away, but couldn't find a cat anywhere. Maybe it was actually in one of the neighbor's gardens. I swear I did not imagine it.

Yesterday morning we found some gray feathers in the grass where there had been an obvious skirmish, so something got eaten. Whether a cat or a fox or a hawk was the culprit, I'm not sure. I don't mind foxes and hawks, and I suppose I would mind cats less if I thought they needed their prey to survive. But they just kill out of instinct and then go home to their Fancy Feast -- pet cats, anyway.

Mr. Russia finished whatever he was doing at the side of the house yesterday. I didn't even look.

Boring Stuff but the Garden is Pretty

Here's the garden at the moment. The roses are blooming, as is the yellow peony, orange azalea and pink campion. The forget-me-nots have passed their peak, and the grass is deliberately shaggy because of "No-Mow May," which is supposed to help insects by allowing them to breed in the unmown grass. I'll mow the front section of the lawn come June, but the back we'll leave alone all summer.

The large leaves of the burdock -- which grew from seed from the plants we had a couple of years ago -- are perfect baskets for fallen azaleas and rose petals.

Here's an interesting discovery. We lost a couple of lupines a year or two ago, and I have long believed that our red Beefeater lupine died and the pink-and-white Rachel de Thame survived. This flower is showing me that I have it exactly backwards -- the Beefeater is the survivor. It would be nice if I could remember what plant is in what pot! Perhaps I should use labels like they do on "Gardener's World."

Yesterday I went out and bought some annuals -- petunias and trailing verbena -- and planted them in hanging baskets for the front porch and back patio. The foxgloves are starting to bloom too. My dahlias are still in a sorry state because of snails, slugs, birds and squirrels -- if we don't start getting some sunnier weather, keeping the snails and slugs at bay, I'm afraid some of them won't successfully sprout at all. As I've said, I'm letting nature take its course.

I also did laundry and read about a third of a novel called "Mr. Nobody" by Catherine Steadman. Dave got a membership to a sort of book club, a gift from a parent, and he doesn't really read for fun so I signed up for it. They choose and send a new book every now and then, based on my stated preferences. I asked for mystery thrillers, basically, and I would never have thought to buy "Mr. Nobody" but I'm enjoying it so far.

The Russians knocked on the door around lunchtime, wanting access to the alley at the side of the house (which is behind a locked gate leading to our garden). They had a new window installed on Friday and Mr. Russia wanted to paint around the frame. I opened the gate, figuring he'd be up on that ladder an hour or so. FOUR HOURS LATER he was still there, and he says he'll have to come back today. I think he's finding all sorts of flaws with the work and you know what a perfectionist he is.

I cut this gigantic rose from the garden. I think it's a Princess Margaret. It smells amazing!

Oh -- I forgot to tell you how inventory worked out in the Lower School library. I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats! After I finished scanning everything on Friday, I went back to try to find the missing books, and I found several of them on the second pass. (Often they've slipped behind the others or they're super-skinny and I just didn't see them the first time.) Ultimately we wound up with 47 missing books, which isn't too terrible out of almost 18,000 -- and I suspect some of those will come back.

So inventory in both libraries is officially done until next spring.

Olga has found a way to simultaneously sit up and lie down. Skills!

Pac-Man and Other Randomness

When I walked to work the other day, I came across several old refrigerators piled in front of a building, waiting to be hauled away. One of them was adorned with these Pac-Man magnets. Who would throw away their Pac-Man magnets, no matter how faded and discolored they are? Now they adorn our refrigerator. (That's the old fridge above -- hence the grime.)

Someone bought some fancy olives. Perhaps they were trying to give them away, which is why they specified that they're still sealed. Even sealed, I'm not sure I'd take food off someone's garden wall -- and I love olives!

I might have taken this, if I had a kid and had any idea what it's for. I think it's just a useful soft-sided box, perhaps for toys? Or maybe a laundry hamper?

I was amused by this card, bearing a historic nickname for gin. Apparently it's a distillery in Walthamstow. In "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," Terence Stamp, as Bernice, memorably requests a drink by saying: "Mother's Ruin pour moi!"

Is there such a thing as the Creativity Party? News to me. They need more creative advertising.

This is an anarchist sticker campaigning against the war in Ukraine (and war in general). In English it says, "Solidarity with deserters, saboteurs and war resisters!" More here.

This laburnum is beginning to bloom nicely on a housing estate in St. John's Wood. Mrs. Kravitz also has a laburnum that is looking good at the moment.

And finally...a discarded chair with a rather fierce-looking dog sticker, on Finchley Road.

Is the dog named Brams? Or maybe it's Bram's dog?

'Opening Night' with Gators

Yesterday was unremarkable until after work, when I went down to Soho to see a show. I had a couple of hours to kill before curtain time, so I revisited this pub on Tottenham Court Road, which I went to 24 years ago on my first trip to London. I wrote in my journal in April 2000: "Ate lunch at a pub called the Jack Horner, where I had a fish & cheese 'pie' (in a bowl) called a 'parson's hat.' Not sure why it's known as a pie, since it was nothing like one!"

I guess I was unfamiliar with the word pie in the British sense...?

Anyway, it was fun to go back. I didn't eat this time. In fact, I didn't even look to see whether they still serve a "parson's hat." I just had a pint and sat reading. It's a good old-fashioned pub with lots of wood and no pretensions of glamor.

Then I walked around for a bit, taking pictures:

Eventually I stopped at Pret for an inexpensive soup and sandwich, and sat in the window reading the first volume of David Sedaris' diaries, "Theft By Finding." I've read it before -- in fact the library copy I'm reading used to be my own -- but none of it stuck with me so it's like new. I laughed out loud at his 1981 description of Jim Bakker: "He looks like a baby monkey. Not just a baby. Not just a monkey."

After Pret I still had an hour to kill, so I read at an outdoor table on Old Compton Street and had a syrupy glass of cheap rosé before making my way to the theater.

I was there to see "Opening Night," Ivo van Hove's new musical based on the John Cassavetes movie from 1977. It hasn't been a commercial success and it's about to close, but I wanted to catch it before it did. It's about an alcoholic actress who's struggling to connect with her character in the days before the opening of a show, and having something of a breakdown exacerbated by the death of a fan outside the theater. Rufus Wainwright wrote the score, and Sheridan Smith does an excellent job as the actress, played by Gena Rowlands in the original movie. I thought it was an interesting, innovative show, but the woman next to me disappeared at intermission so apparently opinions are mixed.

A woman in the row in front of me kept complaining about the man sitting in front of her. She said he was too large and she couldn't see around him, and said something about how "it shouldn't be allowed in the theater, but there you are." She eventually changed seats.

Here's the man:

I don't know if she was upset about his hat or his Florida track suit. He didn't engage with her at all, as far as I could see. I'm not sure he was even aware.

And then, on the way home, this woman was walking in front of me toward the tube:

What are the odds?!

Baby Einstein

This plant is growing down the street from our flat. According to my trusty iPhone, which I just discovered has a built-in plant-identifying feature, it is a Chilean potato vine (Solanum crispum). My "Picture This" plant app identifies it as Solanum laxum, but in any case, it's an ornamental potato of some sort.

Yes! I just learned this about iPhones. If you take a picture of a plant and then look at the photo in your photo album, there's a little leaf icon below it. Hit the icon and the phone tells you what kind of plant it is. Siri, that mastermind!

I spent yesterday morning down in the Lower School working on inventory. I've finished the non-fiction section, which I've found to be missing 39 books. I suspect many are actually there and they either didn't scan correctly or have slid to the back of the shelf, so now I'll make a second pass and look for them.

There were kids all around me while I did this work, tumbling and romping like puppies. One boy ran up to me with a drawing and said, "Can you see the L?" I looked at the page he held up, featuring a sort of octagonal shape with random divisions like a stained glass window, and sure enough there was a letter L in there. Maybe his name starts with L. "Oh yeah!" I said. "Cool!"

This kid had no idea who I was but he didn't care.

They were also full of talk about who "likes" who, and who "has a crush" on who, which I thought was pretty sophisticated for kids no older than fourth grade. One kept talking about how "everything is energy," and about how you, me, his lunch and his toys were all "MC squared." He'd clearly just learned about Einstein. A budding physicist! "Why are you so obsessed with 'MC squared?'" asked one of his friends, perhaps not a budding physicist.

It's so funny to hear little kids talk to each other. The stuff they come up with!

Olga loves this time of year because in the afternoons, the sun shines straight into the living room and warms her on the couch!

An Apple, a Flood

Here's another curious thing I encountered on my excursion into the city on Sunday. I'm not sure if you can see what's going on in this photo, but water was pouring out of the ceiling onto the train platform at the Baker Street tube station. The transport workers had set up some sandbags to catch the spill and direct it down the platform, but it was still quite a mess. I've never seen anything like this before that I can recall. Apparently Thames Water has begun a project to upgrade the Victorian water mains outside the tube station, and I wonder if this leak was somehow related to that work.

So what else has been going on around here?

Well, I tried to see the aurora borealis over the weekend, but I didn't get a hint of anything in the sky over London. Maybe I was out at the wrong time, but I suspect there's actually just too much light pollution. I even tried the point-your-iPhone-at-the-sky trick and it did nothing. I just got gray.

Olga was feeling poorly yesterday and we're not sure why. She wouldn't eat a treat or her dinner, her stomach was gurgling and she was eating a lot of grass. She gets like this sometimes, and we've found that if we can just get a smidgen of food into her, it settles her stomach and her appetite returns in short order. So we got take-out burgers for dinner, and I gave Olga part of my meat patty. She ate it, and sure enough she ate most of her can of food soon afterwards. We'll see how she fares today.*

Apropos of nothing, here's an old photo my dad took of me and my brother at our grandparents' house in Hyattsville, Md. This was probably 1972 or so, which means I would have been five and my brother would have been about two. I'm sitting on the bucket holding up an apple from my grandparents' apple tree. I was reminded of this photo when I opened a frame and found it beneath the photo that was on display. I switched it out so this one is now in the frame. My brother looks puzzled, doesn't he?

*Late addendum: Olga ate normally this morning and walked her regular route, and had a treat afterwards. So she seems OK today!

Purple Hibiscus

And here was my Sunday afternoon adventure: I went to see "Purple Hibiscus," the huge fabric artwork by Ibrahim Mahama at the Barbican.

"Purple Hibiscus" consists of about 2,000 square meters of handwoven cloth made by craftspeople in northern Ghana. The pieces, designed to precisely fit the building's dimensions, are so large that the artist rented out a football stadium so they could be woven and sewn on the field when matches weren't being played. The cloth -- about 20 tons of it -- was then brought to London and wrapped around the Barbican building, Christo-like, overlooking the Lakeside Terrace.

Embroidered into the cloth are about 100 garments called batakaris, which the artist collected from families across northern Ghana. According to the exhibition guide: "These precious textiles, often saved by families over generations, tucked away in wardrobes or stored below beds, carry the imprints of the lives, lineage and power of the figures they once clothed. Worn, degraded and bearing traces of years of use, these smocks are testaments to the endurance of traditional belief systems, and the continued relevance of intergenerational knowledge."

I think it's a fascinating creation and it certainly brightens up the Barbican's normally earthy concrete facade. I was prompted to walk all the way around to the other side of the lake, which I don't think I've ever done before, to see it in its entirety. (Walking to the other side of the lake is more involved than it sounds -- you've basically got to trace a circuitous path around the entire estate.)

I got a cup of coffee and sat out on the sunny terrace, people-watching, before walking to Farringdon station and making my way home again via the Thameslink. A perfect outing for a sunny afternoon!

Lots of Olga

Remember how I erected that barrier to keep Olga out of the teasels? Yeah. It doesn't work very well.

Yesterday was another "cracking day," to use Mr. Kravitz's memorable phrase. The temperatures hit 80º F (or 27º C), our warmest day yet, with bright sunshine and a blue sky. Spectacular!

I spent the morning in the garden, of course, doing more weeding and small tasks. Remember the pathetic canna lily that never prospered? Well, it's dead. It didn't survive the winter. Our big cannas haven't shown themselves yet, either -- I hope they're not dead, but if they are, so be it.

After lunch, Olga and I set out on a very slow walk to the cemetery.

The mystery bulbs that were planted on West End Green have revealed themselves to be some type of alliums, as well as (I think) irises.

Olga, navigating here through a thicket of garlic mustard, seemed to enjoy the walk. She chased her tennis ball...

...and luxuriated in the cool, wet mud...

...and rolled in the high grass.

I noticed another pretty large tree has fallen over the cemetery path. Unlike the cherry, this one did take out a headstone or two. Man erects his petty monuments, and nature turns them to dust.

I haven't seen or heard the turaco yet this year. But I did solve the mystery of the dangling girls. There are, in fact, two of them -- positioned on the same side of the same tree, but far enough away from each other that you don't really see them together, if that makes sense. So my suspicion that someone comes around and switches them out is, in fact, a fantasy. Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation is usually true.

I took Olga back home -- we encountered this smiley little sand-filled balloon on the sidewalk. I think it's one of those squeezy stress balls? Anyway, she got a bath and took a nap while I set out on another adventure, which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

Meteorological Observations from Mr. K

I just discovered something that all you Blogger nerds will appreciate. I've always been troubled by the presence of extraneous html code in my posts -- mainly paragraph tags (a letter P inside brackets) that make the spaces between text and photos too big. I would always write a post and then go back into the html code and remove the paragraph tags. There were always four, two at the very top of the post, above the first photo, and two above the second photo. I have no idea why.

BUT I just discovered that when I start a post, if I hit backspace before I do anything else, it removes that formatting. Voila! No more need to go in and manually take out the tags. What I type is what I get.

This will mean nothing to you if you're not a blogger -- but if you are and you're picky about formatting like I am, it might be useful information.

I got lots done in the garden yesterday. It was an amazing day, weather-wise. Or, as Mr. Kravitz said to me when I ran into him on the street, "Cracking day, isn't it?" (Mr. K is a man of few words so I was impressed that I got anything more than a hello.)

I trimmed and pulled weeds, mainly dock, that cursed scourge. I'm really trying to work with weeds and let some of them be, but if I leave even one dock plant to set seed, we'll have six million of them the following year. And they are almost impossible to pull up, being brittle with a long taproot, and if even a smidgen of the root remains the plant will regrow. From an evolutionary standpoint it's impressive. Dock is a survivor.

I trimmed where one plant was bumping into or smothering another. Like where our big hideous camellia bush was overgrowing and stunting the top of the cardoon. Now the cardoon has space to breathe free and reach for the sky.

How is it possible that we have a hideous camellia, you may ask? Aren't camellias one of the prettiest of flowers?

Well, in many cases, yes. But our camellias are white, and the blossoms turn brown within a day or two of opening. And then they hang on forever, so the overall effect is a bush with brown, dead, saggy flowers. LOADS of them. It has also become way too large for the space. We're seriously thinking of chopping it down, and you know I don't do that kind of thing lightly.

See what I mean? It's also very misshapen, because it was planted too close to the gigantic mock orange behind it, which means the back side is entirely without leaves. (We didn't plant it. It was here when we moved in.)

Anyway, I filled two yard waste bags and the garden still looks wildly overgrown. We like it that way but it's funny how all that work produced little visible change.

Meanwhile, Queen Olga basked in the sun by the back door. Dave pulled out all that fertilizer (at left) because he was going to feed the plants, but then he took a nap and it didn't happen. Maybe today.

I also managed to work through two issues of The New Yorker plus our RHS gardening magazine. Whew! The exertion!

(Top photos: A bee inside our yellow peony, which has TEN buds this year, the first of which has just opened.)

Number Our Days

Can you stand a few more orchid photos? We have two more plants blooming. The yellow-green one above is one of the five orchids I found in a neighbor's yard waste bag last fall -- you may remember I brought them all home and repotted them. One died in short order but the others are still with me, and three of the four have flower stalks, though this is the only one with an actual blossom so far. I think they're all the same color.

And then there's this one, also a rescue. It's bloomed before but I'm always happy to have another round of flowers!

Yesterday I did more inventory in the Lower School. I'm slowly whittling down that tally of 50 missing picture books as I find some of them here and there. I think we're down to 40 now.

My health is still a bit of a mystery. Remember that calprotectin test I took a couple of weeks ago, the one that was high, indicating inflammation in my gut? Well, I took it again, as recommended by my doctor -- and it was still high, though slightly lower than last time -- around 250. (I have no idea whether these variations are significant.) So there's still something going on. I've received confirmation from the NHS that they've taken me off the "28-day pathway" -- a fast track that lets them assess possible cancer cases quickly. So whatever's happening they've concluded it's not that, based on the endoscopy. But I still don't have the CT scan and biopsy results, and though I feel better I'm still feeling weird. I won't rest completely until all the results are in. I'll talk about it all with the doctor when I consult with her again in another month.

Dave and I have nothing planned for this weekend. We're going to get out in the garden and tidy things up a bit -- it's looking a little overgrown and crazy out there right now. I also need to power through my stack of New Yorkers, which is weighing heavily on me.

I read a piece yesterday about a guy who took a Polaroid photo -- only one -- every day for about 20 years, until his untimely death from cancer in the late '90s. His friends have used that body of work as inspiration for a performance piece, and the article mentions Psalm 90, apparently one of the oldest of the psalms and one that reminds us to appreciate life and "number our days" to gain wisdom. Taking a daily Polaroid is a way of numbering days, and it occurred to me that blogging is too. I'm numbering my days here, though the jury's still out on whether I'm accruing wisdom.

Here's Olga, our old girl, sleeping soundly on the couch last night. Both she and her pink blanket are looking pretty tattered. But this morning she's watching me expectantly as I write, waiting for her walk, so I guess I should get that underway. Olga numbers her days in trees sniffed and cats chased -- or at least glared at.

Psychedelic Medicine Cabinet

As I walked to work yesterday morning I passed this bright, colorful object, suspended from an exterior wall outside some shops in South Hampstead. 

Here it is from the other side. It looked like a box, so I checked to see if it opens...

...and it does!

According to a nearby note, it's by artist Jessie Woodward, whose web site features similarly interesting and amazing creations on paper and canvas.

Here's our own wooden box. Remember how the roof slid off our garden shed? Well, the handyman came yesterday and repaired it. We thought he might put a new one on, but no -- he simply re-attached the existing roofing felt and patched the cracks with some kind of sealant. And then he put tape along the seam between the felt and the wall. I have no idea if this is special roofing tape or what, but it doesn't look like a long-term solution. We shall see.

Finally, here's the latest video from our wildlife cam. It's basically two and a half weeks of garden life condensed to two and a half minutes! You'll see a curious robin, a careful cat, a dopey pigeon, lots of fleeting shots of foxes (including a few good long looks in daylight), and finally, a cat with headlight eyes hunting insects in the middle of the night. I can't tell whether the foxes are all the same animal or not. What do you think?