Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'

When I took this photo about two weeks ago, the bees were all over the blooming yellow ragwort. But now the ragwort is mostly spent, like the teasels, the bees seem to be fewer and the temperatures are dropping. It's 57º F this morning (13.8º C).

I think I've managed to rein in some of the spam in my e-mail. I went on a massive "unsubscribe" binge yesterday and this morning I only had nine e-mails, five of which were from Kamala. So that seems like an improvement. I've always been skeptical of the "unsubscribe" function -- isn't it worse to let spammers know there's a human being receiving their communications? But it does seem to work, at least temporarily.

Work has been a bear this week. Lots of library orientations, returned books and other excitement. I've had very little downtime. Also, one of my co-workers is leaving at the end of September, so we'll have one person less on the team and that will keep me busy as well. When she departs, I'll be the senior person in the library in terms of longevity, which is hard to believe. This is my 12th year working there -- in fact, I have a picture on my desk of me with some first-graders, taken in 2013 when I worked with them on an interviewing project, and those kids are high school seniors now! Mind-blowing!

Yesterday I heard a new (to me) right-wing conspiracy theory -- that Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, is Fidel Castro's son. Apparently Trump pushes this idea in his new book so it's making waves in the media now. I can understand why people might perceive a passing resemblance, but I also see the resemblance between Justin and Pierre Trudeau. Plus the timeline isn't quite right. The Associated Press firmly debunked the rumor back in 2018. (Apparently it's been around for a while.)

I find Trump's argument pretty amusing: "Castro had good hair, the 'father' didn't, Justin has good hair, and has become a Communist just like Castro." Setting aside for a moment the validity of his last statement, it's hilarious that Trump seems to think Communism is a genetic trait, passed down from one generation to the next.

(Credit to the Steve Miller Band for the post title.)

A Message on the Mat

Here's Olga, surveying our new doormat. I've wanted one of these mats ever since I saw one more than ten years ago during a tour of Trellick Tower. It lived in my memory and when our own doormat finally died I seized the opportunity to search one out on Amazon. I imagine religious proselytizers, leaflet distributors and the Russians will not be deterred.

When it was delivered yesterday, I wasn't home yet and got a text on my phone. At first I thought, "I have to get home before someone steals this package!" But then I figured, it's a doormat. It's going to live on the front steps anyway. So I took my time.

I open and clean out my e-mail every day, and I was amazed this morning to find 61 e-mails waiting for me, delivered within the last 24 hours. All but six of them were spam. I am getting deluged with requests for money from the Democratic party -- like, literally, eight or ten every day. I'm all for the Democrats but that seems excessive. Cool it, Kamala!

Benny and the Pyromaniac

The graffiti on the sushi shop has a "Scream" motif, well in advance of Halloween. I guess whoever wrote it is trying to get us in the mood.

Remember how I filed a maintenance request for the trimming of our front garden? Well, I also wrote to the landlords, just to give them a heads-up about that request and a few others for minor repairs. The landlord wrote back thanking me for the update but questioning whether the garden fell under our responsibility, as the lease dictates that the tenants do garden maintenance.

Now, ever since we moved in I've been under the impression that our landlord maintains the front garden while we do the back (which is most of the work, obviously). I don't know where I got this idea -- I think it was from the previous tenant, a woman who also taught at our school. The landlord has trimmed it without question a couple of times in the past, when we've asked.

But when I paged through our lease I couldn't find any clause pertaining to the front garden -- so maybe he's right. Maybe it IS our job. There's a clause that says the landlord must maintain the "exterior" of the house, and it could be that the front garden is considered part of the exterior, but anyway it's up in the air and I think we're waiting to see what the management company says. I would have trimmed it long ago if I'd thought we were supposed to.

I found this poster on my walk to work yesterday. Poor Benny! I looked him up online and it turns out he was swiped from his owner's car in a Tesco parking lot in Tring, a town in suburban Hertfordshire, FOUR YEARS AGO! Why the poster has just gone up now, in West Hampstead of all places, I'm not sure. Maybe Benny's owners figured a stolen Pomeranian was likely to surface in a place where well-off people have posh little dogs, as is true for some of our neighbors. (We, on the other hand, have Olga, the bulldozer.)

I also found this intriguing construction set out on the sidewalk. I assume it's a homemade dollhouse, but it amused me because it made me think of my childhood. My dad used to burn his own household trash -- he didn't like putting it out at the street. Several times when he had an empty box, we begged him to give it to us and we turned it into a house -- we cut windows in it and made furniture and hung paper towels at the windows for curtains, that kind of thing. And then we burned it down.

(I say "we" did this, but I honestly can't remember how involved my younger siblings were. I think it was mainly me and my stepbrother, who was my exact age -- probably 10 or 11.)

My father was disturbed enough by our enthusiasm that he pulled me aside and talked to me about it. I assured him we were just playing and we'd never set anything important on fire, which was completely true.

Later, as a newspaper reporter, I did a story about the fact that many pre-teen boys go through a period of fascination with fire. Apparently this has something to do with testosterone and psycho-sexual development blah blah blah, and this is why boys often manage to set dangerous fires. Fortunately, in our case, our blazes were confined to single boxes on our basketball court.

Rebelling Against the Hygienist

We're having a staff and faculty art show at school in September, and I was asked to submit a photo. I thought it might be interesting to do something different from my normal shopfronts and miscellaneous street scenes, so I submitted the one above. I took it out the airplane window over Florianópolis, Brazil. I called it "Sky, Land and Sea," because the reason it's interesting -- to me, anyway -- is that it's hard to tell where one begins and another ends. The ambiguity is the essence of the picture.

But yesterday I went to the art classroom to print it for the show, and on the big computer I began seeing little imperfections that I didn't like, and plus it's just so monochromatically BLUE, that I began having doubts. I postponed printing to do a bit more editing, but later this week I'll print it and we'll see how well it turns out. If it looks too murky or otherwise unappealing I may pivot to the woman in the turquoise dress.

That was my nightstand last night. See? You really can take a picture of anything.

My dentist's appointment yesterday went so-so. The hygienist said I had some gum inflammation and hounded me about not doing my interdental brushing every day. (The bugaboo used to be flossing; now it's interdental brushing.) I admitted that I got out of the habit when Dave and I went to South America. But then she asked to see me again in three months and I said no. There is no reason on this planet that I should have to get my teeth cleaned that frequently. I brush every day without fail and my teeth have always been healthy. I used work as an excuse and said I just couldn't miss that much time, and that I'd be back in six months as usual.

Last night we had Olga's follow-up visit with the vet. Her teeth are apparently coming along well and we've been told she can have Dentastix again, which has thrilled her to no end.

I also popped into the high street bookstore and bought the new Thom Gunn biography, which looks interesting. I had a gift card that my co-workers gave me at the end of the last school year that I hadn't yet used, so that paid for most of it. They didn't have the book in stock but they ordered it and I should have it within a day or two. It's fine. I'm still occupied with Barbra.

On the sidewalk in West Hampstead (click to enlarge)

The high school kids are all back in the library -- including the gigantic pack of boisterous boys who are my nemeses. They are now in 11th Grade, and they informed me yesterday that they've moved on from playing "Brawl Stars" because it's "too childish." They appear to be playing some other game on their phones, though, so the boisterousness is not about to abate. Joy!

Doormat

I barely left the house yesterday so we didn't have much excitement around here. I continued my campaign to get some things done that have been nagging at me for a while -- I ordered fleece coverings for the avocado tree, as well as a new doormat. I swept our front porch yesterday and beat the doormat against a wall to clean it, and realized halfway through my beating that all the stuff falling out of the doormat wasn't dirt but bits of the mat itself. When I looked at it in my hand, it was in tatters. As Bullwinkle used to say: "Don't know my own strength!"

I think we've had that doormat since we moved in ten years ago, and perhaps it was already here even then. It's not surprising that we need a replacement.

Along with the plant coverings I ordered four more of those metal plant stands I bought earlier this summer. They've worked really well for the dahlias, discouraging slugs and keeping the grass alive beneath the pots on the lawn:

We have some other plants out on the grass and now I can elevate those too.

Isn't that exciting?! Dear God. This is the worst blog post in history. Sorry.

I finally started reading Barbra Streisand's autobiography, which you may recall I bought last spring (for an appalling £35) and then gave to our library. It's going to take me a while to plow through. I'm on page 59 of 966! At least it's light, easy reading. She seems energetic, inquisitive and -- by her own admission -- perhaps slightly annoying. I like her ability to laugh at herself, something that you'd think a show business diva might not readily do.

Now, I'm off to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned. And tonight, we're taking Olga back to the vet for a routine checkup following her dental surgery. It's a toothsome kind of day.

Heath Dog

Yesterday, after completing miscellaneous household tasks -- like trimming the garden, lugging two huge newly delivered bags of garden compost from the foyer to the garden shed, and repotting the spider plant that one of Dave's students gave him -- we got ambitious. We decided to take Olga to Hampstead Heath.

I don't think I've been to the Heath with Olga since last February, because it's a long way for her these days. But we could take the train and walk slowly, and that's what we did -- and she managed just fine.

We found some tedious-looking old books set out on someone's garden wall. I told Dave they looked like the bookshelf of Ross from "Friends" (who was supposedly a nerdy paleontologist, even though he obviously went to the gym about five times a week). Surprisingly, two of them were gone when we passed again a few hours later.

We walked up Parliament Hill, where I insisted on taking a family selfie. After all, it's not often I have both Dave and Olga with me. I said, "We have to prove we were all here!" Dave said, "Who do we have to prove it to?" "Ourselves!" I replied.

We walked down the far side of Parliament Hill to the ponds, where we found a wading spot for Olga the water-dog. Then we made our way back to the train.

Yesterday was the first day of the Notting Hill Carnival, which is always a spectacle, attracting something like a million spectators to the streets of Notting Hill in West London. We didn't go, obviously -- we saw enough when we lived above the parade route -- but we could faintly hear the distant music even on the Heath. I detected snippets of sound in our garden, too. The carnival continues today.

Yesterday morning I finished "To Battersea Park." The last part proved as enigmatic as the first three parts, blurring the line between fact and fiction, the pedestrian and the fantastic -- but the writer, Philip Hensher, included a passage that I think explained everything:

A sentence from a novel: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to see the ice. The novel and the art it embodied, both in those who wrote them and those who read them, was an interlacing of the truth and the invented. What happened passed before the eyes, and it was drab, monosyllabic, solipsistic, inadequate once transcribed; what might have happened stretched out limitlessly, rooted in and always returning to what had been seen.

The nod to Gabriel Garcia Marquez acknowledges Hensher's debt to magical realism. That "interlacing of the truth and the invented" definitely captures the spirit of the book. I liked it a lot.

Finally, last night, Dave and I sorted out our Christmas plans. We were toying with going back to Pevensey Bay, where we spent last Christmas, but "our" cabin wasn't available that week and besides, Pevensey is a bit far with the dog and the pebbly beach is not easy on her feet. So we opted instead for Whitstable, which is closer to London and has a sandy shore. We found a waterfront cabin that looks very colorful and promising and we're excited to try someplace new!

Rain and Chemistry

Rain, glorious rain! We got a long, slow drenching yesterday -- steady rain all morning, followed by a short break and then an afternoon downpour. Both Dave and I commented that the day felt autumnal. It was about 62º F in the afternoon (17º C) and I experienced that first little sensation, on an almost cellular level, of seasonal change. Soon we'll have to haul out the dehumidifier.

The garden is turning a corner, too. As you can see there's still plenty in bloom, but most of the flowers are past their peak. That big teasel by the bird bath has already turned brown. (We're leaving it for the birds, and because it's so sculptural.)

Here's how I spent most of the day -- under a blanket on the couch, with Olga snoozing at my feet and Dave working on his computer (and simultaneously cooking a lasagna).

I read most of that book, "To Battersea Park" by Philip Hensher, which is good but very strange. It's about the Covid lockdowns of 2020-21, and begins as an apparently factual account of the writer's life on his South London street during that time. It eventually broadens into snippets of other (fictional?) people's lives, and then becomes a dystopian tale of two men walking through a lawless, ravaged landscape in Kent -- I suppose taking the pandemic to an imaginary extreme. I'm about to start the fourth part, and we'll see how it all comes together, or if it does.

I have to show you how well our avocado tree is doing! It loves being outside in its bigger pot. It looks positively lush. I'm shopping on Amazon for some large fleece blankets to wrap it up on frosty nights in the winter. It's going to have to stay outside for the first time in its life, and we'll do what we can to pull it through.

I saw in the NYT that Helen Fisher has died. She studied the science of human attraction, was an advisor for Match.com, and developed a test for people seeking mates or companions that was used on Match's sister web site Chemistry.com. Chemistry is where Dave and I met back in 2009 -- we both filled out Helen's test (Dave and I are on a first-name basis with her, at least in our imaginations) and presumably based on an analysis of our answers, the web site prompted us to get in touch with each other. The process is foggy in my memory now, but I remember after we both showed initial interest, we had to work through another series of back-and-forth questions before we were allowed to communicate directly and arrange to meet up. And the rest, as they say, is history. Anyway, for years we told people that we were introduced by Helen Fisher. We were joking, but I suppose on some level it was true. RIP, Helen!

Reason to Celebrate

Well, I managed not to spill my coffee this morning (yet), so perhaps that's a sign that the weekend is off to a good start. Dave is still not feeling great but so far I have escaped his plague. Fingers crossed!

This has been a bear of a week. Getting ready for a new school year is always intense, with lots of meetings, required training updates, and getting everything organized, but this year has seemed busier than usual. I guess I really got into the not-working habit this summer. I woke up yesterday morning and thought, "I have to go to work AGAIN?!"

Fortunately the garden is taking care of itself today -- we're getting some rain as I write -- and I'm pretty well caught up on household chores. So I think today will be fairly leisurely and hopefully I can get back to reading. (I am so behind in blogland!) By the way, I did pick up those two books I mentioned yesterday from the free library in the psychedelic medicine cabinet. So now my reading stack is even taller!

I found someone's little Pride flag earring on the sidewalk while walking home last night. At first I was going to keep it, but then I thought they might come looking for it, so I set it on a low wall next to the sidewalk. If it's still there on Monday I'll bring it home to add to my bowls of curiosities.

Oh -- we got a new toilet yesterday. Reason to celebrate, right? Woo hoo! Our old one had a persistent leak that the plumbers just could not fix. We had to keep plastic containers on the floor behind the bowl to catch dripping water from the tank. I could have lived with it, but let's be honest -- for the rent we're paying we shouldn't have to keep plastic containers on the floor. Long story short, the landlords agreed, and the installation went well. So far, no water. Fingers crossed again!

Morning Calamity

Dog treats at our vet's office

Well, my day is already off to a challenging start. I managed to spill about half a cup of coffee in the bed while getting ready to write this post, necessitating an emergency cleanup. (Olga is literally unmoved.) Also, Dave is sick and staying home from work for a second day, and the apartment maintenance people are replacing our leaky toilet later this afternoon. WAY too much going on.

At least I can take all the bedclothes to the laundromat on my way to work.

Dave does not have Covid, fortunately, but he is, in his words, "a fountain of phlegm." I suppose it's inevitable that I will also become said fountain at some point, but it hasn't happened yet. He's been sitting up for hours watching the Democratic National Convention and all the ensuing talking-head analysis. I'll read about it today but I don't need to see it in real time. Sounds like Kamala knocked it out of the park, which is great.

I noticed on my walk home from work a couple of days ago that the psychedelic medicine cabinet has become a little free library. Maybe that was the intention all along. It needs another shelf, don't you think? I see a copy of Iain Sinclair's "Ghost Milk" and David Grann's "The Wager" -- I might grab those if they're still there when I pass again this morning.

And on that note, I need to strip the bed, take a shower and get myself to work.

Projects

Here's another Joan Tubbs picture -- this is a bogbean, or Menyanthes trifoliata. I'm posting it because I've finally finished Joan's online photo gallery. It's here. I picked up the last batch of scanned slides yesterday and spent an hour or two in the evening editing, uploading and annotating them, and now I am done. 

This turned into a much larger and more challenging (and expensive!) photo preservation effort than I originally intended, but c'est la vie. I hope she'd be pleased with the result.

This was my other evening project -- taming, or at least partially taming, the teasel jungle. I cut down several of the big teasels and mowed the surrounding grass. Apparently August is the time to mow long grass, because insects have mostly done their thing and the grass can then regenerate before winter. Or so Monty Don says on "Gardener's World" on the BBC.

I must say, while doing all that work I found very little evidence of active insect life. I think whatever may have been living in that grass earlier in the season has moved on. I left some teasels for the bees but those will also come down in a few weeks. We'll leave the ones on the right, in the flowerbed, so they can go to seed and feed the birds over winter.

I got quite a surprise this morning when I opened the kitchen cabinet to put away some dishes and the door fell off! Apparently the screw in the top hinge popped out. This happened once before and I was able to fix it, but this time I didn't catch the falling door in time and the weight bent the lower hinge. So I'll have to file a maintenance request with the management company.

Unless we just leave it like that. It doesn't look too bad, does it? But then the landlords will probably charge us for damage when we move out.

It's always something.

Salad Days

I came across this proposal for some social engineering while walking home from work. This guy's graffiti is everywhere and it's often some form of political or social commentary. At least he (I'm almost sure it's a he) is thinking about things and not just tagging.

I spent all day yesterday working on a project for one of the librarians, making a list of all the fiction books of which we have at least two copies. She's hoping it will be useful when kids want to read a book in tandem, in what we call a "reading partnership," but they wound up being huge lists (871 titles for 5/6 grade, 570-something for 7/8 grade) so I think it's almost too much information. Anyway, it took me two days but it's done now. Today is going to be mostly meetings, I think.

Oh, and in the school lunchroom, I took some pictures specifically with blogger Mr. Pudding in mind:

Yes, those are his son Ian's "Bosh!" books, prominently on display. I'm not sure we're eating "Bosh!" recipes but the cafeteria always has at least one vegetarian or vegan option at the hot food counter, so they're thinking along those lines. Some days we have entirely vegetarian fare -- such a change from my own school experience, when our choices were this meat or that meat, though we did at least get vegetables on the side. And in high school we had an all-you-can-eat salad bar, which was considered the height of trendiness in the early '80s, even though I'm sure it was just iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a couple of other unremarkable odds and ends.

When I was a junior I used to abuse that salad bar -- my friend Lisa would get a salad and the two of us would eat it, and then I'd spend my lunch money on candy bars. (Which someone in the school was usually selling as a fundraiser for some club or other.) No one ever said anything to us, if they even noticed. The funny thing is, I don't remember having any kind of internal moral debate about whether this was appropriate (or in fact stealing, which I suppose it was). When you're in high school it's more about "can I get away with this?" than "is this the right thing to do?"

Adventures in Canine Dentistry

Yesterday had a lot of moving parts. I had to drop off the dog for her surgery, drop off my last batch of slides for scanning, get my glasses fixed, arrange a delivery of gardening compost and, oh yeah, go to work and make a living. We had our all-school meeting opening the school year and we're trying to get the library displays set up so there's something on our shelves when the kids show up next week. Lots going on!

I'm sure you're wondering how Olga is doing. Her dental surgery went well. On the way to the vet to pick her up last night, Dave asked, "How many teeth do you think the vet removed?"

"Oh, I think probably just the one -- the incisor," I said.

But we had given the vet license to remove more if she felt it was needed, and sure enough, she surprised us by saying she'd removed EIGHT! I was alarmed that Olga might have trouble chewing or would be unable to continue eating Dentastix, her favorite treats. But the vet said no, she'll be fine as soon as she heals. The vet got out a model of a dog's mouth and showed me the teeth she took out, and aside from the big incisor they were mostly small incidental nubs. Olga still has most of her chewing teeth on the sides and some grabbing teeth in the front. (Dogs have a lot of teeth, it turns out.)

Here she is after we brought her home yesterday evening:

She was still a little stoned from the anaesthesia, I think. Believe it or not, she was very happy and quite animated when we picked her up, but the moment she got home she lowered her defenses and went to sleep. And she's still pretty much sleeping.

Here she is right next to me as I write.

I think we're going to cancel her walk today. Dave may come home and take her out at midday.

Otherwise, I got that compost delivered and I repotted the lawyer's plant (above) as well as our yellow lily. A couple of hogweed seedlings grew in the lily pot and I didn't want to leave them to take over, so I've separated them and if they survive I'll plant them out in the garden next spring. (Again, this is not invasive giant hogweed -- this is the native variety.)

And now, off to work again!

(Top photo: A rose petal and blooming teasels in the garden.)

Old Boots

One of the crystals hanging in our living room window was throwing some dramatic prisms Saturday evening.

Yesterday was a day of catching up on household tasks -- laundry, plant care, that kind of thing. I did start my newest book, "To Battersea Park" by Philip Hensher, a sort of meditation on living in lockdown-era London. It's interesting so far, but I'm only about 40 pages in.

I took Olga to the cemetery in the afternoon, where there was...

...mud-bathing, as well as rolling in the grass. And if not tennis-ball chasing, then at least tennis-ball carrying. She seemed a little stiff, and we only walked the back part of the cemetery before coming home -- so about half our normal cemetery route.

We found a pair of boots, each in their own black plastic bag. I didn't touch them in case they were worn in commission of a crime, which for some reason was my first thought. Maybe I've been watching too many true crime shows on Netflix.

Speaking of which, we've been watching a show called "Manifest" on Netflix. You've probably heard of it. It's silly but entertaining. Anyway, Netflix has seasons 1, 2 and 4 available, but not season 3. For that I had to go to Amazon Prime and buy it, which I dutifully did, only to find that as with several of my recent Amazon video purchases or rentals, it will not display properly on our TV. We only get half the picture. For some reason, this only happens with some Amazon content, and it happens with no other service.

I've twiddled around with our settings and whatnot but the only way I've found to resolve it is to pull up the show on my computer and connect the computer to the television with a cable -- in other words, stream it on the computer rather than on the TV itself. It's damned annoying and if there were any way to contact someone in customer service at Amazon I'd give them a piece of my mind. We're paying for Prime, for goodness sakes! I don't like the expectation that I have to sort out and correct these bugs.

The starlings were going mad on the bird feeder this weekend. I know I've shown you videos like this before but they never cease to amaze me. Such a racket!

Picasso and Ronald McDonald

Olga and I found a Picasso on our afternoon walk yesterday, propped against the bins where the Deliveroo drivers sit and wait for orders from nearby restaurants. That's his famous sketch of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, from 1955. Finding a priceless artwork isn't something that happens all the time, but still, we left it for the next enterprising trash-picker.

(We did once find a Canaletto discarded against a wall, but we left that one behind too. Apparently we don't know how to answer the door when opportunity knocks.)

I spent most of yesterday morning immersed in Joan Tubbs' slides. I went through all the binders and loose slides that I brought home on Wednesday and came up with about 20 more images to scan, and then I am done with this project.

Olga spent the morning sunning herself in the garden. Doesn't our Thalictrum look nice? Like a big fluffy pink cloud.

I can't resist another shot of Nicole the Nicotiana. She's a big girl!

And our Kniphofia, or red-hot poker, has sent up several flower spikes.

Last night Dave and I were watching something on TV where that included footage of Ronald McDonald, the erstwhile McDonald's clown. (Is he still a symbol of McDonald's? Seems like I don't see him much these days.) It reminded me that as a small child in Tampa, I used to tune in to the television on Sunday mornings to watch Ronald McDonald read the Sunday comics. I told Dave about this and he'd never heard of such a thing, but I was sure I remembered it correctly. I got online and indeed found a blog post by another guy who grew up in Tampa and remembers that same phenomenon. It must have been a very local TV offering, but it was great because we could follow along in our own newspapers, and I'm sure it helped us all learn to read. (In addition to providing publicity for McDonald's and the Tampa Tribune!) Anyway, that's a funny, obscure memory from the darkest recesses of my childhood brain.

Incisors, Part 2

Remember the flowery yarn sculpture I posted yesterday, atop the post box in St. John's Wood? When I walked by yesterday morning it was gone. That didn't last long.

We're having a bit of drama with Olga's teeth. First, a bit of backstory: You may remember that a couple of years ago, we were going to have Olga's incisors removed -- those long pointy canine teeth in the upper front. They were both damaged and one had become infected and swollen. But when the vet took it out she found what she believed to be cancerous tissue beneath, so we didn't get the second tooth removed. It appeared more stable and we thought Olga was on her last legs, so why bother?

It turned out, though, that Olga didn't have cancer. And now, her second incisor has become a problem. This week she once again developed the swollen snout that told us something was wrong the first time around. Dave took her to the vet a few days ago and apparently it is indeed infected, and she needs another extraction. So that's going to happen this Monday.

Meanwhile she got some antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory, and her snout is pretty much back to normal. She's bouncing around and eating as usual, gnawing on her Kong as if nothing's wrong. But I'm sure she is in pain so I think we have to do this. I'm a little concerned about putting her under because of her age, but she's pretty healthy and her heart has always been strong.

(Yesterday, while walking Olga on the nearby housing estate, I saw the caretaker sweeping the pavements. He's watched me walk Olga through there for a decade now. "How old is your dog?" he asked somewhat incredulously. "Yeah, I know, she just seems to go on forever," I said.)

The vet's also going to look at her other teeth. I hope they don't take more out, because Olga loves chewy treats and toys and I think she would really miss not being able to gnaw. But I guess there is that possibility. Ironically, she eats Dentastix -- which are supposed to keep a dog's teeth clean and healthy -- like there's no tomorrow.

Want to hear another audacious plant rescue story?

When I walk Olga in the morning, we often pass a lawyer's office on Finchley Road. Around the beginning of July, I think, the lawyers moved to a new location, and the office was left vacant -- just some furniture and one lone houseplant by the front door. I noticed this plant and every time I'd walk the dog I'd peer through the glass and watch it getting more and more wilted. There's nothing more depressing than a plant that's been left behind in a vacant building.

So I e-mailed the attorneys and said, "Hey, I'd be willing to adopt this plant if you don't want it." I honestly didn't think it very likely I'd hear back, but I had to try, just to soothe my own conscience. Surprisingly, though, one of them wrote me and said they'd leave the plant outside the office at 3:30 on Friday. So Dave and I went by yesterday afternoon on our way home from work and happened to catch the lawyer there, and I collected the plant.

As you can see, it was in pretty sad shape -- wilted but also very leggy. There are actually two plants in that very ugly pot -- a Dracaena and something else. ("Oh, good, another Dracaena," said Dave. We have five of them now.) I cut back the wilted plant quite a bit, figuring it might recover better if it has less foliage to support.

Here's how it looks now, next to the rescued ficus tree and the rescued rubber plant. I'll repot it in a normal flowerpot as soon as I get some more compost. The plant hospital is thriving!

(Top photo: A street scene in Kensal Rise, earlier this week.)

A Fossil, Street Poetry and Yarn Art

It's been a long time since I've done a random photo post -- not since June, I think! So here's a collection of stuff I've photographed over the last several weeks.

First, when we ate at The Ledbury almost a month ago, we were intrigued to find this sitting on the table. It's a fossilized chunk of a giant tree fern (Osmundacaulis) that lived during the Jurassic period. Looking around the restaurant we realized that every table was decorated with a fossil of some type. It was an interesting change from the normal vase of flowers! (Though I think we had flowers too.)

Olga was tempted to get her jam on during a recent walk, but that guitar, sadly, looked beyond playing.

Words to live by!

St. John's Wood has some really impressive hanging baskets decorating the streets.

While Dave was in Indiana, I took the opportunity to have an '80s film festival of sorts, watching a series of movies including "Less Than Zero," "Some Kind of Wonderful" and some Miami Vice. I also watched William Friedkin's "To Live and Die in L.A.," which somehow I had never seen. The image above is a shot of our TV screen at a transitional moment in the movie that I especially liked. I don't know who should get the credit for that effect, the cinematographer or the designer of that plaza, but it works!

Street poetry on Mill Lane. In case you have trouble reading it, it says:

Where the forest meets the sea
My baby waits for me. Amber waters
Pine and Sand. Acid friendship
Take my hand. P-T

Also on Mill Lane, another panel of the Mill Lane Bridge, painted by Alex, age 8. Looks like he's taking out the recycling? I think some of the panels on the bridge may have been redone. It looks like it's been freshened up since I last saw it.

Here's something I've never seen before. Would you pay £10 to sit in a room with other people and hum?

Finally, someone's put this very summery decoration on a post box in St. John's Wood. They may not be as useful for communication anymore, but post boxes still make good sculpture!