A Day in the Garden

I spent virtually the whole day in the garden yesterday. At this time of year there's so much to get done -- everything is in transition and it's time to plant and prepare and discard and organize. Above is our purple primula, which grows in a hanging basket and sometimes gets nibbled by critters, as you can see. It's been in that basket for years.

First, I planted some stuff. Digging holes is just about my least favorite garden task -- our native soil is heavy clay and hard as a rock when it's dry. Now is the time to dig when there's still some moisture and it's softer, but it's still not light. Also, for some reason, in our garden, it's often full of brick debris and other rubble, I assume from the construction of our house, not to mention the roots of other trees and plants.

Still, I managed to plant two pots of mint, in the area where English ivy was running rampant until recently. I know, I know -- everyone says mint will take over. Frankly, it couldn't take over as thoroughly as that ivy did, and I need something that can hold its own in that space. I also planted the two hogweed seedlings that I repotted last August (not giant hogweed, which is invasive), and a teasel that grew by itself in another pot. My continued goal: fewer flowerpots.

Here's one of the pots of mint. It doesn't look like much now.

And here's one of the hogweeds, with stakes to protect it from our canine bulldozer. Assuming it survives, it will grow four or five feet tall and produce white umbrella-shaped flowers, like Queen Anne's lace on steroids.

All this time, the weather was beautiful. I could not have asked for a better day. I also did some watering -- we're in a bit of a dry spell -- and gave the grass its first mowing.

Meanwhile, the queen presided from her throne.

(As I was writing this just now, a fox walked past the back door, causing Olga to leap headlong, barking, into our purple heart houseplant and break off multiple pieces. Fortunately that plant is basically a weed and there's no stopping it.)

Anyway, it was a great day outdoors even if it was full of work. And then I came inside and vacuumed and did laundry and remembered only belatedly, around lunchtime, that our clocks had jumped forward so what I thought was 12:30 was actually 1:30. I guess that's why it happens on a Sunday, to give everyone a chance to catch up. So yes, we are now on British Summer Time (BST). Woo hoo!

A Pint on the Patio

I took this picture of our snake's head fritillary, aka checkerboard lily, just now when I took some suet balls out to the garden bird feeder. The fritillary is having a good year, with one mature blossom and two more on the way. And there's already a hungry ring-necked parakeet on the feeder, such a bright green that he's practically glowing.

I survived the conference yesterday but it was a long day. Many of the sessions were more about teaching, so they didn't apply directly to me (because I'm not a faculty member and I don't teach kids directly), but it was still interesting to hear from various librarians how they tackle the difficulties of their jobs. My boss and co-worker did a presentation about all the data we gather on library usage, and gave me a shout-out for crunching the numbers on the spreadsheets, so that was nice. Hearing them talk about it gave even me a better sense of why we collect all that information.

Terms I learned included "cognitive offloading," which is what happens when people use tools like AI to perform tasks that used to require human brainpower. When you ask AI to write an e-mail or design a logo, that's cognitive offloading. It's not necessarily a good thing. (I suppose the same could be, and probably has been, said about the use of calculators -- and we all use those.)

There's also "critical ignoring," which is a clever way of saying avoiding online noise and disinformation. We all participate in critical ignoring -- or should, anyway.

We also discussed the "value of constraint," which is certainly a useful tool for any writer or editor. An extreme example was the book "La Disparition" by Georges Perec, which was written entirely without the use of the letter E. That would be impressive enough in any language, but Perec wrote it in French, which is LOADED with E's. It made me think I should try to write a blog post without a commonly used letter, just to see how well I could do it and how hard it would be -- but I'd need some time and I'm not sure I have the patience.

Last night we had a dinner, but we had about an hour and a half to kill between the last session and the meal. So I went to a local pub by myself, got a pint of Abbot ale and sat out on the front patio watching the world go by. I had to let my mind settle after all the information and socializing of the day.

A table of "lads" came and sat next to me, and they were quite boisterous. I heard classic Britishisms like "bird" (for woman) and "fags" for cigarette butts. I didn't know "bird" was a term anyone used anymore but I'm sure one of them said something about "George's bird," and I don't think he meant a budgie. At one point, a semi-trailer (excuse me, "lorry") drove past with the logo for the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the side, and someone exclaimed, "What, are they all in there?!" Laughs all around.

Perhaps I should have been exercising my critical ignoring skills.

I finally got home about 10 p.m. and went pretty much directly to bed. Dave said Olga was anxious all day, waiting for me, and she wouldn't eat in my absence -- so I was glad to get home, coax some food into her and then all of us could have a good night's sleep.

Planters

Remember the architecture/planning fail that I wrote about in January -- the sharply sloping sidewalk in front of Five Guys on the high street? Well, the hideous plastic barriers have disappeared (after months) and in their place are these two massive wooden planters.

(I took one picture walking to work and one walking home, so you're seeing them from both directions, in morning and evening!)

I suppose this is aesthetically better than the barriers, but they look a little precarious, don't they? I hope that wood is strong. Also, they look like they've been outside for a while already, so I suspect they came from somewhere else. They are used planters -- or perhaps I should say pre-owned. Repurposed.

If I'd built them I'd have specified a sloping bottom so the planters themselves sat even. But maybe that would have been more money than anyone wanted to invest.

Today I'm back at work for that conference. In fact I'm about to get ready to leave. Registration starts at 7:45 a.m.!

Taking My Time

I had a nice, leisurely walk to work yesterday. Now that the weather has warmed up a bit and the sun is shining, I'm really enjoying that time to myself. I was running a little late, but I didn't feel any pressure to get there precisely on time or to hurry. My supervisor is at a conference in Frankfurt, and the school will survive without me for a few extra minutes. In fact I took some pictures, listened to music and stopped for a take-away coffee along the way.

I wound up at my desk eleven minutes late. My co-worker was there and the library was quiet, so she wasn't concerned at all.

I feel like I give the impression on this blog that I am kind of a slacker, wandering in a few minutes late and reading at my desk during downtime. Honestly, I don't think I am. (Then again, do slackers recognize that tendency in themselves?) Some days I'm early to work, and I do stay very busy overall. I suppose, like anyone with the so-called "Protestant work ethic" (whatever that is), I'm more conflicted about stray moments of workday leisure so I write about them more.

But I also find that as I get older, I'm less concerned about stuff like that. Carpe diem, right? Enjoy the moments as they come.

Anyway, it was a glorious day, very low-key. I got everything done I needed to do, like re-shelving a cartload of books about Ancient Greece checked out by the 5th Grade, and still had moments to relax, chat with the kids and be a kinder, more generous presence than the harried librarian I sometimes feel like lately.

Here are our front-porch plants. Those violas (or pansies?) are the ones I found last fall in St. John's Wood. They survived the winter just fine. I have a hanging basket of them on the back patio, also blooming up a storm. The orange flower is an African daisy (Osteospermum).

Words of wisdom from some fortune cookies we've had hanging around the kitchen for a couple of weeks, the remnants of a Chinese take-away. I'm not a huge fan of fortune cookies so they tend to linger until I figure out what to do with them. I crumbled these two up as a crunchy topping for last night's ice cream, which I thought was a pretty clever way to dispose of them.

That second one made me glad I took the time to enjoy my walk to work!

(Top photo: The morning bread delivery at a restaurant on my route to work, sitting inside on a table. I like the reflective layers in this photo, even showing my hands and my phone.)

Construction

I had a very slow day in the library yesterday. But in a way I'm glad because I'm going to be working this weekend. My co-worker arranged a conference of European school librarians on Friday and Saturday, and since it's happening at our school I couldn't very well not attend. Maybe I'll learn something. Who knows?

There is construction everywhere at the moment. Parts of Finchley Road are closed near the school for some kind of water works (above)...

...and the entrance to Billy Fury Way (that alley between the two buildings) is closed on West End Lane. I have no idea what's happening here and Google can't seem to tell me, but there's a notice posted at the site so maybe I just need to read it a bit more closely. This sidewalk is a very busy path between West Hampstead's three tube and train stations -- driving all those pedestrians into the street (or across it) seems pretty hazardous, even temporarily.

As a friend of mine used to say, "Will the world ever be finished?"

Dave and I started "The White Lotus" last night. We're two episodes in already, but I dozed off about halfway through the second (a fault of fatigue, not the show) so I need a recap. I'll re-watch it this evening.

Yesterday I got rather exasperated that there was yet another article about "Severance" in The New York Times. The NYT folks are obsessed with that show. They've run at least 14 articles about it in the past month, according to the somewhat wonky search function on the web site, and 24 since January. For a single TV show in the newspaper of record, that seems unprecedented. There have been articles about the building where it's filmed, the food in the show, the "dystopian signifiers" in the clocks and cubicles, the paranoia depicted in the show's relationships, and the proposition that it's "a brutal tale of female self-loathing." It's to the point that yesterday I tried to leave a comment on the most recent article to say "ENOUGH WITH 'SEVERANCE' ALREADY!" But the site wasn't accepting coments on that story, so I'll leave my feedback here.

Rubble in the Gutter, Trash in the Dog

A mostly pictorial post today, since I don't have much news. Mrs. Russia is silent upstairs -- so silent, in fact, that I think they may be out of town, which would explain the early rising yesterday. (But not the early vacuuming.)

Here's a beautiful tree I passed on my walk home yesterday evening. I'm going to try to get a better shot of it when the sun is on it, because this shadowy picture doesn't quite do it justice.

Remember how I mentioned that a building on the high street was struck by lightning over the weekend? Well, here it is. You can see the top of that gable is blown off. I imagine that pipe, which looks like plastic but I believe is actually metal, served as a giant lightning rod. I wonder what poor soul lives in that top flat. They must have felt a jolt.

Rubble rained down in the street after the strike. It's all still lying in the gutter.

And remember how I told you Olga likes to sniff garbage on our walks? Well, here she is in full garbage mode, with her nose entirely inside that bag. I hear you saying, "Oh, Steve, you shouldn't let her do that! She might eat something dangerous!" All I can say in my defense is that she's a lot stronger than she looks and walking her is exhausting because she pulls for every garbage bag she sees. I get tired of the fight. I usually manage to keep her from eating anything, unless I'm sure it's harmless.

Finally, one of the school moms brought me some flowers yesterday -- a pink Ranunculus and a yellow tulip. She came in as I was working and wordlessly set them on my desk, which was so nice. There was an event going on so I silently mouthed "Thank you!" to her.

I showed you my desk from the other side a few days ago, so here's what it looks like from the front. Those little friendship bracelets were lost in the library and I set them there thinking someone might reclaim them, but no one ever has. I found the animals years ago in a storage cabinet and put them out for some colorful decoration. The parrot is a Beanie Baby ("Jabber"), and that little blue thing is a rhinoceros.

A Rude Awakening

I woke up on the cranky side of the bed this morning because the first thing I heard, upon slowly rising from the fog of sleep at 5 a.m., was Mrs. Russia running her vacuum cleaner! AT FIVE IN THE MORNING! I went out and rang her doorbell to ask her to stop, but she wouldn't answer the door. I'm sure she knew I was annoyed. I'm hearing a lot of thumping around up there -- she must be in a snit about something herself. (Probably me ringing her doorbell.)

Or maybe they're packing up to travel somewhere. Or maybe they're MOVING! Wouldn't that be fab?!

Yesterday was pretty slow in the library. My supervisor was in managerial training all day, so I was left to my own devices, which I love. It was a bright sunny day and I walked both ways to work so I got lots of outdoor time, too.

In the evening, Dave and I watched a documentary on Netflix about the tornado that leveled Joplin, Mo., a couple of years ago. It was very good and used a lot of first-hand videos and recordings, so you could see the storm as it happened. I've never been in or even near a tornado so it's hard for me to imagine storm forces like that. Florida has tornadoes but they are not of the magnitude of those gigantic Midwestern twisters.

Meanwhile I'm reading about Donald Trump's aides texting top-secret war plans to each other on a commercial messaging app. Why didn't they just post them on Facebook? To once again quote my former co-worker Tabatha: "You got to laugh to keep from cryin'."

Back to Leigh

After spending the morning on housekeeping -- mostly dishes from our dinner party, which I managed to do in three rather than four dishwasher-loads -- I headed out into the city yesterday for some urban adventures.

Remember how I went to the Leigh Bowery show at the Tate a couple of weeks ago, but couldn't stay long enough to see the whole thing? Well, I decided to go back and take it all in this time.

First, I got online and joined the Tate as a member. I've been meaning to do it for a while. Membership entitles me to free entry to their special exhibits, as well as access to their members' cafes and some other perks. (I think there's also a magazine, which is more curse than blessing, but whatever.) Then I set out for the museum on the tube.

My plans were immediately thrown when I learned that Southwark station, the tube station closest to the Tate Modern, was closed. I think this was for engineering works. I wound up having to go to London Bridge and then walk back through Borough Market and along the river to the museum.

The show was excellent and I'm so glad I went back. Bowery was a fascinating character, so inventive and original. I was in awe of his creativity, which began with astonishing clothes and eventually segued to padded, sculpted wearable art like his Mrs. Peanut outfit.

He also posed for painter Lucian Freud, whose canvases of Bowery are included in the show. It was an interesting exhibit encompassing not only fashion but video, music, performance, painting and photography, and bits of cultural paraphernalia as small as postcards, letters and Polaroid prints. (You know I loved that!)

Afterwards I went to the Tate's members' cafe, thinking I might sit and have a coffee. Well, the place was packed, and there were no free tables, so the best I could do was take a picture of its expansive view over the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral.
 

Afterwards, to avoid going back to London Bridge, I decided to walk along the South Bank. I eventually crossed the river on the pedestrian paths next to the Hungerford Bridge and made my way through Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly, where I caught a bus.

Here's a little video of my pedestrian activities. You will see or hear:

1. The bells tolling at Southwark Cathedral
2. The view from the pedestrian bridge, known as the Golden Jubilee Bridges
3. A peg-legged pigeon at Trafalgar Square
4. The artwork on the square's Fourth Plinth, called "Mil Veces un Instante," or "A Thousand Times in an Instant," by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles. It's made of plaster casts of the faces of transgender, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people, meant to raise awareness of the violence so many of them face.

The bus home was diverted through Westminster by pro-Palestine demonstrations, but by the time it got to St. John's Wood and West Hampstead it was back on its regular route. I enjoyed sitting on the upper deck and watching the world go by; much slower than the tube but also much more fulfilling.

I love the little surprises that inevitably come with the view -- like four people carrying a large mattress through St. John's Wood. Urban life! In cities, people live right out in the open, carrying their stuff through the streets and rubbing elbows with passers-by, for better or worse. In most of America they and their mattress would be concealed in a car or truck. (Well, granted, the mattress might be tied to the top.)

Anyway, it was a good day and I intend to use my Tate membership for a few more exhibits in coming months!

Repotting and Pot Roast

Our neighbor's gigantic clematis vine is blooming like crazy, and it's visible from our living room through a gap in the trees and over the fence. I feel certain I've posted a similar picture in past years but if you're like me you won't get tired of seeing that amazing cloud of blossoms.

I was a whirlwind yesterday morning. I wanted to discard a couple of our orchids, which after several years of good service had died (or were dying), but in both pots young maidenhair ferns had taken root. We have several mature maidenhairs and I guess they sent spores out into the world that somehow took hold in these orchid pots. Anyway, I wanted to save the ferns, and that meant repotting, which meant getting access to the potting compost, which meant cleaning out the shed.

You see how this goes. One thing leads to another and pretty soon you're doing five interrelated tasks.

At the end of it all, I'd cleaned and organized the shed, and repotted not only the fern but the ficus tree and another fern. I threw away some broken terra cotta pots and neatened up the patio. Then I repotted our red pelargonium, which we've had since we lived in Notting Hill (eleven years ago) and which has been in the same pot for about a decade, I think. This poor plant! I tipped it over to remove the root ball and the soil was so depleted, so spent, that it poured out of the pot like dry sand and left the sparse roots utterly bare. It should be happy in some new, more nutritious dirt.

Meanwhile, in the garden, I couldn't resist another picture of our Leucojum...

...and here's our spotted lungwort, blooming up a storm.

Speaking of storms, in the afternoon we were supposed to get rain, which we sorely need. Around 3 p.m. we began getting booming thunder, which was quite dramatic.

As you can see, Olga isn't fazed by thunder. Unlike Ellen's dog Minnie and many other sensitive canines, she never has been, even when she could hear better. It was loud enough this time around that it caused her to open her eyes, so we know she can hear something, or perhaps just feel the rumble -- but she didn't react otherwise.

There were several bright flashes of lightning and quite loud bangs, and soon we began hearing sirens. "Something's happening out there," I said to Dave, and sure enough, apparently lightning hit a building near the tube station, casting concrete rubble onto the street.

The rain itself turned out to be a bit of a disappointment -- just a spattering. We need more than that. Sound and fury signifying nothing, except for the people near (or in) that damaged building.

In the evening we had Dave's co-workers Darlene and Ed over for dinner, which meant an afternoon of cleaning the house. They're about to leave London (Darlene was on a temporary contract, and Ed was a substitute teacher) so we wanted to thank them and wish them well. Dave made a pot roast with his signature scallop & orange starter, and they brought a lemon tart for dessert. They also gave us several bottles of miscellaneous alcohol from their liquor cabinet, so we're stocked with more limoncello and port and a few other things that we'd normally never buy but might eventually drink. Might.

We went to bed at 11 p.m. (Olga was very confused because this is easily an hour later than we'd normally go to sleep) and this morning I have a second dishwasher load of dishes churning away. There are probably two more loads to go. Dave can really tear up a kitchen when he cooks!

Adolescence

This magnolia near school is pretty much in full bloom now. Once the seasonal changes start they are off and running!

Work was busy yesterday but unremarkable. I was immersed in a couple of back-office activities -- more spreadsheets and statistics, more tracking overdue materials -- and the truth is, even though I've complained about spreadsheets here in the past, I actually kind of like those tasks. When I can do them without too much interruption they can be satisfying, but of course there's always some interruption because some kid or other needs to check something out or find a certain book. It's just the nature of the gig.

Dave and I watched "Adolescence" on Netflix over the past two nights. Hoo-boy! I feel confident in saying it's one of the best things I've seen on television. The plot would be riveting under any circumstances, but add in the technical innovation -- the fact that each episode is filmed as a single take, from beginning to end, including a remarkable moment when the camera smoothly transitions from terrestrial to aerial and back again -- and it's astounding. The acting is brilliant and the message to parents -- make sure you know about your kids' lives on the Internet -- is pertinent. We loved it.

As I told Dave, I'm glad I'm got growing up now, and I'm glad I don't have kids. Given how cruel kids can be to each other in real life, I can only imagine what they're like on social media.

I'm not sure what's next for us on TV. We're about to finish the bewildering and not entirely satisfactory second season of "Severance," at which point I may drop Apple TV and switch over to NOW so we can watch "The White Lotus." (I try to limit our streaming options to three channels or so, to better keep track of the expense.)

This filthy fairy (don't call me that!) has appeared on a wall in Billy Fury Way, near the tube station. It looks like it's been there a while but I only noticed it the other day.

In other news, I think I have rosacea on my nose. The tip of my nose has turned red and is prone to breaking out in little eruptions, and the sides of my nose are itchy. This has been happening for months. I wonder if this has something to do with the way I wear my glasses (about halfway down my nose so I can look over them)? I've cut back on alcohol, having a drink only a couple of times a week, thinking that might be a factor but so far it hasn't made a difference. I am mystified. A trip to the doctor may be in order.

Spring!

I've been so absorbed in the indignities pouring out of Washington, D.C. that I failed to take note of the Vernal Equinox, which was yesterday. It is now officially spring! Woo hoo! And it feels like it, too. The weather has suddenly gotten warmer and the sun seems brighter than ever.

I took that picture above on my walk to work yesterday morning. I wish our camellia looked like that, instead of being hideous. (Ours isn't blooming yet -- it usually blooms in April/May.)

A few days ago, walking on my street, I found a bunch of daffodils tucked into a garden waste bag. It looked like someone bought one of those £1 bunches at the grocery store and then discarded the ones that weren't yet blooming. They were just green stalks and the buds were so tight I thought they might not even survive to bloom, but I picked them up and took them to work and set them on a windowsill in some water. Yesterday they were all open, so I moved them to my desk. Spring joy in the library!

And yesterday when I got home from work, I opened all the windows and let the house air out, which felt amazing. The temperatures were almost balmy. Today we'll have a high of 63º F (17º C) and a low of 52º F (11º C). The icy hand of winter has relinquished its grasp, at least momentarily. I know the avocado is breathing a sigh of relief, or would if it had lungs.

This is the key to survival in these tough times, right? Take note of the little things. The everyday joys. They are all around us, especially at this time of year.

Criminals High and Low

I had a dentist's appointment yesterday that I'd scheduled six months ago, for a routine cleaning and exam. Unfortunately, I also have a cold. The idea of having someone working in my mouth while I'm infectious sounded pretty gross, so I called the dentist's office to give them an out. To my surprise, they didn't bite (ha ha). "If you can get here, we're happy to see you when you have a cold," they said.

I guess the idea is that infection control protects them whether their patients are symptomatic of illness or not. Seems pretty brave to me, but I went. As the dentist said to me, "Everyone has something."

Fortunately, I don't have any cavities, though there is a suspicious spot on one tooth that could become a cavity. The dentist told me not to rinse my mouth after I brush my teeth, to let the fluoride from the toothpaste work overnight. This also seems pretty gross, but I tried it last night and it's not as bad as I expected.

My dentist has also wanted to replace one of my fillings, which is "ditched," or worn down. I'm sure it's 30 years old, at least, so I agreed. We'll do that in June after school lets out.

As for my cold, it's pretty minor -- just sniffles. Annoying, but I feel normal other than that.

Olga and I found evidence of criminal activity on West End Lane early Tuesday morning. Yikes! I see this more often than I care to admit. Yet another thing that makes me glad I don't have a car -- and if I did have one, I wouldn't leave a tuppence inside it. (We don't really say tuppence anymore, but you know what I mean.)

I worked like a dog yesterday, re-shelving five cartloads of books that I'd pulled earlier for various student projects. Thank goodness my co-worker shelved the regular returns so I didn't have to deal with those too.

Then, on my walk home, I listened to my QAA podcast, where one of the hosts was talking about visiting CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, last month. Reading all the horrible political news from the United States has been in equal measure astonishing and infuriating, and it was interesting to hear his take on this very pro-Trump gathering of prominent conservatives and lunatics, as they gave each other Nazi salutes and talked about chainsawing the government. It struck me once again how ironic it is that these people call themselves "conservative," while not trying to conserve anything at all. They're radicals, in fact.

The judiciary is sensibly standing in Trump's way and obstructing his ability to wreak wholesale destruction. Did you see the suggestion of Congressman Chip Roy of Texas for how to manage this problem? He says government should "defund" the "radical courts." Now, there's nothing conservative about suggesting that Congress starve an entire branch of the government, created under the Constitution specifically to act as a counterbalance to executive and congressional power. Not only is that, in fact, a radical proposal, it's blatantly unconstitutional and shows a lack of understanding of basic civics.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is taking a page from Trump by applying so much makeup and/or spray tan that he looks like he's suffering from hepatic illness, jumped on the bandwagon to suggest that Congress strip the federal courts of jurisdiction. How that would be possible I am not sure.

So, yeah. Nothing conservative about this government. I can't wait to see what happens when they try all this stuff and it gets to the Supreme Court. Will Alito and Thomas support stripping the courts of authority, eviscerating their own power? Inquiring minds want to know.

Just for fun, I thought you might like to see a close-up of the kitchen timer I showed in yesterday's post, hanging on the wall in my old T-Gard apartment. It's a bit grimy and discolored -- it used to be white with a yellow dial -- but it still works. Not only did I use it in the kitchen, but I timed my meditation periods with it when I was practicing Zen. (Maybe I should start doing that again? It might help lower my blood pressure after reading news about ignorant Texas congressmen and the toadying governor of my home state.)

I got the kitchen timer at the same place I got this egg slicer, which I've shown you before -- Scotty's Hardware, where I used to work part-time in the mid-'80s. They had a big warehouse sale to clear inventory and I got both the timer and the slicer there, for next to nothing. I bet I didn't even pay a dollar. A pretty good investment, I'd say, from this vantage point 40 years later!

T-Gard

When Dave and I went to Florida in February, we stopped to visit a place that is very significant in my life -- Tropical Gardens, where I lived with a roommate during college in my first apartment.

The complex is no longer called Tropical Gardens -- it's been through several name changes in the 40 years since I lived there -- but to me it will always be "T-Gard," as we affectionately called it. The apartment Robert and I shared is up those stairs, second door from the right -- number 250, as I recall. I took these photos on my recent visit.

Here's the courtyard. Our windows were the second and third from the left on the upper floor.

As you can see, the place is a little rough around the edges, and that was true even when we lived there. Robert and I knew each other from high school and we'd lived on the same floor in the dorms, where we each had different roommates. When we decided to find our own place we figured we'd just get a one-bedroom apartment somewhere. We'd lived with other guys in a dorm room so the idea of sharing a bedroom didn't seem like an issue, and we couldn't afford the rent on a two-bedroom place.

But in Tampa at that time, many apartment complexes had a rule against renting a one-bedroom apartment to two men. They wanted to keep away "undesirables," you see. Tropical Gardens didn't make an issue of that -- and again, the price was right. I think we paid $250 a month for our unit, which had terrible insulation and was hot as hell in the summer. Our air conditioner was a little wall unit (like the ones you see above) and totally inadequate to the job, and also we tried not to run it because we wanted to save money.

Here's an ad from the student newspaper from 1980, just five years before we lived there.

T-Gard was in an area that came to be known as Suitcase City, with lots of inexpensive rental housing. That didn't always attract the best clientele. One night we heard gunshots. Another night, Robert and I were walking through the neighborhood and a man flashed and propositioned us. (Mind you, this was definitely not a gay area.) "No, that's okay," I said to him lamely.

Our next-door neighbors used to argue loudly in Spanish, and some guys across the courtyard -- also students -- used to sit in their apartment in their underwear with the curtains wide open. It was not a show anyone wanted to see, but I'm sure they were suffering from the heat just like we were.

Our neighbor downstairs worked as a clerk at a local convenience store. She had a little dog, and I was shocked when I once visited her -- delivering a package or something -- and saw that she allowed the dog to simply poop on the floor, wherever it wanted. She hastily picked up several piles as I stood there.

So, yeah, it was an interesting place. Eye-opening, for a young relatively sheltered college boy like me.

Here are some pictures of T-Gard back in 1985. As you can see, there was a pool then, and we happily swam in it. Our apartment was on the upper right in the first old photo above. You can barely see my bougainvillea plant sitting on the air conditioner.

Here's what it looked like inside. Very collegiate, with the bicycle propped against the bookcase and papers strewn everywhere. No computers, though!

Here's the kitchen. We did a little bit of cooking, but nothing very elaborate. I think we owned one saucepan (pictured), one frying pan and one baking pan (pictured). I went through a phase where I was buying generic products like that big jar of non-dairy creamer. God only knows what was in it. I still have that yellow kitchen timer hanging on the wall!

Anyway, we only stayed in T-Gard a year before we moved to a two-bedroom apartment closer to campus. By then I had a couple of jobs and was making more money, and we could step up in the world. But I will always remember the year of 1985-86 in T-Gard, where we fortunately did not die.

Nocturnal Encounter

This is a Leucojum, or spring snowflake, the first one to open on our plants this year. We have a lot of bulbs happening at the moment. 'Tis the season.

The big news around here is that I was SCRATCHED BY A DEMON in the middle of the night! Can you believe it?! I was sound asleep with Olga lying right next to me, and she had a dream and her legs were twitching, as if she was running. The next thing you know, I felt a sharp scratch on my thigh. I turned the light on and sure enough, there was a long red mark. It was A DEMON, I'm telling you! What other possible conclusion could there be?!

I would show you but I don't really want to post a picture of my hairy leg on my blog.

In other news, I have a cold. It's a minor cold, just in my nose, but it's annoying. I'm not taking anything for it. I just have to wait for it to pass. 'Tis the season, once again.

These (above) are the last of our glittery hyacinths. You'll recall we were initially given three, and then I adopted a bunch more, and we ultimately had more than ten. Now we're down to three again, the squirrels having dug up and eaten all the others over the years. These last few really are survivors. Maybe they are protected by DEMONS?!

More Sightlines

Here's the forsythia I mentioned at the end of yesterday's post. I looked at this bush just a few days ago and it was covered with fat buds, and I thought, "Well, that's going to pop pretty soon." And then WHAM! Perhaps it even made that sound, and I was not outside to hear it.

Another lazy day yesterday. I spent the morning archiving all my media. I swear, that is a herculean task. I do it every month or so -- go through all my photos and delete everything I don't want, and then back up all the rest, both original and edited versions. And then videos! Do I save all the source video, or just the finished product? And then I backed up my blog, which I hadn't done in about a year.

So now when the nuclear missiles fall, I'll be left with backup files that no one can read because the Internet will be dead. Admittedly, it is not a perfect system.

I walked Olga early in the morning, when the golden sun on the face of this building made a breathtaking color. I tied Olga to that pole so I could take her picture. I don't think she appreciated it. She was too busy scheming to get her nose back into a garbage bag across the street.

In the afternoon we took another leisurely walk along the high street and through the housing estate on an adjacent road. That was a pretty ambitious walk for the old girl but she managed just fine and then slept all evening like she'd been on safari.

I've been meaning for a while to take a photo from the top of our street, showing the skyline visible beyond our neighborhood. We live on a hill, and Hampstead in general is quite high, so in places where houses don't block our view we can see out over the city. These buildings are in the area around Edgeware Road and Paddington Basin, I believe. The one with the red girders on the roof is here, on Edgeware Road, and although I don't recognize the others I think they're beyond it around the basin.

Here's another view, from a slightly different position, showing the much taller West End Gate building near Paddington (here).

Several years ago I did a post about the sightlines from our dining room window, which showed similar vistas. But that area around Paddington has grown so much I'm not sure all the buildings in the photos above even existed then. Also, Mrs. Kravitz planted a magnolia tree in her front garden which now blocks our dining room views, so no more idly staring over the cityscape in the middle of the night for me.

Speaking of neighbors, Mr. Russia was out working on his terrace all day yesterday, clunking around and running some kind of Shop-Vac or blower. God only knows what he was doing. They have a space that's probably 15 feet square and yet it takes them weeks of weekend work to maintain it.

Olga tried to sunbathe but she couldn't get comfortable. It was just too chilly. She kept going out, seduced by the bright sun, and then coming in again. Soon enough, Olga!