A Few More Cards

I have virtually nothing to say today, so here are a couple more cards from the bag of childhood detritus I wrote about the other day. I scanned these thinking I would blog them in that earlier post but they didn't fit, and now I'm glad I have them left over!

The one above is an Easter card my grandparents sent me in the late '60s or very early '70s. The inside says something like, "Look who's here with bells on to wish you a Happy Easter!" (The Easter poodle?)

The card looks very 3-D from the scan, but the yarn and flowers are actually printed from a photograph, so it's just a flat piece of cardboard. The poodle's fur has a sprinkling of glitter that doesn't quite come across in the scan.

This one is from an older woman my mom employed to stay with me and my brother in the afternoons when we were done with school, and to help out around the house with things like cleaning and dinner preparation. She was more than a babysitter. My brother and I saw her as a surrogate grandmother, and she was with us for several years through my early childhood. I loved her dearly and have only fond memories of her.

Anyway, yes, that child is praying. Mrs. Kirkland was a Southern Baptist, and was quite religious. She had the painting of the blue-eyed Jesus in her living room and successfully urged my mom to send us to Vacation Bible School when we were kids. We were Presbyterians, and Mrs. Kirkland's brand of Christianity seemed rather strident to me even then, but my mom figured it wouldn't do us any harm and I suppose she was right. I'm not sure it did me any good either, though!

Once Again, Still Not Dying

I know you're all eagerly awaiting the results of my colonoscopy! Well, let me end the suspense: It went fine. The doctor found only one small polyp and removed it. Assuming nothing turns up on the routine biopsy (which he doubts) there's no obvious problem. So the mystery of my elevated calprotectin will remain that -- a mystery. I'm back to my original conclusion that I have some mild type of IBS that comes and goes, and I'm continuing my decision to drink less because I think that contributes to it.

The artwork above is called "Fibonacci Flip" by Peter Randall-Page, from 2010. It was on the wall of the clinic building across the street from the one I attended. According to a plaque next to the artwork, it is "based on spiral phyllotaxis, which is a common growth pattern in plants, most commonly seen in the arrangement of seeds in in the head of a sunflower."

I had assumed it was a Petri dish.

Anyway, yesterday wasn't as miserable as I was afraid it would be. I began the day pretty fuzzy-headed, as you could probably tell from yesterday's blog post. But after the second round of prep I spent the morning cleaning -- I did laundry, cleaned the bathrooms, and then went out in the garden to deadhead roses.

I trimmed a couple of big, tattered leaves off the burdock and noticed that one of them had several of those ladybug larvae on the underside. So I had to carefully dislodge the larvae and transfer them to the part of the plant I wasn't throwing out. Those little things can cling! But I saved them all in the end.

The one thing I couldn't do is read. I just didn't have the concentration. I read blogs in the afternoon but that was the best I could do. And then it was off to the clinic for my 4 p.m. appointment, and as everyone always says, the actual colonoscopy was far easier than the two days of preparation.

Last night, while eating a blessedly normal dinner (hamburgers), Dave and I watched an episode of "Bewitched" -- which is a really dreadful show, by the way -- and it featured Gladys Kravitz quaffing a gigantic martini. "Look, it's me!" I said to Dave.

(Despite my vow to drink less, I will still allow myself a martini now and then. On special occasions.)

Speaking of Mrs. Kravitz, I haven't seen our own Mrs. K in months. She is normally out in the garden all the time at this time of year, but she has not made an appearance and her garden is rather overgrown. Her rear storage shed has been standing open with the light on for days. I've seen Mr. K here and there over the past month or so, but I think Mrs. K must be traveling or something. I don't really know them well enough to ask, but if I see Mr. K again I might gin up the courage.

Hot Stones

Just another garden shot, to show you what it looks like with the roses in bloom. We really do have an insane amount of vegetation out there at the moment!

Yesterday was hectic at work, with kids already trying to check out books for summer. Unfortunately that doesn't begin until today -- and I'm not there to help, since I'm out for my procedure this afternoon. So it will probably be a crazy day for my co-workers. I didn't immediately realize when my colonoscopy was scheduled that it was the first day of summer checkouts. Oh well.

I put together our Summer Reading displays and re-shelved several cartloads of books. And today I'm taking it easy and staying home until about 3 p.m., when I have to make my way to the clinic for my appointment. Back to normal this evening, thank goodness, and hopefully with a clean bill of health.

Here's an oddity I found on the sidewalk on my walk to work yesterday. I had no idea there was a special "massage stone heater" device for spas, though I guess it makes sense. You'd probably need something guaranteed not to overheat the stones, right? Never really thought about it.

Flowers and Medicine

Our dark pink peonies have begun to open their dense swirl of petals. Now we're just waiting to see if our "Bowl of Beauty" peonies bloom. The plant has at least two buds but it seems to be moving slowly. Last year it didn't bloom at all. We'll see what happens.

Also blooming now are...

...the sage...

...the brook thistles, with Nicole Nicotiana's gigantic leaves in the background...

...and the "Blood Sky" petunias. (Not their real name!)

Also, the avocado, which has been looking a bit straggly this spring, is sending up new leaves.

I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy tomorrow. Joy! (Sarcasm, obviously.) Yes, I had one about a year ago, but it was suggested to me then that because of my high calprotectin and family history of colon cancer I should do another one after waiting twelve months or so, just to make sure nothing was missed. Unfortunately, I think I've already screwed up the preparation -- I was apparently supposed to be eating bland food yesterday and I ate normally. So I have to call them this morning and see if I should postpone. The procedure is tomorrow afternoon and I don't start taking the "clean out" liquid until this evening, so maybe yesterday's diet won't make a huge amount of difference. We'll see what they say.

Origins

When I was last in Florida, my brother gave me a big plastic baggie full of childhood documents, all related to me, that came from my mom's house. It was mostly a lot of school stuff and greeting cards that Mom had saved, and I didn't go through it very carefully. I brought it back to London and stuck it in a closet.

Over the long weekend I finally took it out and paged through everything. Here's some of what I found.

First, my footprint, taken at the hospital right after I was born. Much smaller than my size 11 feet now (size 10 in the UK)!

Here's the accompanying card laying out the details of my birth. As you can see, I wasn't a very big baby. I was about a month premature.

Mom saved several cards from relatives wishing us well after the birth. This one is from "Grandma Ratliff," who was my great-grandmother on my dad's mom's side. "I think of you all so often," she wrote. "Sure would like to see the baby. I love you all."

Poignant, because I'm not sure she ever saw me. She lived in Arkansas or Missouri and we lived in Florida. I certainly never saw her when I was old enough to remember. Also, curiously, she typed her message, which means she must have rolled that card through a typewriter.

According to the price on the back, it cost a dime.

My mom saved kindergarten programs and nearly all my report cards, from first grade into college. (She worked at the university so she had access to my transcripts!) Tucked into my first grade report card was this photo from 1972 or '73, which I don't remember ever seeing before. Am I carrying Spanish moss or a feather boa? Who's that girl?

In the summers I went to Camp Indian Head, not far from our house. I was a day camper and went home every afternoon. It was basically a way to keep me busy while I wasn't in school. My parents wanted me to learn to swim, and the camp had a swimming program with certified counselors. Here I am in a photo in the camp catalogue with the other boys in my age group -- all the kids were grouped by age and gender into "tribes," and we youngest boys were known as Navajos. (No one had any awareness of cultural appropriation in those days.) I don't remember any of my fellow Navajos, nor the counselors.

Is that one kid in the front row wearing a Budweiser shirt? Always a good look for a six-year-old!

A lovey-dovey note to my mom, written on "stationary" that I think I made using a rubber stamp. What struck me about this is how I signed my name. I've written before about struggling with the name "Stephen" because people always mispronounced it as "Steffen." I eventually switched to Steve, and these papers show I did that much earlier than I thought. There's a page from a school test in 1973, when I turned seven, that refers to me as Steve. But I signed this note "Steven," which was never my name. Weird! My guess is I initially signed Steve, but knowing my mom called me Stephen, I stuck an N on the end. Or maybe I tried Steven for a while. Who knows.

This is what our report cards looked like in elementary school. This one's from the sixth grade, in 1978. As you can see, I was a pretty average student. What strikes me most is that D for "expresses ideas in writing" in the second quarter. How the heck did that happen? I also got a C- and a D+ on two book reports. I was always good in English and language-related subjects like spelling and vocabulary, and I read all the time, so those grades seem bizarre. My guess is I procrastinated on the reports and then slapped them together at the last minute. Typical.

(I also never liked this particular teacher, which may have diminished my enthusiasm.)

My mom saved every standardized test score I ever received, even from routine state aptitude tests and the ASVAB, meant to show my strengths in case I wanted to join the military. (I don't even remember taking it.) Above are my SAT scores from October 1983. As you can see, I did pretty well in verbal but only middling in math. An 1190 is respectable, but no Ivy League for me! (Never a consideration given my grades.)

The highest math class I took in high school was Algebra II, so there may have been things on the SAT I'd never even studied.

Apparently I was already thinking about majoring in journalism and/or photography. But what's that career interest in anthropology? I don't think I knew much about anthropology, beyond what I read in Thor Heyerdahl's book "Kon-Tiki" and maybe National Geographic. Needless to say, that didn't work out, nor did my stated educational objective of a Master's degree.

Finally, I found a packet of photo proofs taken for my senior portrait. Here's one of them. The picture itself isn't bad but those superimposed profiles were so cheesy. We went with a different picture.

The senior photos were taken at school by a contracted photographer, just like photos for every other grade level. We did not hire private photographers and get portraits taken out in the wild, like some kids today who go to the beach or stand out in sunny fields or whatever. We had two photo styles -- the "formal" portrait, in jacket and tie, and the "casual" portrait, which for most boys meant a dark jacket and white turtleneck supplied by the photographer. (Like any of us would wear a white turtleneck, in Florida!) I convinced him to let me do the casual shot wearing my favorite shirt, a purple Izod, rather than the turtleneck/jacket combo. He was reluctant, but he said, "If you'll buy it, I'll take it."

We did not buy it.

Creepy-Crawlies

As you may remember, Dave and I applied for our British citizenship about a month ago. We haven't heard anything back, which isn't unusual -- we were told the Home Office might take six months to respond to our application. But I was dismayed to see a story in The Guardian the other day saying that record numbers of Americans have applied within the past year for either citizenship or indefinite leave to remain (which is what Dave and I have now, permanent residency that stops short of citizenship). Many of those applications occurred in the first three months of this year, right after Donald Trump took office.

So basically, Dave and I picked a busy time to apply. We're standing in a long queue of our fellow countrymen, even though we've been here 14 years! I suppose we should have motivated ourselves to do this earlier, but oh well. It's all just a matter of waiting.

I got out in the garden yesterday and did some maintenance, like cutting back some of the alkanet and mowing the lawn. I filled a yard waste bag with trimmings and also did all our weekly houseplant care. I've moved a few plants outside for the summer. I'm hoping that exposure to rain and nature will help control any pests and also give them a growth boost.

I found these little beasts on our teasels. They're ladybird (ladybug) larvae, so they're good -- they eat aphids and other pests. This is part of why I hope moving houseplants outside will be a benefit. There are predators!

Here's a closeup view. Nature is so weird. Nothing about that creepy-crawly suggests that it will eventually become a ladybug, and yet, that's what happens.

I took a big bag of wire clothes hangers up to the cleaners on the high street. We've accumulated them over years and years of taking shirts there to be cleaned and pressed, and finally I've returned them to the source. We don't clean our shirts like that very frequently anymore. These days I mostly just wash them. We're becoming old men and we're letting ourselves go.

Here's the newest compilation of wildlife footage from our garden cam. You'll see:

1. Fox in distance and then closer
2. Neighborhood cat hunting a moth
3. Another fox, possibly different?
4. Me dumping old soil from two flowerpots
5. A robin and its newly fledged chick
6. Two dunnocks, looking like identical twins
7. Robin and chick again
8. A different neighborhood cat (at least this one wears a bell)
9. Fox

I might put the camera back out again but I'd like to find another perspective. The problem is, everywhere else in the garden is likely to include footage of us and/or the dog. Of course, I can cut all that out, but it clogs up the video card!

Anxiety and Angel Wings

Yesterday was a quiet day around the house. I mostly stayed on the couch reading, with brief forays into laundry and vacuuming. The usual Saturday stuff. That oxalis (above) is blooming in our front garden, right next to a mysterious black cable that is coiled beneath the shrubs like a mamba. I have no idea what that cable is for. I think it's an old telephone or TV line and could probably be removed but I'm not doing it, just in case it's our main power supply -- and I don't want to die.

It used to be concealed by our shrubbery until the Russians insisted on pruning the front garden to within an inch of its life. Side benefit: More sun and flowers for the oxalis!

Dave had a dental appointment in the morning. He goes to the same dentist I do -- Dr. Christina, as she is known -- and I asked him beforehand why he was going. Was it a cleaning, or did he have a cavity that needed filling?

"I don't know," he said. "I'm just going to sit down and open my mouth."

I told him he was the only person I knew who went to the dentist without knowing why. But hey, at least he went. (Turns out he was getting a cleaning and checkup, and the verdict is he has a cavity and needs two crowns!)

I tried to catch up on some plant care. (It's a never-ending task!) I repotted our angel-wing begonia (above) and also potted the cuttings I took when I pruned it several weeks ago. They've been in water ever since and have tiny roots so we'll see how they fare in soil. I'm not sure we really need two angel-wing begonias (too many plants!) but you know I can't throw away a cutting.

Self-portrait with passionflower! This blossom was high up on our patio wall and pointing upward. The only way I could get a photo was to stand on a chair, put the camera into back-facing mode and take a picture that included myself. That's why my brow is furrowed in concentration, though I did make an effort to at least not scowl. As you can see, the passionflower has lots of buds so we're going to have plenty of passion this year. It's a straggly looking vine but it does perform.

I started reading Jonathan Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" and this is one of the pages. Have you ever seen a book printed like this? It's obviously some kind of production error but it's not something I've ever seen before. It's like this page was the start of a new roll of new paper, or maybe the end of an old roll.

Anyway, it promises to be an interesting book, about how social media and smart phones have torpedoed the mental health of a whole generation of kids and teenagers. I may wind up skimming some of it because I have a feeling it may be more repetitive and granular than I really need, but I'm interested in the argument. Our high school is going phone-free next year -- phones won't even be allowed on campus -- and I want to acquaint myself with the reasons why. If I had a kid, I'd give them a flip phone and that would be that, at least until they're well into their teenage years.

In fact, when I think about how I use my own phone, it's not much different from a flip phone. I really don't do much "internetting" on my phone. I use the camera, I text people, I occasionally look up a specific random fact such as Elizabeth Montgomery's birthday or whether May is the only month with two bank holidays. I play podcasts and sometimes music. I use the maps function when I'm out walking.

But I am not a scroller, and I don't stay on my phone for long periods browsing, and I never watch videos. The idea of streaming video on my phone just makes me anxious. All that data! I'm not even sure how much data my phone plan provides but that seems an unnecessary excess.

So while I may be momentarily anxious, I am not a member of the Anxious Generation. More like the perplexed one.

Rain!

A rainy morning here in London, FINALLY. We've had a bit of rain in the last week or so but up until now we've had such a dry spring that any moisture is still a relief. All the plants seem to be breathing a sigh. Doesn't the tree fern look good? It has bounced back really well after its near-death experience this winter.

Here's an overview of the garden, taken yesterday afternoon, just to show you how things are looking now. The roses are blooming pretty well, which is always a pleasure, and they look much better than in previous years when they were afflicted with black spot. The pruning and feeding we've been doing has helped, I think.

Yesterday evening I came home, poured a glass of wine and went to sit on the bench in the back of the garden, and this was the company I had (above). Annoying, isn't she? For some reason she will not let Dave or I sit on the bench in peace. This wasn't always the case, and we don't really know what she wants. She knows she gets a treat when we go inside, so it's possible she's trying to say, GIVE ME MY TREAT! If she were younger I'd say she wants to play with her Kong, but she doesn't chase the ol' Kong much anymore.

Here's my most recent plant rescue story. A few days ago I went down to the parcel room at school, a space off the loading bay where deliveries are stored. I saw a sealed box on the counter labeled "LIVE PLANTS." Now, this box had no name on it -- it was addressed only to the school in general. I left it there a day or two thinking someone would claim it, but when I checked a few days later it was still sitting there.

I took it to the mailroom and asked if there was a way to tell who it was for, and there wasn't. So I decided to open the package, whereupon four sadly yellowed and leggy seedlings were revealed (above). I bet they've been sitting in that box in utter darkness for at least a week if not longer. They're Queen Anne's Lace (Ammi majus).

On a hunch I e-mailed the science teachers in the Lower School, because they have a patio space where the kids plant and grow things, and sure enough the seedlings were theirs. The teachers had already left for the day so I watered the plants and put them out on the patio in a sheltered place, where hopefully they will benefit from the rain and cloudy conditions over this long weekend before being planted on Tuesday. Queen Anne's Lace is pretty weedy, so hopefully they'll survive and maybe the kids will learn from this inadvertent science experiment. As one of the teachers said, "Go photosynthesis!"

Goofy, Until It's Not

What will I ever do for blog material when I no longer have my goofy dog providing me with an endless stream of ridiculous photos? This was her yesterday, just getting up after rolling on her back on the lawn. Here she was a few moments before:

What a spectacle!

Our climbing hydrangeas are having perhaps their best year ever. In fact I've had to cut one of them back because it keeps threatening to smother the Solomon's seal.

Here's the rescued hydrangea (right) that I mentioned in yesterday's post. At least, I think it's a hydrangea. There aren't many distinguishing features left! We'll see what happens when it produces more leaves, assuming it survives. I also rescued those two ferns, from the same place as the hydrangea, last fall. The one on the left is doing OK but the one in the middle is still iffy.

Nothing very noteworthy happened yesterday. I am so ready for this weekend. It's a three-day weekend because Monday is a UK bank holiday. Yes, another one! May has the distinction of being the only month with two bank holidays not pegged to a religious occasion like Christmas or Easter. I don't have any specific plans but I think I need to get off my butt and take a walk somewhere.

I've had some more health drama going on -- mostly of my own invention, I think -- and of course I'm dismayed and horrified daily by everything in the news. Reading about Trump's campaign against international students at Harvard was the latest outrage, having the potential to affect our students from the school where I work. Did you ever think you'd see the day when the president actively works to destabilize the country's leading universities, to ruin people's educations?

Has Trump advanced any positive ideas since he took office? Has he sent any message of hope or enthusiasm? As far as I can see it's just been a continuous campaign of vitriol and destruction, from public attempts to humiliate foreign leaders to coddling authoritarians. And that odious Kristi Noem, swanning around with her Rolex and purse stuffed with cash while sending hard-working immigrants to foreign gulags. There is a special place in hell for that woman.

(What would Dante think of the Trump administration? Which circle would they inhabit?)

At the risk of rendering these horrors more superficial than they deserve to be, I wanted to link to a couple of articles about the ideals of MAGA beauty, involving overly made-up, lip-injected, long-haired women (Noem, for example) and square-jawed but inept men (Gaetz, Hegseth). We are being ruled by a cast of grotesques from reality television. Trump understands the world only through the lens of a TV camera, or via short, bilious bursts on social media. How did we get here?

Snoopy and the Masseuse

I had to stop by my doctor's office yesterday to renew my lansoprazole prescription -- my stomach antacid. For some reason, they make me come to the office to get another round, rather than allowing me to renew it online as a repeat medication. I need to ask them about that because it's a hassle. It's not as though lansoprazole is addictive. (At least as far as I know!)

Anyway, nearby I found this little stencil of Snoopy and Woodstock. I've found other graffiti at this location in the past, and in fact I think the baby pram to the right of Snoopy is a fragment of an earlier stencil. I'm not sure what Snoopy is doing -- reading from a sheet of paper? Woodstock seems pretty happy about it.

Last night I went for a massage. I called the massage place in the afternoon, just as I was about to get off work, and got a 7 p.m. appointment. Fortunately it's right around the corner from our house. I was feeling really sore for some reason, particularly my lower back -- maybe from all that library inventory? I hadn't had a massage in several months so it was time.

This wasn't the greatest Thai massage I'd ever had. I told her at the outset that I liked firm deep tissue massage on my back but a lighter touch on my legs. Right away, as she began, she pressed hard into my calves. "Ow!" I said.

"Oh, sorry!" she said. "I was thinking about something else!"

Now, I am a person who keeps my underwear on during a massage. I think it sends a message that I am approaching this from a purely therapeutic standpoint and I do not expect any hanky-panky. I don't know whether hanky-panky really happens at massage places -- I suppose it depends on where you go -- but just in case I want to be clothed.

She asked me at one point if I wanted to take my underwear off. I said if it was in her way I could, but it wasn't bothering me to keep it on. So I kept it on. I would think that this would be a relief to her, because I bet there are men who go in there looking for a little something extra and I don't want her to feel any expectation or even a hint of suggestion that that's what I want. You know? It seems respectful toward her. But maybe I'm being prudish. Or maybe it's offensive to massage therapists that this possibility is even crossing my mind -- in which case, I apologize to Thai massage therapists everywhere. I'm just trying to do right by you.

We got some rain yesterday, which is always welcome. A few nights ago, while walking home, I found a hydrangea that someone had pulled out of their garden. It was sitting loosely in a plastic pot on the sidewalk, leaves wilted, outside their garden wall. So I brought it home and planted it in a terra cotta pot on the patio, where it has perked up a bit. Yes, another potted plant. Remember how I keep saying we have too many?

How the Sausage is Made

I've been passing this bench on my way to work for years, and in recent weeks it's been slowly degrading. You'd think the council would come along and at least remove the old one, which looks a bit dangerous, if not replace it entirely. I have an app that allows me to report discarded rubbish to the council, but I'm not sure it covers furniture repairs. Still, I might report this bench.

Reader Ellen D. asked yesterday whether I make notes each day for the following day's blog post. The answer is, sometimes. I usually open a new post every morning and just write off the top of my head. I sometimes think I have nothing to say, but if I just start writing (often prompted by a picture, of which I seem to have a virtually endless supply) I usually find there's a post in there somewhere. If there's something specific I want to mention, or I want to quote something funny that I read or that someone said to me, I might open the post the day before and make some notes, save it as a draft, and then write it out the following morning.

When I was in high school my AP English teacher used to assign "timed writings," in which we'd be given a topic and 15 minutes or so to write a brief essay. That was a good preparation for blogging, though as you saw in my recent post about the Beholder, I was journaling even years before that. I've had a lot of blog training! It's actually quite surprising that I didn't pick it up until 2006, given that blogs were around for years before that, but I was initially wary of sharing personal information on the Internet. As you can see, for better or worse, that dam has burst. Now you can't shut me up.

The somewhat unlovely "stinking iris" is once again blooming. These iris grow wild in our garden. We initially tried to remove them because they're not that pretty and they do have a weird, meaty smell when you pull them up. But we've found that they grow well in areas that don't support much else -- shady, dry spots particularly. So now we let them live and proliferate. I saw a bee on one the other day, so apparently the insects like them, though I'm not sure they offer much in the way of nectar or nutrition.

And here's another shot of our yellow peony, which is going gangbusters. As you can see from the dropped petals on the ground, some of the flowers have already fallen apart. (The ones Olga brushes against when she bulldozes her way through the garden.)

On TV, Dave and I are watching Jon Hamm's show "Your Friends and Neighbors," which we like a lot. We watched two episodes of "The Studio" with Seth Rogen, and I like it but Dave is not a fan, so I may have to pick that one up on my own. I finally finished the first season of the Australian crime drama "Black Snow," which I really liked but which also got the thumbs down from Dave, so that's also one I'll probably have to watch on my own if I want to continue it. I think there are two more seasons. I don't get a whole lot of solo TV-watching time so we'll see if I can make that happen.

I'm in the same situation with "Poker Face," which I watched for one episode and I love Natasha Lyonne so I want to keep going, but Dave is not enthusiastic. Like Olga, he's getting harder to please as he gets older. I think watching YouTube on his phone has trained him to accept only what he specifically wants to see, you know?

Cartimandua

The other day I was sitting in the living room when a squirrel brazenly ran up the avocado tree right outside our window. I've never seen a squirrel in this tree, which isn't very big and doesn't look like it offers much in the way of nibblies or territory to explore. The squirrel seemed to agree and came right back down again, pausing just long enough for me to snap one photo.

Remember that ridiculous bottle of vermouth that we brought on our Christmas trip to Whitstable? The one with a fraction of an inch left in the bottom, that I nonetheless decided to bring all the way back to London, much to Dave's chagrin? (I'm sure you don't. Why would you?) Well, I finally finished the bottle last weekend, when I had a martini -- so it lasted another five months after Christmas. I'd say bringing it home was the right thing to do. I only ever use vermouth in martinis and they are a pretty rare indulgence, so I just want to pat myself on the back for my own thriftiness.

I used some of the money I could have blown on a new bottle of vermouth as a donation to the Yorkshire Museum, which is raising money to conserve the Melsonby Hoard, a pile of elaborate Iron Age relics including horse tackle and a wine-mixing cauldron. The hoard was found by a detectorist in 2021, and the fund drive was meant to help keep the discoveries in Yorkshire, as opposed to having them purchased by some other museum and hauled away. That seemed a worthy cause. I suppose my erstwhile interest in metal detecting (despite my antipathy toward digging holes) helped motivate me.

Anyway, I made the donation several weeks ago and ever since I've been getting regular e-mail updates from the museum that contain fascinating little snippets of information. Yesterday's, for example, was all about Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, an Iron Age tribe that lived in the north in pre-Roman times. Apparently the Roman author Tacitus mentioned her twice in his writings, making her the first named individual in Yorkshire history. Everyone before Cartimandua has faded into the gray mists of time.

In AD 57 she ousted her husband, Venutius, in order to take up with his armour-bearer, Vellocatus. (I'm picturing an older Venutius and a hunky young Vellocatus, thus turning Cartimandua into a cougar, but this may be more my imagination than actual history.) Venutius, in revenge, eventually drove her from power and took over himself. She reportedly survived but I'm not sure what happened to the armour-bearer. It probably wasn't good.

Olga, on our walk yesterday morning, hit the jackpot -- french fries in the gutter! Don't worry. I only let her eat a few.

Last night she got very excited because she glimpsed a fox outside the back door. I grabbed my phone and made a video through the glass. The fox seemed utterly unconcerned about our presence. I kept the dog inside.

The video quality isn't that great because I was zoomed in and shooting through glass, with reflections of the living room lights on the window, but you get a good view of the fox taking a leisurely stretch. Look how big our teasel forest has grown! I think we have even more teasels this year than last. Which is the way it works with weeds, I suppose. I'm probably going to need to rein them in.

Finally, I've already invested in a birthday treat for myself. I got tickets to go see Suzanne Vega in Brighton at the end of October. I've long been a fan of Vega, ever since college (when I badly reviewed what became her most popular album), and I've blogged about seeing her before. She's 65 now, so I don't know how many more tours she'll be doing. Dave and I will probably spend the night in Brighton and then take the next day off work. Should be fun!

The Eyes of the Beholder

Here's Olga enjoying the sunshine on Saturday by the back door. Yesterday wasn't as sunny so she didn't have sunbathing opportunities. We spent most of the day on the couch -- me reading and catching up with blogs and television shows that Dave doesn't like, and Olga snoring. Dave was in his chair with his headphones on, watching Drum Corps marching band videos and the latest on Trump's shenanigans and probably several episodes of West Wing or Downton Abbey.

Such is life around here on the weekends.

We did get a special treat when Dave bought two big packages of strawberries at the supermarket. "Oh, are you going to make strawberry shortcake?" I said. Dave said he hadn't intended to but he could, and that sent him off on a culinary project, which he always loves. We had excellent strawberry shortcake last night for dessert, with biscuits as big as both my fists put together. "As big as a baby's head," as my Peace Corps friend Jennifer would have said.

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Apropos of nothing, here's a little journey back in time, taken from one of the journals I wrote as a young teenager:

Nov. 24, 1980:

Have I got a drawing for you today! This gruesome little fellow is called a "Beholder" and is a monster from the game "Dungeons & Dragons." I traced him from a book that one of my friends had at school, and he was one of several other monsters, like Black Pudding, Gelatinous Cube, Green Slime, Ochre Jelly, Gray Ooze (that one really gets me) and other gruesome things. I think Mr. Beholder here is sort of cute. He has a look-alike called a "Gas Spore," which isn't really an animal like Mr. Beholder is. Believe it or not, Mr. Beholder is an exceptionally intelligent creature, and he supports his body by levitation. Now I know what they mean by "The eye of the Beholder"! (Forget it -- that was a very weak joke.) When JM first saw him, he said, "It's you!" Very dumb.

I had just turned 14 when I wrote that. (JM is my younger brother, who was 10.) Was I a nerd or what? I was actually not that into Dungeons & Dragons -- in fact I've never played it to this day. I'm not sure I even really understood what it was. But I did like reading my friend Andre's Monster Manual, which we'd do in Phys Ed instead of exercising. My nerdy friends and I would sit on the stage in the gym and basically ignore the rest of the class, who were out on the gym floor playing basketball or volleyball or some other awful game and getting all sweaty. Blech. I actually failed PE that quarter. It's the only F grade I ever received as a high school student.

The original D&D Monster Manual is now online and can be found here, with the Beholder on page 11.

Anyway, I was inspired to look this up because we got a new Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual in our library the other day. It looks like this:

Yes, that's the Beholder, in a much more modernized and frightening form. And I belatedly realized that this isn't even the newest version of the Monster Manual -- it's the 2014 edition. (We got it as a donation.) Here's the newest one:

These new renderings make the Beholder look far scarier, don't they? It looked almost friendly in its earliest guise, as if it were smiling with its toothy mouth. But apparently in the game it really is a terrible creature, known as the "Eye Tyrant" and described as "hateful, aggressive and avaricious."

Looking this up made me think I should type up my childhood journals (which span the years from 1979 to 1983 or so) and put them online, as I did about ten years ago with the paper journals I wrote as a young adult. (They're not publicly accessible, but having them in blog form allows me to search them quickly when I want to find something I wrote.) The only downside is, the childhood journals are full of inside jokes. I lived a very insulated childhood and my brother and I developed our own humor, which would make no sense to anyone else. I'd have to edit a lot of that stuff out, particularly if I were ever to make them public.

In my drawing of the Beholder above, for example, see the little creature at lower left saying "Oh, God"? That's my pet turtle Stunky, who featured in practically every drawing in my journals. (My brother had a turtle named Stinky.) You had to be there.

Refrigerator Slug

This pretty much describes the activity around here yesterday. Olga cannot get enough of sunbathing! See how our roses have begun to bloom?

I had a fairly busy morning. I did laundry, changed our sheets and towels and cleaned up a bit around the house.

I planted this penstemon that's been living in a pot for a couple of years. It was pot-bound and not really flourishing, so hopefully getting it in the ground will solve that problem. I consider this a major achievement. You know how I hate digging holes.

Look at the size of this burdock! It practically blocks the path up the side of the garden. I know people consider these plants weeds but I think they're fascinating. Dinosaur plants, Dave calls them.

Olga likes to eat dirt. We have no idea why she does this but usually she's standing up. Yesterday she couldn't be bothered, but lying down she had a little trouble getting leverage.

According to Google, "Dogs eat dirt for a variety of reasons, often related to their nutritional needs, behavioral quirks, or even as a way to self-medicate. Some common reasons include seeking minerals and nutrients, alleviating gastrointestinal discomfort, exploring scents and flavors, or simply due to boredom."

Dave tries to stop her but I just let her go for it.

About a week ago Dave brought home a package of British wild garlic. It was in a box with a plastic cover, and a few nights ago we decided we'd better use it, so Dave unboxed and washed it -- and a slug fell out! Not a very big one. I felt so bad for the little guy, having lived in our refrigerator for a week, that I set him loose in the garden. I don't see how one more slug could make much difference, and we know he's a British slug since he was in a package of British garlic. Hence I am not violating any DEFRA rules by releasing an exotic species. Fare well, refrigerator slug!

Interstellar (Again)

Just back from walking the dog, who this morning wanted her walk before I blogged. Honestly, she is getting more and more demanding with age. As are we all, I suppose.

The good news is, the gigantic box is gone.

Not much to report about yesterday. I finished most of the Lower School library inventory, and as usual they're missing more books than we are in the main library, but dealing with little kids is always a greater uncertainty in terms of keeping track of books. They walk out of the library with them, or shove them back onto a shelf where they don't belong, and leave them in classrooms or God knows where, and it can take a while for them to resurface. But at least now we know what's missing at the moment. I still have to inventory the biographies but I couldn't do that section yesterday because there were parent-teacher conferences and the library was being used for child care, and the little kiddies were too much underfoot. Next week.

Last night Dave and I watched "Interstellar," which we saw together in an IMAX theater eleven years ago (!). Anna Lapwood played some of Hans Zimmer's score at her concert on Thursday, which made me want to watch it again. Dave calls it one of his favorites. Once again, I was struck by its similarity to "2001: A Space Odyssey," which I still think is a superior film, but "Interstellar" is pretty amazing and its cast includes lots of well-known faces. I was surprised to see Timothée Chalamet appear -- when I saw it the first time he was unknown to me, so I didn't take note of his presence.

(Photo: A cafe/bar in Kensington.)