Not Very Uplifting

Here are some of the buildings Sharon and I encountered during our visit to Hackney Wick last weekend. It may be gentrified, but it's still a very colorful neighborhood!

This one has a Roy Lichtenstein feel to it...sort of Lichtenstein-meets-Marvel-Comics.

You might be wondering (probably not) whatever happened to my itchy arms. Well, they're still itchy. I have backed off the belief that insects are the cause. I haven't been outside enough in the past week to have encountered any insects. I'm returning to the belief that this is a result of cumulative sun damage over the course of the summer. Now that I'm at work I'm obviously in the sun much less, and I've been taking a daily antihistamine, which seems to help -- so I think the problem is slowly, slowly going away. It's still a very peculiar situation.

The lesson for the future, I think, is that I need to wear sunscreen.

I've been missing Olga a lot lately. The other night I woke up in the wee hours and came out to sit in the living room for a moment, and missed the fact that when she was alive, she would wonder where I was if I didn't come back to bed. She'd come out to sit with me on the couch. I still miss her snoring weight and her presence in the garden during the day, annoying as it could be. It's been slightly more than a month since she left us, but it seems much longer. When a constant presence is suddenly absent, that absence seems even more profound.

I think I'm approaching this year at work with more trepidation than I let on in yesterday's post. This was amplified by a meeting we had yesterday where we outlined what's needed in the coming year, and it sounds like I'll be spending even more time in the Lower School and less doing what I used to do. Every day's schedule is going to be different, and there will be much less routine. I'm told that overdue materials are "just books" (in other words, don't spend so much time trying to get them back) and I'm still doing all the book covering. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what's expected of me, but the message I'm getting is that I should not count on sitting at the circulation desk as much. At the moment, the prospect of another whole year is not very compelling. Maybe that will change as I get more into the rhythm of things.

I think I'm just exhausted with all the opening-week activity, too. I'm ready to have students back and stop with all these meetings and trainings and speeches and socializing.

All I know is, it's not a good thing when I wake up in the middle of the night stewing about work. I am ready to leave this part of my life behind.

Dave had a little more left over bolognaise sauce from dinner on Wednesday night, and I put it out for the foxes once again. I honestly don't mean to make a habit of this but I hate throwing away perfectly good meat sauce, and when it's not enough to save but too much to put in the trash, an animal is the perfect solution. Again, I'm missing Olga!

Anyway, this time around, the fox never came for it. According to the garden cam, a curious cat checked it out but I think ultimately the starlings ate it. The idea of birds eating meat sauce is a little disgusting for some reason.