Black and Yellow

Here's an example of how a photographer sometimes depends on luck to get a shot. What caught my eye here was the bright yellow van, and how the yellow of the license plates on the motorcycles echoed the same color. So I began taking pictures, and as I did so, this woman in a black sweater walked by, and that black car passed simultaneously on the street. Voila! It was all very fortunate -- a composition in yellow and black. If there'd been a passerby in a blue shirt across the street, or a green car passing instead, the shot wouldn't have worked.

You're getting this picture from my walk around Mayfair on Thursday because I took only one picture yesterday, and it was no great shakes. I spent the day at home, mostly on the computer, catching up on blog comments and reading. I feel like I was so busy all day, but then Dave came home in the afternoon and asked what I'd been up to, and I had trouble answering. "Laundry?" I said lamely. It's amazing how you can blow a whole day doing inconsequential stuff that doesn't even merit discussion.

Here's yesterday's one picture, taken on our morning dog walk, in case you're curious:

I just got the funniest e-mail from Mrs. Russia, our former upstairs neighbor: "Sorry to bother you. A KFC order was delivered to the wrong address by mistake and has been left outside the door. Would you mind throwing it away, please, before the foxes get to it? Thank you so much, and sorry for the inconvenience."

She sent it at 9:30 p.m. last night, and I didn't get it until just now, so of course I had visions of fried chicken strewn all over the front steps. But there's nothing there, so I suppose her tenants found it. Poor foxes lost out!

We have successfully arranged for a dog-walker for Bailey, which I'm happy about. I've been concerned about how she'd fare during my absence in Florida later this month, with Dave at work all day. The walker will take her to Hampstead Heath every morning, which will be a treat for her -- and hopefully he can also help train her how to behave better on a leash and in the presence of other dogs. (Though she has improved a lot already. I walked her to the cemetery yesterday and she didn't bark once at another dog -- and we saw several!)

Random graffiti from my walks last week.

I'm just about to start a new book -- Ike Eisenmann's memoir about being a child actor for Disney. Eisenmann was an omnipresent film star in the '70s, appearing in multiple Disney movies like "Escape to Witch Mountain," as well as ABC Afterschool Specials and various TV shows (and eventually a "Star Trek" movie). He was an early and innocent crush for gay boys of my generation, and co-starred with other tween heartthrobs of the time like Lance Kerwin. I'm intrigued to read this book and see what stardom looked like to him, from inside the Disney machine.