Dad From Mars, Mom From Venus

When I was a kid, the church I attended with my family was called Tims. Not quite the same thing, but still.

I spent part of yesterday determining how to promote some of the sad, forgotten books in our library collection. I ran a report showing which ones had never been checked out (and there are many!) and put a few that didn't look downright embarrassing in prominent places atop shelves in the fiction section. We'll see whether it helps!

(Some of them, incidentally, did look downright embarrassing. I thought about trying to draw attention to a Robert Heinlein novel called "Between the Planets," which when it was published in 1951 probably seemed very cutting-edge. It had something to do with a guy whose father lives on Mars and whose mother is from Venus. Or something like that. Anyway, I just couldn't do it -- I put it back on the shelf.)

Today there are no classes, and I'll be at a special training session away from school about a service that provides online e-books. I'm sure that sounds deadly boring but actually I'm kind of intrigued.

So remember when I launched a Tumblr blog? I've been doggedly updating it, and a few of my photos have taken off and been reblogged dozens of times, which is kind of cool. But I must admit Tumblr is kind of strange to me. Lots of folks seem to be running "blogs" that consist only of methodically recycled content from other people. I remember reading years ago that only a minority of Internet users are content creators, compared to the many who are content consumers -- I guess Tumblr illustrates that. But a blog full of other people's stuff doesn't seem much like a blog to me. It's more like a Pinterest page.

Vine at Alexandra Road

More fall color! I found this vine on a recent lunchtime walk. It was growing up a wall at the Alexandra Road council estate, yet another brutalist apartment complex with some very peculiar architecture.

Dave and I have decided to explore the possibility of going to Istanbul during Thanksgiving. (Remember we postponed that trip after the violent demonstrations in Turkey earlier this year.) We'll check airfares this weekend, but I've been told they're cheap in November.

I even joined the British Airways frequent flier club! In the past I never flew enough to make frequent flier clubs worthwhile -- I'd sign up and register miles and then they'd all expire before I accumulated enough to do anything with them. Super frustrating! Maybe now, traveling back and forth to the states and elsewhere, I'll actually be able to put them to use. The downside is that now I'll be predisposed to fly BA, which might not necessarily have the cheapest ticket -- and then am I benefitting from the frequent flier points at all, or just spreading my expenses?

A Quiet Week

Not much to report here on this rainy morning. I've just been out with the dog and as we walked along the dark street, a cat leaped at us from beneath a parked car, hissing like a Sleestak and scaring us to death. Even Olga was alarmed. I thought she'd attack it, but she backed away and seemed quite happy to keep walking! Then the cat followed us. It was one ballsy cat.

We're seeing more signs of the arrival of autumn, like the slow turning of the tree above. This is the gate from our apartment complex to the street, the spot where I occasionally see foxes and window-washers.

I started to write about the government shutdown, but really, I just don't want to go there. I'm going to bite my tongue. I've been watching the Facebook pages of some of my Tea Party-sympathizing contacts, and surprisingly even they've had very little to say about it. I'm thinking about all my federally employed friends, hoping you're weathering the storm OK.

School is incredibly quiet this week. The high school students are all away on school trips, so we've only got middle schoolers to deal with -- and surprisingly, they are a much better behaved, less demanding group. I got out for a long walk yesterday at lunch, which felt great.

Crystal Meth and a Lost Camera

Last night, Dave and I had a couple of friends over to watch the final episode of "Breaking Bad." We get it via Netflix a day after it airs in the states. I thought it was a good episode, but like many other people I'm also glad the show is ending. It's important to bring a series to a halt before it gets silly or runs off the rails. (Ahem, "Downton Abbey.")

Dave made chili, as well as special gelatin vodka squares that he tinged blue to look like Heisenberg's crystal meth in the show. They tasted terrible but visually they were the perfect party accessory! I would have taken a photo, but...

...I managed to LEAVE MY CAMERA AT WORK yesterday. Yes, my beloved camera, the one I call "the baby," the one I am scared to let out of my sight. At lunch I took it into the faculty lounge intending to go for a photo walk after I ate, and I put it beneath my chair. Then I got engrossed in a book, decided not to walk, and went back to my desk without the camera. I didn't even realize it was missing until I closed up the library at 5 p.m. and saw that it wasn't beneath my desk. Fortunately I left it in a place where only my coworkers would find it, and someone gave it to security. It's now locked in the media office, and I have to retrieve it this morning.

All that would probably not have happened had I not also been preoccupied by a very strange encounter with a student over a computer charger. The student checked out a charger and a few minutes later returned an entirely different charger. It's a long story, and it's still unresolved, but it's funny how a single incident can affect your whole day.

(Photos: A salon on Westbourne Grove entertains me and Olga weekly with follicular wisdom.)

Olga and Nell at Hampstead Heath

One of my coworkers, Lindsey, has a rescue dog of the same breed as Olga (more or less, given that both are of uncertain lineage). We've talked for weeks about how we should get them together. Since Olga loves to play with the staffie downstairs, I thought Olga and Lindsey's dog, Nell, were guaranteed to hit it off.

Yesterday morning we met with Lindsey and her husband, Gavin, for a trip with the dogs to Hampstead Heath, a vast wooded park in North London.

To our surprise, the dogs seemed kind of indifferent to each other. There was no hostility, but also no real affection and very little playing. It was like they'd known each other forever and thought, "Oh, it's you." Or maybe they were quietly sizing each other up.

They each did their own thing as we rambled through the park for about two hours, Olga chasing her Kong toy and Nell ranging far ahead to scout for the pack.

Fall is definitely on its way, as you can see from some of the changing leaves. This woman was interested in the large clusters of mushrooms sprouting from a tree.

And this little boy and his family were dwarfed by a giant fallen tree that apparently everyone loves to climb. (We saw several kids on it at different times.)

It was a long walk, and by the end I was beat. I used to have much more stamina for such things! I was happy to get back home, watch some Star Trek DVDs and while away the afternoon.

I'm sure Olga and Nell will meet again soon!

Chewing Gum Art and a Lost Poppet

There's a guy named Ben Wilson who goes around London painting artworks on little round deposits of chewing gum that have dried to the sidewalk. It's kind of ingenious, really, to see something so mundane as a canvas for art. (To see the incredible detail and variety of London's chewing gum art, click here.)

Yesterday, around the corner from our flat, I found this little masterpiece -- a painted street scene with cars and pedestrians. I was excited to find an example of Wilson's work so close to my own home! I was even more surprised to see that it's dated 2012, which means it's been there for a year. How can that be true? How have I missed it all this time? I pride myself on paying attention to my surroundings. (In my defense, it's often dark when I pass this spot, walking Olga first thing in the morning.)

Last night Dave and I went to dinner with our neighbor Chris, and I showed them the chewing gum art afterwards. We all agreed it's easily mistaken for a sticker, a bit of trash, stuck to the sidewalk.

This morning, on our walk, Olga and I found this little poppet resting atop a discarded stack of videos at the curbside. I did not salvage the videos -- because really, a VCR tape is one of the most useless things in the world now -- but I did rescue the poppet. I left it in Dave's chair as a wake-up present. He will probably be horrified.

Weekend Meditation in Orange

I took these photos on my lunch break yesterday, when I walked north of school to no particular destination. I bought my lunch at school as usual, put it in a brown bag and took it out to enjoy the day. But then I had a little trouble finding a place to eat -- I wound up sitting on a bench at the main entrance of a big, architecturally uninteresting council estate. At least I was outside with some time to myself.

That's one thing I miss about working. As much as I like the companionship of others, I also miss time on my own, which I had in abundance before I got this job. Now my only quiet moments are the mornings, when I write my blog and when Dave is either still asleep (on weekends) or already off to school.

Olga and I have already had an exciting morning. Her stomach is upset for some reason -- she probably ate something weird while out with her dog-walker -- and that has meant a certain amount of rug-washing. (Never mind the details.) She and I went for a short walk, and I had to make an early-morning grocery run for milk -- so I also popped in to a little cafe and bought a cinnamon roll, a pain-au-chocolat and some fresh figs for Saturday breakfast.

We got a huge new TV monitor at work, so late yesterday afternoon -- when the library was basically empty -- I used it to view my favorite photos from the past year. I'm thinking about putting my next book together, and what I should include and what I should leave out. It was cool seeing them on a wall-sized TV! Of course, a parent came in and commented on how nice they were, and right at that moment this photo came up in my automated slideshow, and I thought, "Hmmmm....maybe some of these aren't appropriate for school!"