The Wrong Chair

Almost since we've moved to England, Dave has wanted a La-Z-Boy recliner. He had one in the states that he loved, but it was too worn out to move here, and although we bought a recliner when we first arrived it was a sorry approximation of the real thing.

The need has become particularly acute because the loveseat where Dave sits every night is falling apart. There's basically no support below the cushion. Dave is so tall that it doesn't make a difference for him, but Gary, Dave's brother-in-law, sat in Dave's "spot" during his visit and disappeared into the loveseat like Lily Tomlin playing Edith Ann.

You may remember that Dave's 50th birthday was in June. So I decided to order him a La-Z-Boy, specially made. We got it from a furniture company in Peterborough, and before I ordered it I had Dave choose what he wanted -- the type of chair and the color. I placed the order online at the end of May. And we waited. And waited.

Finally, this week, I was notified that the chair was ready for delivery. Dave joyously anticipated putting his feet up as he had in his old recliner. The van pulled up yesterday morning, the delivery guys hoisted the chair into place in our living room, and Dave sat down -- and he was unable to recline. There was no reclining handle, no mechanism that we could find. The footrest seemed welded to the body of the chair.

I got on the phone to the company and learned with horror that we had ordered a standard armchair, not a reclining armchair. I looked at the information Dave sent me, and yes, that's what he accidentally specified, and I didn't catch the problem. I guess we both thought all La-Z-Boys were recliners. Hence the name, right?

Well, no.

Fortunately, the furniture company is working with us, and we're going to exchange the chair. We have to pay a little more -- the recliners are slightly more expensive -- and we also have to pay another delivery fee, as well as a fee to have the incorrect one collected next week and taken away. Worst of all, we have to wait another 15 weeks for the recliner to be ready.

This is the longest, most drawn-out birthday Dave has ever had -- not in a good way!

Jenny-O asked to see a close-up of our embroidery from Vietnam, which you all saw in a photo of our front hallway a few days ago. We liked it because we saw many scenes like this while traveling through the country -- right down to the pink lotuses in the paddies and the workers with their conical hats. We bought it in a shop where women were gathered working on various pieces of embroidery -- I assume one of them made it, but who knows. Anyway, it's a nice souvenir linked to specific memories we have of the country.

(Top photo: A charity shop in Cricklewood. I showed you a close-up photo of its window in the post linked above.)

Crispy Zinnias and E. B. White

Some of the zinnia flowers are looking very autumnal these days, drying out and turning brown. And yet the plants are still putting out new blossoms, smaller but just as colorful as the first ones. They're doing their best to set seeds, but I'm trying to keep them deadheaded so they continue blooming.

We've been getting some weird stuff through the book drop at work. The other day someone gave us a first edition of E. B. White's book "The Second Tree from the Corner," a collection of pieces he wrote for The New Yorker between 1935 and 1954. I don't think it's particularly valuable (based on what I see on eBay) and perhaps surprisingly, I already have my own copy. White is one of my favorite writers of all time, and I don't mean "Charlotte's Web," although that's a great book -- his writing for adults was amazing. We'll probably put it in one of the conference room bookcases, where our few antiquarian books are located.

And then, yesterday, someone returned a book from the East Riding of Yorkshire school library system. Why on earth did it come to us? I suppose the borrower thought as long as it went back to a school they'd done their part. I looked up the address of the East Yorkshire school libraries office, tucked the book in an envelope and mailed it to them. It had been checked out in 2010 and was probably declared lost long ago, but it was in good condition, so maybe they can still use it.

What did you think of the mysterious column in the Times declaring a cabal of resisters within the Trump administration? I found it weirdly comforting, knowing that there are senior people within the administration trying to protect us all from the Orange Menace. But as a friend of mine pointed out on Facebook, should we really feel better that there's an internal coup in the White House? And this person clearly values aspects of the Republican agenda (deregulation, more military spending, tax "reform") that I personally question, so we can't lose sight of the fact that we need to clean the whole hornet's nest out of office.

(What would E. B. White, a great internationalist, have thought of Trump? His assessment would be entertaining and eloquent and probably damning.)

I've been walking to and from work to get some exercise and to rack up points using my health insurance app, so I can get some free Starbucks coffees and movie tickets. (Obviously not really free, since I'm paying for the insurance.) I haven't really mastered the system, though. For a long time it wouldn't give me any points until I completed my annual health questionnaire, which I never seemed to have time to do. (I finally did it yesterday.) I've also found that when I do earn a coffee, I seem to have only a few days to redeem it before the reward vanishes entirely. That's the problem with these reward schemes -- I don't want to be ruled by my health insurance app. I'd rather just go buy a coffee when I want one!

iPhone Photo Parade

I have nothing of substance to write today, so it's time for more photos from the ol' iPhone!

The other day Dave put the television on pause and we were treated to this scary/hilarious expression on the face of a sports coach. (No, we weren't watching sports. I think it was a commercial.)

Here's another example of interesting morning light in our front hallway. (And now you know our house number!) The embroidery on the wall we bought in Vietnam -- it shows workers harvesting rice.

Olga was sorry that the Dog Lounge was closed when we passed early on Saturday morning. (Although she doesn't look sorry, and come to think of it, she doesn't really like baths...so maybe she was actually thrilled!)

The window of a charity shop in Cricklewood. It's never open when I'm over that way but it looks like an intriguing place.

A broken chair, set out for trash collection. By the way, do you see the "small electrical appliances" bin? The council collects them for recycling. I don't remember ever seeing that in the states, although maybe it's done now. Pretty cool, huh?

This was a pub in St. John's Wood where my colleagues used to assemble on Fridays after work. Sadly, it has closed and I believe it's due to be turned into flats (but I'm not sure about that). Anyway, someone clearly isn't happy with the changes.

Olga and I pass this tree with HUGE leaves on our morning walks. I think it's a catalpa? I tried to include my hand for scale.

And finally, the back cover of a math textbook we were discarding in the library. I just liked the artwork. I'm not sure what peacocks have to do with math, but I guess the poor artist had to come up with something.

Autumn Tableau

Yesterday morning the sunlight was falling so nicely across our hall table that I couldn't resist taking some pictures. Then I began thinking about the collection of stuff on the tabletop -- each of those items has a story behind it.

First of all, the lilies -- I found them while I was walking the dog. And no, they weren't growing in anyone's garden. They were lying abandoned on the public bench at the top of the street, amid unwrapped florist's paper. Who knows what happened? Maybe someone got flowers and didn't want them. Maybe a thief took them from the recipient's doorstep not knowing what they were, and left them behind after unwrapping them and discovering nothing of value. In any case, no one was around to claim them so I brought them home. We've had them more than a week and they're reaching the end of their time.

I made that pencil cup in pottery class in the late 1990's. Yes, I went through a pottery-making period. I was never very good at it, as all my poor friends who were burdened with my creations will attest.

The orange ball radio I've had since childhood. I wrote about it here.

Behind the radio and the pencil cup is a framed autumn leaf that my mom brought me from North Carolina way back in the late 1970s. She bought it at a shop, and it had been preserved somehow -- I think glycerin was involved? -- so that it retained its color and some flexibility. In the 40 years since, it has remained amazingly durable and only recently started to fade. Here's a scan, with the colors slightly enhanced to show how it looked when I first received it:

Pretty cool, huh? That leaf is older than Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake or Lady Gaga, to pick a few people at random.

The photos are of me, my brother and my mom, and were taken, developed and printed by my dad back in the 1970s. The packet of lavender seeds was included with a new pair of pants that Dave recently bought online. (Odd, but we'll plant them!) The little blue doll, which looks like a potato with pigtails and an embroidered face, we found on the street -- obviously someone's handmade creation. We tried to get Olga to play with it but she wasn't interested.

The badger card came from York. You've seen it before here. And finally, the tablecloth is a piece of wax cloth -- a sort of batik, at least in its original, authentic form -- that I bought in Ghana back in 1994.

That's probably more than you ever wanted to know about our hall tabletop! (And this is only half of it!)

Cosmos, and Librarian Problems

This is one of our cosmos. As you can see, they're finally budding and blooming -- this is probably the most productive of the several plants we have. I think I planted them in compost that was too rich -- they grew huge, almost as tall as I am (about 6 feet), and produced tons of foliage but they haven't been great about flowering. They are pretty, though.

I had a busy weekend. Aside from filming Saturday's outing with the dog and documenting the faces of Cricklewood, I mowed the lawn, cleaned the house, did laundry, paid bills and trimmed the garden. Whew! (Dave was working on music for his band students, so he was busy too.)

Speaking of Saturday, I got a special request -- OK, it was from Dave -- to upload my "director's cut" of Olga's GoPro video. This is a longer version of the one I posted Sunday, with different music and some ambient audio (barking!). If you feel inspired you can watch it here, but don't feel obligated because as I said earlier, it's 11-something minutes long and that's a lot of dog for most people.

I didn't finish all the reading I'd hoped -- in fact I'm still working my way through my third New Yorker and I haven't even started the Knausgaard book. I don't know why I have so much trouble sitting down and reading. Every time I do, a voice nags at the back of my brain: "Don't you have something more important to do?" Which is terrible! I love reading! Why do I feel it should be my last priority?!

Yesterday was a bear of a day at work. A parent called to complain -- not angrily, but just out of concern -- about a book we'd checked out to her fifth-grade son. Apparently the book contained too many references to drug smuggling and other crime for her taste. (Amazon says it's for readers 11 and over, so he's right on the cusp in terms of age.) Anyway, one of the librarians met with her and worked out a plan to give the kid more wholesome books.

Then we realized that the notebook we use to schedule library space for classes -- which I make up at the beginning of every school year, using specially printed pages gridded to show every class block from August into June -- was wrong. Apparently the school calendar I'd based it on was incorrect. Argh! So I had to remake it last night, which wasted half a ream of paper and kept me at work about 45 minutes past my normal time.

As Queen Victoria said, probably apocryphally: "We are not amused."

Faces of Cricklewood

As I walked Olga along Cricklewood high street on Saturday morning, I happened to glance up at one of the shopfronts and notice that it had faces carved into the corners -- above the walls dividing one shop from the next. I've walked that street a million times but I'd never noticed this before.

It's common in Victorian architecture to have carved ornamentation, and I've seen many faces in other areas, but as I walked along I began paying attention to the incredible diversity of Cricklewood's faces. Each and every one is different.

I went back yesterday morning with my camera (and Olga) and took pictures of 67 of them -- nearly the entire street. I'm sure I didn't get them all, but I got a representative assortment.

(By the way, if I ever again get the bright idea to try to walk the dog and take pictures at the same time, talk me out of it. It always turns into a nightmare of Olga pulling at me while I'm trying to aim and focus, and then I get mad and she gets sulky. I've learned this lesson before, but I always seem to forget. Anyway, she consoled herself by furtively eating mysterious bits of food she found along the street -- God knows what, but it hasn't killed her yet.)

As I said, the faces are very diverse. Some have crowns, some have hats, some appear more lion than human, some have wings coming out of their heads. Some are more skillfully carved than others. There are women...

...and what appear to be people of different races.

Because it's such an intensely developed commercial area, a lot of the faces are covered by wires and pipes and have signs planted in their foreheads.

I'm tempted to go back and double-check to make sure I've got all the good ones, and then put a book together for a colleague of mine who's running a volunteer library in the area. Wouldn't it be cool for them to have on display?

Pigeon photo bomb!

I especially love all the colors. It's very common in London to see building ornamentation painted right down the middle, with the owners of the buildings on either side responsible for each half. That leads to some interesting combinations, especially with all the signage and CCTV cameras and whatnot!

Canal and Scrubs

Another weekend day, another long walk with the dog. This time it was along the Grand Union Canal and through Wormwood Scrubs -- and I made another GoPro video! (It's been ten months since our last one, so we're long overdue.) Olga is wearing her GoPro harness and camera in the photo above. I wouldn't say she loves it, but she is very tolerant.

In the video below, you'll see me taking both that photo and this one:

Those were some odd "hood ornaments" on a boat along the canal.

So without further ado, here's the action vid of our day!



I just want you to know that I shot an hour and a half of video, which I condensed into those six minutes and 42 seconds. You're welcome. My original edit -- let's call it the "director's cut" -- was almost twice as long and included a lot more footage at the beginning and end of our walk, as well as different music and some ambient audio. But even I, Olga lover that I am, recognize that it's too much to ask most blog readers to watch 12 minutes of my dog.

Among other things, you'll see Olga chase squirrels and chase her ball (in slo mo!), and at one point snag her harness on a tree and pull it off entirely. I had to climb into a densely wooded copse to retrieve it! There's also a glimpse of the Wormwood Scrubs prison, which is next to the park, at 4:50.