The Immense Weight of Norman Rockwell

I just woke up from the strangest dream, in which I had cartoon characters tattooed on the calves of both my legs. Beavis and Butthead were on my outer left leg. I don't remember who the others were. Dave was somehow responsible for this, and in the dream I wasn't upset at all, though in real life it would certainly be a different story.

The roofers haven't yet erected their scaffold to begin the roof repairs on our house. We were told it would happen yesterday, but for whatever reason it didn't. I am so happy that I don't have to manage this project at all. We just come and go as usual and at some point we'll come home and there will be a scaffold.

I mailed the wayward birthday card yesterday -- the one that arrived at our house last week by mistake. The sender did respond to my Facebook message, and he seemed rather cautious, but when I explained how I tracked him down (first name on the card, last name on the accompanying check, and an unusual name overall) he was satisfied and he told me where to send it. It's another street very near ours with a completely different name, but the same house number. It makes me wonder how on earth they screwed this up -- did they look at a map and guess at the street? Very weird.

Even weirder, when I left the post office, I went to Starbucks to try to redeem my free coffee from my health insurance, and the barista said they had no hot water. How was this possible?! Something about a machine being broken, but they couldn't do an Americano (which is made with the espresso machine) or a filter coffee (which is made with a drip coffee maker). So it sounds like two machines were broken. Maybe I'll try again today if I get motivated.

Here are the chrysanthemums I carried home from Queen's Park on Sunday, along with some cyclamens I got at Homebase a few weeks ago. Aren't those nice-looking mums for £3.50?

Yesterday at work some fifth-grade boys, both library enthusiasts who have started their own book club (!), found an immense volume of Norman Rockwell paintings in a back corner. One of them discovered from the lack of date stamps that it had never been checked out, and when I showed him another stamp indicating the library got the book in 1975, he couldn't believe it. (I'm sure 1975 seems like prehistory to him.) He borrowed it just to proudly tell his friends: "We're the first people to check it out!" And then he flipped through a few pages and returned it, because I'm sure he wasn't interested in lugging home a 12x17-inch book that must weigh 20 pounds. Kids are funny.

(Top photo: Salusbury Road, Queen's Park, on Sunday.)

So Many Rules

For a long time I've been meaning to take Olga to Queen's Park, southwest of where we live, just to try something new. I didn't necessarily have it in mind when we set out on our walk yesterday, but when we found ourselves headed in that direction I decided to make it our goal.

Turns out, Queen's Park -- though perfectly nice as parks go -- isn't a great place for Olga. For one thing, there are a lot of rules. A placard by the gate lists them all. Dogs have to be on a lead, for example. Also, you can't quarrel, use profanity, play cards, or land a helicopter. So don't even think about it.

The dogs-on-leads rule means there are billions of incredibly fat, lazy squirrels lolling around, which of course drove Olga into a frenzy. In her mind's eye, they were spread-eagled on giant Ritz crackers, green olives in their mouths, a tray of hors d'oeuvres. She nearly pulled my arms off trying to get to them, and did her "insane dog" impression, in which she pants and groans and wheezes and slavers and becomes a general embarrassment.

Because of the insane dog, I only took a few pictures in the park, including the one of the bandstand, above. (Oh, and that's another park rule -- you can't "importune any person for the purpose of taking any photograph." I decided to risk importuning the bandstand.)

I asked another dog owner, walking a very properly behaved small furry thing, where I could let Olga run off-leash, and he directed us to nearby Tiverton Green.

That was a much, much better solution. She chased her tennis ball, fended off an incursion by a German Shepherd who wanted to take her ball, and also found an abandoned orange football to play with.

Afterwards we walked the high street through the Queen's Park neighborhood, where I got a coffee and a pastry at Starbucks. I thought I had a free coffee through my health insurance, but when I got to the counter I couldn't find the payment code on my insurance app -- the app recently updated and now nothing looks the same. So rather than annoy everyone by holding up the line, I paid for everything, and of course the moment I sat down I found the payment code with no problem.

(Oh, you can't be annoying in Queen's Park, either. It's expressly forbidden, according to the posted rules, to "behave to the annoyance of any person." That only applies in the park itself, though, not in Starbucks.)

Finally, as we began the long walk home, Olga dragged me into the Queens Park farmer's market, which was being held in a car park beside the high street. She smelled the oysters, I think, but we steered clear of those. I did buy a pot of beautiful chrysanthemums for the porch, and I felt very autumnal carrying them home.

In the afternoon I cleaned up the garden, pruning back the dead inulas, thistles and cardoon and raking up the fallen leaves. And I watched the Marx Brothers in "A Night at the Opera," which I checked out from the library, mainly because I wanted to see Kitty Carlisle in what might be her most famous acting role. Those Marx Brothers movies are still funny, even after 80 years.

Spotty Leaves and Freddie Mercury

Olga and I went for a long walk on the Heath yesterday. It was chilly but clear and pleasant, and as usual she was insane with squirrel-chasing energy. While she ran and ran, I spent my time photographing peculiar leaves.

We found a couple of pumpkins sitting outside someone's garden gate. I couldn't tell if they were being given away or meant as decoration -- but you'd think if they were decorative, someone would have removed the stickers.  Olga was trying to figure them out. I think she thought they were footballs. We left them there.

After our walk, Dave and I went to see "Bohemian Rhapsody," the new movie about Queen and Freddie Mercury. (You may remember I came across Freddie's house in Kensington several years ago.) It's a good movie. I was never a huge Queen fan, but I had their greatest hits album at some point, and I had the single of "Killer Queen" when I was a kid -- someone gave it to me. Anyway, the film is rather obviously Hollywoodized in a few places and the prosthetic teeth that Rami Malek wears seem WAY too big, but aside from that, it gets two thumbs up from us.

A large part of the film's ending focuses on Queen's performance at Live Aid, which occurred in July 1985. You know, I remember all the buzz about that event, but I don't think I watched it at the time. I was in college, had just moved into my first apartment with a roommate, and I guess I was just too busy. I did buy a 12-inch single of "We Are the World," so I did my part!

This morning, Olga is not moving very fast. I think she's still recovering, chasing squirrels in her twitchy dog dreams.

Three

This mylar balloon is caught in some trees near our house. It's been there for days and days. I'm sure it's a remnant of some child's birthday party and I have to wonder how it will ever come down.

Speaking of birthdays, yesterday was mine. I have officially been on the planet for 52 years. I didn't mention it yesterday because there wasn't much to tell, and there still isn't. I got a postcard from my step-mother, who's traveling in Portugal, and my co-workers gave me a little gathering with a card and a flourless chocolate cake. Oh, and my boss's boss gave me a coaster for drinks, shaped like an old floppy disk. Dave already took me to dinner, so that's that!

I did make myself a rare martini, which was fabulous, and we watched "Clueless," because if you're going to drink a martini and watch a movie you can't watch something that requires any thought.

Oh, and I heard from 90 people on Facebook, which is pretty great. I am terrible about wishing people happy birthday on Facebook, and yet every year when my birthday comes around and I get so many messages, I am touched! It makes me realize how many great people I know and how many paths I've traveled. Say all you want about the evils of Facebook -- and in many cases you wouldn't be wrong -- but it does birthdays well.

Chest Pains, Moths and Lost Mail

Suddenly we've had lots of activity around here.

Most excitingly, I was at work on Tuesday afternoon when I began having sharp chest pains. They felt very internal, slightly to the left of my breastbone and radiating both to my front and my back. They weren't super-intense and didn't have the elephant-sitting-on-your-chest feeling that heart attacks supposedly have, so I didn't do anything immediately. But when I went home I told Dave, and we called the NHS ask-a-nurse line. The nurse ran me through a list of questions and told me I should consult with a doctor within six hours, then contacted my doctor's office and got a doctor on the phone (!). He told me it sounded like "musculo-skeletal" injury and told me to come and see him in the morning.

So, on Wednesday morning, he examined me and said everything seemed fine. (The pain had largely disappeared by then, but it was uncomfortable enough that I couldn't lie on my side in bed the previous night.) He sent me for an ECG and blood work, which I did yesterday morning at the Royal Free Hospital. The ECG still has to be read by a cardiologist but the technician said it looked normal to her.

Good grief! Maybe hoisting all those boxes of discarded DVDs didn't do me any favors?

On top of this, an exterminator is coming on the 10th to give our flat a "moth treatment" because, even though we've seen no evidence of moths in the rugs, the landlord insists on it before she replaces the dining room carpet. It's actually going to be two treatments, two weeks apart, and we have to be out of the flat for five hours or so each time. I hate the idea of poison in the house so I am not amused. I'd rather live with moths -- but we really do need a new carpet.

Finally, we've just learned there's going to be roof work on our building, which will necessitate erecting a scaffold all around the house for a week. That starts on Monday. Hopefully it won't affect us much since we're on the bottom floor, but at minimum it seems like it might make things a bit darker.

Oh, and I'll be back at the dentist on Tuesday to determine why my back molar is still giving me pain, despite a root canal and a crown.

Never a dull moment!

Yesterday we got an envelope in the mail addressed to someone we've never heard of. It was obviously a letter of some sort but it had no return address. I was stymied about what to do, so I opened it, and it turned out to be a birthday card for a 16-year-old nephew with a check inside. I tracked down the sender on Facebook and sent a message letting him know we have it instead of the nephew (who I suppose lived here at some point in the past). I offered to return it or forward it, depending on what he wants. We'll see if he responds. Why don't people put return addresses on their mail?

(Photo: Chiswick House, a couple of weekends ago.)

More Pics from the Ol' Phone

This is not our Chinese lantern plant. I wish! No, it belongs to a neighbor, and just like every year, it is bedecked with beautiful orange lantern-like seed pods. Our lantern plant -- our third attempt at growing one, I should add -- seems to have spontaneously died. It was doing well until shortly after we returned from Vietnam, when it turned yellow and withered away. I thought it was dying back for fall until I saw the neighbor's, still lush and be-lanterned. I have no idea why Dave and I are so terrible at growing this particular plant -- especially when it's supposed to be so easy!

We'll see if it comes up in the spring, and if not, we'll get a fourth one. I am GOING to have lanterns, dammit.

An office near Fortune Green closed some time ago and was remodeled into another office. Simultaneously, these office chairs appeared, discarded by the side of the road. Coincidence?

A picture of nothing. I just liked the orangey glow of that streetlight.

The promotional posters on the vacant shop on Finchley Road keep changing. There's a whole world of entertainment going on out there I know nothing about!

Perhaps the world's ugliest loveseat, left on Priory Road for the trash collectors. Beige vinyl and green-stained trim? Hmmmm...

A nearby pub is having a Halloween party tomorrow night with a drag queen! This is surprising only because it just doesn't seem like a drag queen kind of pub. I guess drag culture really has permeated the mainstream -- or, as one of my friends suggested, maybe it's the name of a band.

Cute doodles on the side of a discarded box, set out for the recyclers.

A fall leaf atop a metal manhole cover -- don't you love that colorful stem?

By the way, we had no trick-or-treaters last night. Whew!

Happy Halloween, but Don't Knock Here

The younger kids in our school went all-out with their autumn decor this year, giving us a wall of psychedelic pumpkins. I think they look better than the standard orange-and-black Halloween color scheme, don't you?

But there's plenty of that around, too:

There seem to be two schools of thought about Halloween in Britain. One is embodied by the traditionalists who eschew Halloween as an American import and argue that Britain should save its fall celebratory energy for Bonfire Night (which is coming up on Nov. 5). Rob Rinder, in the Evening Standard, moaned about Halloween in one of his recent columns and said trick-or-treaters in his neighborhood badger him not for candy but money. (Definitely not an American Halloween tradition!)

Others take it in stride. The family with this door is British -- I know because I heard them talking as they were leaving the house one day -- and they have kids, which is obviously what motivates most people to participate in Halloween at all. When I was at Chiswick House a couple of weekends ago I sat near a couple of young British moms (or "mums") who were talking about how to costume their children for the day.

In the Guardian, a writer recently compiled a list of do's and don'ts for trick-or-treating, for those uncertain how to proceed. There were some funny comments on the article from readers about their own experiences with Halloween:

"Yesterday I was in the park with the spaniels and two people appeared. Or rather, one person and a crocodile. Yes, here was a person in an inflatable crocodile suit, complete with tail swishing back and forth. It failed to freak me out but it scared the crap out of one of my dogs."

Anyway, as usual, Dave and I plan to keep our heads down tonight. I didn't buy any candy and we don't have a pumpkin. We haven't had a trick-or-treater since moving to London, and I doubt they'll start now. But just in case, we'll stick to our annual routine -- turn off the porch light and hide in the back of the house, watching television. (Pretty much our nightly routine, come to think of it!)