A Lunch, With Fox Leftovers

Dave and I had our Brexit-supporting former neighbors Chris and Linda over for lunch yesterday. It turned into an all-day affair, between cleaning the house beforehand and mopping up in the kitchen afterwards. They left around 4 p.m. and Dave and I were so exhausted we sat silently in the living room for the rest of the evening, barely talking even to each other.

Chris is a character. He's a former newspaperman, but he's oddly impervious to any new information that doesn't agree with what he previously understood (or assumed) to be true. For example, he came in yesterday insisting that a popular restaurant we like in Soho had closed. He said he'd walked past it and it was utterly shuttered, the building for sale. Frankly, this seemed unlikely, so I looked online. The website was still up, the street address hadn't changed, and when I called, a maitre'd answered, ready to make a reservation. Chris simply would not accept that he could have been mistaken.

He's the same way with current events. He'll sort of listen when we argue a point, but he is completely immovable and when we next see him, it will be like the previous conversation never occurred.

He also insists on calling Olga "he," which is a small thing, but it annoys the heck out of me. She has a girl's name, for God's sake.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, it was a lot of socializing for a single day.

Dave baked a chicken, and we had some bits left over, so I stripped it from the bones and set it out for the foxes right before I went to bed. As you can see above, one showed up promptly, and then came back a few hours later, no doubt hoping for more.

Before going to sleep, I read more of Tina Brown's "Vanity Fair Diaries." Here's another juicy tidbit. Brown went to Oxford in June 1986 to do an article, and hired a student named Allegra as a temporary assistant. "I had lunch with a bunch of posh students Allegra knows, including her boyfriend, a young fogey with a thatch of blond hair and a plummy voice called Boris Johnson," Brown wrote. She eventually decided not to do the article, feeling unable to penetrate the "class loyalty of the group," and returned to New York. About ten days later, Allegra wrote a "really nasty piece" about Brown in the Sunday Telegraph, with the centerpiece being that lunch. "But Allegra wasn't present, so Boris must have told her what to write -- a snide, garbled version of what I said, because he took no notes and clearly recreated it, full of falsehoods, from memory -- and then she put her byline on it. I was truly gobsmacked by the awfulness of it. God knows why smiling Boris would behave this way either." She protested to the Telegraph, which agreed to run a letter correcting the record. "But Boris Johnson is an epic shit," she concluded. "I hope he ends badly."

(Photo: A dog statue in Belgravia, identical to one at a house near ours that I've photographed before.)

New Collar, and a Panto

As promised, here's a photo of Olga's new collar. Given the price, you might have expected something with more bling, or maybe even a designer label. But no -- this is the same brand and style as Olga's previous collar, and although it's a premium brand, it's probably not a name you would recognize (Harry Barker).

Olga's old collar was pink with green piping, and I'd have bought that one again but it was unavailable. So I opted for taupe with pink.

The reason this collar was so ridiculously expensive (about £42, or $55) wasn't really due to the collar itself, which was only £17.60 ($23). It was due to all the secondary costs -- £11 for shipping from the USA, plus a £5.66 customs duty imposed by the British government and an £8 Royal Mail "handling fee." If I'd known all that was going to rain down upon me, I'd have found something similar here in Britain. But oh well.

Olga is pictured on the Heath, where we went yesterday. As you can see, by the time I took the photo at the beginning of our walk, she'd already christened her new collar with a light spatter of mud.

It turned out to be a fantastic day to walk. It was cloudy and a bit blustery, so not many people were out. It felt like we had the Heath mostly to ourselves. (This is one of Olga's favorite areas for squirrel-hunting, by the way -- there are always lots of squirrels in these trees. As you can see, she's way up ahead on the path, scouting.)

This clump of early snowdrops on the West Heath is, reliably, in bloom before any others. (I take this photo every year. It's become a tradition.)

Afterwards, we walked back through Golders Hill Park, where Olga admired the bright yellow and red of the dogwood stems. (Well, OK, maybe I admired them, while she looked for squirrels.) These dogwoods are a different species from the American dogwood tree, but in the same family. They're grown partly because their stems are so colorful in winter. I don't think the American dogwood grows here -- at least, I've never seen it.

Last night, I had a new British cultural experience. I got together with some co-workers and went to a panto, or pantomime -- my first one! Pantos are small-scale theater productions involving cross-dressing actors, slapstick humor and audience participation, and they're traditional in Britain, particularly around the holidays. The one I saw was based on Pinocchio, and it was hilarious. (Admittedly, I'd had a few pints beforehand.) I realized as I watched that the well-known "Rocky Horror Picture Show," which so many of us have seen around the world, is basically a panto.

I'm still enjoying Tina Brown's book. Here's my favorite line from yesterday's reading. Brown and her husband visited Lord Lambton, a "reprobate peer" disgraced by a sex scandal in government, at his villa in Italy in 1985. She wrote afterwards: "I could see him watching me behind his shades like a horny reptile."

The Newbery Challenge

Why is it that the first week back from a vacation always seems so long? A teacher said to me yesterday, "It's Friday -- finally!" As if we'd been working for weeks and weeks with no break, when in fact we just had almost three weeks off. But I agree -- it did seem like a very long week.

Olga's new collar arrived yesterday. I'll get a picture today when we're out walking. Her old one was actually coming apart -- but we've had it ever since we got her in 2013, so it's served us well. The replacement is the same make but a slightly different color.

This is how I spent much of my workday yesterday.

The Newbery Medal, as you may know, is given every year by the American Library Association for excellence in children's literature. Our library has almost every award winner, going all the way back to 1922. As far as I know, we're missing only one -- a biography of Daniel Boone from 1940 that's long out of print.

When I weed the shelves, I'm always afraid that I'm going to inadvertently discard a Newbery winner. Some of them are pretty obscure -- "Strawberry Girl" from 1946, or "Dobry" from 1935, for example -- and unless they have that big ol' Newbery medal reproduced on the cover it's hard to know what's won. So yesterday I put little spine labels on all the winning books.

This turned out to be a far bigger task than I thought, but by the end of the day I'd labeled almost everything.

(The red dots, by the way, are our system for designating fiction books that are suitable for fifth or sixth graders. Books for teens don't have the red dots.)

My project led to a conversation with one of my librarian co-workers who isn't a fan of the Newbery. She says it's awarded by adults who have no idea what kids want to read. That may be true, I told her, but when I was a kid, I relied on the Newbery to help me choose books and I never felt led astray.

In a burst of temporary insanity, she and I cooked up a plan in which I will read ALL of the Newbery winners. We'll put them on a special cart or display and I'll post one-paragraph reviews about each one.  I'll want to read adult books too, so this will take a while -- I figure I'll be done right about the time the Newbery celebrates its 100th anniversary.

I'm sure some of them are going to be incredibly tedious -- especially the older ones. ("The Story of Mankind" by Hendrik Willem van Loon, anyone?) But I'm ON it! This appeals to the part of my personality that loves to complete a difficult challenge. I've even ordered a used copy of that missing Daniel Boone biography from Amazon.

(Top photo: A stylish car in Chelsea. I have no idea what kind it is. Anyone know?)

A Bit of a Ramble

I didn't mean to imply in yesterday's post that I didn't enjoy traveling with my mom. In fact, she and I get along well and we had a great time in New Mexico -- and went on two more vacations together, to Germany in 1997 and to New Zealand in 2004. Sure, she has her little quirks, and I'm sure I have mine, and I'm sure we got on each other's nerves from time to time. But overall we enjoyed ourselves.

My issues at that time were more with myself than with her. I'd just come back from a grand international adventure, living overseas and speaking new languages, and I was eager to develop my personal life and find a boyfriend and progress in my job. None of that was happening, at least not as quickly as I wanted it to. I felt stalled. That was my real frustration -- why I felt, as I said yesterday, like a loser.

Fortunately, things worked out fine over the next few years. I got promoted soon thereafter and my personal life began to burgeon, and then I moved to Manhattan. I just needed time to find my footing.

And now, here I am on the other end of my career, checking out computer chargers! No, seriously, I am quite satisfied with my life in the library. It's sort of a semi-retirement job, I suppose, but I don't need more than that now. Just last night Dave and I were talking about some of our colleagues and all their responsibilities, and I told him I am so happy with my mild little position, in what is physically one of the most pleasant spaces in our entire school.

I've never been a super-ambitious, driven person. This may be a character flaw -- some would call it laziness -- but I've never understood the point of working oneself to death. I just want to do what I need to get by and have a pleasant life, and let's face it -- with no kids to raise or educate, our needs are pretty minimal. (Although I bought Olga a new dog collar the other day and it cost a shocking £41, or $53 -- so maybe I do need more income!)

And it's not like I'm not invested in the library. I feel like I'm learning a lot there.

Speaking of Olga, she is doing much better. She seemed downright frisky yesterday morning, jumping around like a puppy when I mentioned going for a walk. Whatever was bothering her seems to have passed, fingers crossed.

(Photo: A peculiar shop in Soho, last month.)

Old New Mexico

Pedernal

Let's flash back now to 1995, and a weeklong trip I took to New Mexico with my mom. At the time, I'd been back about eight months from my two-year stint living in Morocco, and I was reporting for a daily newspaper in Southwest Florida. I'd long been fascinated by the art of Georgia O'Keeffe, and I wanted to see the country she depicted so skillfully in her paintings.

As my journal reveals, our trip wasn't without its tensions. Rightly or wrongly, as a 28-year-old gay man traveling with his mother, I felt like a loser. I had to escape to a coffee shop each day to write and have some alone time.

But I also had a lot of fun with Mom, and overall it was a positive experience. Here are a few photos and some excerpts from my somewhat snarky journal entries at the time.

June 17, 1995

I am on vacation with Mom, of all people, in Santa Fe, of all places. We landed in Albuquerque yesterday, in a ripping dry wind, and rented a green Plymouth Alliance that we've been using to zip around in. We stayed last night at a Best Western and I've eaten so much Mexican food I could explode. But it has been really good -- we went to a place tonight called the Blue Corn Cafe that was excellent -- I had sangria and some great tamales.

Santa Fe is all adobe -- it's all beige and earthy. Even the Jewel Osco grocery store was adobe.

And downtown was great with tons of neat stores. Except that Mom doesn't like to shop, so I may have to go down there sometime on my own so I can explore them all. We stumbled on an art show in the plaza and wandered around.

It's pretty here -- mountainous -- a lot like Morocco and actually COLD. And RAINY today.

Old cemetery near Taos

June 21, 1995

On Monday we made an expedition to Abiquiu, to see Georgia O'Keeffe's country. Abiquiu itself is a muddy little village perched on a hill, and after just a few minutes of driving around we found O'Keeffe's house -- it stood out, a cool-looking pink adobe house surrounded by trees and a walled garden. A black chow was perched on a corner of the wall -- I recall that O'Keeffe kept chows. Just to be sure it was her place, I asked a workman outside, who confirmed in a tired but patient voice. I wonder how many times he's been asked that question -- "Is this the O'Keeffe house?" I wonder if the people in Abiquiu view her as an asset or a scourge? We also drove to Ghost Ranch, now a Presbyterian Conference Center. The hazy blue Pedernal rose in the distance, as well as the red and yellow cliffs, all immediately recognizable from her art.

Red and yellow cliffs

We also visited Taos yesterday, and it was a tourist hell -- at least that's my opinion. The drive up there was great, and we took a loop through mountains to the northeast that was nice. The land was beautiful -- the peaks snow-capped, the valley of the Rio Grande a deep trench in a smooth green plain. We saw Rancho de Taos church, which O'Keeffe painted, and drove past D.H. Lawrence's ranch. In Taos we walked around and went to a museum in Ernest Blumenschein's old home -- a bit like visiting the World's Largest Ball of String, or perhaps marginally better. But the town itself was gridlocked with people and I found it really hot and gritty and touristy.

Indian pueblo near Taos

June 22, 1995

We drove back up to Taos, but this time on a different road that runs through the mountains and the villages of Chimayo, Truchas and Las Trampas. And back down -- without even going into the tourist hell of Taos -- through Mora and Las Vegas. The mountains were green and lush, thick with purple irises along the rushing creeks. Then, above Las Vegas, we went to some state park on a lake -- the name escapes me but it was Storrie or something like that -- and we ate lunch on an incredibly windy bluff in an inadequate picnic shelter.

There's a "rainbow gathering" in Taos next month, and a lot of scruffy '60s types are turning up in town. I hear the locals are pissed. (That's from the papers.) Next to me now -- some longhaired guy with multiple ponytails, Birks and filthy black feet.

Rancho de Taos church

June 25, 1995

Now I am home, finally. It is 10:53 p.m. Florida time and I've been back since about 7:30 or so. I was definitely ready for that vacation to end -- I told Mom if we had to do one more thing in New Mexico I would scream. I'd had it up to my neck with turquoise and adobe.

And, predictably, being home makes me miss the trip. Even if we just watched Nickelodeon in the hotel room, it was nice to have someone else around. I was really lonely coming home tonight.

The last days in New Mexico were fun enough. Mom and I left Santa Fe yesterday morning and went to Sandia Crest, above Albuquerque, where we hiked. We didn't go far -- just along the crest trail to something called the Kiwanis Stone House. We saw lots of birds -- a nuthatch and a beautiful blue Steller's jay. We bought expensive cups of cheap coffee and drank them in the tacky gift shop -- the only place that wasn't exposed to the chilly gray weather.

Went to a nature center in Albuquerque and saw Canada geese and redwing blackbirds -- people were gathered in an air-conditioned room to watch the birds through plate glass, which seemed terribly silly to me. Then we ate a nauseating Mexican meal at Little Anita's. (If Anita eats like that I don't see how she could be little.)

Today's flight was uneventful -- but of course now I'm not tired because it's only 9 p.m. New Mexico time.

The Pheasantry

This may look like a stately official building, or maybe a museum, but it's not. It's a Pizza Express restaurant.

It wasn't always a Pizza Express, though. It's the gateway to the courtyard of a building called The Pheasantry in Chelsea. Dating from the mid-19th century (on the site of some earlier structures that have since been demolished), the building housed an upholstery, carpeting and design firm, and later became a ballet academy run by a great-niece of Leo Tolstoy. (There's a blue plaque on the wall to that effect.) Famous denizens of the ballet world studied there, such as Dame Margot Fonteyn.

It then became "a bohemian restaurant and drinking club," according to Wikipedia, frequented by the likes of Dylan Thomas (is there a bar he didn't patronize?), Francis Bacon, Anthony Hopkins and Humphrey Bogart. Eric Clapton and Germaine Greer lived upstairs in the '60s.

It was also a music venue, and remains one today.

It's an impressive entranceway, don't you think? If you want more detail about the history of the building, here's an interesting blog post full of old photos, including some showing the place looking pretty decrepit around 1970. I'm glad it has bounced back, and I'm tempted to go there for pizza sometime just to check it out.

Pizza might have been a good option last night. Dave and I decided to order out for dinner -- he'd been at the hospital in the afternoon getting one of his regular infusions to treat his Crohn's disease, and he understandably didn't want to cook. (I volunteered, but he didn't want me to cook either. I wonder why?)

We ended up ordering sushi, and I tried something new -- two pieces of shrimp nagiri that, to me, tasted faintly dubious. I suspected I'd be up all night, but as it turned out, everything was fine. I slept like a log, and so did my stomach.

Literature High and Low

I was trying to take a picture of the cyclamens on our front porch, but Olga insisted on being in it! (And on not standing still.)

Yesterday was my first day back at work after our holiday break. It's nice to have the old schedule and routines back. There's comfort in it. I spent most of the day organizing a mountain of returned books, reshelving, restocking the magazine racks, that kind of thing. And helping a bunch of kids find new books, of course.

Speaking of books, when Olga and I were in the cemetery on Sunday we passed this relatively new grave marker. I suddenly realized who this is -- it's A. Alvarez, a poet and critic who helped advance the careers of many well-known writers in the mid-'60s. (Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Anne Sexton and Robert Lowell among them.) I used to read a lot of poetry, particularly when I was in college, and his name often appeared alongside theirs as editor or anthologist. I read his obituary in The New York Times several months ago, and now, lo and behold, he's buried where I walk my dog!

And speaking of name-dropping, I'm really enjoying Tina Brown's "Vanity Fair Diaries." I subscribed to Vanity Fair in the '90s, and although by then she was gone and Graydon Carter was editor, she'd helped define the magazine and give it the flavor it retains today. I always loved its mix of glitz and serious news -- although eventually all the celebrity stuff sort of put me off.

Anyway, just to give you a taste of what her book is like, here's a paragraph describing an April 1984 dinner party for her and her husband Harry hosted by Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, and attended by Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife Sally Quinn, among others:

It was lovely afterward with the Bradlees just hanging out. "I drew Justice O'Connor as a dinner partner," Ben said. "That was a bucket of mirth." Harry had drawn Pamela Harriman, and Sally was all over him to penetrate the sexual mystique. "She hung on my every word," was all my clearly hopelessly captivated husband could come up with. Sally described the Republican senator she had sat with as "a flaming cavorting asshole." I kept laughing about that when we went up to our room. "Cavorting" is such a deliciously underused word.

I would love to know the identity of the Republican senator. The pool of possibilities seems large.