A Day of Unexpected Surprises

These are rather politely known as the "West End Lane Public Conveniences" -- in other words, restrooms -- and believe it or not, they're a historic landmark.  They're about a five-minute walk from our flat on the high street in West Hampstead. They date from the Victorian era and according to the historic listing, they "are attractive, with colourful tiled interiors and handsome railings at street level." They are also "notably intact, having surviving basins, doors, ventilation grills and signage and there has been no vandalism or neglect."

I have never been inside these restrooms -- in fact, I'm not sure they're consistently open to the public, given that there's a modern public toilet cubicle right behind them (you can kind of see it behind the tree). But the description sounds intriguing: "The interior walls are lined with cream glazed bricks with a red glazed brick course at dado height and the floors have black and red tiles laid in a chequerwork pattern. The ladies' WC has three cubicles, each with an original wooden door and an ornate metal ventilation grille above. Two original toilet bowls survive and one original lock. An arched opening opposite leads to the washbasins, also original. The space is ventilated through openings high in the walls with ornate metal grills. The gentlemen's lavatory was not inspected but is known to have the same tiled interior, cubicles and wash room section as the ladies', in addition to a row of urinals."

One of these days I'll try to see inside. I only discovered they were historic when I was photographing local monuments for Wikipedia, and they came up on the list. Who knew?!

Yesterday was super-busy, with all the kids wanting to swap out the books they'd read over October break. We had a ton of checkouts and a ton of returns, and in between I had to help repair the laminator, which one of the teachers jammed. We removed about a dozen screws before we could get the thing apart and finally retrieve a sheet of melted plastic, which had become accordioned inside the casing. It was a freakin' mess but it seems to be working again. As I told my boss, "Bet you didn't expect to spend half an hour on that today!"

When Dave and I got home we found that Olga had had an accident in the house, which never happens. It has literally been years. She evidently wasn't feeling well -- maybe drank too much pond water on the Heath! She seems fine now, but I spent another hour or so meticulously cleaning the carpet in the dining room. (We have acres of wooden floors, but she had to have her accident in the one carpeted room in the house.) I'm a little concerned about her new dog-walking schedule, because Kim comes about an hour and a half later than Francisco used to, but I really think in this case she was merely unwell.

Oh, and I checked with the supervisor of elections in Florida, and not only was my ballot received but it has been counted. So for me, voting is officially done. Whew!

More on 'My Fair Lady'

Our local graffiti commentator has once again attacked the mural of Sugar the dog on the railroad bridge near the West Hampstead Thameslink station. Not long after their previous vandalism was repaired, this thought bubble appeared. Someone thinks they're cleverer than they actually are.

After yesterday's post, in which I criticized the sexism of "My Fair Lady," I got to wondering whether I had completely missed the point of the movie. Obviously Henry Higgins is supposed to be a sexist buffoon, and his depiction is supposed to emphasize the ridiculousness of his sexist condescension. Apparently "Pygmalion," the George Bernard Shaw play upon which "My Fair Lady" is based, is actually very pro-women. For me, the problem with "My Fair Lady" was that Eliza, although resentful of Higgins' domination, returns to him in the end -- spurning both another young man who loves her and her own independence. It's assumed that she winds up with the much older Higgins romantically, something that apparently doesn't happen in "Pygmalion," although even in "My Fair Lady" they're never shown embracing or kissing so it's a bit ambiguous.

I did some reading, and it turns out there are several opinions. One says that "My Fair Lady" is a somewhat progressive movie with an admittedly problematic ending; another says it's misogynist even as it ham-handedly attempts to rebut misogyny; another speculates that Higgins -- a bachelor whose closest friend is another like-minded man, is gay. It's all pretty fascinating. A lot of people have given this a lot of thought!

I'm sticking with my sexist verdict.

Yesterday was pretty low-key. I cleaned the house thoroughly, wiping down the mantelpieces and the windowsills, cleaning the bathrooms and under the microwave, and vacuuming Dave's chair, which had accumulated an impressive quantity of snack food detritus in its crevices. Last week I took our blankets and bedding to the cleaners. So we're spic-and-span around here.

Olga went out with her dog-walker, Kim, and even though it was raining she came back suspiciously dry. I'm choosing to believe Kim (who is a man) dried her thoroughly before letting her back in the house, but Dave joked that she'd merely spent the time riding around in Kim's van.

Dave was planning to make a pie, so I pitched for pumpkin -- I thought he might even like to try it from scratch. He eagerly embraced the idea, but only if he could use pre-made pumpkin puree, and that's fine too. He wound up having to wait, though, because he forgot to buy sweetened condensed milk. So that will hopefully be coming later in the week.

Meanwhile, we're back to work today. Dave is ending his period of self-isolation and remote teaching (following a positive Covid-19 test from the sister of one of his students a few weeks ago) and returning to the classroom. Ah, routine!

Rose Hips and 'My Fair Lady'

We usually deadhead our roses all through the blooming season, but this year, as the flowers were winding down, we left some of them behind to let the hips form. This is one of them -- about as big as a ping pong ball and bright orange. Another bush has smaller red ones. Colorful!

I spent yesterday morning wandering around the garden doing some photography and taking care of a few little tasks like filling the bird feeder.

There's a very curious little robin who often appears when we're out there. It flits around and lingers nearby, waiting for us to dig or move a flowerpot, thus exposing lots of worms and insects.

In late morning, Olga and I went to the cemetery. We walked several loops and Olga, of course, chased squirrels. There were lots of them out and about -- getting ready for winter, maybe? After we'd gone around three times Olga still didn't want to leave.

Weirdly, after not seeing any sign of the naked dolls on our last few walks, a tiny fragment of one of them was resting on the gravestone they'd decorated. A disembodied face! Ghoulish! Where did she go, and how did she (or part of her, at least) get back? Where are her friends? It's a Halloween story in the making.

In the afternoon, I wanted to watch an old Technicolor movie -- something overly long with elaborate costumes and painfully outdated politics. I realized I'd never seen "My Fair Lady," with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, which definitely fits the bill. So we cranked it up, and managed to sit through all three hours.

Totally sexist, of course, and Hepburn's overblown cockney accent is terrible, and Harrison is old enough to be her father. But some of the songs are great, the costumes were quite lush and the production numbers could be temporarily amusing.

I developed a soft spot for the music of "My Fair Lady" because my mother had this record (at left), which came out in 1956. She never played it -- just as she never played any of her records, most of which were classical -- but while growing up, I found it in her stack. I learned the songs (just three, because this album only contained selections, not the full musical score) and sang along with Mattie Marshal to "I Could Have Danced All Night" and with Don Rodney to "On the Street Where You Live." At some point, Mom gave me the record. It eventually went to Goodwill with all the rest of my vinyl, but it lives in my memory. I found that picture of the album cover online.

So, anyway, the movie was mildly fun to watch, in its somewhat plodding way. When I was a freshman in high school the annual musical was "My Fair Lady," and though I wasn't involved in the production I'm sure I saw it on the stage. I don't remember it at all. Do schools still perform it, I wonder? Or is it too dated?

I also wonder if anyone's ever done a gender-swapped version, where an esteemed female professor tries to transform a young working-class man into polite society? That would turn the gender-based power dynamics on their head. What would that look like? Hmmm...

George Washington

I'm having a very lazy morning. I just woke up a few minutes ago and I'm still lying in bed with Dave and the dog, both of whom are snoring. That's about the speed of life around here at the moment.

I did get lots of reading done yesterday, finishing both of my books, a Newbery novel called "The View From Saturday" and a quirky, readable biography of George Washington called "You Never Forget Your First." The latter was written by a woman who wanted to readdress some of the issues she felt Washington's earlier (and primarily male) biographers had elided or distorted -- his relationships with women, mainly his mother, and his treatment of his slaves. She also laid out the fact that there was a lot of infighting and partisan disagreement among our Founding Fathers, some of whom didn't like each other very much. I suppose the next time we despair at modern politics, we should keep in mind that even without Facebook and Twitter, it was always thus.

Anyway, it was an interesting book and not one of those gargantuan doorstop presidential biographies that so often seem to emerge.

Speaking of gargantuan, though -- my next book is the newest Cormoran Strike mystery, "Troubled Blood," which weighs in at almost 1,000 pages. Gulp! I have never been bored reading J. K. Rowling (who wrote the book under her mystery nom de plume Robert Galbraith) so I have faith this one will be just as compelling. But honestly.

Olga and I took a long walk to the Heath in the late morning. She sniffed the stand of purple asters that blooms every year on the West Heath...

...and ran around crazily in the woods chasing squirrels...

...and even took a swim, although it wasn't that warm.

I cancelled Olga's dog walk today so we could go out again, given that I have the day off -- but she's not looking like she wants to go anywhere! I think it's going to rain later too. So that may or may not happen.

Creeper and Pumpkin

Olga and I took a long walk around the neighborhood yesterday morning, and went to check out the Virginia creeper vines on a corner not too far from our flat. I knew they'd probably be changing color by now, and sure enough, they're a wall of red. Olga dutifully posed while I took some shots.

We're seeing a few more changing leaves, too -- the trees in Fortune Green are beginning to go yellow, and the fruit tree down our street is orangey-pink. In another week or so we'll be at peak leaf time, I suspect.

Olga and I also walked through the cemetery twice yesterday, in morning and afternoon. As often as we go to the cemetery, I'm not sure I've ever been there two times in one day. It seemed like a very Halloweenish thing to do.

At Waitrose, there's a big display of Halloween pumpkins. I've been told that Halloween is primarily a recent American import to the UK, based (ironically) on pagan traditions that originated in the ancient British isles. But I went down an Internet rabbit hole this morning after reading this column, which makes the point that UK Halloween traditions are alive and well -- just not necessarily the cartoonish variety associated with American Halloween. In other words, we Yanks have naturally taken it to commercial extremes, buying loads of candy and inflatable decorations.

I especially enjoyed the comments below the column, where many readers related how they celebrated Halloween as children, mainly -- it seems -- in Ireland and Scotland. For example: "The US import is a recent thing. When I was growing up in Scotland, Hallowe'en followed a more traditional path. We had turnip lanterns, and went door to door 'guisin' (i.e. being in disguise). If invited in, we had to perform a party piece in return for sweets, monkey nuts, or whatever. Hallowe'en parties had the traditional games such as dookin' for apples. All the trick or treat stuff, and pumpkins, is a recent development."

("Monkey nuts" is another name for whole peanuts.)

Also, the UK has Bonfire Night (aka Guy Fawkes Night) just a few nights later, in early November, so that steals some thunder from Halloween. That's when people light bonfires and set off fireworks, while in the United States, if fires occur at all, they tend to happen on Halloween or "Mischief Night" (and tend to be illegal vandalism).

Anyway, Waitrose is sure pushing those pumpkins! I do like a good pumpkin display. It's very autumnal.

Long Weekend

Here's the state of the garden at the moment. You can't really tell, but we have trimmed some stuff back. It's still pretty green overall, and there are a few spots of color, but many of the plants have gone into their autumnal slump. We're just letting everything die back naturally.

Not only is it a weekend here, but we're off work on Monday and Tuesday for October break. Given the coronavirus situation we have no special plans so far, but maybe I'll come up with something. I'm mostly hoping to get some reading done.

I stayed after work yesterday with my boss and a couple of colleagues -- we had a glass of wine together and the Lower School librarians gave me a really nice bottle as thanks for cleaning up their catalog.

Other than that, I've got nothing. Here's our sole Chinese lantern, slowly deteriorating on the plant -- but still a beautiful color.

Beethoven and the Salad Stem

I was walking past this cleaner's yesterday and noticed they have a bust of Beethoven (I think?) in the window. I guess that makes some sense, since it's across the street from the offices of the English National Opera. (Beethoven apparently wrote just one opera: "Fidelio." And no, I did not know that off the top of my head. Thank you, Google.)

Anyway, it kind of reminds me of Schroeder.

I was just reading that Trump has gone on a tirade against people in his inner circle for not sufficiently abusing the power of their offices to persecute his enemies. Specifically, he wants federal charges against Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton. Apparently the steroid he's taking for his Covid infection can have psychoactive properties, making people feel manic and invincible -- so we have an even crazier president than usual!

Remember when everyone thought Richard Nixon's behavior was paranoid and inexcusable? Trump makes Nixon look like Calvin Coolidge.

I've spent the last few days in the library combing through our patrons in our computer system and deleting people who have left the school. Yes, I did this already several weeks ago. But my boss got a spreadsheet of all our patrons and we discovered still more people who are long gone but have never been taken out of the computer. Sometimes when people leave in the middle of the year I don't get notified, and the Lower School (which has a separate but connected library system) hasn't been as careful to remove departed patrons over the years. So I'm playing catch-up. Fortunately I like projects like this -- they appeal to my sense of order.

Last Friday I was eating lunch when I came across a stem with roots still attached in my boxed salad. After my boss and I laughed about how gross it was, she suggested I put it in some water to see if it would grow. So this is the result. We don't know what it's going to become, but it's already put out lots of new roots and even some leaves. It's probably a lettuce or arugula of some kind, but I suppose it could be a dandelion. Maybe I need to pot it.

Oh, and I had my flu shot -- I got one free at work. I don't always get it, but I figured this is definitely not the year to skip it. At least the flu is one illness I hopefully won't need to worry about.