Barbecue with the Unabomber

Here's something else that's blooming a lot around here at the moment -- the Virginia Spiderwort. It's a type of Tradescantia, just like the purple heart plant in our living room back in London, as well as the well-known houseplant wandering jew. (I just read on Wikipedia that some people have begun calling it "wandering dude" to avoid the ethnic reference, but that hasn't reached my ears yet.)

My brother and I went back to see Mom yesterday morning. I sat with her out on the patio while my brother took care of some Mom-related business, and then we went to get pizza for the staff. My brother wanted to do that to show appreciation because apparently some other families have been hard on them lately over changes being made to the facilities.

We went to a local pizza chain to pick up the pies, and there was only one guy working there -- he said he was usually the driver but apparently the baker didn't show up for work that day. He kept up a steady flow of conversation as he made the pizzas, and when he got around to the situation in Ukraine I abandoned my brother to go for a walk. "I hate you," my brother said.

Perhaps I'm lacking in patience, but I really thought I might lose my mind if I had to listen to the pizza man's opinions about Ukraine. Even though he seemed to be on the right side of the issue, from all we could tell.

Anyway, after delivering the pizzas my brother and I went to Alpine Groves, a park and historic homestead in the village of Switzerland on the St. John's River. It's the subject of today's Florida video. (I think I'll call them "Florivideos" -- copyright pending.)

The pink flowers blooming amid the ferns are oxalis, which Dave and I also have in our garden in England. And while I'm not usually a fan of graffiti in a natural environment, I was amused by the big smiley face on the log by the river.

We went to dinner last night at a barbecue restaurant (barbecue is something I never get in London) and I had pulled pork and collard greens, for the true Southern experience. My youngest niece, Kate, insisted on wearing one of my brother's oversized hoodies, with the hood pulled up, and my big sunglasses -- we joked that she looked like the Unabomber. In fact we called her the Unabomber all night, even though she has no idea who that is. I hope she doesn't go to school today and say, "I'm the Unabomber!"

After dinner we went down to the river in San Marco to catch the sunset:

Kate was especially impressed with how red it looked through my tinted sunglasses. She eventually took them off because she started to get a little freaked out. The water, she said, "looked like lava."

Today I'm headed back to Tampa.

Phlox Season

Pink was the color of the day yesterday.

You may remember from my previous trips to Florida that I'm always trying to get some good pictures of a roseate spoonbill. Spoonbills aren't uncommon but they're not an everyday bird, either. It seems they're never around when I want to photograph them. But yesterday morning, while walking near my stepmother's house, what should I see feeding in a nearby pond but a spoonbill -- and my big camera is, of course, in London!

I took a video on my phone but the bird, unfortunately, was on the opposite side of the pond from me and came out looking like a fuzzy pink bird-shaped blob. I'll spare you that.

Maybe the color was foreshadowing the rest of the day, though, because when I got on the road to drive to Jacksonville I was thrilled to discover that it's phlox season. The roadsides are awash in swathes of pink, like a landscape by an impressionist painter (if the impressionists painted Interstate highways). I stopped somewhere just south of Ocala to enjoy a particularly colorful field.

That's my homage to phlox. As you can see, they look especially brilliant through my fancy tinted sunglasses! (Which I found on Hampstead Heath some years ago.)

I had a good drive, accompanied by satellite radio's '60s channel, which introduced me to a song called "Mr. Dieingly Sad" by the Critters. I don't ever recall hearing this tune before but I've become a fan. On the downside, Richard Harris's warbled version of "Macarthur Park" was inflicted upon my eardrums once again.

I checked in to the Ramada, where I'm staying for a couple of nights. Is it my imagination or is this place looking a little more downmarket than the last time I was here? The clerk asked me if I preferred upstairs or down, a pool view or parking lot view. I said I didn't care, and as a result I'm overlooking the I-295 off-ramp. Perhaps I should have cared.

It doesn't matter, though, because I'm not going to be in this room much. It's just a place to sleep, and the bed is great. I got my first good night's sleep since my flight -- at least until someone called me from an unknown number at 4:53 a.m. and woke me up. Argh! I wonder if it was the washing machine repairman back in London? Dave's dealing with that situation today.

My brother and I went to see my mom last night. She and her pals were watching a movie ("Begin Again," with Kiera Knightly and Mark Ruffalo) but I don't think anyone was paying particularly close attention. (They have enough trouble following what's happening in real life, much less the plot of a movie.) We made her laugh but we didn't stay long. We'll go back today when she's less distracted.

Lubbers and Lugs

This little black grasshopper with the orange racing stripes may look harmless and inoffensive, but by summer it will be brightly colored and several inches long. Still harmless, at least to people, but offensive to those who are precious about their plants! I didn't bother it except to take its picture. We're not precious around here.

I had a leisurely day yesterday, hanging out with my stepmother and sister and her husband. (And of course Maybelline, my favorite dog-away-from-my-own-dog!) The weather was beautiful, clear and bright, and I made a little video so you can experience a condensed version of my Florida day in just four minutes:

It's all chronological from my 7 a.m. walk around the neighborhood (see the morning mist rising off the lake?) to nighttime. That last shot just shows lights out the window in the front door of my stepmother's guest house. In addition to Maybelline, who at 10 still loves to play energetically with her Jolly Egg, you'll see Pinky, one of my stepmother's chihuahuas. Remember how awful those chihuahuas used to be to me? Well, they've mellowed in their old age.

Among my Florida adventures yesterday was an afternoon trip to Publix, probably the best grocery store in the world, where shopping -- as their old slogan used to say -- is a pleasure. I was craving some salty mixed nuts, and as I entered the store a big, burly bearded guy walked in beside me. "We must have the stupidest Vice President ever," he said to me, apropos of nothing. "I just saw her on Fox News. The VICE PRESIDENT!!"

I just said, "Huh." And kept right on walking.

I puzzled over what prompted this lug* to share his politics with me. Was it because I was wearing a Joni Mitchell t-shirt and he thought I was a "soy boy" he could provoke? Or did he see me drive up in my brother-in-law's car with its Dallas Cowboys seat covers, and assume I was a Texan conservative? Or was it merely that I was there?

Florida, land of mysteries.

*Lug (noun, informal/North American): An uncouth, aggressive man.

Florida!

This is what greeted me when I landed at Tampa International Airport yesterday -- a gigantic and somewhat menacing flamingo, which had apparently penetrated the roof of the building. Clearly things have changed in Florida since I was last here. Genetic engineering? A radiation leak? Who knows?!

So, yes, I did get on my plane yesterday. I decided I was just being overly anxious more than anything, and now that I'm here I feel perfectly fine. I think I was stewing (somewhat subconsciously) over the possibility of bringing Covid to my vulnerable 84-year-old mother when I visit her this week, and that made my hypersensitive to any sign of illness, real or imagined. As I said yesterday, my own personal neurosis.

This sometimes happens to me when I travel -- I have a medical freak-out at the last minute that causes me to consider canceling the trip. Whatever anxiety I have about the lack of control that comes with traveling seems to come out in hypochondria. It doesn't happen every time, thank goodness, and it's interesting because I also love to travel. There's a fine line between fear and exhilaration, right?

Now I'm at Dunkin' Donuts down the street from my stepmother's guest house, where I'm staying. You may remember that house has no Internet, so I come to Dunkin' to do my blogging. On my visit last summer I got so frustrated with this place because it was never open when it said it would be. Things have changed! Apparently it's now under new management and believe it or not, my nephew even has a job here. He's working back in the kitchen as I type. I still had to pay for my coffee and my Boston Creme donut, though.

My flight was fine. I finished "Prick Up Your Ears," John Lahr's biography of playwright Joe Orton, which was good but a little too forensic in its dissection of Orton's plays and in relating every detail of the plots. Also, the lettering in my copy is TINY -- it looks like fleas hopping across the page. Even my boss commented on it when she saw me reading it at work -- "Look at the size of that type!" So that made the reading a challenge. But I survived.

I also watched Ridley Scott's movie "The House of Gucci," with Lady Gaga, and I really enjoyed it. I'm sure I've read all that stuff about Gucci before -- I used to regularly read Vanity Fair and W magazines, after all -- but I'd forgotten the murder and intrigue.

I'll be here in Tampa for another night, then up to Jacksonville for three nights to see my mom and brother, then back to Tampa for a few more before flying home next Sunday. I may not be reading blogs as much as usual, but I'll keep posting. Stay tuned!

Delay for Drama

Surprise! I'm still in London.

Why is a long story involving my own hyper-cautious nature and unique personal neuroses. Basically, I began feeling a little peculiar on Friday, and I worried I was coming down with something. It seemed unlikely to be Covid, given that I had Covid only two months ago and should still have some natural immunity -- and I didn't have the hallmark symptoms of Covid (cough or fever). But I also know that I work in an environment where Covid is making the rounds and the last thing I want to do is get on a plane and be a vector of illness.

(To be fair, Covid is making the rounds all over the country, not just where I work. The Office of National Statistics says one in 13 people in the UK had Covid the week ending April 2 -- about 4.9 million infections!) 

So on Saturday morning I called British Airways and postponed the flight a day. I'd already taken a negative antigen test, but I figured I could go get a pre-flight PCR test for an extra measure of security. So that's what I did -- I went down to a shopping center near Victoria Station and got tested, and that test came back negative last night.

That still leaves me in a bit of a conundrum, though. I apparently don't have Covid, but I feel like I might have something, even though my symptoms are mainly just fatigue and a mild headache around my eyes. So do I get on the plane? I'm still waffling.

Fortunately, British Airways is very flexible about these things because of course they don't want sick people traveling either. In the midst of Covid they'll make changes for illness without any additional fees or penalties. I could postpone the whole trip until June.

Or I could just go, because I also know that I'm a drama queen when it comes to illness and I am entirely likely to be making up this whole situation. My "symptoms" are very subjective.

On a positive note, staying home yesterday allowed me to sit out in the garden and see the first butterfly of the season -- a peacock on our forget-me-nots. I blogged a very similar photo almost exactly two years ago.

I also took Olga to the cemetery, and although I felt like I was walking through wet cement on the way home, we had a good outing. I was waylaid by a very chatty woman who regaled me with the story of how she acquired her pug -- apparently her brother saw it standing unattended outside a "gypsy camp" under the Westway and took it to a vet, where its microchip identified its owner as someone in Canada. Her theory is that the Canadian moved to England and brought the dog, and a "gypsy" stole it. So she is now adopting it. It sounded to me like her brother was actually the dog thief in this story, but I resisted the urge to tell her that.

People are so funny. Why would this woman I have never seen before feel the need to tell me, a total stranger, such a tale?

(Top photo: The dancer atop the Victoria Palace theater, where I saw "Hamilton" several years ago, near Victoria Station.)

Last Minute Preparations

Congrats to those of you (pretty much everyone) who figured out that the dream about Richard Nixon in yesterday's post was mine. Yes, I really had that dream. It was many years ago -- probably when I was in my 20s -- and I remember how disturbing it was to wake up with the idea that not only was the man I believed to be my father not my father, but Tricky Dick was!

As Andrew said in the comments, the fact that the dream was about Nixon gave away the fact that it was mine. Today's students would be very unlikely to dream about him, I suspect. Trump, maybe, but not Nixon.

Anyway, I'm making last-minute preparations for my flight to Florida, so I'll leave you with some pictures of flowers from the garden. First, the honesty (above) is blooming quite well now.

I collected a clipping of this plant -- some type of lamium, related to a dead nettle -- while walking with Olga many years ago. I put it in the garden where it's been growing ever since. I think this is the first year I've seen it bloom.

And finally, these primroses are going gangbusters! I've photographed them before but they keep adding more and more blossoms. Pretty impressive!

I took all these pictures with my big camera. I think I'm going to try something new when I go to Florida. I'm not taking the camera, for a change. It's big and heavy and cumbersome, and because this is a short trip I'm going to try simply using my phone. Maybe I'll make a video each day or something like that. Stay tuned!

The Nightly News

The school where I work each year brings in an "innovator in residence" -- or, in the case of this year, two innovators.* They've been on campus for several weeks now, talking to students, teachers and parents and creating an artwork that is custom-made for our school community. I finally had a chance to go see it yesterday.

It's called "The Nightly News," and it's installed in a sort of indoor/outdoor courtyard. (It has a partial roof, but it's basically an outdoor space.) The installation focuses on dreams, and consists of dreams that people have written down, projected onto a colored screen with colors that shift and a sort of dreamy musical audio track.

Hopefully if you click on the pictures to enlarge them, you'll be able to read the dreams. I chose these pretty much at random. The color should ideally be a little more intense on the projected screen, but it was very windy yesterday, and the blackout tarps on the right side of the roof (which is glass) had been torn so light was getting in.

There are also cards available where people can write down their own dreams:
 

Can you guess which one is mine?

It's a very cool installation, and I'd like to go back and spend a bit more time there -- but it closes today so I'm not sure I'll have a chance. We'll see what the day brings!

*I'm being vague with names to keep my blog out of people's Google search results, but if you follow the link, the artists are named there.