Hang Ten, Kiddo

This tiny skateboard has been left on a garden wall along my walk to and from work. At first I assumed it's for a little kid. (Hence the post title, though I suppose "hang ten" is a surfing phrase more than a skateboarding one. Oh well, I'm using it anyway.)

I put my hand on it just so you'd have a sense of scale.

The underside looks like this. Maybe it's a dog skateboard? Should my post be called "Hang Ten, Fido?"

I have been slammed at work lately. There's just too much activity whirling around me to do any blog-reading or commenting from my desk, which I used to be able to do between "customers." I won't get into why that is, but suffice to say I'm not happy about it. I used to enjoy being treated like a professional who could be trusted to get his job done and get it done well, rather than someone who requires constant monitoring.

Last night was a rarity in our household -- I made dinner! Dave was feeling tired (he has to go in to the hospital today for his regular infusion of Crohn's medication) and he wanted to order take-away. But we had a ton of odds and ends in the refrigerator from our recent dinner party and even before, and I talked him into letting me "cook." I'm using quotation marks because all I did is make egg salad sandwiches and a side salad, but still!

I discovered that somehow we'd knocked the temperature control on the fridge WAAAAY down, and all the salad greens in the veggie drawer were positively frosty. Still, we ate them. They were a bit limp but they tasted fine. I put the temperature dial on a more temperate setting.

Speaking of frosty, it's 42º F this morning (that's 5.5º C). OK, that's not actually frosty, but it's getting there. Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder. I still have one lagging dahlia that hasn't bloomed yet. It has tiny buds on stalks, and I brought it indoors last night, thinking it might appreciate the warmer house -- but I think it needs to be outside during the day to benefit from the sunlight. We're in a race against time! 

Debate

It sounds like Kamala emerged victorious from last night's presidential debate. I didn't watch but I've just been reading about it and I'm pretty happy with that consensus. It sounds like she ably stood up to Trump's baloney. Meanwhile, commenters in the right-wing media are resorting to fantasies and the usual misogynistic tropes. One reader of a conservative fake-news website wrote: "She was FULL of adrenacrome, folks. Obvious." Another said: "She acted like a married woman arguing with her husband bringing up irrelevant things from the past to piss him off."

And have you seen the memes of Trump cradling kittens and ducks, supposedly protecting them from scary immigrants who want to eat them? (Despite the fact that authorities in the town where the immigrants live say there's no evidence for those falsehoods.) To be honest, the memes are hilarious, and I would post one here except that I can't bring myself to put that man's face on my blog, even in a humorous or mocking way.

This is what Republicans bring to the table -- conspiratorial gobbledygook and misogyny. This is the best they can do.

Well, I know who I'm voting for. And she doesn't live at Mar-a-Lago.

(Photo: Trump-colored flowers discarded on the street yesterday.)

Some Photo News

In contrast to yesterday's summery photos, here's an autumnal one. This cherry tree (I think?) on my walk home from work is already showing hints of color in its leaves. Fall is right around the corner.

Speaking of pictures, yesterday I finally settled the question of which image to use in the faculty/staff art show at work. I decided to stick with the very blue "Sky, Land and Sea" photo. The print looks good, and since I'd already submitted an artist's statement to go with that image it seemed best not to change course. It took a long time to make this decision because I had to wait for the art teacher who's coordinating the exhibit to print the picture so I could proof it. She offered, and it saved me some money to go that route, but she's so busy that if I had it to do over again I'd have had it professionally printed.

Oh, I got some other fun news about my photography. Ten years ago I wrote about John, the guy who sold used books on the West Hampstead railroad bridge, and his dog Sugar. After John's sad death I wrote about the murals that went up commemorating his life (and homelessness in general) on the same bridge. Those murals became a flash point for some community controversy, and now a documentary film has been made about the art and the community response. I allowed the director to use my photos in the film, and I've just received a free ticket to the premiere on Oct. 8. How cool is that?!

I'm looking forward to seeing it because I'm not sure I ever got the whole backstory about how the murals were created and why some people were so upset about them.

In other news, I rented another Barbra Streisand movie last night -- "For Pete's Sake," from 1974. It was fun and kind of zany, as if the producers were trying to recreate her success in "What's Up, Doc?" from a few years earlier. But this movie didn't have Peter Bogdanovich, Buck Henry, Madeline Kahn and the other critical participants that helped "Doc" become such a phenomenon. I wouldn't have felt cheated if I'd bought a ticket, but I'm not sure I would have remembered much after I left the theater, either. The most memorable scene involved a real live bull licking Streisand with its gigantic tongue as she's trying to drive a motor home -- that was pretty funny.

In her book, Streisand called the movie "a piece of fluff," which is accurate. But it was also an important turning point in her life, because it's how she met Jon Peters, who wound up being her romantic partner for the rest of the 1970s. A hair stylist, he designed the pixie-haircut wig she wore in the film. She also confesses she was terrified of the bull, but when it licked her arm she had to laugh, too.

A Book and a Movie

The sun came out yesterday morning, much to my surprise because the forecast called for a cloudy day. Olga got in several hours of sunbathing, which always makes me happy, and I sat next to her and read more Barbra. (I'm up to "Yentl," Streisand's movie from the early '80s, about halfway through the book.)

I also did two loads of laundry and wandered in the garden, trying to take a picture of the sleeping Olga from a different and more interesting angle. I pictured her with our Gallery Valentin dahlia (top) and with our hollyhock, showing the sun coming through the petals (above). It was fun to experiment.

One of our rose bushes, the salmon-colored one with the wonderful scent, recently formed a bud that didn't manage to bloom. The bud shriveled on the bush and when I touched it yesterday it disintegrated in my hand. It still smelled nice, though. The petals look more yellow than salmon, but trust me, the adult flowers are mostly pink.

(Maybe I need to call Barbra's rose expert? Will he bring me ice cream from Santa Barbara?)

I took Olga for a brief walk up to the trash piles on West End Lane, her favorite destination these days. I tried to get her to go to the cemetery but we didn't even make it past the corner. I think our cemetery-walking days may be over.

Finally, in the afternoon, I rented "Up the Sandbox," a Barbra movie from the early '70s. In her book, Streisand told the backstory of several movies she did during that time that I realized I'd never seen -- "The Owl and the Pussycat," "Up the Sandbox" and "For Pete's Sake." So I'm going to make an effort to watch them.

"Up the Sandbox," which is based on a book, tells the story of a young New York mother who has a sort of Walter Mitty-like fantasy life as she struggles with the tedium of keeping house and raising small children. When she discovers she's pregnant with a third child, she must decide whether to keep it or not. She goes to a clinic, walking down shadowy hallways populated by somewhat menacing figures, and ultimately winds up in a climactic fantasy battle with her fellow patients and a grotesque doctor. I won't give away the ending.

It was an interesting movie, but very much of its time. Once or twice there was some casually denigrating language for LGBTQ+ people, for example. Streisand said in her book that the film is not about abortion, but that seems disingenuous -- it was about the lives of women in a broader sense, but the pregnancy and abortion question were certainly at the center of the plot.

And now, back to work!

Sunday Morning Rambling

I am utterly unprepared for blogging today. I had no picture ready, so I took one showing the view of the living room from where I'm sitting at the moment. As you can see, the indoor jungle is about as out-of-control as the outdoor one.

Again, bravo for digital photography! From phone to publication on the web in minutes! A lot different from the weeks it used to take to get developed film back from the drugstore, with publication not even a possibility. Social media may be rending the fabric of our society, but at least I can blog.

As you can see, I have nothing much to say. I woke up with the Marine Corps Hymn playing in my brain: "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli..." I have absolutely no idea why. (I also wasn't singing it right; for some reason I was thinking, "the shores of New Orleans.")

Did you know that "the halls of Montezuma" refers to Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City, which the Marines captured in the Mexican-American war in 1847? And "the shores of Tripoli" refers to the First Barbary War, fought in North Africa in 1805?

Don't say you never learned anything from this blog. (And thank Google.)

I spent yesterday cleaning the house and reading more of Barbra's autobiography. (You can see it in the photo above -- that gigantic tome sitting on the table by the couch.) The weather is cool and very humid. My bare feet feel like they're sticking to the hardwood floors. It's not pleasant.

Last night we had our friends Chris and Colin over for dinner. Dave made a seafood pie with a mashed potato crust, because one friend is pescatarian and the other is gluten intolerant. This presented menu planning challenges, but Dave prevailed, and was then disappointed when the sauce broke in his fish pie. It tasted great, though, and no one but Chef Dave noticed. (I certainly didn't; I'd had a martini.)

We served peas in the covered Chinese bowl that I found on the street (see previous post). And then Dave told Chris and Colin I'd found it on the street. I made clear we'd cleaned the heck out of it but I still wish he hadn't done that. Some people might find it an appetite killer! Chris and Colin rolled with it, though, brave souls.

Olga Update and Fish Bowl

The hollyhocks are still going at it, having decided late in the season that they wanted to bloom after all. We've had four flowers now, with more potentially on the way!

I'm happy to report that Olga has rallied. She seemed a little better yesterday morning, and Dave and I went to work as usual. Dave intended to come home early and I called the vet to ask about an afternoon appointment. But when the vet's office heard she was shivering, they asked to see her right away -- I'm sure they were concerned about the potential for infection after her surgery. I was pretty sure she didn't have a fever but I said OK, got back on the tube and came home, and took her in.

Sure enough, the vet examined her and said nothing was obviously wrong. Her heart sounded strong, her temperature was normal and her teeth and gums looked fine. She theorized Olga had an upset stomach, which is certainly probable given that she chews up sticks on her walks, drinks out of the birdbath and snatches food off the street before I can stop her.

She took some treats at the vet's, and had another one before I went back to work. We canceled her walk yesterday, so she stayed home for a long nap, and when we came home yesterday afternoon we could see she'd eaten. She also ate as usual last night. So she seems on the mend.

My first trip to work wasn't entirely wasted, though, because on the way I found these amazing bowls set out with someone's trash. They were covered with lime scale -- white hard water deposits -- but I figured I could clean that up, so I grabbed them. Before I took Olga to the vet, I put them in a bucket with some de-scaler, and by the time I came home in the afternoon they were in great shape. I ran them through the dishwasher and voila! More dishes we don't need!

I especially like the bowl on the right, which has three fish on it. It's pretty big -- it could hold half a dozen apples easy.

I'm hoping to plow through more of Barbra Streisand's book this weekend. Remember how I mentioned her casual references that betray her privilege? Well, in one section she writes about a brand of coffee ice cream she loves that's only available from a shop in Santa Barbara. She drops in this sentence: "Sometimes in an emergency situation, I may call Dan, my rose expert who lives in Santa Barbara, and ask him to bring me a couple of pints when he comes down to check on my garden once a week." So, a) she has a rose expert, who b) comes weekly from another city, and c) also acts as ice cream courier?

A few pages later she writes about going with Donna Karan to Deepak Chopra's retreat center in Massachusetts. When she gets back to New York she's disappointed to find that the flowers she'd ordered for the window boxes at her apartment are the wrong color. She calls the plant place to complain, but then decides, "what the hell. It was such an ordeal just to get flowers and potting soil up to the 22nd floor. Besides, I didn't want to kill the poor things by throwing them out. So I simply closed my lace curtains so I didn't have to look at them."

A couple of weeks later, a friend comes over and points out that the flowers are now the correct color. Streisand, astonished, calls the plant place to find out if the blossoms could change color on their own. She's told no, and when she asks Deepak Chopra about it, he gives her some line about how desire can manifest change. But don't you think it's far more likely that the people at the plant place panicked when she wasn't happy and swapped the flowers when she was out? They probably said, "We have to make this right! She's BARBRA STREISAND!"

A Bee, Still Sleepin'

This little bee was tucked into that dahlia yesterday morning, riding out the rainy weather. It didn't look very cozy but I suppose when you're a bee you take shelter wherever you can get it. I alluded to the song "A Sleepin' Bee" in an earlier post, and now that I'm reading Barbra Streisand's book it seems even more appropriate to do so again.

We're due for more storms this morning -- we even have a yellow weather alert, calling for "outbreaks of heavy rain." I cancelled Olga's dog-walker. She doesn't need to be dragged out in that.

When Dave got home yesterday Olga was in a state. She was shivering and wouldn't take a treat or eat any food. She climbed up into his lap and when I got home, she was still shaking. I put her next to me on the couch, covered her with her pink blanket and she eventually calmed down and fell asleep, and then ate most of a can of food (as well as half a paracetamol). I have no idea what was going on. She didn't seem obviously sick, but she could have been in pain or maybe she was just chilled. Remember how she asked to be let out twice the night before? I think she wasn't feeling well then, either.

We did have rain yesterday but she wasn't out during the rainiest periods, and there was no thunder that I heard. (She normally doesn't react to thunder anyway.) I don't think she was upset by any of that.

I slept pretty soundly through the night, fortunately. I woke up around 4 a.m. and listened for Olga's breathing just to make sure she was still alive. Of course I don't want her to die, but in some ways it would be a blessing to not have to make end-of-life decisions.

Elderly dog drama.