Woo Hoo!

Wow, is the news ever looking good this morning! I haven't absorbed all the details yet, since I just woke up about an hour and a half ago and I spent most of that time working -- more on that in a moment. But it seems the election results went well in just about every race I'd been watching -- not only for Obama but also for Elizabeth Warren, Claire McCaskill, Bill Nelson and many other Democratic senators. Way to go, voters! I'm amazed. I almost feel bad for every derogatory joke I've ever made about gun-toting, Bible-thumping America.

I've been watching the comments from my friends on Facebook, and it seems everyone is pretty psyched, at least among the people I know. I'm sure someone somewhere is disappointed, but I'm not friends with them on Facebook! And apparently gay marriage is passing in certain states? Who'd a thunk it?!

What a relief. And now, best of all, it's over. We return you to our regularly scheduled program of moving the country forward.

For once, I'm sorry I live overseas. I want to be there, in the midst of the excitement, like I was four years ago.

Yes, I worked all morning. I got up at 5:45 to find three voice mail messages from teachers calling in sick. I had to scramble around and find subs in the pre-dawn darkness, and I was so preoccupied that the election didn't even enter my mind. It wasn't until I had everyone squared away for today that I thought to check the news.

Also, the draft copy of my newest photography book arrived yesterday. I'm a little disappointed in the results, actually. Last night I had to redesign the cover, because the edges of the image had been cut off, and I had to adjust the type size inside. I also think the photos are printing a little too darkly -- some of the detail is lost -- but I can't really help that. I ordered a second copy, and if this one looks good with its revisions, I'll make it available for public sale.

(Photo: Kensington High Street, on Sunday.)

Hermitic

Forget my doubts about Bonfire Night and whether it could possibly be different from the nights prior. It was very different. For more than an hour our living room walls were lit by pops and flashes and explosions. I could look out any window and see fireworks in any randomly selected direction on the horizon -- northwest toward Wembley, north to Queen's Park and Maida Vale, northeast to Westbourne Green, south and southwest to Kensington and Holland Park. I made a few videos, but I'm not going to put them online. I might even erase them. Videos of fireworks don't really do them justice, and I find that I never watch them afterwards. Fireworks have to be enjoyed live, don't you think? You have to be sitting on a picnic blanket holding something alcoholic.

Once again, I was glad we don't have dogs. Now I remember why Ernie got so worked up last year.

I didn't leave the house yesterday. I'm not sure how this happens, and I'm not sure it's really good for me to be so hermitic. I get up and I get busy with things like blogging, uploading photos, showering, cleaning, doing my sit-ups, working for the school, making breakfast and lunch, reading, Facebooking, and before I know it it's 5 p.m. and Dave is home. I suppose I really should make myself take a walk at least -- but I walked and ran both days over the weekend, so I was entitled to a day of rest.

Yesterday I finally cut down our tomato plants and threw them out. That experiment has ended for the year. On the way to the dumpster I ran into Chris and Linda, the neighbors who gave them to us as tiny sprouts last spring, and showed them that I was removing them. Chris said, "Well, we won't hold it against you." He was joking...I think. Surely he didn't expect us to keep them through the winter? ("He doesn't garden," Linda said, by way of explanation.)

Our amaryllis are turning yellow, so we've started to withhold water to help them go dormant. We'll begin watering them again in February or so. I just have to keep an eye on our pupating caterpillar and remember to save that leaf! My plan is to hang it from the wall near the window in the bedroom, on the north side of the apartment, where it's coolest. If I were going to pupate, I'd do it there.

I had a very strange dream last night about trying to find a mailbox to mail some letters. I walked into an office complex here in England and they said there were no mailboxes. They directed me to a site over some adjacent hills, an incredibly far walk. I was incredulous but began walking and complaining to Dave, who was with me, and then suddenly a huge piece of machinery -- like a cherry-picker or tree-trimming truck -- rolled down a hill in front of us and crashed onto the roadway. We tried to call emergency services but just as the operator was about to pick up I realized I didn't even know where I was. Then I woke up.

(Photo: I was taking a picture of that bench in Kensington Gardens on Saturday when the woman wandered into the frame carrying the little girl with a pink balloon. A happy accident!)

Halloween Remnants

Remember how I said I was seeing more Halloween decorations this year? Well, I'm still seeing them.

There's even Halloween-themed graffiti over at Trellick Tower. And see how waterlogged the grass is? That's because we had a deluge yesterday morning -- really heavy rain, the kind of rain that makes sitting inside with a book so wonderful. I'm reading "The Edwardians," a novel by Vita Sackville-West, whose house, Sissinghurst Castle, I went to see in July during my stay in Kent.

I also worked in the morning, and then watched the movie "Layer Cake" in the afternoon. One of the local movie channels ran a bevy of movies tangentially related to the latest Bond release, and "Layer Cake," starring Daniel Craig, was among them. I had a hard time keeping track of all the characters, but it was still pretty good -- and although billed as very violent, it seemed like fairly routine movie violence. Maybe my American threshold for televised gunslinging is just too high!

We had lots more exploding fireworks in the neighborhood last night. The actual Bonfire Night is tonight, though how it could distinguish itself from any of the last three nights I'm not sure!

Tito and Taylor

According to the October issue of Harper's magazine, this was an actual conversation between Elizabeth Taylor and Josip Broz Tito, the president of Yugoslavia, in 1973:

Tito: "I was very glad when my grandmother died."
Taylor: "Why?"
Tito: "Because it meant she stopped beating me."
Taylor: "That's an awful thing to say."
Tito: "She was small but strong and always angry."

Which explains a lot about Tito, a tough but arguably benevolent dictator who managed to keep the peace between the dissension-prone Yugoslavian republics for decades, until he died in 1980. Taylor's husband, actor Richard Burton, recorded the conversation in his diary at the time.

It doesn't relate to my life at all, except that I found it amusing and kind of surreal. Which is the way life seems at the moment, doesn't it? With everyone digging out after Sandy, the New York Marathon (understandably) cancelled, and the presidential election on the back burner despite being just days away. Strange.

Here in London we're coming up on Bonfire Night, which means we've had all sorts of neighborhood fireworks exploding overhead. Like last year, I've watched some of them from our balcony. I'm glad we don't yet have a dog to shelter from all this ruckus.

Speaking of celebrations and ruckuses, last night's birthday dinner at the Savoy Grill was terrific. I had pan-fried sea bream, with a starter of shrimp cocktail with celeriac (which we Americans know as celery root) and Granny Smith apple. We had rosemary burnt custard for dessert, which sounded novel until we belatedly realized it was just creme brulee. Here I am in the hotel bar -- known for some reason as the Beaufort Bar -- toasting my 46th. Cheers!

(Photo: Our bedroom door reflected in our window. Surreal is the theme around here.)

Birthday Bangladeshi Beans

Well, it wasn't exactly true that we didn't celebrate yesterday. Dave informed me we were going out to dinner but wouldn't tell me where. Then he walked me through the neighborhood to Notting Hill Tandoori, a cute Indian place on All Saints Road right across from the Ringo Starr store. We had a quiet dinner with just the two of us in the entire restaurant, which was kind of nice. (It was just after 6 p.m., early for dinner by British standards.) We sat by the front window sipping our Kingfishers and watched the passersby huddled against the chilly night.

I had King Prawns (aka shrimp) with Bangladeshi Broad Beans. I was curious about the beans, which turned out to be green and kind of lima bean-ish, but smaller and with a smoother texture.

Earlier in the day I had a long Skype conversation with my mom, who mostly grumbled about the current political scene in Florida, and a short conversation with our pal Marilyn in New Jersey, who happily rode out Hurricane Sandy unscathed and now has to drive around in the middle of the night to get in line for gasoline to run her generator. It sounds like a draining way to live. I'd be tempted to let the house go dark, but Marilyn's husband has a fish tank and needs to keep the pump running for the sake of the fish.

Otherwise, I didn't even leave the house yesterday -- just did some cleaning, some work and some reading. I'm still trying to respond to all the birthday wishes on Facebook. It's cool to get a "happy birthday" message from people you otherwise haven't heard from in ages. I sometimes balk at writing "happy birthday" on someone else's Facebook wall, particularly if it's someone I haven't seen or talked to in a long time, but I suppose that's all the more reason to do it -- it's a great way to touch base with friends!

(Photo: Notting Hill reflected in the back window of a Smart Car. If I drove here in London, I'd get a Smart Car. They're cute and you can park them practically anywhere.)

Birthday

Today's the day I turn 46. It's such a middling, non-descript age, not quite old but not young, either. It doesn't feel particularly transformational. It's just another day.

Dave and I don't have any major plans for today. We're celebrating tomorrow night instead, with dinner at The Savoy Grill, Gordon Ramsay's restaurant. I'm not particularly a fan of Ramsay -- I was put off by that television show where he treats everyone so badly while trying to reinvigorate their sagging restaurants. I mainly wanted to see the Savoy Hotel, a legendary London destination, and his restaurant just happened to be there.

I'm so looking forward to having a martini at the Savoy hotel bar. Doesn't that sound civilized? Very Noel Coward.

Anyway, that's tomorrow, not today. Today I'll be staying home, finishing my Malcolm Gladwell book, catching up on my New Yorker and Harper's magazines, waiting for the window repair guy (yes, again) and finishing up a few work assignments. And maybe running, if I feel like it.

Yesterday I met a coworker of Dave's at the St. Pancras train station to drop off an envelope full of recorded student auditions for an international honors band. The judges are meeting this weekend to select participants. But that's not the important part of the story, at least for me -- Dave's coworker also purchased a poster-sized print of this photo, which I delivered and for which she paid. It's always gratifying when I can make some money from photography!

Last night we watched Peter Sellers in "A Shot in the Dark," from 1964. I loved that movie as a kid and hadn't seen it in years. It's laugh-out-loud funny. I might go on an Inspector Clouseau binge now.

(Photos: Guys unloading a big smiley-face artwork outside a gallery on Westbourne Grove on Tuesday. I'm not sure I'd want that thing peering down from the wall at me, would you?)

Tottenham

Just a few photos today from a walk I took yesterday afternoon. I went up to Tottenham, the neighborhood in northeast London that saw the worst of the rioting during all the unrest in August 2011. I'd been a little nervous about going there, because it was associated in my mind with danger -- and in fact, I didn't take my good camera with me. But it turned out to be just a neighborhood, like any other.

I loved the wall above, painted with all the faces -- it wasn't in Tottenham, but rather at the southern part of my walk, south of Stoke Newington. (For those of you familiar with London geography, I walked up Kingsland Road from Dalston Junction to Tottenham Hale.)

If this place only sold eggs, I can see why it went under. (It's kind of reminiscent of The Egg Shop in Deptford!)

Kind of an interesting Caribbean-Moorish blend going on here. I wonder if "Brownras" comes from "Brown Rice"?

Such a happy place! Especially with that zippy blue car speeding past.

It was a good day for a walk, chilly and a bit windy but not rainy, thank goodness. The time change makes afternoon walks a challenge now, because the light starts to fade at about 3:30 p.m. I'm always amazed how much a shift of just one hour changes the rhythm of the day.

On the way home I rode the tube with a little girl dressed as a devil, complete with red plastic pitchfork, and passed a guy on the sidewalk in a ghoulish striped outfit and makeup. (I think maybe he was supposed to be The Joker from "Batman.") We got no trick-or-treaters, though, which is a good thing, because I didn't think to buy any candy.