Cat in the Sunshine

An old friend is coming to visit this weekend -- a woman I met in the Peace Corps who I have not seen, I suddenly realized last night, in 20 years. (How is that even possible?!) Many of my Peace Corps friends I've managed to see in the years since, but not Colleen. So this will be a real trip down memory lane!

She's been to London before, thank goodness, so I don't think I'll have to confront the possibility of going to the London Eye or the Tower of London again.

She's going to stay with us for two nights, so I've been washing the guest room sheets -- Olga loves to frolic on the guest bed -- and trying to neaten the place up, on top of my crazy two-job schedule. I must say I kind of like this two-job thing, though. It keeps me busy, but I function well under a bit of pressure.

I've also maintained my habit of walking to work, which has been both a good form of exercise and a money-saver. I wish I'd started it earlier last fall. Every week I'm saving £28 (or $47) on tube transport. I'm wearing out my shoes, I suppose, and possibly my hips, but that's a pretty slow process -- if that's the only downside I think I'm still coming out ahead!

Last night Dave made Aunt Jemima pancakes for dinner -- complete with eggs, bacon and genuine faux maple syrup. We found a grocery store that carries Aunt Jemima products, so we could finally make some American-style pancakes. Woo hoo! (In England, "pancakes" often connote a more crepe-like food, served with jam. To me, that is just not a pancake.)

Really, is there anything better than breakfast-for-dinner?

(Photo: A cat enjoying the spring-like sunshine on my walk to work Wednesday.)

Freddie Mercury's House

As I mentioned a few days ago, on Saturday -- with some help from my coworker -- I came across Freddie Mercury's house in Kensington. Freddy has been dead for more than 20 years, but the house is apparently still a place of pilgrimage for Queen fans. Pedro from Brazil, in the photo above, was stopping by to pay his respects when I visited with my camera.

The entrance has been neatened up over the years. A photo from another blogger shows what it looked like more than 10 years ago, the brick wall awash in chaotic graffiti. Now several large sheets of plexiglass have been affixed to the wall, so admirers can slip notes and whatnot behind them without resorting to vandalism.

It's interesting how popular Freddie remains. The notes came from fans all over the world, all of whom apparently made the pilgrimage down this quiet side street.

(Fact: If you type "Fred" into Google, it prompts with Fred Meyer, Fredericks of Hollywood, and Freddie Mercury, in that order.)

Pedro told me that Freddie is still very popular in Brazil, partly because Queen played the huge "Rock in Rio" concert back in 1985. This cracked me up, because in the mid-80s I had several pen pals in Rio de Janeiro, and one of them sent me a "Rock in Rio" t-shirt! I wore it for years. (It was very '80s -- black with yellow sleeves, as I recall.)

There were also a few oddities behind the plexiglass: photos, flowers, trinkets, and one poor guy's UK passport open to the title page. (I'm guessing it's there as the result of some post-pub-outing prank, but who knows.)

The house itself is only barely visible over the top of the wall.

Personally, I've never been a huge Queen fan, though I like "Bohemian Rhapsody" as much as the next person. When I watch Freddie perform the magical "Barcelona" with Montserrat Caballé, I can appreciate his sense of showmanship.

The Radio in My Head

Yesterday I solved a major mystery.

For months now, just as I'm leaving school at the end of the day, I've been finding myself singing the Carly Simon song "Nobody Does It Better." It is uncanny -- every single day, on cue, at 5:15 p.m. I'll be singing it under my breath as I leave the building, or as I walk the sidewalk toward home. Even I have been astonished to find this happening over and over again. What on earth was going on inside my brain to trigger that song, which isn't even one of my favorites?

I knew it wasn't just my subconscious mind giving me an egotistical pat on the back at the end of the workday. I figured it had to be something I was doing while I lock up the library -- some visual or aural cue that prompts that melody. Last night, I found it.

When I power down my computer at work, it makes a little sound that is exactly like the first stroke of piano notes at the beginning of "Nobody Does It Better." From there, my brain unspools the entire song, even though I'm not initially aware.

Isn't that crazy?

Then again, I have a pop song going in my head almost all the time, even if I'm not really consciously singing it. If you ask at any random moment, I can notice that part of my brain and name the song. It's like carrying around my own personal radio. I suppose little cues like this, coming at me from all directions throughout the day, periodically prompt me to "change the station" and switch to another tune.

In other news, when I'm out and about and I hear a new song I like, or someone recommends a movie to me, I type it into the notes app on my iPhone. For months and months now, "The Swimmer" -- a Burt Lancaster movie from 1968 -- has been listed in my phone notes. I don't even remember who recommended it to me or how I first heard about it. But I finally got around to renting it from iTunes, and Dave and I watched it last night. I must say, it was an intriguing, surreal movie -- based on a John Cheever story and featuring a very young Joan Rivers, as well as Diana Muldaur from "Star Trek" and Jan Miner, best known known as "Madge the Manicurist" from all those Palmolive commercials. Not exactly uplifting, but then, it's John Cheever.

(Photo: Council flats on Lillie Road, Fulham.)

Brutalism on Werter Road

When I was walking in Putney on Saturday, I came across this building on Werter Road, across from Sainsbury's. It doesn't look hugely architecturally significant, just another poured-concrete-and-brick Brutalist structure. But don't you love that tile mural in the front?

I'm guessing it was the architect's attempt to dress up an otherwise dreary facade. I think it works.

I tried to find some background about this building -- when it was designed and erected, and for what purpose -- but had no luck. I must admit I didn't closely survey the scene while I was there, but I didn't notice any signs or indications of its use. It looks very '70s.

I did find out during my research that there's another interesting building farther along the same street -- an ornate house with a bust of Kaiser Wilhelm I over the doorway. I didn't walk far enough to see that. Maybe on my next trip!

Slow Sunday, with Buddha Delivery

Olga got her outing to the park yesterday morning, which was fun as always. She ran and ran, but we're still experiencing a marked absence of squirrels so she didn't have the added excitement of squirrel-chasing. She had to settle for her Kong toy.

At one point, as I was throwing her Kong, a young guy walked up with another staffy dog on a leash. He pointed at Olga and said in an indeterminate European accent, "I know zis dog, she is Olga." My first rather self-congratulatory thought was that he recognized her from my blog or photos on Flickr, but no -- turns out he works for the dog-walker. He went on and on about how much he loves Olga. His staffy, meanwhile, was a somewhat ill-mannered youngster named Mr. Darcy ("I did not pick ze name," he said) and when Mr. Darcy got too rambunctious with Olga she gave him a piece of her canine mind. No blood was shed, but it was beautiful to watch Olga assert herself. Jane Austen would have been proud.

I spent the afternoon reading and taking a nap while Dave went to a haircut appointment, and then we went to a somewhat numbing dinner with our next-door neighbors. It wasn't their fault -- I was tired. I think I was still recuperating from Saturday's long walk. I slept like a log the last couple of nights, too. At least the post-China jet lag has finally subsided.

We didn't watch the Oscars -- they're on at 12:30 a.m. here, and as I understand it they're only available on cable, which we don't have. So I caught up by reading about them this morning. I'm happy that Cate Blanchett, Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto won top acting awards -- they all did terrific jobs. I haven't yet seen "12 Years A Slave," though, so I have to withhold judgment on that one.

(Photos: Earl's Court, on Saturday.)

Spring Walk to Putney

The bad thing about working 1 1/2 jobs is that my walking time -- at least, my time devoted to walking anywhere other than to or from work -- is severely curtailed. Yesterday I made it a point to take the camera out for a long walk on what turned out to be a nice, intermittently sunny spring-like day.

I walked from Notting Hill all the way down to Putney, crossing the Thames at Putney Bridge and then walking back up again, winding through Fulham and Kensington -- 11 miles altogether, according to my calculations.

As you can see, some blooming things are beginning to appear, like the crocuses in a small park off King's Road and the white tree above, in Bishop's Park near Fulham Palace.

After spending some time watching teams of rowers slice up and down the Thames, I stopped for lunch at a Costa coffee shop, where I had a coffee and a tuna melt and this peculiar gingerbread cookie.

The display touted it as some type of barnyard animal. Cow? Pig? Your guess is as good as mine, but I thought it was cute. The receipt called it a reindeer, which I find highly suspect.



I also unexpectedly ran into one of my coworkers on my walk -- what are the odds?! She was out with her husband and they told me where to find Freddie Mercury's house, which they had just stumbled across themselves. That will be the subject of an upcoming post!

The daffodils are out in Brompton Cemetery, too.

I didn't take Olga with me -- as I've pointed out, it's just too hard to take photos while trying to control the dog, and in any case this probably would have been too far for her. I did get tons of pictures, though, so the blog will be well-fueled. Today is Olga's walking day. Back to the park we'll go!

Jigsaw Puzzle

I could subtitle this post "Now I Am Officially an Old Man."

When I was home in Florida, I retrieved this jigsaw puzzle from the bottom of one of our hall closets. It was a puzzle I had as a child, and one I remember putting together several times. The box is long gone. It now lives in an ancient, vaguely sticky Country Hearth bread bag (price 84 cents, if that gives any indication of its age). More than 30 years have passed since I last put it together.

Some of the pieces are badly battered, having languished on a bedroom floor or been sucked up in a vacuum cleaner. (On second thought, if they'd been sucked up, it's doubtful they would have been retrieved.) Weirdly, some of them I remember, their odd patterns of shadows and colors, their amoebic shapes.

I decided to put the puzzle together again, for old times' sake. So I brought it back to London and this week I laid it out on the dining room table. For a couple of evenings, when Dave went to bed, I sat down and spent a little time with it.

Doing a puzzle is an interesting process. When I first laid out the pieces, all 300 of them, it took me a while to find even two that would fit together. But as the pieces coalesced, the process gained speed because the spectrum of choices was reduced -- process of elimination. I'd never considered the mathematics of puzzles!

This is what I was left with: seven missing pieces, and one that's just a hunk of cardboard, the image layer having fallen off long ago.

The picture was taken in Vermont, if I remember the long-lost box correctly. That farm is probably a Wal-Mart now!*

Anyway, I had fun with this little walk down an autumnal memory lane, and I must say I kind of get the attraction of puzzles. They are absorbing. I hope I don't start doing them with any regularity, though. I'll save that for retirement.

*Well, maybe not -- apparently there are only four Wal-Marts in Vermont.