Frosty, Sunny Day, with Santas and Violin

Yesterday we actually saw sun. I know, unbelievable, right?! We've been living in a gray shroud for so long that I forgot what it's like to walk around on a sunny day with a camera. Everything seemed so intriguing, full of color and mystery.

When Olga and I first went out in the morning, the sky was crystal clear and a crust of frost covered the ground.

Olga was so funny, prancing across the ice-covered backyard like a gazelle. She's not used to ice on her paws. We took a little walk, and then I attempted to clean out the bird-feeders (in which the uneaten seed had congealed into a grass-sprouting clod of moldy organic matter). I managed to empty one of them, but the other -- which I couldn't open -- remains a garden-in-the-air.

Then I set out with the camera on a photography walk for Bleeding London. I headed to NW10, west of us, and walked all day -- as long as there was light. I covered 72 streets and even forgot to eat lunch.

I saw numerous Santas flocking to central London for some kind of Santa pub-crawl. No wonder the old man is so jolly.

Finally, after walking all day, I went to Oxford Street to run some errands. When Dave bought his new black suit a month ago, the shop forgot to remove one of the plastic-clamp theft-prevention devices. We didn't discover it until yesterday when Dave tried to put on the suit for his concert in the afternoon. So I dragged the pants around with me all day in a backpack and took them back to the store in the evening. The clerk I spoke with was very apologetic and removed the clamp right away.

(Which raised an interesting question in my mind. A la yesterday's post about Ferguson and race perceptions, I wondered if she would have so readily accommodated me if I'd been a black man showing up with a pair of pants still clamped with a theft-prevention device. I did have a receipt, but still -- I wondered. And why didn't the crazy clamp set off alarms when we left and entered the store?)

Finally, I went to Primark to get a holiday sweater. I never wear holiday sweaters, but a coworker showed up at work this week with one that I loved, featuring the skyline of London silhouetted against a night sky. He told me where he got it, so I went for my own. Let me tell you, the experience was hell. Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon in the Christmas shopping season? It was literally pedestrian gridlock. The inside of Primark was equally insane, with hordes of locust-like shoppers throwing garments willy-nilly. In the end, though, I got my sweater. (Just £9!) I took a picture of it, but Dave thought only a video would suffice because -- oh yeah, I forgot to mention -- it lights up! You can see me modeling it for ten seconds here.

After those ridiculous errands I caught a bus home in the evening darkness, and I was so thankful to be able to sit down that I almost cried. At one point as our bus sat in traffic, my nerves a bit frazzled by the crowds, I looked over to my left and saw a man through an apartment window, serenely playing the violin. What a great urban moment! I immediately felt better.

(Top and bottom photos: From yesterday's walk.)

Some Thoughts About Ferguson

I spent a lot of time yesterday reading about the recent deaths of young black men at the hands of police in Ferguson, and New York, and Cleveland. (And now, apparently, in Phoenix.) I haven't written much about this issue until now, partly because I just haven't been sure what to say. Here in the UK we hear about the protests on the news, but I don't feel as immersed in the controversy as some of my friends in America, and I haven't closely followed all the details.

Of course these are tragic incidents -- of course they are. For everyone involved.

Are they rooted in racism? I think partly, yes. I believe police are more likely to resort to force and be aggressive with black citizens. In that Cleveland case, for example, I doubt seriously that police would have quickly shot and killed a 12-year-old white boy playing with a BB gun.

But I don't think racism is the only factor. For me, the bigger question is the proliferation of guns. American police are so on edge, so fearful of being killed themselves by a violent suspect, because guns are everywhere in America. I've seen many people in online forums and discussions point out that police in other parts of the world -- such as here in the UK -- don't carry firearms, as if that's a model to follow. That's true, but criminals in the UK are also much, much less likely to have guns than they are in the states, because the UK has tougher gun laws. Police here don't need to be armed to the teeth. Hence we have far fewer of these types of shootings.

They do happen, though. This is not an exclusively American problem. Just a few years ago, police in London killed a black man during an investigation in an incident that kicked off the 2011 London riots. Granted, that man was genuinely armed, unlike the recent cases in the states, but there were many accusations about police overreaction. There is an underlying social tension and mistrust of police in many communities in many cities all over the world.

Finally, while the suspects in the recent American incidents have been unarmed, let's not make angels out of them. In some cases they resisted the police and -- as in Phoenix -- apparently had marijuana or other drugs close at hand. I don't mean to blame the victims. None of them deserved to die. But at the same time, and realizing I don't harbor the same visceral anger at police that many young black men do, if a police officer told me to do something, I'd do it. I'd get out of the road, I'd stop and put my hands up. I would not fight back, because I know that fighting back could quickly escalate.

In general, I am not a fan of police authority. I do wish the officers in Ferguson and New York had been indicted, to allow the justice system to hear all sides and render a decision. But these incidents raise many questions -- not just about racism, but about the proliferation of firearms, and, as the Tearful Dishwasher pointed out in a well-considered post, about the types of policing we expect in our communities. We Americans need to address our permissive gun laws, our ridiculously draconian drug laws and our expectations about police intervention.

(Photo: St. John's Wood, on Wednesday.)

Monty the Penguin

I took some photos while walking home last night, just to prove to myself there were still photography opportunities despite the darkness. At least street lights can have some interesting effects. I debated cropping out that car bumper, but I think it kind of balances the street sign.

The holiday commercial generating all the buzz here in England is the John Lewis advertisement featuring Monty the Penguin. Because those of you in the states aren't getting this ad, I'm linking to it here. I know it represents crass manipulation of our emotions for profitable ends, but still, it is the cutest commercial ever. It makes me cry. I highly recommend it.

(It might be my new favorite Christmas commercial, surpassing even the Publix "Last Train Home" commercial from 25 years ago, which still stands out in my memory.)

And speaking of Christmas, here's our library tree, as promised, including my paper "dog penis" chain. I spent yesterday morning decorating it, and it came out fairly well. The tree itself is really beautiful, with glossy, heavy needles -- I can picture those boughs bending under the weight of a winter snow or hosting bird nests in the spring. I wish I could restore its roots and send it back to a forest!

A Paper Chain

This is how I spent yesterday morning -- making a paper chain to string on the library Christmas holiday tree.

People who are more powerful and better paid than I decided that our annual tree, which usually arrives about a week before school ends in mid-December, would come earlier this year. They also thought it deserved better decorations than usual -- not just the standard store-bought plastic baubles, but also something library-specific.

My coworkers and I searched for libraryish ornaments online, but they are in surprisingly short supply. So we decided to make some out of an old book. The task fell to me, and because I wasn't very enthusiastic about trying anything complicated like origami stars or paper birds with wire legs, we decided I should make a simple chain garland.

We had recently discarded some old books, so I combed through those until I found one with mildly interesting pages -- an Ursula K. Le Guin novel that included music, poetry and drawings. The other librarians have teased me in the past because I'm so resistant to the idea of using books for crafts -- I mean, these are books, people, and tearing them apart seems sacrilegious. A coworker suggested we use a large, illustrated copy of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," and I demurred. Somehow tearing the pages out of a Le Guin book didn't seem quite as terrible, though it still made me wince.

Making a paper chain, however, comes naturally to me. When I was around eighth and ninth grade, I made one each fall and hung it from the ceiling of my bedroom. Those chains had a link for every day in the school year, and on each link I wrote some silly message -- an expression, or a name, or just a drawing. I then cut off one link when I got home from school each day and transcribed the message into my daily journal. In that way I kept track of the school days ticking past, the chain getting shorter and shorter as summer approached.

Le Guin's book made an entertaining chain, with its maps, music and sketches of totemic animals. I couldn't help noticing the phrases on the link above. Is it inappropriate to have a Christmas decoration that refers to cat turds and a dog's penis?

Not exactly the holiday spirit, but then, this is middle school.

The tree itself arrived yesterday afternoon, and today we're having electricity supplied to the tree so we can plug in lights. Then I'll decorate it. I'm not sure how Le Guin would feel about the end result, but regardless, I'll be sure to share it with you.

Pre-Solstice, and Shower Repairs

We had another little home maintenance crisis over the weekend, when our shower hose ruptured and began spewing water at odd angles all over the bathroom. (This happened while we were bathing the dog, naturally, making her even less enthusiastic about having a bath.)

European showers are not like American showers. The shower head isn't fixed in the wall. Instead it hangs from a vertical rail and is attached to the wall plumbing via a flexible hose. It can be detached from the rail and used as a hand-held sprayer, which comes in handy when bathing, oh, a dog, for example.

When the hose went bad, Dave and I thought, "Oh NO!" Given how long it's taken our management company to address other maintenance issues, we figured we'd better just fix this one ourselves. Initially we envisioned having to call a plumber. But I discovered that the hose just unscrews, so Dave took it to the hardware store last night and found a replacement. He's in there showering now, and as far as I know, it's working fine.

Crisis averted!

As for our other crises, the mold situation appears to be no worse. I haven't cleaned the living room wall because I wanted the contractors to see it. Now they've come and gone, collecting information for their estimates, and I think the time has come to clean it up. That will be my task this evening.

And we finally received our lawn mower, which Dave had redelivered to school on Thanksgiving and brought home on Monday. It's actually not that large. We haven't unpacked it yet -- maybe this weekend. Our shaggy, leaf-strewn back garden really does need one last grooming before the depths of winter set in.

Not that anyone can see it. We're just about at the darkest point of the year. It's dark when I walk the dog in the morning and dark when I leave work at 5 p.m. The library is busier, too, since no one wants to be outside after school in the chilly gloom. I had 44 people in the library yesterday at closing time -- far more than usual.

For the next six or eight weeks, at least on weekdays, I will have little opportunity to be outdoors in the daylight. (Such as it is!) Photography will be a challenge except on weekends!

(Photo: Hampstead Heath on Sunday.)

End Table

I don't have much news today, so I'm bringing you this photo of our end table to show off (once again) the lilies I bought. I had to throw away the bouquet in the kitchen, but these still look great. Maybe it's a cooler location.

I've had that blue cup for years and years. My friend Sue gave it to me in 1991, when we both lived in the gentrified Hyde Park neighborhood of Tampa and thought we were so cool. The wine glasses that Dave and I most frequently use also came from Sue around that time.

I've often thought I should write a post about the simple, functional objects we all own and keep for decades without even realizing it. I have a metal ruler, for example, that came from my grandfather's old desk in the mid-'80s. My fingernail clippers were a Christmas present from my mom in the early '80s. (We've always been a practical family.) My stapler came from my parents' desk and I've had it since the '70s; my kitchen timer and my egg slicer both came from the Scotty's hardware store where I worked in college. You know what I mean?

No actual thought has gone into keeping these items, but I've never needed to replace them either -- so they've persisted with me through three decades and at least 14 moves. They just tag along. Kind of funny, right?

Actually, I guess I've written that post. Here it is.

'Watching the English'

I've just finished a book called "Watching the English" by Kate Fox, a sort of anthropological dissection of English behavior. Someone recommended it to me when we first moved here, and I never got around to reading it until now. Fox is a trained English anthropologist who traveled the country trying to collect evidence of the distinctive peculiarities of her culture, and then puzzling out the reasons for that behavior.

Fox's central thesis is that the English are socially ill-at-ease, and that tension contributes to all the character traits for which they are known -- an instinctive sense of humor and wry pessimism, a tendency to play down achievements and to hide their inner selves. She theorizes that social discomfort is at the root of both the famous English reticence and occasional outbursts of loutish (usually drunken) violence.

It was a cleverly written book, entertaining in parts, although overlong as a whole. My chief complaint is that Fox lacked a control group, and a lot of the behaviors she uses to define Englishness I believe are more universal. They certainly seemed familiar to me. (Granted, my American family has English roots, and maybe that's why -- maybe I wouldn't feel this way if I were from Argentina or Papua New Guinea.) Don't many cultures proscribe boasting, for example, and use humor to defuse social tension?

Fox also attempts to characterize the effects of class on certain behaviors -- acknowledging that while the British try to follow a strong doctrine of fairness, class-consciousness still pervades everything -- and while I think she's probably mostly correct, I wonder if she doesn't veer into stereotype a little too often. ("Too much jewelry (especially gold jewelry and necklaces spelling out one's name or initials), too much make-up, over-coiffed hair, fussy-dressy clothes, shiny tights and uncomfortably tight, very high-heeled shoes are all lower-class hallmarks, particularly when worn for relatively casual occasions. Deep, over-baked tans are also regarded as vulgar by the higher social ranks.")

As for English behavior, allow me to provide an example of how wrong it can go -- Black Friday. Apparently the U.S. has exported this horrendous holiday ritual to the U.K. I don't remember hearing as much about it when we first moved here, but it was all over the news on Friday and that video footage of crowds literally stampeding to get at discounted televisions and coffee pots is unbelievable. (Watch it!) I mean, who wants a coffee pot that badly? I'd sooner pay double for any of those items than get into the middle of that melee.

Needless to say, there was no Black Friday around our house. Unless you count my trip to three mostly empty thrift stores.

(It strikes me as I write this, a la Kate Fox, that tut-tutting about Black Friday is very middle class, as it seems to be a largely working-class phenomenon and those of us who can afford to pay more can sit around and cluck about the absurdity of it all.)

We had an almost-sunny day yesterday, so Olga and I took a long walk on Hampstead Heath. She collected about three pounds of topsoil on her underbelly, necessitating a bath when we got home. But we both had a wonderful time!

(Photo: A road near Hampstead Heath, yesterday.)