A Gorgeous Day, Despite Broken Wi-Fi

Coming to you today from Cafe Nero, because the Internet at our house has spontaneously gone bust. We lost our connection yesterday and I called our provider, and they confirmed a fault somewhere in our line. They're sending an "engineer," as the British call repair people.

Olga and I had a fabulous afternoon yesterday. The sky was blue, the temperatures cool but not chilly, the air fresh. We joined the hordes of people at Hampstead Heath.

Parliament Hill was packed with visitors checking out the views of the London skyline. (When Dave saw this picture, he said, "It looks like a bike crash!")

Olga appreciated the wide open spaces and the long grass, where she could roll and run. She leaps like a gazelle when the grass is high. It's pretty funny to watch.

Then, on the way home, we stopped at the cemetery, where she happily scratched on someone's tombstone. That's the best use of a tombstone I've ever seen -- and maybe the only real reason to buy one, to give friendly dogs a place to scratch their itches.

Our friend Carolyn and her 5-year-old daughter visited this weekend, and they spent yesterday out and about in London. They were very low-maintenance guests, and by this time they're probably already on their way back to Belgium. Dave, meanwhile, spent yesterday in the garden, and last night -- partly to keep Zoe occupied -- we all watched "The Sound of Music."

Today, Dave and I had lunch with our friends Mike and Sally and Anna and Lawrence, in Greenwich. I am a bit bleary-eyed from the long schlep to South London, a long lunch and having to search out Wi-Fi after getting back home. One smart move: I took our laundry out, in order to avoid using our crippled machine, which we are still trying to get fixed. It was pretty terrific to pick it up on the way back from lunch, all clean!

My posts may be a bit later in the day this week, until we get this Internet problem sorted out!

A French Short Story

Thanks for your comments on my post yesterday. As I told one commenter, I think my occasional fretting about my inner anger stems from my uncomfortable relationship with anger in general. I've always admired people who can just get mad and get over it. I'm like Woody Allen's character in the movie Manhattan: "I can't express anger. That's my problem. I internalize everything. I just grow a tumor instead."

Yesterday I laughed because I got spam e-mail from someone identified as "Psychology Degree." The subject line: "Be a psychologist in less time than you think!" I thought, "Are they sending me this because of my blog post?!"

I suspect another commenter was correct when she linked my feelings to the chaotic time of year. Things ARE a bit crazy now. It's amazing how much is involved in trying to finish a school year. Just one more week and we'll be out of there.

This weekend is going to be a bit chaotic too, I think. Dave and I have a friend visiting from Belgium, along with her daughter. They're going to be out and about on their own for much of the time, so we'll have an opportunity to do a few things on our own -- and at least we like them a lot. We've got other friends to see on Sunday, too. And today I have my French class.

Last night, prompted by my French textbook, I wrote a short paragraph about the activities of one Mme. Chance during the course of a week. (We're working on learning the past tense.) I tested it in Google Translate and it seemed to make sense, but I'm not sure the French is really entirely correct. Anyway, click the image above to enlarge, and enjoy! I was pretty proud of myself. Flaubert, Hugo, Zola -- eat your hearts out.

(Photo: Bermondsey, on May 16.)

The Angriest Dog in the World

Sometimes I think I must be completely mean and small-minded.

I get so annoyed at people for such little things. I get annoyed at kids at school who come to me every day to check out a computer charger. I get annoyed at people who walk slowly in front of me. The day before yesterday I got annoyed at a woman on the tube escalator who blocked my way and made me miss a train -- and when I turned and gave her a dirty look I was horrified to see that she works in our cafeteria. I quickly muted my dirty look.

Meanwhile, I read posts like this one from the Tearful Dishwasher which is so full of wisdom and compassion that I just marvel. Or this one from 37 Paddington, about her nephew, who took three homeless men to lunch and talked to them as they ate.

And I think, "Why am I so angry?"

Seriously. It's embarrassing. And given all that I have in the world, it makes no sense.

I've always blamed my cynicism on my equally cynical family -- and believe me, I am a ray of sunshine compared to my immediate relatives --  and on my journalism career. News reporting, after all, fosters a sense of skepticism, and depends, to some extent, on a reporter's innate suspicion that everyone is up to no good.

But Tearful Dishwasher is a policeman. How does he maintain his compassion? His gentleness? How does he not find himself cursing at slow-moving people who make him late for trains? Maybe he does, and just doesn't write about it. I don't know.

I worked for years as a Zen practitioner to acknowledge this inner anger, to meet it head-on. I'm not sure I was ever successful, because it's still there. Then again, Zen practice doesn't really make it go away, so much as teach us to see it and be aware.

And now I don't even really practice anymore.

I wish I had it in me to take homeless people to lunch, or to not suspect that President Obama gave soldiers a medal of honor at least partly for political reasons. Or not to let the political reasons obscure, in my mind, the deservedness of those soldiers. I wish I could see each student and each interaction at work as a new interaction, a fresh start, rather than sometimes thinking, "Oh, God, you again."

Why am I such a crank?

On a brighter note, here are our roses. We have seven bushes in bloom right now, in numerous colors, and as you can see, that yellow one -- where the bulk of our ladybirds are now feasting -- has lots of buds nearly ready to open.

I mowed the lawn yesterday after work, and against all evidence I'm afraid I may have sucked many of our released ladybirds into the grass collector.  There are still plenty of them on the roses, though, so I thankfully didn't get all of them. (I don't know if they'd really be down in the grass. Maybe they flew away to other bushes. One can only hope!)

(Top photo: A music shop in Clapham, on May 24. Credit to David Lynch for this post title.)

A Wild Windowsill, and More Ladybirds

Here are some peculiar objets d'art on the windowsill of one of my neighbors. I've been meaning to photograph them for weeks but I finally got motivated this morning when the shadow of that shrub was just so.

Here's a close-up, for full effect:

Wowza. Someone had a class in psychedelic ceramics!

Thanks for all your comments on yesterday's post. Funny how sometimes we start out thinking we have nothing to write and then all this news comes out.

Today, it's not a lack of news that's the problem -- it's a lack of time. I got up about 6:45 a.m., which is pretty late for me, and now after walking the dog I've got to get my act together and get ready for work! I went to the 7th Grade concert last night, even though I don't normally do middle school concerts, because Dave really wanted me to see it -- and it was good. Is there a more awkward age, though? If there is, I don't know what it could be.

We released 50 more two-spot ladybirds into the garden last night, and this morning they were still crawling all over the roses, feasting on the aphids. (You can see some aphids on that flower bud, to the right of the ladybirds, trembling in fear.)

I read Tuesday night that harlequin ladybirds -- an invasive, exotic species, one of which I photographed in our garden here -- actually eat two-spot and other British ladybirds. Good grief. It's "Lord of the Flies" out there! I wonder if we're putting out all these nice, tame British insects only to have them promptly consumed? Surely some must survive.

I'll say this, though -- they're effective, at least in the short-term.

Kong, a la Française

Good grief, the days are passing in a blur. There's a lot going on, but none of it seems very blog-worthy. Collecting books before the end of the year; departing students; summer checkouts; blah blah blah.

I am trying to be more dedicated in my French studies. I'm never going to learn this language if I just go to class once a week and throw together my homework assignment every Friday night.

Someone told me about a great website called Duolingo that offers language practice, so I've been using that, in addition to going over our textbook assignments. And a French teacher at school told me about a website where French broadcaster TV5 posts news clips as a language-learning tool, and then quizzes the viewer about what they've seen. I need more practice speaking and listening and thinking off the cuff, so I tried it, but I gotta say -- the French in those news clips is like a rushing river. I understood maybe three words on the first pass.

Sometimes I try to translate things as I do them. Last night I threw Olga's Kong in the back garden and it flew over the wall. This isn't the first time that's happened, but this time the situation was more challenging -- there was no caretaker to let me into the back garden of Yale Court, the adjacent block of flats where the Kong landed. I rang a few neighbors to let me in, and fortunately found a kind and trusting woman who gave me access. I retrieved the Kong, much to Olga's relief. And I was proud of myself for being able to describe the entire episode in French, albeit probably slightly incorrect French. (I test myself with Google translate to make sure I'm close.)

I'm staying busy on the photography front, too. The Royal Photographic Society offers a distinguishing credential called "licentiate" in which judges review a panel of photographs for a certain level of skill. I'm going to a licentiate advisory day later this month with a panel of my own pictures in an effort to achieve this credential. I'm having ten photos professionally printed -- a process that, of course, has turned out to be more complicated than I expected, largely because of the inept printer I chose -- and then I have to figure out how to get them mounted. Should I try to do it myself, or take them to a frame shop? Stay tuned!

I was featured in this month's RPS magazine, along with several other photographers, in an article about the Bleeding London project. They printed two of my photos, this one and this one. It was cool seeing them in a big glossy magazine! The Bleeding London exhibit kicks off in a little more than a month, and I can't wait to see how that comes together.

Here's our latest garden discovery. This strange, feathery plant grew up from a crack in our rocky garden wall. Dave and I decided to leave it and see what it would do. We called it the "carroty thing." Well, the carroty thing has bloomed -- and apparently it's a garden flower known as love-in-a-mist. It must be a hanger-on from a previous resident. Pretty cool, huh?

(Top photo: Rojanatorn, a shop in Chelsea.)

An Outdoor Bookshelf

Here's an interesting shopfront I found in Marylebone a few weeks ago, around the corner from where I take my French classes. I'm not sure about the outdoor bookshelf. Something about all those moldering tomes makes me wince.

Apparently the inside was just as unusual. This was a pub called Swan & Edgar, named after an old Piccadilly department store, and it closed in 2013. Before then, according to Wikipedia, it was known as the "smallest pub in London" and featured a bar and interior decor made of books, and a bathroom floor paved with Scrabble tiles. And then, of course, a developer bought and closed it with the intention of turning it into housing.

As I've written before, this is a trend among our London pubs. We've lost two of our favorites in St. John's Wood near work, The Star and The Clifton, both to proposed residential conversions. And, of course, there was the horrible case of the Carlton Tavern, which was demolished on the eve of a preservation order with no warning and no permission by developers who have now been ordered to rebuild it, brick by brick.

(I'll believe it when I see it.)

Anyway, the Swan & Edgar is still an interesting facade, but I'm guessing that bookshelf will be coming down when it's turned into a house.

Ladybirds, and 'The Shallows'

The ladybirds are still hard at work on the aphids in our garden. They really are bug-eating machines. There's a visible difference on all the plants. Dave ordered a second box of ladybirds, and we'll release them when they arrive, probably this afternoon. Hopefully there are enough aphids to go around!

I slept really well last night. I was exhausted. Yesterday was another busy day, beginning with a dog walk to the cemetery (no squirrel death) and then a 2 1/2-hour high school music concert. (Long, but excellent.) Dave still has three more concerts to go this week -- all middle school -- so I'll be making dinner and watching Seinfeld (or reading, or maybe even studying my French) on my own! I'm kind of looking forward to the alone time.

Anyway, yeah, I slept really well and I had some bizarre dreams about Florida. It's interesting that I never dream about New York City, where I lived for ten years. I always dream about Florida. It's still home to me.

I also finished Nicholas Carr's book "The Shallows," about the ways Internet use is rewiring the human brain. It was a little heavy on neurobiology for me, but the ideas are interesting. Basically Carr says the Internet -- with its hyperlinks, flashy pop-ups and cluttered pages -- trains our minds to flit from one thing to another rather than concentrate on a single task or topic for a long period of time. And it's not a matter of forming a short-term habit -- rather it's a retraining, a rewiring going on in our brains.

I'm sure there's some truth to it. I've heard enough people say that they have trouble reading long books or articles these days. I myself notice that I don't concentrate as easily as I used to, and (contrary to appearances!) I don't think I'm even a heavy Web user. But there's also something to be said for the vast knowledge -- or at least the vast collection of facts -- the Internet puts at our fingertips.

I heard a teacher at school say the other day that we no longer need to teach kids things like the capital of Nicaragua, because the Internet makes such facts easily available. Now the emphasis in education should be on finding and  processing information, rather than storing it, she said. I'm not sure I agree with that -- don't thought and imagination arise from collections of facts we store in our heads? How would we write a novel if we didn't know enough to build a plot? But it's one of the changes Carr also discusses -- we shuffle facts in and out through our short-term memory, but less and less is being preserved.

(Addendum: I just realized the ladybird in the picture is not one we released. All ours were two-spots, or orange on black, and this one has many more spots. Interloper!)