Griping About Dahlias Again

Our white Japanese anemones are finally blooming. Normally they flower right around the start of the school year -- Dave and I always joke that's how we know it's time to go back to work. This year, they're a month behind. It's a good thing we didn't go by their calendar -- we'd have been fired.

And while doing a quick search to make sure I hadn't already blogged about white anemones this year, I came across this post from last October. Can you BELIEVE how good my dahlias looked? And at that time of year?

In order to absorb the full impact of that photo you'd have to see what they look like now, and frankly I'm ashamed to show you. Several I've cut back entirely, and the others have scraggly-looking stems that until yesterday were loaded with dead leaves on their lower parts. I know I've said this before, but I let them dry out too much this year, partly because of crappy compost.

A couple of them are still blooming, like the "Dalaya Dark Aruna" variety that I also showed you about a week ago, but you can see the cursed powdery mildew on the leaves.

OK, I know I'm getting repetitive, and I'm sure you're thinking WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THE DAHLIAS ALREADY. Sorry about that. I just can't believe what a dismal year they've had, and after I laboriously repotted most of them in the spring!

I harvested not only a couple more tomatoes but also our miniature mandarin orange yesterday. The orange was about the size of a large-ish gumball, the kind that used to stain our teeth blue when we were kids. I cut it open and Dave and I each had half. It was about the sourest little thing I've ever eaten -- more like a lemon with a whiff of orange aroma. It would have made a better cocktail garnish than a snack.

I finished "City of Night" yesterday, so that's finally off the table. I also read a New Yorker profile of Pam Bondi that I've been meaning to get to, since she's from my hometown and we have friends in common. (It sounds so weird, to think I have friends in common with the Attorney General of the United States, though I don't think they're still friends with her.) We both attended the same university at the same time so it's entirely possible I crossed paths with her there, but if so I don't remember it. My parents would almost certainly have known her father, since they all worked at the university. She grew up in a household of Democrats and I think most people are mystified by her hard-right turn. Many seem to chalk it up to ambition more than any deeply held personal convictions.

Speaking of the White House, Dave and I are watching "The Residence" on Netflix and enjoying it. I know we're a bit late to this comedic murder mystery but hey, better late than never. We're also watching "Platonic" on Apple TV, yet another Seth Rogen show. If you need some laughs -- and don't we all, nowadays -- both of these are good options.

Nocturnal Perambulations

I'm getting a bit of a late start on my blogging today. I didn't wake up until almost 7 a.m. and then I did a couple of things to get the day going -- checked the garden cam, started some laundry, made coffee, unpacked the dishwasher. Anyway, I'm here now!

I woke up in the middle of the night and had a wander around the flat, which I occasionally do. It's not that anything is bothering me or that I can't sleep for any serious reason -- I usually just need a drink of water. While I was up I took these photos of the streetlights in the dining room, and the view out the window. I like the peacefulness of the house and neighborhood at night. Occasionally when I look out the window at the street I see a fox trotting along the pavement, but I didn't see one this time.

Remember how I just washed the windows a couple of months ago? Well, urban life has speckled them with grime once again. They look OK in daylight so it will be a while before I give them another cleaning. I have higher priorities.

Once again I've had a busy week and I've fallen behind on everything not work-related. I did manage to get my UK passport application mailed off, so hopefully I'll have my new passport in a couple of weeks. And I scheduled the delivery of our new couch on Oct. 2, and contracted with the council to pick up our old one on Sept. 29. (This is assuming Dave and I can get it out to the street!) For a couple of evenings in between, I suppose I'll be sitting on the floor next to Dave's recliner, like a pet.

I haven't mentioned it until now but the head of the Art Department at school has pulled together another faculty/staff/parent art show. You may remember I entered last year's, so she came to me a few weeks ago and asked if I wanted to enter a piece once again. Unfortunately I've been too busy to give much thought to my options, never mind get something printed and framed, so I took the easy route and submitted a photo I took back in 2014 and had already framed in the library. You can see it, along with the rest of the art show, in the video above -- mine is the "Mr. Scissor Hands" picture. (This one.)

Once again, I'm impressed by the creativity in our community. There are a lot of photographs this year, but also pottery, sculpture, painting and textile art. The video gives a general overview, and I conclude on perhaps my favorite piece, an embroidered picture of an Edwardian building where the artist lives.

Today I'm going to finish "City of Night" if it kills me. I'm just not able to read during the week and although I like this book I want it done.

Atari

Here's our Thalictrum, which Dave named Theo. Theo is blooming now, sending out clouds of tiny pink flowers. He seems a bit late this year, maybe because of the dry summer. We tried to keep him watered but he may not have been entirely happy. He seems healthy enough.

There has been no progress on the broken bench on Finchley Road. I first blogged it in May, it gained its warning cones not much later, and then some wag declared it postmodern art. But it's still there, looking worse and worse. It's stuff like this that convinces people that Britain doesn't function well anymore. I'm not sure why the council (or whoever is responsible, and maybe that's the problem -- maybe no one is) couldn't remove it, if not replace it, within the past four or five months. It must be on someone's radar because they put those cones out there. Why the foot-dragging?

I've been meaning to blog this picture for a while, mostly because it cracks me up. That hair! Yes, that's me in the early 1980s, at the age of 15 or so, playing video games at my dad's house. We had an Atari game system (which you can see on the cabinet behind me) that loaded games using a cassette player. It was cutting edge at the time! We played Space Invaders, Missile Command, Asteroids and other games on that console, which plugged into a color TV monitor (out of the frame at left).

I've been thinking about this picture, and my not-very-extensive gaming history in general, because of the revelations about Charlie Kirk's shooter and the fact that the guy apparently spent vast amounts of time online. I hear about young people nowadays who spend almost all their waking hours playing video games or plugged into some device. (As Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said, "Go outside and touch grass.")

I remember that I could only play on that Atari for a couple of hours before I'd start to feel yucky. I just had to get up and move around after a while. Maybe it's because the ergonomics of gaming were not as advanced back then, and I could only spend so long sitting cross-legged on the floor. Kids nowadays have fancy desk chairs. But I like to think I also had a built-in "off switch" that helped me know when I'd had enough. Some people don't have that.

A Fruit Fly in My Wine

I've just been reading about ABC television's decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely for the fairly innocuous comments he made about Charlie Kirk's killing. It is frightening how readily television companies knuckle under to the USA's newly authoritarian government. This is what happens when big business puts its own interests ahead of those of the public, who are entitled under the Constitution to hear a range of views from a range of sources -- including views critical of the government and its leaders. We are in a scary place.

You probably saw that Trump filed a multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuit against The New York Times for its critical coverage prior to last year's election. He took exception to statements like the paper's assertion that Trump as president would "defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong." And yet, here we are! He's trying to drive the Times out of business and threatening ABC's license over comments by a talk show host. He's deploying military on the streets of our cities. He has demolished the country's capacity for providing federal aid overseas and he's rewarding red states over blue ones at home. Seems to me that's defying norms and dismantling institutions.

I commented on the Times' own story about the lawsuit, "Don't you DARE settle this! To quote Trump, 'Fight, fight, fight!'" I have no idea whether or not they published it -- I see a lot of other people said similar things. The Times doesn't have the pressure of an FCC license hanging over its head so perhaps that gives it more room to resist.

A side note -- it's interesting that Trump filed his lawsuit in the Middle District of Florida, which is based in Tampa. Long ago, when I was first starting out as a reporter, I used to help cover the federal court in Tampa. I'd pop in on my way to the office and look through all the new suits to see whether anything interesting had come in. This was when the courthouse was still located in its charming old 1920s building, not in the modern monolith it occupies now. How surprised I would have been to find a lawsuit from the president in the stack! (I'm assuming Trump filed suit in Central Florida because it's a more conservative district and one more likely to give him a win. I can't imagine why else he'd do it there -- Palm Beach, where he lives, is in the Southern District.)

I did once attend a press conference at that courthouse with international implications, when the U.S. Attorney announced drug-trafficking charges against Manuel Noriega, the president of Panama. I was a 21-year-old college student at the time, and even my editor said he'd have sent someone more experienced if he'd realized how big the story was! I helped write it, though. I remember thinking it was silly we'd indict a foreign leader, when he was clearly out of the reach of our courts. I never imagined we'd invade the country months later and capture Noriega that way. I was young and naive.

Anyway...

Last night I was lying on the couch, drinking a glass of vin rouge and catching up on blogs, when a tiny black fruit fly flew into my wine. I didn't notice it until I took a sip and had to spit the thing out. I gingerly set it on the table next to the couch -- it was no bigger than a sesame seed -- and darned if it didn't start moving around, surviving not only being drowned in alcohol but briefly being in my mouth. It stretched its legs and dried its wings, and after a few minutes it flew away. I thought, "In these crazy times, may we all be as resilient as that fruit fly!"

(Photos: Morning sun in our entrance hall, and some graffiti and a sticker I saw yesterday. I think the second sticker means that Instagram is full of spam?)

Pigeons

Why are all those pigeons hanging out in the walnut tree?

They've discovered my bird feeder, that's why.

Remember the plastic seed feeder I put out a little more than a month ago? I found it in our shed, and it hadn't been used in a long while specifically because in the past it had attracted too many pigeons. I decided to try again, filled it with seed and at first, I enjoyed the small birds coming and going -- the tits and robins and dunnocks.

Then the pigeons moved in.

Actually, I suspect that all along they'd been emptying the feeder. Those seeds disappeared way too fast for the tiny birds to be entirely responsible.

The pigeons are too big for the feeder, so there's a lot of flapping and chaos while they try to perch on it. I think they use as much energy feeding as they get from the food, for a net gain of zero. But that doesn't stop them.

The little birds still get in a nibble now and then, but overall the pigeons monopolize the seed -- just as the starlings and parakeets monopolize our suet balls. Speaking of which, I haven't seen many starlings lately. Perhaps they move on as the weather cools down. The suet balls last several days now, and the parakeets come and go, unlike earlier in the year when I'd put out suet balls and they'd disappear in a few hours.

Thanks for your feedback yesterday on the wisdom of mowing the lawn in flip-flops! I did consider the safety of that, but as I said in a comment, I figured my feet don't get near enough to the business end of the mower for it to be a danger. But you're right -- it's probably not smart. I'll wear shoes from now on.

Olga has been visiting me in dreams again. I don't know what's bringing this on -- maybe the change of seasons? I wake up a bit melancholy. I ran into a neighbor yesterday who also has a very old dog. We've seen each other on the "dog circuit" for years, and I told him we'd lost Olga. His dog is 17, but she's a different breed -- a sort of furry poodly thing -- and though she walks slowly, she's still managing. I told him as long as she's eating and walking, she's in relatively good shape!

I was sorry to read about Robert Redford's death yesterday. I mean, the guy was 89, so it's not such a surprise -- he was born before both of my parents and they've been dead for years. But film creates an illusion of eternal youth and vigor, and it's always a surprise to find our screen idols aging like the rest of us. I liked Redford because his heart was in the right place. He seemed a good guy overall.

Bureaucracy

I found these stickers on my walk home yesterday evening -- an interesting, and encouraging, response to the right-wing, anti-immigrant demonstrations that occurred over the weekend! That flag is the St. George Cross, the national flag of England, and it's often waved by anti-immigrant demonstrators (remember the "Send Them Home" guy in Blackpool?). I like the idea of reclaiming it for everyone.

Flags are weird things, aren't they? A scrap of cloth, and yet a powerful symbol -- and a lot of us disagree about what's being symbolized. I'd argue that the American flag symbolizes rights of expression that could include, ironically, burning the American flag. And yet a lot of people think it symbolizes pride, and that burning it somehow contradicts or offends its message. (Not that I'm about to burn a flag. I'm just using that as an example.)

I've never been a flag-waver. I think I've hung a national flag exactly once, and that was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Like a lot of my neighbors, I put one in my apartment window in New York as a symbol of unity and recovery. Oh, and I waved the British flag at our citizenship ceremony, with all the other immigrants!

Speaking of which, I applied for my first British passport last night. I'm hoping to get it in time for Tenerife at Thanksgiving. According to the Home Office web site that shouldn't be a problem, though they're making me jump through some hoops -- like I once again have to find someone of professional authority to verify that my picture is in fact me, even though I just jumped this same hurdle for my citizenship application. It's not a big deal -- I can get someone at work to do it easily enough -- but it seems a silly requirement. Don't they have my picture on file in some big computer? Can't they just look at that and see that the passport photo is authentic?

Here are some more stickers and signs I've found posted in recent weeks. Bureaucracy makes me a grumpy cat.

I would like to have seen "an exhibition of giant backlit SX-70 Polaroids," but alas, it was two years ago. The homage to one of my favorite movies was eye-catching, though.

There are several places in the world where kindness is not on display -- Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, Yemen -- and Gaza is definitely among them.

Can you stand another garden cam video? More good shots of the fox and our regular visiting cats. At 2:02, the fox appears very agitated and moving fast -- I'm not sure what that was about. Maybe it had a scary encounter with some other animal. And at 2:17, I'm mowing the lawn, so be ready for some engine noise! I was surprised the cats were out wandering around in the rain. I thought cats hated water?

Dave the Trip Planner

I spent all day yesterday at home. It was supposed to get rainy later in the day, so I spent the morning trying to get some stuff done. I moved our rubber trees inside after their summer outdoors -- both of them look much better having had that outdoor time -- and I mowed the lawn. The garden looks much tidier.

I also vacuumed and took care of all the houseplants and washed the door mat at the back door, and I trimmed the bushes along our front steps so we can get in and out of the house without looking too much like the Munsters.

And then I dealt with blogs and blog comments, and finally, after all that, I sat down to read another 100+ pages of "City of Night." I hadn't touched the book all last week but now I want to make a concerted effort to finish it. I'm feeling a bit bogged down. I wouldn't say John Rechy is the greatest writer -- he turns a nice phrase but he's also very casual. Wasn't it Truman Capote who said of Jack Kerouac's work, "it's not writing, it's typing"? (I also have it in my head that he said that about Jacqueline Susann, but that might have been a joke I read somewhere.) Anyway, Rechy occasionally wanders into typing territory, but the book is nonetheless remarkable for its candor about gay culture in a very conservative era. I wouldn't say it's sexually explicit, except through implication and deduction, but the cultural descriptions must have been eye-opening for many people at the time.

I just learned yesterday, incidentally, that John Rechy is still alive! He's 94 years old. So much for the idea that clean living leads to a long life. After all, the famously dissipated William S. Burroughs lived to be 83.

Our cyclamens have bloomed in the back garden. We planted these things years ago and they just keep coming back. We're always surprised by them, having forgotten they were even there.

Speaking of surprises, Dave has come up with a Thanksgiving trip for us. He bought us tickets to Tenerife on Easy Jet, and found us a hotel. This astonishes me for several reasons: 1) It involves an airport, which Dave detests; 2) We've never flown a discount airline anywhere; and 3) He took the initiative to make the plans. Usually I am the trip planner. I am thrilled to take a back seat for this little adventure even though, like our planned October break in Penzance, it's going to be a very short vacation (about 48 hours).

Remember the blurry photo of my childhood dog Herman that I posted several days ago? I wondered how it would look after being run through Waterlogue, the watercolor painting app. It still looks blurry, weirdly, but it's an interesting effect!