Watching the Weather

Olga and I took a long walk to Hampstead Heath Extension yesterday, where we saw this shirtless older guy practicing Tai Chi. I watched him for a while and he seemed so focused.

I felt a bit jealous. Even though I'm obviously not in any personal danger, I'm rattled by Irma and the storm predictions. I know so many people who live in her direct path, now that she's swung westward and is predicted to pass over or near Tampa, my hometown. My Facebook friends are talking about evacuating and securing their homes. My stepmother and stepsister plan to stay put in their houses, at least at this point.

You'd think the science of meteorology would be better able to predict the path of a hurricane. But here we are, in 2017, with weather apparatus that can tell us in advance not only that it will rain but at what time, and the largest storm systems on the planet are still a mystery. They can be nudged fairly easily in this direction or that. I just hope Irma weakens as she moves north over land and/or cooler water.

Meanwhile, at our hurricane-free house, it's finch-a-palooza! The finch feeder was swarmed yesterday by lots of goldfinches -- young ones, I think. They must be migrating, or preparing to migrate. I've never seen this many at once.

Olga was feeling extra spirited on her walk. She ran and ran, after squirrels real and imagined.

Storm Drama

We had some excitement yesterday regarding Hurricane Irma and my family in Jacksonville, Florida. My brother sent me an e-mail saying he couldn't reach my mom, and he and his wife and kids were about to evacuate to South Carolina. So I got on the horn to Mom and her retirement center to find out what the heck was going on.

We eventually got it all sorted out -- Mom had evacuation plans of her own, through her retirement community. My brother and I just wanted to be sure she wasn't staying put, because she lives in a flood zone near a major waterway (albeit on the second floor).

Now, as it's turned out, the storm seems projected to move farther west, over Tampa. My brother wound up not evacuating after all. I'm still not sure whether Mom went as planned. It's hard to stay on top of these things from London, where the skies are calm and the birds are on their feeders in the back garden, oblivious to meteorological drama.

Did you see that Graydon Carter is stepping down after 25 years as editor of Vanity Fair? When I first caught a glimpse of the story yesterday I only saw his name in a headline, and thought he'd died. That would be a hideous injustice, for the man who first dubbed Donald Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian" to die during Trump's presidency! I'm glad to see he's still with us. (Carter, that is, not Trump.)

During the '90s I was an eager consumer of Vanity Fair. I loved Nan Darien, the fictional columnist and social x-ray who commented wryly on the activities of the upper crust. VF's investigative articles were riveting, and the magazine taught me a lot about pop culture. But I began losing interest as I aged and failed to recognize progressively newer, younger stars in its pages. I realized I could never keep track of the next Bright Young Thing, and the dozens of Bright Young Things coming off the assembly line behind. I kind of gave up!

(Photo: A couple of guys fishing in the Thames in Purfleet. I like how they rigged a Peppa Pig bedsheet to give them some shade!)

The Bird Seed Aisle

I went to get some bird seed at Homebase a couple of nights ago. That store has a rodent problem! Every large bag of seed has been either split or gnawed open, and the shelves are thick with loose grains. When I rounded the corner, a furry critter shot under the shelving unit. I understand the store can't put out poison -- it being bird seed and all -- but why isn't someone vacuuming up all that loose seed and patching those leaky bags? I didn't see any evidence that the problem was being addressed.

Homebase is a strange place -- huge and cavernous, but on any given weekday evening there only seem to be about four employees.

Anyway, I was going to buy a 12.5-kilo bag but I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to carry it home (especially with that hole in the side). So I went for one of the smaller bags, even though it was almost the same price. At least it was sealed.

Abercrombie the Finch has been on our finch feeder every morning this week. Apparently goldfinches often migrate to southern Europe for the winter. I wonder if he's fueling up?

Last night Dave had to work, so I spent the evening alone. I finished the Sedaris diaries and had the last of the tomato soup. I made a cheese sandwich but I couldn't be bothered to grill it. Let me just say, they're much better grilled.

As I sat on the couch with my glass of wine, the dog snoozing beside me, I remembered a time in 1988 or so, right after my college roommate moved out of our shared apartment at a complex called Square Plaza in Tampa. It was the first time I'd had an apartment all to myself, and I was thrilled. I remember pouring myself a glass of white wine, putting Joni Mitchell's "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" on the stereo, and relaxing in my very own living room, feeling like a real adult.

That memory made me realize I hadn't listened to an album all the way through in a long, long time. My iTunes are constantly on shuffle nowadays. So for nostalgia's sake, I turned off the shuffle function and played "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" straight through, white wine in hand. It was nice.

Now it's raining outside, a soft whispery patter falling in the gray light. Olga's not going to want to go on her walk.

Irma is still full of uncertainty, though most of the projections show it hitting peninsular Florida in one way or another. Do you know that in the 30 years I lived on Florida's west coast, I never went through a hurricane? We had a few close calls, but none that hit us directly, and during the one that affected Tampa the most -- Elena in 1985 -- I was on vacation in Daytona Beach, on the other side of the state. (I was also gone for Andrew in 1992; I had already moved to Morocco.) Just dumb luck, I guess, because since then there have been any number of storms pounding away at my old home turf. Looks like Irma may be another.

(Photo: A Unique shop in Upminster.)

Stripey House

I've been meaning to photograph this house for the last few years. It's on a tiny side street and it's not the kind of place you'd happen to wander past -- you really need to try to go there. So I never made it until last weekend, and unfortunately, I missed seeing the house in its heyday.

It's covered in plywood now, and not very photogenic, but before the plywood went up its owner -- who has the fantastic name Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring -- painted it with bright white and red candy stripes. That was in March 2015, and it led to a very public legal skirmish with her neighbors. They accused her of painting the house out of spite, because they fought her plans to demolish the structure and build a new home.

Lisle-Mainwaring denied that was her motive, and recently won a court battle, allowing her to keep the stripes. Unfortunately they've since been obscured by the plywood, which appears to have gone up in anticipation of some greater renovation.

The stripes are only visible at the top of the exterior wall, where they match beautifully with the next-door neighbor's trailing geraniums. Personally, I thought it was a pretty cool paint job.

I'm watching Hurricane Irma with dread. My mom and brother live very close to its projected path, up the Atlantic coast of Florida. Mom says she will evacuate if necessary, but for now they can only watch and wait. The storm is still far enough away that a wobble in any direction could make a big difference.

For a while it looked like Irma might follow the path of Donna, which went right up the center of the state in 1960 and is a legendary storm in peninsular Florida. My great grandmother, who lived in the small Central Florida town of Avon Park, said afterwards, "I wouldn't name a dog Donna."

Meanwhile, things are pretty calm here. Dave came to my desk a couple of nights ago, as he was leaving work, to ask what he should buy for dinner. Ever thrifty, I pointed out that we still had leftover cheese slices in the fridge from the Sally lunch a few weeks ago. "Let's have cheese sandwiches," I said. "Or Welsh rarebit! We could use up the soy sauce!"

He mocked that suggestion, and it was only after he left that I remembered Welsh rarebit uses Worcestershire sauce, not soy sauce. Oh well. I knew it was something brown.

And then I got home and, lo and behold, he made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup! Thriftiness wins! (And by the way, that meal is hard to beat -- which is good, because we have more leftover cheese and now leftover soup as well!)

Another iPhone Photo Parade

Today, some more photos from the ol' iPhone, collected over the last week or two.

First, some identically dressed women waiting on a bench at the Westminster tube station. I really wish I'd taken this picture with my big camera, but the trains were coming and I didn't have enough time to get it out.

Then, once on the train, I sat across from this woman. Gotta love those shoes -- very Frederick's of Hollywood.

This unusual Moorish house is in St. John's Wood. I often pass it when I'm walking home from work. Online I found an old sales listing that calls it "Alhambra Cottage," dates it to 1846 and prices it at £3.5 million. Definitely unique and impressive!

Some perilously saggy shelves of glassware in the window of a local florist...

Olga and I passed this beautiful Dalmatian on Hampstead Heath. I tried to get a picture of the two of them together, but Olga ran right past and I couldn't get this dog to look up from its muddy cocktail.

I found this button (badge) on the sidewalk (pavement) on Finchley Road. If I found its correct source, it's the name of a club in Brighton, which, according to its Facebook page, is "DIY punk night, Feminist-advocating/Queer-identifying punk entertainment." I love London!

This guy stood in front of me in line at the Pink Floyd exhibit on Sunday. A far cry from smoking pot and grooving on "Dark Side of the Moon" in a college dorm room!

What on Earth happened to these poor shoes???

An ad from the Tube. It's pretty hard to make mining look glamorous, when all it brings to mind is going down a dark, dirty hole in the ground. But I suppose people in mine management might be able to stand around on their balcony overlooking a futuristic cityscape. I'd still rather be a librarian.

Cozy Hottie

I happened to walk past this electrical wholesaler's shop in Kensington on Sunday morning. As I glanced in the window, I saw this:

I thought, "Why is there a stuffed cow in the shop window at an electrical wholesaler?"

Upon doing further research I've realized that a) it's a giraffe, not a cow, and b) it's called a "Cozy Hottie." It includes a scented wheat-grain pouch in its belly that can be removed, microwaved and reinserted, making the giraffe warm and cuddly. I still don't really understand why it's in the window of an electrical wholesaler -- but why not?

On a completely different note, I've been thinking lately of a time in my distant past when I completely embarrassed myself. I don't know why this memory has come to me recently. It involves a class I took in college called "expository writing," where we would discuss and debate ideas before writing papers about them.

I sat in class with a girl named Penny, who wore thrift store skirts and had a thick, blond braid that she used to wrap around the top of her head. She looked like a Norwegian hippie milkmaid. Another kid in the class was an evangelical Christian who used to advance a lot of über-conservative social ideas about the evils of gays and abortion.

Penny and I both took umbrage with this kid.

One day, during a heated debate about something or other -- I don't quite remember the context -- the Christian kid was talking about taking moral direction from God. He argued that secular humanists didn't have any moral foundation.

"Of course they do!" I argued.

The teacher, Dr. C, asked where that foundation came from.

"The God of humanism!" I said.

The entire class just stopped. The Christian kid, looking down at his desk, shook his head and smiled tightly. Dr. C looked at me blankly and said, "There is no God of humanism."

And that's how I learned what "secular humanist" meant, because before that moment I clearly had absolutely no idea.

I felt stupid and Penny quietly said some consoling words, and the class moved on. But it annoyed me that I tripped up, because I was right about my greater point -- that humanists can be moral beings.

Too bad I didn't have a warm, scented giraffe to make me feel better!

Pink Floyd, and Abercrombie

I went to the Pink Floyd exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum yesterday morning. Those of you who are Floyd fans will recognize the two heads above from the cover of the 1994 album "The Division Bell." I had a friend in the Peace Corps who had a t-shirt with those heads on it. Little did I know I'd be seeing them in a museum someday!

The exhibit was fascinating, especially the first few galleries covering the band's early years. I don't know any Pink Floyd before "Dark Side of the Moon," and there were several earlier albums. I loved the psychedelic light show projected on the ceiling of one gallery and all the groovy '60s promotional posters and graphics.

I also liked learning about the creation of Pink Floyd's album covers. It's fair to say I know the album covers even better than I know the music, iconic and omnipresent as they were in the '70s and '80s. Hearing how they shot the cover photo for "Wish You Were Here," for example, or how hard it was for designer Storm Thorgerson to put more than 100 beds on a California beach for "A Momentary Lapse of Reason," or how the band managed to float an inflatable pig above Battersea Power Station for "Animals." (It broke loose and drifted to a farmer's field in Kent.)

Of course it wasn't the first time I'd seen or heard about that pig, but it struck me as incredible that they actually floated it. Nowadays that album cover would be created in Photoshop. But as Thorgerson pointed out, there's value in actually doing a thing -- the doing, the reality, is part of the art. Otherwise it's just an idea.

Meanwhile, back home, Dave was watching a goldfinch on our finch feeder. We first saw him on Saturday, though I'd caught a glimpse of one -- possibly the same one -- about a week earlier. Dave named him Abercrombie the Finch, which I consider a stroke of genius. I'm just glad that feeder is getting some traffic. Goldfinches in our garden have been few and far between.

Later in the afternoon, Olga was gazing at me longingly, so I took her to Fortune Green and the cemetery. There were several women gathered at a bench in the back of the cemetery, and their yappy dogs raced toward us yapping, so Olga and I beat a hasty retreat and headed home. It's a good thing, too, because the wind blew up and it began spitting rain. Later, while lying on the couch, I heard an ice cream truck pass on the blustery high street playing "O Sole Mio," as if heralding the end of summer.