ERA Yes

Considering we're all supposed to restrict contact with each other, it's ironic that yesterday seemed like one of my busiest days ever in the library. The school is having families come to collect belongings and laptops through Wednesday, and though they're scheduled in shifts to avoid having the entire population of the school show up at once, it seems that EVERY SINGLE PERSON visits the library. And I wind up face-to-face with them (albeit across my desk) and passing hundreds of objects back and forth. I'm not complaining, and I still think my chances of infection are slim -- I wash my hands like crazy -- but it IS funny. (Not funny ha-ha. Funny strange.)

I think there's a fear that we may be closed not just for the next few weeks but possibly far longer -- maybe even through the summer. Or that the UK will go into lockdown, in which movement is restricted and people are essentially required to stay home. Parents are checking out STACKS of books. (We removed restrictions on the number of books people can have, like we do for longer break periods.)

One parent asked me via e-mail to reserve 25 books in the Warrior Cats series for her son. This is a massive (and massively popular) series by multiple authors writing under a pseudonym, about tribes of feral cats. But Mom didn't tell me which ones her son had already read. I went back into his checkout history and did my best to figure it out. She later clarified and we set aside a pile, but the whole exercise took me a good half-hour at least.

This is all SO weird. When I go outside I half-expect to see zombies walking around.

Oh, and remember all the books we painstakingly wrapped for the 8th Graders? Well, that event got canceled. So my co-workers unwrapped them all again yesterday morning. I'm glad they did it before I got there because I would have wept.

This is my new t-shirt! It says "ERA YES" bracketed by the words "A man of quality is not threatened by a woman of equality." I ordered it from here, when I saw the most recent cover of Ms. magazine, which touts the continuing progress of the Equal Rights Amendment. It's always been a complete mystery to me why the ERA hasn't been fully ratified and incorporated into the Constitution -- well, I mean, I understand there's conservative, misogynist opposition, but the amendment itself seems so common-sense.

Anyway, this turned out to be the most expensive t-shirt I've ever bought. The shirt itself was $22.50, which is already a bit on the high side. But then the shipping to the UK was $41.70! And then I had to pay a customs duty when it arrived here -- about £21 (or $26). Altogether that comes to NINETY DOLLARS.

Seriously, I need my head examined. I should have just donated a hundred bucks to the Feminist Majority and left it at that.

(Top photo: Graceful shadows on my walk to work yesterday morning.)

Springtime with Infection Control Mask

Another day at home. I had planned to do our income taxes, but I never got motivated. I'll get them done this week, hopefully.

I did, however, officially postpone my Florida trip until late June. British Airways was very reasonable about it -- they didn't charge me anything to move my flight dates. They understand this is an unprecedented situation.

Olga got two walks -- one in the morning, when we came across the springtime-colored infection control mask lying on the pavement above, and one in the afternoon, when we went back to the cemetery. On the morning walk I also found a couple more old milk bottles for my burgeoning collection -- both Express Dairy, but of shapes and styles unlike those I already had. I'm up to seven bottles now, all different.

Oh, and speaking of Olga, some of you wondered about that red rubber thing lying in the grass in one of my pictures a few posts back. No, it is not some kind of sex toy. It's a Kong, Olga's preferred dog toy of choice. In fact, that one she found while walking in the cemetery several weeks ago, where it had been abandoned by some ungrateful cur. I'm not sure why Kongs are shaped that way, except the conical design helps them bounce unpredictably when thrown, which dogs seem to like.

I'm going back to work this morning to help out around the library, getting the place in order and helping with last-minute checkouts. I'll probably work through Wednesday.

More Primroses and Harper Lee

Olga and I visited the cemetery yesterday, where the primroses are blooming among the headstones. I don't know if these are wild or escapees from someone's planting years ago, but they come back every spring.

The Ravenous Camellia Monster has demonstrated that he's not just ravenous for camellias. He's also coming around and digging through our flower pots. Can you see the dirt on his nose? We go through this every spring, and it's so exhausting. I don't know whether the squirrels are burying nuts or digging them up, or just looking for grubs and slugs and other snicky-snacks, but they wreak havoc on our plants. (They've already been digging around the foxgloves I planted Friday.)

We've learned that there will be no classes at school next week. I think I still have to work, though -- students will be coming in to collect belongings and take care of business before switching to online learning the following week, so I expect I'll be needed to take care of library stuff. I haven't yet heard otherwise, anyway. After a week of online learning we'll have Spring Break, and then the powers-that-be will re-evaluate to see whether we can return.

Aside from our trip to the cemetery, we stayed home again yesterday. One side benefit of social distancing is that I get lots of reading done. I'm working on a book called "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee," about a murdered fraudster in Alabama and the efforts of author Harper Lee to write a true-crime book about his case. It's no spoiler to say she didn't succeed. The book provides not only an interesting look at the fraudster but also at Lee and her debilitating struggle with the runaway success of "To Kill A Mockingbird." Truman Capote, of course, plays a supporting role. I'm really enjoying it.

Ravenous Camellia Monster Returns

Remember the Ravenous Camellia Monster? Well, it's back, gnawing up my neighbor's pink camellia blossoms. I've been finding shredded petals near the garden fence, and yesterday I caught it in the act. I can't be sure it's the same Camellia Monster, of course.

The handymen finished their work yesterday on our new garden gate area. There's some fresh cement over there that we have to avoid for the next few days, but that's fine -- we rarely use our side alley anyway. Now we have a gate that locks and newly rebuilt (and much safer) steps.

I did some minor trimming in the front garden to neaten up their work. (They left a lot of scraps lying around.) I also planted three of our foxgloves there -- we had some growing wild in the center of the garden a couple of years ago, but they disappeared when the bushes got too overgrown. Now that the jungle has been tamed, maybe the foxgloves can prosper once again?

I planted the rest of our foxgloves -- nine of them -- in the back garden. It's SO GREAT to have them all in the ground. They looked like they were suffering a little bit in their pots, with their lower leaves yellowing, as you can see. They've come a long way since I planted them as seeds last July.

We haven't heard yet whether we'll be back at school on Monday. Coincidentally, I've been having a respiratory issue unrelated to COVID, and I was supposed to see a doctor that day. But now my doctors have essentially closed the office to walk-in appointments and all previously scheduled appointments will be done by telephone. They're understandably concerned about COVID exposure, probably both to themselves and their other patients. So we'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, I walked to work both ways last week in order to stay off the Tube, and yesterday I was home all day. (I didn't shake the handymen's hands, and they politely declined our offer of tea!) I worry about all the small businesses and restaurants that rely on foot traffic -- Dave and I talked last night about what we could do to safely continue participating in the local economy. I understand the concept of "flattening the curve" -- delaying infections so we all take on this virus more gradually, without overwhelming the medical establishment. But shouldn't those of us without significant risk factors somewhat balance the self-isolation? We have to sustain our communities, too. (Then again, Dave does have risk factors -- being on immune-suppressing drugs for his Crohn's -- so I have to behave cautiously on his behalf.)

This is such a weird time to be alive.

A Mostly Minor Trim

Some maintenance guys from our management company have been doing exterior work on our flat, repairing the front steps, putting in a new garden gate and trimming the front garden. This is the garden now -- much less bushy than it was previously.

The biggest change is the tall cypresses, which they lopped off about halfway up the trunk. Apparently this is an accepted method of trimming them, although it seems brutal. It will make Mrs. Kravitz happy -- she's been complaining about their height. (Maybe it will make up for the fact that we're not putting in a new side fence, which she also wants.)

See those sticks with the little white flags on them? Those are markers I put in to alert the gardeners to plants we want to save. I was afraid they were going to weed everything and inadvertently pull up the valerian and other good stuff. As it turns out, they didn't weed at all -- at least, not yet. I think they're coming back today to do a little more work on our side alley.

And as it turns out, we'll be home, because we've had a last-minute change of plans to our workday. One of our students' parents has tested positive for Covid-19. As a result, school is closed today for a "deep clean," even though the parent hadn't recently been on campus. (Obviously his kids have been.)

I'm going to use the opportunity to plant our foxgloves and do some other stuff in the garden.

Just for fun, Dave and I rented and watched "Contagion" last night -- Steven Soderbergh's 2011 movie about a mutant virus that causes a disastrous pandemic. We saw it in the theater when it came out, and I remember liking it. Thankfully, our real-world virus is nowhere near as deadly as the one in the film, which wipes out huge numbers of people in grisly fashion!

New Leaves and Wrapped Books

The once-viney tree down the block, which I liberated from its vines over the winter, is now putting out leaves. No flowers yet, but it's a cherry tree so there should be some eventually. I am so happy to see how well it's doing. Every time I look at it I feel lighter, freer, clearer.

While I was taking this photo, the woman who lives in the house adjacent to the tree pulled up in her car. She is still convinced the once-viney tree is a seedling from the cherry tree in her yard -- despite the fact that it was clearly planted by the council as a street tree, with support stakes, and is an entirely different type of cherry than hers. She said this the last time I talked to her, too. I gently suggested that we compare them again when they both leaf out, but to my eyes, they already look different. I am bewildered by her obtuseness.

Olga and I had some excitement on her walk yesterday morning. Of course, I couldn't explain to her that the cat was behind a window and therefore completely inaccessible. Olga was willing to give it a go.

Remember in years past how we've wrapped books for an 8th Grade event called "Blind Date with a Book," in which the kids choose pre-selected books from a cart not knowing what they are? It's supposed to help broaden their reading interests. Well, we're doing it again this year, so yesterday, a library volunteer and I spent the whole morning wrapping books in newspaper. Again, I tried to make them interesting using photos, and we had some little heart stickers to fancy them up.

Yes, those are coronaviruses around the pink shield in the middle. (Festive-looking if you don't think about it.) And doesn't that ad center-left, for a dental product, look very '70s? Right down to the hair. Are they trying to be retro? I wonder...

Speaking of coronavirus, you've probably seen that Trump is suspending most travel to the U.S. from continental Europe. The UK isn't part of that ban, but this still seems to put my April 4 Florida trip further in doubt. Also, my mom's retirement center has banned anyone from visiting who has flown within the past 14 days -- so if I went, I wouldn't be able to see her, which is the main reason to go. (As I told my co-workers, I could always sit outside her window and talk to her on the phone, but that seems kind of pointless. My brother probably isn't crazy about me flying and then staying with his family, either, although he hasn't said that.)

Even though I planned to see this trip through, the world seems to be telling me to postpone. Stay tuned!

A Litany of Ills

When I last photographed this laundry on Finchley Road, three years ago, it had plants in the windows and looked a little more homey. It also had completely different shops on either side. I miss the plants but I like this new lineup -- it's very international. The Russian shop is called Berezka. I've never been there but apparently it's basically a deli.

I went to the dentist yesterday morning to get my root canal checked out. Two years after it was originally done, I'm still having twinges of feeling in the tooth, and on my last exam they found evidence of lingering infection at its base. My dentist wasn't there at the time, though, so I was asked to come back and see him.

His conclusion is that there may still be a tiny bit of root at the bottom of the tooth that he was unable to remove because the channels were too narrow, and he said there are two options. One, I can leave it alone and let it clear up on its own, as he believes it will. Or two, I can have a procedure that involves going in through the base of the gum to clean out the infected area. That would require a specialist. Since I'm only having mild, extremely intermittent pain and there's no swelling, I'm inclined to do nothing, but he's getting me information on the second option.

And he didn't charge me for the visit. So there's that.

I had doubts about going to the dentist in the middle of our dreaded Covid-19 outbreak, but what the heck. Life goes on. Some people seem very freaked out -- I see paper masks being worn on the street and in the tube, and we're still cutting back activities and trips at school. Dave suspects the school might close.

I haven't made any changes in my own life, aside from washing my hands more regularly. (I'm already a pretty consistent hand-washer. Being a health and hygiene volunteer in the Peace Corps taught me the value of that!) My attitude, as I told someone recently, is that this virus is just one of about a bazillion things that could kill us tomorrow. In other words, life itself is risky -- you just have to keep living and minimize the risk sensibly.

I have a co-worker who's planning to go to Spain for Spring Break, at the beginning of April. She says she's still going, unless things change. I think Spain's had more cases than Britain, but I don't blame her. I'd go too -- just as I'm still planning to follow through on my trip to Florida. I guess the big danger with international travel is that we get caught in some kind of quarantine coming or going. I don't want to wind up living for two weeks in some warehouse in Tampa!