Vacation!

Well, that's that. I am officially on summer vacation. Yesterday turned out to be busier than I expected -- I had a lot of re-shelving to do, taking down our displays and putting away all our new books, and we had a long Zoom meeting to mark the end of the year and take note of several retirements.

The construction crews have already almost entirely dismantled the fiction room, which as I've mentioned is being divided, with half turned into a classroom. That didn't take long! When we go back in August, organizing the remainder of that space will be our top priority.

Now, for a few days at least, I get to chill at home -- and I mean that literally because right now it's 53º F and rainy, and it doesn't get any better until the middle of next week. I'm going to catch up with my New Yorker magazines and start a new book. I brought 18 books home from the library for the summer! It's probably a fantasy to think I'll get through them all, but you never know. A few of them are Newbery winners -- I'm going to keep chipping away at my goal of reading all of them.

I found this curious note on the way to work yesterday morning. It took me a while to catch on. My question is, why is love conditional on recognizing Amii's handwriting? Is it because the note's message is intended for a specific recipient, rather than any random person (me) who finds it? Am I still supposed to keep it?

So many questions.

Dave and I have been catching up on movies we've been meaning to watch. Last night we finally got around to "The Dig" on Netflix, about the discovery of the Sutton Hoo treasure in Suffolk in the late 1930s. We enjoyed that, and the night before we watched "The Woman in the Window," even though I'd already read the book and knew where the plot was going. It was good too.

Finally, on Wednesday, we watched "The Father" with Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman, and it was excellent. It hit home for me because it's about a man with dementia, and it portrays the way that reality shifts, people change and time unspools in the mind of a dementia patient. Of course my mom suffers from a type of dementia as well, so all I could do while watching is imagine her experience.

(Top photo: A hotel entrance in Kilburn on Wednesday, when it was still sunny.)

Buster

Our third peony has finally opened, and it looks like we'll ultimately get two flowers from this plant. It's especially photogenic in the soft spring rain we've been receiving for the last few days. The other two peonies -- the yellow one and the Bowl of Beauty -- are already finished.

I survived our third end-of-the-year gathering yesterday, and of course once I had a glass or two of champagne it stopped seeming like a bad idea! Today I have very little to do, but I do need to go in just to clear a few final things off my desk, and then we have our final all-school Zoom meeting. I don't think drinking will be involved.

Walking (unsteadily) home from work yesterday, I encountered this guy:

His name is Buster, and though he's pretty old (about 11) he was quite wiggly and it was hard to get him to pose for a picture. He was lying on the sidewalk while his owner, Jerry, sat nearby on the steps of an apartment house, finishing a beer. I kept telling Buster to "stay!" and unlike Olga he paid no heed whatsoever. He appreciated a few scratches. Don't tell Olga I've been unfaithful.

And just to make today's post look even more like yesterday's:

I had to do a Google search yesterday for something -- I can't remember what -- and when I entered the words "how is" into the search field, these were the prompts I got. Clearly they haven't gotten the news about Prince Philip.

I'm wondering how Google comes up with their suggestions. I assume it's based almost entirely on where I live, because clearly readers in the USA wouldn't get prompts about council tax or the weather in London. I would think my own search history might also play a role, but I swear I've never searched for anything involving Michael Schumacher, a German auto racer. I didn't even know his name. (Or that he had a skiing accident years ago that left him comatose.)

When you enter "how is" into the search field, do you get a similar list?

Anyway, the peculiarities of Google never cease to amuse me.

Liver Fatigue

I was walking through Kilburn yesterday and couldn't resist another photo of The Old Bell, this time with lots of colorful flags in the windows. They're decorations for something called Euro 2020, the European football championship (I think?) being played in a series of games now. That's basically all I can tell you about it, and even that much is thanks only to Google.

Incidentally, when I went to Google and began typing "What is Euro 2020," I got all kinds of interesting prompts:

It actually wouldn't hurt me to read a bit more about Bitcoin, not to mention pansexuality, but maybe I won't do it right this second.

Yesterday was a fairly nondescript workday. Most of our heavy library work is done, at least as much as possible before construction on the new classroom ends and we can re-shelve everything in what used to be the fiction room. I had a couple of kids checking things out at the last minute, and some paying for lost materials, and I even got a couple of thank-you notes and a box of chocolates from some students, which was very nice and completely unexpected since I usually assume all of them hate me. (Well, not really hate, but I am an authority figure with a tendency to nag!)

I went out with some co-workers yesterday afternoon for a reunion with our departed Middle School librarian, Lindsey, who moved with her husband to Myanmar a few years ago. She's back in town because of course Myanmar was in a state of relative chaos this spring, after its military coup. It was good to catch up with her, but I'm beginning to wonder whether my liver is going to survive this week. I had an alcohol-fueled picnic with co-workers on Tuesday, the pub outing with Lindsey yesterday, and today there's a shower with champagne for another librarian who's getting married. We librarians are party animals!

"Who, me?"

Ticket to the Past

I took this picture of our "Night Sky" petunias mainly to show you how clear and sunny the weather has been. Supposedly that's all going to change tonight. Rain is expected and will continue off and on through the middle of next week. I'm down with that -- it will save me the trouble of having to water the garden.

While I was weeding some old books last week in the library's movies and music section, I came across this yellowed ticket stuck between some pages. As you all know, I love finding things in library books. This ticket is from April 14, 2003 -- a Monday -- when someone took a morning trip on the 102 bus through North London. The 102 runs east-west across town from Edmonton (north of Tottenham) to Brent Cross, which is just north of where we live.

It cost only 70 pence to make the trip. A regular adult fare is more than twice that now. And do we even still get paper tickets? I don't, because I just scan my oyster card, but maybe if I paid cash I would. Or could I even still pay cash on a bus? I have no idea. (I tried to look this up on the TFL web site but as you can imagine there's a bewildering array of fare information and ultimately I couldn't be bothered.)

The year 2003 doesn't seem that long ago, but the kids who just graduated as seniors from the school where I work were born in 2003. So that puts it into perspective, right?

I got to wondering what I was doing around that time. I'd been living in New York City for three years, and I was dating a guy named David -- a different David from the one I eventually married. Here's my short journal entry from April 15, 2003, the day after someone rode that bus:

David and I had a great weekend -- took a quick road trip to a little town called Chester in New Jersey and went shopping. We also went to Tony's for a party on Saturday night -- a dinner, really, and a movie about a Venetian courtesan, Veronica somebody.

I remember that trip to Chester. We went there a couple of times; once I bought a little ceramic turtle and once a compartmentalized shadowbox frame, to hold and display knickknacks (like ceramic turtles) -- but I don't remember the dinner or the movie, which frankly sounds pretty awful. (I'm guessing it was this one.)

Anyway, a little blast from the past there, all prompted by a found bus ticket!

A Dry Day

This very shiny car mirror seemed to make a good photo opportunity. Can you see Olga, standing at the base of what looks like a baobab tree? Obviously she's not really that long -- the reflection has turned her into a dachshund.

We had some excitement yesterday. Dave came home in the afternoon to find no running water. Our upstairs neighbor said it had been off since about 9 a.m. She said she'd called, but just to be on safe side we called too.

We had a pretty good idea what was going on. Remember the water main replacement project on our street? Well, the construction is done and we got a letter a few days ago saying they'd begin testing the new pipes on Monday. "You shouldn't notice any changes," it continued, "but if your water unexpectedly goes off at the time of testing or after, please call us immediately."

So Dave called, and reached someone who seemed completely unaware of any testing or indeed repairs on our street, and who insisted no one else had contacted them. He filed a work order and we waited. A few hours later, when no one from Thames Water had shown up, we called again. Turned out the work order got cancelled by the computer because it showed work crews were already on our street doing pipe replacement. Argh! So we went through the process again.

We ordered a takeaway chicken dinner and waited some more. I desperately wanted to water some of our plants, sagging from the heat, but the only water in the house was in Olga's dog bowl and I didn't want to deprive her of it. We don't even have accessible toilet tanks! I went around and talked to a couple of neighbors, who all had water. In fact, one woman was watering her front garden, just to rub it in. (She offered to give us some if I brought her a bucket, but I didn't have one handy and opted to wait.)

We called a third time, around 8 p.m. I got a little frustrated with Dave, who was very calm and acquiescent on the phone. I told him he needed to be more firm and direct. (Dave insisted on taking care of this situation himself -- he gets tired of me taking charge. I tried to pipe down and let him do his thing his way.)

Finally, after dark, a Thames Water engineer showed up and explained that the work crews completely missed connecting our house to the new main -- apparently we don't have a street valve controlling water supply to the building, and that's what they used to make the connections. So they simply skipped us. When they turned off the old main, they turned off our water. There are a few other houses on the street in the same position, he said. (He was also plenty annoyed at being called out because another work crew hadn't done their job properly, as he said.)

To make a long story short, they turned the old main back on, and our water returned at about 10 p.m. I guess a crew will come back around, dig up the street again and install a new connection to our house.

Here's the valerian growing on our front steps. I always like this hardy flower when it appears every year. Can you see Olga, watching me from the open doorway? She's saying, "I'm thirsty!"

Bat Mitzvah Blues

The state of things in the garden right now. As you can see, the roses are going gangbusters, the peonies and lupines are blooming, and the teasels by the bird bath have become gigantic.

Doesn't Olga look comfy on the lawn? I tried to take her to the Heath yesterday morning, and she reacted with excitement to the idea of a walk, but once we got outside she insisted we take only our short walk around the neighborhood. Later in the day, she was excited to walk again, but this time it was all we could do to go down to the high street and back. It was pretty warm (81º F or 27º C) and though the spirit was willing, the body was apparently weak.

I know I've said this before, but I may have to resign myself to the idea that our Heath-walking days are behind us.

Here's a close-up of our Rachel de Thame lupine, she of the aphid infestation. After killing aphids by hand for a couple of weeks, I've finally been rewarded with a flower.

The field poppies in the corner pot are also blooming away. With any luck these will re-seed and come back year after year.

Remember those little green bugs I photographed about a week ago -- the Closterotomus trivialis? Well, I believe this is the male -- he's darker with red spots.

The party around the corner continued unabated yesterday. There was apparently some kind of brunch with more music, speeches and announcements. When Dave and I walked past on the way to the high street, he asked one of the black-uniformed attendants outside (dare I call him a bouncer?) what was going on. He was it was a bat mitzvah for two girls.

Oh God, I thought. I called the cops on someone's bat mitzvah! I really am an evil, evil person. Fortunately I don't think the cops ever showed up. And completely unprompted, the bouncer guy apologized for the noise on Saturday night -- he volunteered that he understood it got quite loud.

Then, last night, it got loud again! I didn't call the cops this time, but there were 13-year-olds singing at the top of their lungs to "Starships" by Nicki Minaj, egged on by an amplified DJ or announcer, at 9 p.m. and things were still going strong at 10:30 when I went to bed. Don't these kids have school? Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Surely, after three days and nights, it must be over by now. Our upstairs neighbors were wondering if the property is being rented as a "party house" -- God forbid. (By the way, I tried to provide you with a 45-second audio sample of what the gathering sounded like from our back garden, but SoundCloud won't let me post the clip because it contains copyrighted music. You'll have to just imagine it.)

Smoke on the Water

This unruly tangle of green is what the wildflower garden looks like now. You can see pinkish foxglove, purple comfrey, blue alkanet, yellow buttercups, lots of blooming grasses, a couple of tall teasels and some great willowherb, among other things. It's always alive with bees and other bugs.

Yesterday morning I was determined to put my life in order. First I took care of everything around the house I could think of -- the cleaning, the laundry, the houseplants, the gardening. Then I sat down and planned out my Florida trip. I made hotel reservations for St. Petersburg with my stepsister, and plotted out the timing of my visit and wrote my brother and some friends I hope to see.

Then I went a step farther and booked a 3-day stay on the Isle of Wight for Dave, Olga and me at the end of June. We've realized that between my trip and one Dave has planned in late July and early August -- to a professional development conference and to see his family -- we're going to be apart for much of the summer. So this will be our little escape!

It feels so good to get all that done. Now I feel like I have everything under control, at least as much as possible in this time of relative uncertainty.

With my conscience lighter, and the blue sky beckoning us outside, Olga and I walked to the cemetery in the afternoon. On the way we passed a guy sitting on a bench on West End Green positively belting out songs, a capella. I thought it was pretty funny but I was surprised when we came back at least an hour later, on our way home, and he was STILL THERE! So Olga and I rested on the grass a few moments while I made a video, to share with you this guy's enthusiastic rendition of "Smoke on the Water." I'm not sure he's doing his vocal cords any favors, but he seems to be having fun.

You know how I mentioned the neighborhood party we heard on Friday night? Well, that turned out to be just a mild preview of what was to come. We heard music intermittently throughout the day yesterday, starting with singing in the morning, and last night there was a cranking celebration complete with a DJ and booming sound system. I am not exaggerating when I say it was the loudest event we've experienced in the seven years we've lived in this flat. We could barely hear our television. I may be a cranky old man, but at 10:15 p.m. I called the cops. Fortunately the music ceased at about 11 p.m.; whether the police ever turned up I'm not sure.

Incidentally, calling the cops was not easy. We tried to call a non-emergency number and no one ever picked up; finally I called 999 (the British equivalent of 911) and even there I was on hold for several minutes before I spoke to anyone. I hated to use an emergency line but I knew of no other way to reach a human.

I imagine someone is getting married and they were itching to hold an event post-lockdown, and maybe commercial wedding venues are still unavailable. (The size of gatherings is still limited, I believe, and I would be very surprised if this party fell within the limits.) If it were me and my house, I might have opted for a quieter event sans the amplified dance music. But that's just me.