scary neighbors

As ever, the neighborhood ghouls have lined up for Hallowe'en.  Most of them are annual appearances - quite often choreographed differently, though, like the party girls below - and it's really great to see them reappear each year: true revenants.  I guess we should have gone for an evening walk and seen them all illuminated, but we were too busy grinding our teeth in front of the Dodgers game.  One more to go ...

 

a stand-off

Really - most of the time, they are the best of friends.  Or nearly.  But on a night like tonight, when we get in late, and they're hungry - there's a little stare-down going on.  And maybe teeth.  Fearful though Gramsci looks, I believe it was Moth who struck the first blow...

 

a different sort of Hallowe'en monster

It's unfair to call this handsome creature a Monster - and of course I wouldn't if it wasn't late October.  But it was a little surprising to look out of the kitchen window this morning and find this very fine praying mantis hanging out there.

 

our Hallowe'en decoration

It's not actually a pumpkin, but some kind of very warty gourd: it will have to suffice.  I just haven't had the time to rummage around in the garage for the skeleton black cats and the japanese lantern-style pumpkins and anything else that there might be in a box that's presumably labeled Hallowe'en, if only I could work out where I put it.  The knobbly squash is, however, quite striking, and may be just tough and gnarly enough to deter the squirrels and raccoons who are usually quite fast to the autumnal feast.

 

Monday morning

Why, yes, I was at USC early today, and the roof of the car park was pretty much empty when I arrived - and there was a heavy smoggish layer of grey over everything, which didn't disappear until lunchtime.  I'll take it, though - a couple of loathsome days of heat wave are approaching in a less that seasonable way.  And, in case, this seems to express, quite effectively, my feelings about approaching the day - indeed the week's - teaching.  I think everyone's energy has started to wane slightly.

 

reponses to dawn

Gramsci says, most emphatically, with regards to the image on the screen behind him (this is a very meta post) - that he doesn't want to look at a picture of the dawn in New Mexico; that he didn't go to New Mexico (which is, after all, where he's from); and that a weekend's absence - however brief, however restorative for humans - is absolutely not to happen again.

 

NM fall

Our very miniature Fall break together in Santa Fe continues, with a trip to the farmers' market (bought some wonderful freshly roasted poblanos; ate some with lunch, and froze the rest);

enjoying the trees in our back yard - these are honey locust, or what I know from England as False Acacia -

and having dinner (and more medicine) at our wonderful very local Fable.  Yes, quite a bit of catching up with admin, and teaching prep and the like was done in the interstices, but it's been terrific and very restorative to be out here for a couple of days.  

And the Dodgers won!  We were back in time to catch the last three innings.

 

medicinal

Surely there's nothing that a margarita at Harry's can't cure?  Mind you - having changed the dressing after the approved 48 hours of a pressure bandage - there's quite some dramatic scar under there.  I think I'd have to have been either very brave, or very foolish, to get it in a duel.  But now that I've re-wrapped myself, I look decidedly less scary. For now.

We already had a very, very brief two-night trip to Santa Fe booked, to make sure that the house is ok for first frosts - the hose wrapped up and taken in; the faucets left to drip, gently, and so on.  I am super grateful for it!  

My father always referred to his evening drink (or two, or three) as his "medicine," whether taken in the pub or, in later years, the garden or the garage.  Never have I taken his point so well.  (And, dear cautious friends, I've laid off the pain killers since last night - my face may not be comfortable, but it certainly doesn't qualify as painful, except when wincing, this evening, at the Dodgers).

 

Nurse Moth

Moth, a cat of wonderful empathy and kindness, looked after me wonderfully well last night: that is, she curled up in a little grey and orange ball and never left my side.  I wouldn't have trusted Gramsci: his enthusiasm for head-butting and stretching his paws out over my face wasn't exactly what I needed.

The face - and a million thanks to all of you for your kind wishes and concern - is aching and sore, but at least the terrifying pressure bandage can come off tomorrow afternoon and be exchanged for something more modest.  It certainly made an impression on my class ... (I hope they took on board that sunscreen-wearing message): one student even wrote me this evening to check in, and share her concern, which was beyond sweet and kind of her.  Sometimes one just loves them... Anyway, I made it through the day, though I couldn't manage to follow the instructions not to smile or laugh too much.  I hadn't anticipated quite how exhausted I'd feel, but will try for another good night's sleep under Moth's calm guidance.

 

two different takes on DTLA

The beauty of downtown LA in the early morning!  This is where Keck Medicine's dermatology clinic - the one where they do surgery - is located, and so the bottom pic is me, bandaged up, but before they opened me up further to put stitches in (which was a fascinating experience, since my extremely expert surgeon had a medical student in tow, to whom she was explaining what she was doing and all her reasoning in meticulous detail).  This is the second time that I've had surgery to remove a skin cancer, and was much nastier than the time before, not because it was deeper (thank goodness it wasn't), but it was broader, and that made me much harder to sew together.  I will have a large scar down my cheek, which apparently will start to look better in six months.  Better than what?  I don't get to see it for another 36 hours: it's currently swaddled under a huge pressure bandage, and half my ear is covered.  Is this an opportunity to wear the remaining half of a pair of earrings from which, sadly, I've lost the second one? To go as Van Gogh to some Hallowe'en event?  Alas, I'll probably do nothing more ambitious than use myself as a walking Wear Sunscreen public service announcement to my class tomorrow ...

It's starting to ache rather: I think those 42 novocaine shots are wearing off ...

 

looking upwards at dinner

I'm not quite sure where the light on the clouds is coming from - there isn't any moon - but it's there.  Happily, it's still warm enough to eat outside in the evening.  No owls visible tonight (a very large one (a Great Horned) landed on the deck rail behind us on Saturday when were having dinner, and the next night one flew into a nearby tree and stared at us and little tasty birds, but tonight there was just one unearthly brief shriek from somewhere in the bushes.

 

orchid whisperer

My mother was a terrific orchid whisperer: her orchids - invariably adorning the dining room window sill - grew and grew and bloomed and bloomed.  I tended to put this down to benign neglect, and, of course, the light.  In this household, I've very much ceded the role to Alice.  However - I'm starting to wonder: I brought this orchid, bought in July, back from Santa Fe with me for my desk, and it's still going ... well, maybe not quite strong, but it's certainly still going.

And yes - it was such a hopelessly busy day that the evening catches me wildly eyeing up everything in sight and wondering what I can possibly photograph, since I forgot to earlier ...

 

another frog

sitting happily in a window on 3rd street, as one of a number of truly terrible (but in their determinedly vernacular way, not unendearing) paintings mouthing platitudes.  Behind and around them, the wreckage of perfectly decent gilt frames.  I'm not sure if this is testimony to rising rents in some way (but how?) - it doesn't quite count as a provocative installation in its own right, but it's heading in that direction.  Anyway, it's another, and extremely benign, frog.

 

Frogs say: Hop Off, Kings

I'd hoped that I wouldn't be the only frog-themed person at today's No Kings rally (we were at the corner of Hillhurst and Vermont) - and indeed I wasn't.  We were quite a little pond-full.  Mind you, I was stopped quite a few times by people saying: so - ummm - can I ask - what is it with the Frogs?  Well, I explain, up in Portland, which Trump has called a war zone, full of terrorist rioters, people are demonstrating outside the ICE facility and elsewhere in inflatable frog suits (or inflatable other creatures, like unicorns and chickens - both also visible in our demo today).  I didn't get into the whole logic of reclaiming Pepe the Frog, but I might have done.

Of course, there were other notable bits of art work;

and an absolutely adorable fascist-eating Dinosaur (and is that a Handmaid sitting on the curb?);

and an excellent appropriation of the Dodgers.

It was also very hot - and extremely good spirited: one might as well fight the regime with fun, as well as all the anger that fuels us from day to day.

 

garden, early fall

It's only mid- October, but we've had the first snow on the mountains.  It'll probably be melted by the end of the weekend, but it's beautiful.

Today was our Fall Garden Walk-Through - prior to some plants being moved around, and others inserted - with Naomi, our landscape designer, and Max - below - plant man, irrigator, and all-round great guy.  We're so lucky to have worked - and be working - with them both.

Compared to a year ago, the plants have grown impressively, and are now turning golden, or showing off their seed pods, or whatever's appropriate.

Naomi's impeccable designer's eye moved this sphere from one pillar to this one, where it's very happy surrounded by plumbago.

And also, and completely irrelevant to the garden - unless the plumbago could to be said to be Dodgers blue - Shohei!!!

 

bowl on a golden afternoon

I don't know the origins of this bowl.  That is, it came from 20 Hillside, and it's been in the family as long as I have, which means probably longer - but did my parents find it in a junk shop, or did it migrate south from Yorkshire at some point?  It looks late Victorian or Edwardian, but I can't be more precise about it than that.  Only I know that every winter, it was one of the receptacles that was planted with hyacinth bulbs.

The university felt like a sunny place this afternoon: the administration Did The Right Thing, and rejected the bribe of federal funding dangled in front of us in exchange for giving up all kinds of autonomy and becoming a right-wing regime puppet.  Obviously I couldn't see anyone in their right mind signing this Compact, but I don't always trust the university's mind to be right, at all.  But we prevailed, and so I happily sat here doing admin on one half of the screen and watching the Dodgers win on the other.

 

birds on some wires

An urban avian tangle on the drive home. There seem to be an awful lot of birds here: the larger ones are pigeons, the smaller ones less identifiable - or rather, the image isn't enlarging sharply, most probably because I took it through the windshield, so I can't tell.  But why mixed species, and why congregating together in that particular spot?  There have been so many unanswerable questions today, mostly to do with the opacity of our university's operations, that I might as well fix on something where I don't expect anyone to offer up an answer.

 

storm rolling out

Such impressive clouds from the top of the Royal Street parking garage, as the storm rolled on out in the early afternoon ... it started to rain about 2 in the morning: a good, steady, soaking rain.  We'd like rain like that about once a month, please ... 

 

from two doorsteps, either end of the day

From outside The Standard, looking at St Pancras - a very convenient London hotel for Trains, whether to Europe or the Piccadilly line to LHR - to my very own LA doorstep, with a storm rolling in.  You'd think that on an 11 hour flight I'd manage to do tomorrow's teaching prep (done) and complete all my gradinng - but no: it's a big class ...

 

Anna Maria Vassa

I'd never heard of Anna Maria Vassa before today: daughter of Olaudah Equiano (whose elsaved name was Gustavus Vassa) and a Cambridgeshire woman, Susannah Cullen, from Fordham; who, born 16 October 1793, was orphaned very young (her mother died on February 21st 1796; her father on 31 March 1797), and she herself died on 21st July the same year (her younger sister Joanna survived).  Anna Maria is buried somewhere nearby: this memorial plaque in on the wall of St Andrew's Church in Chesterton, and reads

Near this Place Lies Interred

Anna Maria Vassa

Daughter of Gustavus Vassa, the African

She Died July 21 1797

Aged 4 Years

Should simple village rhymes attract thine eye,

Stranger, as thoughtfully thou passest by,

Know that there lies beside this humble stone

A child of colour haply not thine own.

Her father born of Afric’s sun-burnt race,

Torn from his native field, ah foul disgrace:

Through various toils, at length to Britain came

Espoused, so Heaven ordain’d, an English dame,

And follow’d Christ; their hope two infants dear.

But one, a hapless orphan, slumbers here.

To bury her the village children came.

And dropp’d choice flowers, and lisp’d her early fame;

And some that lov’d her most, as if unblest,

Bedew’d with tears the white wreath on their breast;

But she is gone and dwells in that abode,

Where some of every clime shall joy in God.

The Sunday nearest her death is known as "Vassa Day," and local children lay flowers by her memorial stone. 

It's a very peaceful graveyard to rest in, even on another very grey day.

 

Cambridge

It's hardly a classic tourist view of Cambridge - but sitting at the kitchen table her,e with a mug of coffee, and chatting, interspersed with working in one way or another, with household life going on round me, makes me unspeakably happy and relaxed.

And here's a bonus picture of the cooks.  This evening's meal was a team effort.

 

Kew

Today, to Kew Gardens, to say hello to The Hive (happily humming away); admire the new Carbon Garden, and generally celebrate fall colors.  Then the British Library; now Cambridge, where it's 1.30 in the morning and I am falling asleep.  For those as angrily horrified as I am by today's staff cuts at USC, please take these images as offering a moment of reflective calm, if such a thing is possible.

 

London!

 

I caught a train on the Mildmay line this morning to Hackney Wick: the very pretty Mildmay line, part of last year's renaming exercise for the London Overground, and called after a small charitable hospital in Shoreditch that was pioneering in the 1980s in caring for HIV/AIDs patients (other lines include the Windrush, the Suffragette, and the Lioness ...).  Not only do these make London seem like a very new city to me; so does all the redevelopment in Hackney, which is also marked by some spectacular street art.

I was heading to the V & A East, which is a combination of storeage and conservation, so like being in the working bowels of a museum, for the uninitiated: a random collection of things, from antique furniture to prints and paintings and objects of household design (much like a larger version of our garage ...).  It was fun to wander round, though more like a set for a suspense movie than anything - vistas of shelves that ended in a chest, a painting;

some objects rather self-consciously on semi-display, like these - well, one wasn't, frustratingly, told exactly what they were, just that they were examples of woman-decorated pottery.

Other random, or "random" arrangements, here of mannequins, were just a bit too contrived.  Fascinating though it was in some ways, and as a curatorial experiment, in some respects what I enjoyed most was an inspired cheddar cheese and marmite bun in the cafe, for lunch.  The mannequins, though, felt like a good lead-in to the Lee Miller exhibition at the Tate,

which was terrific - I don't think, to my shame, that I've ever realized quite what a versatile and inventive photographer she was: I only really knew some of the fashion stuff, a bit of her war photography, and of course the concentration camp images: there were a good number of images on show that haven't been reproduced previously.  Much recommended.

And I then walked to Westminster tube station, with the restored clock tower that houses Big Ben gleaming in a quite startling way.

Coming back to Richmond, the Thames did look very high -

and indeed, I couldn't walk back to the hotel along the towpath ...