August, Adieu

Watched: The bouncing lamb

Saw: Uriah Heep on the plane from London to Frankfurt, decidedly wizened. One vaping on the plane - once a rebel, ever a rebel.

Ate: Beets, broccoli, raspberries, spinach, Stilton

Drank: Rosebud tea

Read: Still Life on a Matchbook Lid by Charles Wright

Listened to: Anita O'Day's Two for Tea 

Failed: After chatting happily with several colleagues, discovered broccoli between my front teeth in the ladies’ room mirror. 

Triumphed: Ate lunch on the steps outside St. Paul’s, defying all reluctance, self-consciousness, uptight Protestant work-ethic. 

Forgot: After 22 years without a dryer, how pleasurable it is to peel the delicate lint from the lint filter.

Learned: “sturmfrei,” the German word for the fun of having the house to yourself (for adolescents).

Missed: Luisa, my Italian daughter, who left for Sardinia for a month to take language classes. 

Observed: A tour guide on the streets of London foolishly shouting: “You are history! You are London!”

Realized: I love a few nights alone in a clean hotel. Own bed. Own bathroom. Own desk & chair.  Own nakedness. 

Decided: To sign up for some kind of salubrious movement course. 

Discarded: Old, unloved potholders.

Received: Moleskine bookshrine, compliments of husband.

Word of the week: Candescent, too much in the shadow of incandescent.

Pithiness of the week: “There is a species of bird which pecks holes in the thickest hollow trees, and it credits its beak with such strength that after each peck it is said to go to the other side of the tree to see whether or not the blow has gone right through it.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg