Well, it's about 6:45 a.m. as I write this, and already it's been a peculiar morning. Olga was wiggling and squirming and thumping her tail on the mattress, eager to get up, so I took her to the back door thinking she might need to go outside. Well, she did, but mainly to charge the fox(es) that she evidently heard in the garden. I opened the door and she flew to the back fence, barking all the way and thrashing around in the shrubbery.
While she was doing that, I looked up in the sky and saw a bright red light to the south, over Mrs. Kravitz's garden. I thought, "What on Earth is that?" It was obviously artificial and it wasn't moving, and it seemed too high in the air to be attached to the construction cranes down by the Thameslink station. I even made Dave come outside and look at it. (His response was basically a shrug.)
Within the next few minutes, as the sun began to rise, I could see that the light was indeed attached to a crane and we were not being invaded by hostile aliens. (That would have ruined my last day of winter break!) You can sort of see the crane behind the bare tree in the photo. I'm curious about where it is -- I'll have to check it out later today. If it's way down by the train tracks that is a huge crane.
Yesterday I barely moved off the couch. It rained pretty much all day, and even Olga showed no interest in going outside. I finished "The Hero and the Crown," read some magazines and began another Newbery, "The Tale of Despereaux," which is going to be a quick read.
In the evening I made a martini and Dave and I watched Todd Haynes' excellent documentary about The Velvet Underground on Apple TV. I have "the banana album," as it's known, but I didn't know much about their other work, or the band's history in general. I didn't encounter their music growing up because it wasn't played on the radio -- being all about drugs and deviance, Lou Reed's tortured soul and Nico's androgynous sibilance. Obviously that so-called deviance was a huge part of their appeal. To be honest I find many of their songs unlistenable, but I like the more popular, accessible ones like "Sunday Morning" and "I'll Be Your Mirror," and the movie was fascinating.
Addendum, 8:11 a.m. -- The crane now looks farther away than it appeared in the dark. Funny how perspective changes when you get more light on the situation, right?
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