Tuesday Ephemera

The Herald has some more great pictures of the Diwali doings the other week. The effigy festivities look a bit like Burning Man (which is a big, filthy, ridiculously expensive artsy deal in the Nevada desert), and it’s gorgeous.

Some excitement around the place this week — well, in our basement neighbor’s place, anyway. This is one big old house which has been divided into four apartments by floors, and our basement neighbor is the lovely quiet guy who puts the trash on out the curb. We are all very nice to him for this! Anyway, we got an early morning visit from him on Tuesday with a plea to …stop showering. It seems that he thought that our shower had somehow backed up and was pouring down the living room wall of his flat! Much anxiety ensued; T. begin to pace and moan about workmen and people tromping through and pipes. D. had to go to the University, so T. greeted the plumbers and the workmen who went up and down all day. As it turns out, it wasn’t our shower which was at fault, but the woman below us (WHEW!), and her floor was torn up the following day so pipes could be replaced. (Wonder if they replaced the floor the same day? Wouldn’t that have been nice? Frankly, we were impressed by how quickly this was handled; obviously we live in a much better neighborhood than previously!!)

With a house built in Victorian era — sometime between 1837 – 1901 — things are obviously going to go wrong. Good thing it was only bath water sluicing down the living room wall; it could have been so much worse…!

Now begins the winter of our discontent! Our Scottish Lemon discovered it beginning for her in Edinburgh the first week of the month, when she had to turn on the boiler. Last Sunday, T. boldly strode Great Western Road in cotton pants, a tank, and a long-sleeved overshirt, wearing loafers with no socks, and sneering at the threat of rain (and the occasional passer-by who wondered why she had that weird expression on her face). This morning, T. discovered it was getting on toward winter, when she realized that just talking had split her bottom lip.

Ow. Bring out the Carmex.

It was 46°F/7°C at noon today. Noon.

D. started wearing gloves last week — the fingerless ones, still, so he’s still technically NOT wearing gloves in October like the Scottish equivalent of a wuss — (a numpty, or a bawheid, in case you were wondering. Isn’t it wonderful, the new words D. learns each week at work?) but he had to wear a scarf to class for the first time. He’s teaching all next week, so we’ll actually have to dig out all of his scarves and sweaters and de-fuzz them so he’ll look tidy.

Meanwhile, in digging out the cold weather stuff, we’ve begun to wonder if others are as obsessive about their hat/glove situation as we are. (Knowing that we’re deeply neurotic, we’ve already decided: probably not.) We haven’t counted the number of hats we own between us — and since T. has three sun hats (two brought along optimistically [READ: foolishly], and one purchased grouchily on vacation this summer) and is still knitting from her stash, the number varies — but we’ve counted our gloves, and to our chagrin, we have… four and a half pair each.

That half comes from the right hand glove D. somehow lost last winter. But… that many pair of gloves? Seriously?

We’re beginning to worry that we’re just a bit obsessive about our hands being cold.

Meanwhile, one of the quintessential sights of autumn — leaves swirling through the air against a blue sky — is happening beautifully in the park right across from our house. We’re trying to photograph the leaves, but the wind is not cooperating, and the rain is back. Hopefully there will be a few leaves next week we can get in ACTION, but until then, we’re enjoying the still shots, too.

– D & T

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