28 February

27 February

Another month, another pub quiz. No victory for us this time but we did win a bottle of wine for best team name. 

26 February

We took the bus over to Twickenham today to see Jay's parents and go up in their attic to go through things we might need when we move to the new flat. While everyone was happy to see each other, Cleo was especially happy to see Jay.

25 February

I'm breaking the rules again today. It was another absolutely gorgeous day so, after my first ever yoga class in the morning, I headed out on a long walk through Ealing. The crocuses are coming up so it must nearly be time for my annual reading of Spring and All.

The following photo is especially for my mom, who loves pictures of flowers, all shapes and sizes.

I took a spin around Ealing Common (where the tree above lives) and then headed home to eat a late lunch with Jay. We hung out in the flat for a bit then headed out to Chiswick and walked down to the riverside where the sun was setting. We tried out two riverside pubs that we'd never been to then hopped on the bus back home.

24 February

Right, so, I mentioned I hadn't taken any photos at work, so here's one! On Fridays, we scan engravings. We're working our way through the alphabet of large prints of non-royals (we finished the royals last year) and today I unearthed Cromwell! It was pretty exciting.

A bunch of us also went out for burritos at lunch, as is our Friday tradition, and today it was still warm enough that we could eat outside in the churchyard near Covent Garden. All in all it was a really good day. To top it off, as I am writing this I am eating pizza and watching Animal House on television, so, bonus points all around.

23 February

We had a very unseasonably warm day yesterday so at lunchtime I took a walk to a place I'd never been to, the Phoenix Garden off Charing Cross Road. It is a really gorgeous public garden filled with wild flowers and some small ponds filled with little fish.

22 February

No. 53: Still Life with Locomotive Mug

Don't worry, friends, I am not getting all internet-artistic up in here. Just another day where I said: "Forget bringing my camera! I throw off the shackles of cameras! I am a 21st century hero with a smartphone!"

Right. Well, I regretted it later on when I went on a very nice walk and just couldn't hack the low-light the way I wanted to. But, as my mom used to say to me sarcastically when I was complaining about something trivial, life's tough all over. 

Back to the photo: I don't think I have taken a photo inside where I work since I started this, which is funny since I spend so much time there. Anyway, that's my mug full of hot green tea and a lovely orange right in front of where I sit most of the time. I was just getting ready to take a short little time-out from screen time. (On another note, I have not yet fully accepted that I will probably lose my vision prematurely but I take comfort in knowing I am not the only one.)

Let's draw some tenuous connections, shall we? It is getting late.

My dear friend Breanna recently posted on her blog about how Mitt Romney used a K'naan song at one of his rallies and how incongruous that was. That led me to thinking about another K'naan song called "Take A Minute". It is a nice smooth track that keeps things in perspective and reminds me to take a minute and let it ride. I know perspective isn't a panacea and I disagree with the common notion that you can't ever have it bad because somebody else has it much worse. But, I also disagree with wallowing so deep in your worries that you can't see above the surface (although I'll admit I've indulged in that myself). Anyway, that is what I was thinking about while I was peeling my orange. Here's a link to the video.

21 February

Early in the morning, over 200 Easter eggs were unveiled and installed all over London. They're fairly big eggs, maybe 18 inches tall, and feature a variety of designs. It is part of an event called the Big Egg Hunt which I don't entirely understand but if you send a text to a number when you are at one of the eggs you get entered into a drawing to win a Golden Jubilee Egg worth over 100,000 pounds. I haven't done that yet but I guess I'd be really stupid if I didn't. 

This is the egg outside our office. It's the only one I have seen so far that is encased in glass, presumably because it is covered in fabric. So, that glass is why it looks a little double-exposure-y. 

20 February

I am walking around, trying to photograph something else, when I scoot through this alleyway to get back to work. I pass this doorway that leads down to the basement of a Chinese church and I can hear the choir rehearsing. They are singing How Great Thou Art in Chinese and so I just give up and take a photo of that.

19 February

A Sunday country walk in Knole Park near Sevenoaks. Our lovely friends Paul and Tessa planned an afternoon of strolling, chatting, pub lunching, and celebrating Tessa's birthday and their impending nuptials this spring!

18 February

These are the running shoes my mom bought for me for my birthday in 2007, shortly after I had started running on a beginners program that Jay also started that year. She inspired me to give it a shot and it was a pretty big leap for me at the time. Here were are years later and I am still using the kicks on my runs. Today I finally pulled myself together and ran my first solid 5K of 2012.

17 February

On Friday, Jay and I took a random day off work to spend together. We had a sort of unofficial Valentine's Day going around town to a few exhibitions. We went to the RA to see the David Hockney exhibition which greatly exceeded my expectations. Luckily, we were able to skip the massive queue to get in because I had my NPG staff pass with me. 

After that, we went down to Southwark and had a delicious mezze lunch at a Turkish restaurant before we headed to the Tate Modern. We spent some time in the Turbine Hall watching the Tacita Dean film installation, along with every British child on half-term including one dressed as Batman. Then, it was time for the Yayoi Kusama exhibition we had both been looking forward to. Most of the exhibition was over-crowded but the final room contained an Infinity Dots installation made especially for the Tate exhibition. This was breath-taking in a way I couldn't have imagined before we entered. Even though we were shuffling through in an orderly queue of many other visitors, I paused in one corner and stared out and it was as though we were totally alone.

(I think we never knew how lucky we were, back in Pittsburgh, to have the Kusama installations always available at the Mattress Factory. I remember whiling away what seemed like hours in those mirrored rooms in the summertime when they were so cool and refreshing. It was a great place to just be silly or silent with my friends, new and old, and later with my family.)

We spent a good amount of time getting lost and absorbed in the books at the Tate shop but even then Jay and I had a little bit of time to kill so we finally got the try the Rake Bar near Borough Market which has a renowned craft beer selection. Then we headed back to west London to meet some local friends for pizza and spirited debate at a pub in Shepherds Bush.

What I am trying to say is that it was a really really lovely day full of colour and signs of life. Because of that, I took more than a few photos so I am sharing a group of them with you today.

16 February

After work, Richard joined me and some of my friends from work for a tour of a few portraits in the Gallery hosted by a drag queen and a burlesque performer. In short, it was hilarious. Afterwards, Richard and I had some beers in the pub.

15 February

I was walking through Cecil Court at lunchtime, feeling a bit blue, when through the tourists and construction workers I spotted this adorable little paperback edition of Virginia Woolf's The Waves on one of the outdoor stacks. I took it inside to buy it. I was a bit short on the cash, so the man in the shop said I could just stop back in whenever and pay him the remainder. I know it was no skin off his back since his shop doesn't make their money on chintzy old paperbacks but it put a smile on my face and made me feel a little lighter. 

This takes the number of books in my reading queue to at least four, but it is really actually many more than that.

14 February

My photo app on my phone lets me interval shoot (sort of) so I set it to shoot every 15 seconds while I walked into the tube station. Here is what that looks like. I kind of like them because they're fun but they only really work together.