The View (and the Sounds) from the Penn Club

                                                                 

 

I arrived at London Heathrow later than scheduled as our flight from LAX was delayed, but still I was early enough to see a little of my home base environs that would be mine for the next nearly two weeks. London's latitude and longitude means that in spring and summer it is light very late, till nearly 10 p.m.  I had a quick run around Russell Square with its magpies (they don't have mockingbirds) rustling throiugh the dense and lovely trees.

 

My rooms were at a place run by Quakers, with William Penn, the founder of  Pennsylvania being its namesake. It was recommended to me by my newest friend,, and during this trip, my kind guide and companion through most days (she arrived on Wednesday the 29th of May and stayed on with me and joined me on many of my ventures until June 6), Heather. When she and her husband Chris came up to London from their home in Southampton and did not wish to take the somewhat more than a hour trip back home, they would stay there and were always impressed by the quiet, cleanliness and service, as well as the central locale. It is a simple environment in many ways, not unlike Catholic retreat houses in which I have stayed. A comfortable plain bed, with a light comforter, and an extra blanket in the wardrobe. In this place there were luxurious feather pillows, however. No phones in the room. No televisions. No lift, as they call their elevators. A nice sitting room for television, or reading of the many newspapers of the day. They have and have long had three narrow row houses on 21-23 Bedford Place, smack between the gardens of the small Bloomsbury Square and the larger Russell Square, neither park as large as the ones I would later walk through, but as all the parks, diminutive or grand, beautiful spaces for the mind to wander. Here you see the view from the front door outward.

 



 

 







 

 

 

 

Some rooms have no bathroom, and one on a floor is shared by the occupants. As a two week visitor I was vouchsafed (at my request) an ensuite, including a shower that may have barely allowed body movement, but had a delightful spray, even if managed by a loud pumping system that I often feared wuld explode for the sound. My rooms were on the third (really the fourth) floor, what would have been maid's quarters in days not so long by, and notwithstanding the climb daily, I liked its location and view above the street.

 

 

 

In truth, I received every comfort I would have had in a fancier place, daily cleanup of my room, so that when I returned after a long day's touring about I had neatness restored and whether I asked for them or not, new towels and a strange paper bath mat that stuck to your feet when you came out of the shower--I used it only once and instead used my hand towel as a more useful mat. Breakfast was served in the dining room that looked out over a small garden to which for some reason no one had access, from 7 to 9:30 on weekdays and 8 to 10:30 on weekends. Since my body, usually tending to wake up and move about after 10 on an average California day, was on some other rhythm, and since I was eager to tool about from the moment I arrived, I was up usually between 6 and 7. In fact, the first day, despite the cool and the rain that I thought would define my time in London, I was out and about before 6 thirty (I know, hard to believe if you know me, huh?) and at Costa, one of the many versions of coffee shops--yes, England has coffee up the wazoo now--including Caffe Nero (soon to be in New  York I was told) and Pret a Manger, and many a family run patisserie, having a panini that was just right with a cup of well whipped creamed mocha. And then I was off for a toothbrush, the one thing I didn't bring with me, at Boots and a few other supplies at the local chain grocery. 

 

 

 

 

 

To say that this spare club (by the time I left I had spent only 1,100 pounds, about 1400 dollars for my residency, freeing me for many attractions and the purchase of a million unnecssary, but contrarily, indispensable souvenirs for myself and others) grew on me would be an understatement. My Los Angeles based, long time English friend, Denise, with whom I came (she in business class, me in the economy) stays at the Landsdowne in Mayfair, and while it was and is certainly more upscale in its furnishings, the services were more or less what I received in my less extravagant digs. It was a lovely, well kept, place to have a snack and sleep--the well treated visitor--and clearly, from looking at the guestbook, everyone who came, from all over the world, felt it a gem in a neighborhood, full of similar places, and university related housing. I heard many a young American voice at 4 a,m. probably after a night at one of the many pubs in town. I was living a real life iin a real place and I felt remarkably at home.

 

Yes, London is a place in which I could live, except for the weather. Which is what I said about New York after 27 years, leading me to a life in Los Angeles now for over 30 years. It is a life I enjoy, but I realize the limitations of a city spread far apart, and with a comparatively nominal history, and I do occasionally long for the intensity of my old home town, which came back into my vision as I wandered around its older sister London and rode the underground. 

 

The Penn Club was a splendid hub from which I ushered myself forth early every morning and into a world of art, architecture, history, and religion, with forays into many a pub and restaurant and park. And meet ups with friends old and new.

 

 

Next:  The British Museum. Antiquities galore. And a nice Devon blue cheese for lunch.

A Djinn in London: Prologue

It is about 7 a.m. as I write, an uncharacteristic hour for me to be up and about. But it is after all 3 or so p.m from whence I just only returned, across the Atlantic pond.

There is a deep morning June gloom here in West Hollywood,  The choral background of a 2007 recording of Candlemas at Oriel College provides serenity despite the lack of a sun, which it appears, I left in London and its environs, Oxford, Portsmouth, and Hampton Court where the ghosts of several kings and queens of England still bicker in their bedrooms, an antecedent to someone getting sent off to a royally cmmanded execution.

Despite my just tractable fear of flyiing that threatens to become intractable always--my psychological motto has been and remains, "I hate travelling, but I love having travelled-- I took a nearly two week trip abroad. I was mesmerized and it is my experiences of which I hope to write in the next days.

It will take some doing. I did so much it seems there are times that I cannot exactly remember what it was from day to day. I have, of course, various brochures, and souvenirs, from the British Museum, The National Gallery, Royal Academy, Churchill War Rooms, Oxford's College Worcester, where I stayed, as a student of a certain age, on campus, Littlemore, Christ Church, Portsmouth, Hampton Court, but it was a whirlwind in which I yet found myself supremely comfortable in a place that, as a child of the East Coast of this country, was more familiar than I expected even as the antiquity outstripped it and could only lead to a sense of awe at what human beings can accomplish in their rendition of beauty.

So over the next several or more blogs, I hope to unravel the brochures, consult my travel journal (I kept it quickly and it only orients me to days and places, not to many details which are stuffed joyfully into my head) and take you with me as best I can on my first trip so far off in 22 years (I went to Italy in 1991).  

A Djinn in London.

It's Too Late Now

The saga of the piano ended today.

A few entries back I wrote about the Hardman and Peck upright that I had for fifty one years. My parents bought it on time, when I was a wee one in the Bronx. I took lessons for many years at my request. I was told that I had the skills of someone who could be concert quality, but by the time I became a teenager and pressures were being put on me to be outstanding, I lost interest in developing expertise.

But the piano held its attachment to that time and place. My dad paid for it to come to me in California when I moved here. It was the only piece of furniture I owned and that purely by adoption.

A couple of years ago, around the time, maybe just before, I was retired from my job, I considered revisiting my long ago talent. I'd take lessons. But then I looked at the dents and scratches, many from my many pets, on the beautiful mahogany. If I were to do it, to play again, I wanted to refresh the instrument, give it, instead of me, a facelift, the two of us being nearly the same age.

So, I contacted a piano tuner, and renovator. I asked him if it was worth it for me to fix it up; were the works amenable, or had they been terminally affected by moving, lack of play, and climate. The man looked and said that it was worth it. And so off the piano went to the place of rejuvenation. When it returned, there was a problem in tuning it. There was, it turned out, some problem with the pin board.

And so the piano was whisked off again, to be repaired, which I understood, I thought, to be a major job and one he would have to do for free, essentially, because I had begun the process on the promise of it being worth my while. I knew it was expensive, but I did not question his integrity.

When the piano returned again and he tuned it, I went about my business, only occasionally playing it, and noticing that quite quickly some of the keys in the lower octaves were already out of sync. But since I was not a regular practicer I did not contact my tuner and ask any questions. I think I hoped that what I imagined was not the case.

And then I moved it to my new residence. With the help of Starving Students it went all the way up the stairs of my non-elevator condo building. It looked wonderful, all spiffed up, the cherry brown mahogany reminding me of the expense I had poured into it to make it new again.  New residence. New resolutions.  The Djinn will play again!

And so, I decided to get the piano tuned again. Probably looking for an independent opinion and thus without providing the history of the work I had contracted before, I let him set about his work. And in about five minutes of less he said that the piano could not be tuned, it would not hold one.

And so, I revealed the last efforts I had made to fix it up; and he told me that what may have been done is that a short cut was taken to fix the pin board to which the strings are attached. They might have used this solution that supposedly fixes the cracks and allows everything to tighten, including the strings on the large pins on the board.  I was not surprised. I had worried a shortcut of some kind was taken as I had not paid for that repair, made necessary by the promise that it was worth my otherwise renovating the furniture part of the instrument.  That alone had cost some 1800.00, the price of a cheap used piano.

I was told that I could rebuild the board and fix the strings for about 4 to 5 thousand dollars. I was left with a useless piano, well, except for the memories which it carried, many to be sure.  I remember where it sat in my old bedroom, up against the mirrored wall in which I could see my too often sad face, unhappy with how puberty was dealing with me. I remember playing The Aragonnaise, with fervor, over and over; the Moonlight Sonata, the metronome ticking and ticking, a beautiful piece I no longer have.  I remember the practice for the many concerts at the Mount, and one or two at these strange conservatories, where the only light was on the piano I played and the small desk of the grader of my technique. Most of all it connected me to a nuclear family, my father, and my mother and me, that ended all too early when my mother died at the age of 48 in 1974, while I was a sophomore in college. It connected me to a time and place of relative innocence, before technology and distraction. And so, I kept it.  For many months more.

And then, after that half a century of having it in my possession, I decided to have it taken away. I found myself removing pieces of the wood, the top, the portion that opens to reveal the keys, and the center board over the works, perhaps for shelving to be made, but as a remnant to assist my memory. I took off the keys. I kept middle C and C sharp. And then I called around to find who would take it back down the stairs and to parts unknown.


It was a costly endeavor as no one will for free come up and down stairs with a piano. Moving people won't dispose of it. Suffice it to say I found assistance, for a dear enough price, but my Hardman was worth it, even at the end.

As I stood on the street with the men who would place it in a junk truck, I felt a pang of regret. Maybe I should have spent the 5,000.00. It's not like I don't waste money on other things in my life. But already I had spent a great deal to fix it up, and there would be no guarantee that it would take this time, right? And the man, the piano tuner, said that it was one thing or another, get a new one, or fix this one. Would I even really play it. I haven't practiced in years and years, and what makes me think I'll do it now, another resolution broken.

And then a few women in a single car saw it, and noted how beautiful it still was, even with the keys gone, and parts of the wood gone. I told them about the problem with the works. This was a clear case of looking good but not being able to do what it was made to do. I felt justified. And then not. What kind of person abandons such a beautiful old friend after so long?

And then she said, "I think that another piano will come into your life." 

I don't know. Is it a piano I want, or need?  I have my dad's mandolin, and a guitar. Perhaps that would honor him. And it's an easier instrument to carry around.

I have shed a tear, or two, even though the absence of my upright made room for the rest of my furniture in the living room.  But this is another change that seems to be necessary.

Things are unfolding as they should; in any case, as to this piano, it's too late now.

















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A Lazy Summer Day, in the Spring

When I first was retired, I felt as if I had to continue to work after a fashion, to accomplish something.

I really worried about this. But then I became comfortable with commanding only myself, with occasional digressions of dealing with the life crises of other folks. I did do a little intense stuff, like writing a book, and having it looked at by a professional story analyst. After that guidance, I put aside the oeuvre, engaging in mental gyrations about what changes I ought to make until I felt right about making them.  This is taking longer than I expected, so far, over month.

I continue to have a few things I do "regularly".  I continue to serve nearly daily aI t Mass. I believe this has caused many Graces to be bestowed upon my resistant soul. I meet up with certain friends regularly for lunch. I still read for Learning Ally (formerly Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic) and I still love that.

I should have been there today, at Learning Ally. But I played hookey. It was another hot day in LA, well before noon, when I went to have work done on my teeth. Then Mass. Then I picked up some brushes at Aaron's. Then I went to Gelson's. When I got home I had a pleasant Gelson's Turkey sandwich.

And then the pool in my comjplex beckoned.  I took my recently purchased polyurethane noodle and went downstairs in my hardly ever used bathing suit and a tee to avoid being burned, and also to hide my girth. About five years ago, after my father died, I made a swim in that pool and a neighbor failed to make his comments about my less than stunning body sotto voce.  I am at a new stage in life. I really don't care. And he wasn't home.

The sun was creating these lights and shadows on the pool surface and in I went and floated. Just floated around. And it was beyond a peaceful pleasure. I had the pool all to myself for over a half hour. Summer vacation like once it was, only better. All I had to do was to run downstairs, leaving my apartment door open, and then when I finished, a few steps back upstairs. Wow. Never had THIS in the Bronx!



Then a neighbor came, and it was nice because although I have known him sort of for over several years, I had no idea about his life and he told me a little of his time as a teacher from which he will soon retire himself. He also is writing, and has plans. I thought how we are all so much the same, and in a good way. What was it that Harry Stack Sullivan said, "We are all more human than otherwise."

Once I dried enough I next found myself on my terrace, more or less finishing an impromptu painting I started yesterday.  I now overlooked the pool and was amazed at the steadiness of my hand and the magic of something I have made appearing on the blank canvas.

And nw, it is nearly 11 p.m. and I will probably take a final turn on the terrace, being grateful for this preview of summer. My life is so different from just a few years ago. And some days are better than others, as always. But overall, days like this, can't be beat!

 

Vitreously Speaking

Friends of mine remonstrate with me when I, well, admittedly often, mention my, our respective ages.

Suffice it to say we are not in our twenties, or thirties, or forties. Heck we're barely still in our fifties.

And I suppose more often than not, they are right, age is not about a number. It's a state of mind?  Yes. Absolutely.

Except.  When nature hammers home a reminder of the intransigent truth. And to quite Mr. Vonnegut, "So it goes".

Case in point. This week.

I woke up last Monday with peripheral flashes in my right eye. Now, in that I have been nearsighted and wearing glasses since I was 7 or 8 and contact lenses since I was 14, I don't give my eyes enough attention. The limitations of vision have always been there. I have been fortunate they have not hampered me. And so, I am given to wearing lenses too long. And switching them so that I forget which eye wears which slightly different prescription. But this was different. Oh, oh. So I called my optometrist. I haven't had need of an opthamologist for years. And my optometrist says, "You need to get to an opthamologist right away!"  Oh, oh. 

I had several morning appointments that I could not cancel and so, between the latter oh oh and my appointment, I worried a bit. Detached retina?  Macular degneration? I reead the web.   I am not enheartened.

The space of the Hollywood opthomologist is large and grand. Shiny. Modern. Couches and chairs. A coffee station for the guests. It's a place where they also have on site cataract surgeries and so people in green scrubs and brightly colored sneakers whisk in and out. Squeak. Squeak.

Opthomology exams take place in dimly lit rooms.  All the light is thrown at your dilated pupils. They are looking inside your eyes so intently that if indeed they are windows of the soul every ne of my secrets was revealed to my newly introduced specialist. Well, there were actually two, one on Monday, and the retina specialist on Friday. Look up.  Look up, and to the right. Look up and to the left. Look down and to the left. Other eye. Hey, the light is really, bright. It actually hurts. Just a little while longer.

I have a riper cataract on the right eye than on the left. That's news. But I guessed as much as in recent weeks my contact lens isn't helping with my reading vision so well anymore. Yup, both cataracts are smack in the middle of the retina, if I understand, and so in time will fully cloud my vision. You can have the surgery sooner, and bonus!  You'll see 20 20 for the first time in your life without glasses. I thought this was a procedure way off in the future, but it will become necessary sooner rather than later. But that is not the immediate problem.

And happily, it is not exactly a problem, either, what I "have".  I have a vitreous separation. Oh, my.



Well, it could be dangerous in some rare cases, and it could cause retinal detachment. But I don't have any sign of that. My eyes, my dears, well, they're just getting. . .old.

So what happened? Well, we are all born with this spongy gel in the cavity of the eye that attaches to the retina. All is well. Then for those of us of a certain age, and add to the mix, it happens sooner with some of us nearsighted folk, it begins to harden, and shrink, and break off, causing those floaters everyone and his brother probably has over time. I was having, in addition to the flashes of light, a mother lode of floaters in that eye.

And so, my less than 40 expert doctors, in a soft discreet tone, let me know that this was something that happened, when you. . . .age. In time, and soon it seems, all the little now brittle pieces of old spongy material will fall somewhere in my eye and be no more.

What does it mean?  It means that I am running through Shakespeare's seven ages of man far faster than I'd like. I said recently in these pages that I don't feel any different than I did thirty years ago. And then something like this happens. My vitreious separates and I am chastened.

But my friends who remonstrate. I shall try not to mention our age. Really. Until something else I know not yet of, separates. Oh, oh.

Every Lane is a Bike Lane: Oh, Pleeeze!

Yes, it is time for another rant regarding the environmentally derived myth of "It's good to have bike riders in the City!"  You may recall I have a bug about this, as I do about being forced to use mercury laden light bulbs. And the bug has been regenerated!

Along a main thoroughfare in my neighborhood a few weeks ago, the minions of whatever public service agency does this sort of thing was stencilling pictures of bicycles along it. And above there came to be signs that said, "Every lane a bike lane". And they saw it was good. . . .oops I am going awry here.

Well, maybe not. We have self appointed gods and goddesses of the good in our society and among them are those who insist that the bicycle and the car can co-exist on city streets without calamity. This reminds me of the traffic camera lights that have recently been pulled from many intersections after the obvious came to fruition; there were more accidents not less as a result of this political and revenue raising balm. And so it goes in a world where common sense is a thing of the past.

Really?  Every lane a bike lane?  If that is the case, then why not the freeway? There are lanes there too.

Right now, folks with bikes well too laden and mufflers around or i-pods connected to their ears veer and teeter to the right of a driver, a foot or less from contact. Now, that injurious "they" who govern our lives without stepping out into the sunlight wants them in our lanes?  Today I saw why people were unable to get into a parking lot for a foodstore. They were being held up, yes, by a bicycle. Traffic is NOT being assisted. You don't need a study to see that. People have already been hurt, but it isn't a big media story yet, and when it is, it'll be the drivers to blame, not the idiocy of car v. bicycle.

Why don't our beneficial tyrants just say, "No more cars!"  Everyone must ride a bicycle in the city. Grandma get on that bike for those meds at CVS!  Bicycles for two and three and the whole family! Kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of cars and force people to exercise. That's the ticket!

Failure to ride your bike at least once a week should lead to a heavy fine.  Yeah, yeah, let's do that!

Of course, no one falls off bikes. No one will hit another while on a bike. Bikes save! 

Please will somebody wake up and get the bikes off our roads and into the parks and beach areas where they were doing perfectly fine?  There should be no bike lanes on city streets. And one day, just like with the traffic camera ticket lights, somebody is going to state the obvious and everyone will say, "Yes, that is a great thinker."  Oh, please.

Fifty What?

A friend of mine said to me yesterday that the brain doesn't recognize our aging as quickly as the rest of our body does. Boy, that's true. My brain tells me I am still 25. My face in the mirror says, "Don't kid yourself baby!"

Here I am at about 32.

I'm just starting my prosecutorial career at the State Bar of California. I may look like I thought I had the world in my hand, but this was a height of anxiety and lack of confidence. Somehow, I managed. That's the nuns of Mount Saint Ursula for you. They taught you how not to "let them see you sweat". Even then, there was the proverbial cup of java in my hand. Standing next to me is Arthur Margolis, then my supervisor. I thought the world of him. He became a defense bar counsel. Still is today. Became a little harder to have a civil relationship. But I still think the world of him. Maybe because he's an animal lover too. The State Bar was smaller then; and I think more pleasant a place to work. But my time there ended a couple of years ago, a hit to my ego I'll tell you, but a blessing to my soul. Don't regret a minute of the time I spent there, though. And the people I still know I met there, when I was young, until I was well into middle age.

It seems only a minute ago that I threw myself a 50 party, in Malibu at Moonshadows, complete with rooms at the pre-restored Malibu Inn. It was lovely then, pre-Geffen restoration and hike in prices. And yet, it is nine years. I am on the cusp of sixty, oh my!

So, here I am in the bathroom, after a quick perusal of the visage.


Angles make a difference. And avoiding being too close to the camera. Make up is now essential. I have a feeling black and white would be better too. Oh, well. And in 2007, thank goodness you can't see it too well, I ended up with a three inch scar on my neck (an infected salivary gland had to be removed), but there is definitely a bit of a double chin. And all that frowning from being nearsighted? Well, I have this big wrinkle in between my eyes. Edging to two. I slather on various creams day and night, but let's face it. If anything happens, it'll be a placebo effect and I don't think that happens with wrinkles.

All in all though, I have no complaints. That is something new. My father would be happy to hear that, since he heard all my complaints, and they were legion, over the years. I never married. Never had kids. But I no longer look at that as some kind of failure or penalty.

As lives go, so far, I have had a good share of blessings. Glad I realized it. Hope I always do. It truly has become one day at a time for me. Each day a universe.