Shabby Chic

Another building on Southwark Street, near the Borough Market. It appears abandoned, but then you wonder about that tree.....

Another wall of windows

Another wonderful wall of windows, this one appropriately near the Tate Modern, on Southwark Street. It reminds me of the plaid skirt I wore in grammar school.

St Paul's

This is the view from one of the lawyer offices: the dome of St Paul's reflected in the building across the street. Reflections in windows are one of my favorite things to photograph, and in this one I love how the boxes in the office windows above the reflection of the spire almost look like another skyline above the clouds.

Here's another view of St Paul's on a Saturday morning, framed by the Millennium Bridge. I like the old church in that familiar, classic shape with the ultramodern bridge in front of it. And those cranes! Is there another city in the world in this sad economy where so much construction is going on?

London Calling

London on business, working and sleeping in the City, far from the more rough and tumble streets I used to wander with my cousins. I love this building on Wood Street, not far from the office. It's an old church tower, currently a private residence, according to Wikipedia, but the oddness of it, a tower sitting on an island in the middle of a city street, is what I love. I'd like to have a barbecue on the roof.

A Capitol Time, concluded

Inauguration morning. We saw on television that the Mall was already filling up at 6 am, so we decided to head to the Lincoln Memorial, where, according to the paper, there would be two Jumbotrons. It seemed like an appropriate place to watch the swearing-in. We caught a cab from the hotel to the Foggy Bottom metro station, which was as close as you could get by car, and then joined the crowds converging from every direction on foot. There were volunteers in red hats every hundred feet or so, directing the crowds and cheering us on like marathon runners in the home stretch.







There were no Jumbotrons by the Lincoln Memorial after all, and the volunteers directed us up to the Washington Monument. The reflecting pool was beautiful, and frozen solid. Definitely a sign of things to come.





Here are some early arrivals by the Washington Monument. The Jumbotrons replayed concert performances from Sunday over and over again while we waited. If the idea was that the music would keep us warm, it didn't work. There is cold, and then there is bone-seeping, knife-cutting, flesh-killing COLD, and that's what we had through four hours of waiting and watching. This is so amazing being here. God, I'm cold. Two whole minutes since the last time I looked at my watch. God, I'm cold. Please, not Josh Groban AGAIN. God, I'm cold.

This is what it looked like from inside the crowd. Since we were way back in the "cheap seats," no one felt the need for decorum. Bush and Cheney were heartily booed whenever their images appeared on the screens.




I took this picture as Obama took the oath of office. I thought I'd cry, like everyone else, but I just laughed and laughed. There was an African-American woman, about my age, maybe younger, standing next to me, and when it was over and everyone was cheering, she hugged me, and we just looked at each other and laughed, and hugged again.

One of the volunteers kindly took this picture of us after the swearing in before we started the long walk out. There was a tent selling hot chocolate -- the "chocolate" part was a bit of an exaggeration, as it was watery and flavorless, but it was HOT, and at that point, that was all we cared about.

We stopped for a minute, sipping, and suddenly a man ran by us, screaming "F*** you! F*** you!" It was startling, to put it mildly, given the general atmosphere of elated good will, but then we realized he was screaming at a helicopter flying low to the east, presumably the one carrying the worthless former President into ignominious retirement. We tipped our hot chocolate to the screamer, and continued the long march back to Foggy Bottom, and taxis, and the best hot shower ever.

A Capitol Time, continued

Here I am after the concert. More pictures tomorrow.

A Capitol Time, continued

Blogger doesn't seem to like more than two images per entry, so here are some more pictures.

Sunday morning we had brunch at the Mansion on O Street. Julian Bond was at the next table.

Then we walked down to the concert at the Lincoln Memorial. The crowds were huge but good natured, and by the time we got there we couldn't get any closer than the Washington Monument. So we watched everything on a Jumbotron, dancing in the crowd until the cold seeping up from the grass through the soles of our shoes forced us to get out of the crowd and sit down. We could actually hear better from the side -- instead of the half second delay as the sound hit each set of speakers by each Jumbotron, we only heard the music once.

A Capitol Time

Here are some pictures from Washington. Most of my pictures turned out to be of crowds, because that's what we saw for the most part -- the backs and shoulders of our two million new friends.

Everyone excited. Everyone happy. Bunting draped in front of bars and restaurants. Bunches of flags on every streetlight. Obama in every shop window.


This is a picture from the Mall the day before the inauguration, while they were putting the final touches on the platform for the swearing-in.

Inauguration Central

Jayne and I are safely settled at the Georgetown Holiday Inn, and are already caught up in inauguration fever. I'm having some technical difficulties getting pictures off my camera and on to my laptop, but thanks to the magic of Google images, I can share a picture of my first inauguration souvenir -- my very own Obama action figure.

C'est plus qu'un crime, c'est une faute

I'm not very forgiving of mistakes, especially my own. But sometimes the wrong results turn out to be much more interesting, like this blurry accidental photo of the Paris sky at dusk, with the Tour Eiffel a tall vague presence off in the distance on the right.

I have some very nice "correct" pictures of the same view, and I'll never look at any of them twice.

I love Paris every moment, every moment of the year

Why oh why do I love Paris? That sky for one thing, and the way it's so strangely quiet in the Tuileries that you can literally hear a leaf fall. It's not silent: there's carousel music and children laughing and intense fashionistas ducking out of the show tents to scream Italian into their cell phones and the drone of traffic on the other side of the wall. But somehow it all fades into a pleasant background white noise and you can hear your fingers slide on paper as you turn the page of your book, and the creak of the bench as you shift your weight, and the soft tap, tap, tap of leaves falling to the ground.

Notre Dame

I always go to Notre Dame first when I'm visiting Paris. I no longer know why; I just always have.

I had purposely picked Paris for this vacation-not quite a vacation just because I know it so well, and I've done all the touristy things before and I can sit in the Tuileries and read a book and not feel that I'm missing out on all the amazing glamorous activities everyone around me seems so caught up in. You can hardly call Paris settling, but after too many years with no vacation followed by the disappointment of the big glamorous Egypt adventure that never happened, and the year running out and vacation days waiting to be used, I picked it simply because it isn't an adventure. Been there, definitely done that. No stress, no bother. I know how to be in Paris. And if something happened at the last minute and I couldn't go, I'd be disappointed but I'd just plan something else some other time.

So definitely no pilgrimage to Notre Dame was required this time. I woke up the first morning tired and jet-lagged, and my hotel was up near the Opera, and I decided to go somewhere else instead, probably a cafe, anywhere with coffee. But the weather was beautiful, perfect October, and before I knew it I was on Ile de la Cite, shuffling my way into the cathedral with thousands of tourists to look at something I'd seen dozens of times before.

I made my way up the aisle and sat down, grateful for the dubious comfort of the stiff wooden seat, and tried to ignore the flashing cameras and whispered conversations around me. Why had I come here exactly? Then I looked up at the rose window.

Joy seized me.