Slimming Down Possum

My husband got on the scale today, with and without Possum. While I will not comment on what my husband weighs, I can tell you that we were surprised to learn that Possum weighs 14.3 pounds, if our scale is accurate. (Afterward, Harris got on the scale all by himself, being a model citizen. He weighs 8.4 pounds.)

When Possum had his last weigh-in at the vet in mid January, he was 16 pounds. We were told he was a pound and a half overweight. So now he is at his "ideal" weight, if our scale is accurate. I think we will take him for another weigh-in at the vet one of these days, just to be sure.

His weight loss is a testament to our new canned, high-protein, low-carb, grain-free diet. All four cats are thriving on it. No one has digestive problems (click here for a cute photo of our exploding, nameless kitten). We see less than one hairball a month; everyone has a remarkably silky, soft coat, and there's hardly anything solid or very smelly in the litter box. I know that raw food is supposed to be superior to canned, but we're clearly doing much better than we had been. 

Eliminating dry food and carbs is indeed the way to slim down a tubby tabby. We know Wendy is thinner; we can see it. She looks great now; before, she was barrel-shaped when we looked down at her as she was standing. Now she has a "waist."

Possum on the other hand, still looks rather rotund. He looks like his coat is too big for him. He still has his big "lion paunch," which may never go away no matter how skinny he gets, I guess. But he doesn't have as much upholstery under his coat. I feel muscles and bones now, not just flab.

A recent photo. Does he look svelte?

I've been trying to photograph him from above but he keeps sitting down. I'll keep trying. But I had to send my camera to Canon today after it developed another "lens error" problem exactly six months after the it broke the first time, in November. This is a known issue with Canon S100s, and I KNEW it would happen to me. Then I read that repaired cameras were breaking again, and I KNEW that would happen to me, too. So I'll be using my iPhone for the foreseeable, while trying to be grateful that the Canon didn't break when we were in England. My next camera will not be a Canon.

Here are some older photos of Possum from 2010 and 2011 for you to compare with the photo above. I see some degree of difference; do you?

With a chunkier Wendy.

In this recent photo with Harris, there does seem to be a bit less of that adorable, pink and white Possum belly.

I'll keep trying to get a photo of Possum taken from above. He must be thinner — it's certainly less of a painful shock whenever he jumps on me and walks around when I'm sleeping.

Back Bay Wildlife

I almost stepped on this little guy (girl?) on Beacon Street today, near Charlesgate. He was tiny — even smaller than his chocolate-caramel-pecan siblings, the only species I generally study. He was heading into the street, which I considered a bad idea. He wasn't making much progress, so I had time to figure out what to do.

There were a lot of runners passing by; it was likely he would get squashed on or run over if he wasn't relocated. Bringing him home to meet the cats flashed through my mind for maybe a second; they have never mentioned any interest in amphibians reptiles, although the kittens have more scientific curiosity than Possum or Wendy. But I didn't see that scenario ending well. 

Finally, I picked him up and carried him to some green weeds under a rosebush, not far from the Muddy River. A goose couple with five goslings hangs out there sometimes, but they weren't around. I figured he'd be safe and have some options, since he was within smelling distance of the water. 

Note: I should know my reptiles from my amphibians; sorry. I really only spend time with the chocolate kind.

The Guinea Pig Toy

I had high hopes for the mechanical guinea pig I found for the cats at Harrod's last week. I waited until they were all together and tired of their other toys before taking it out, pulling the string, and sending it scurrying in the direction of all four cats.

I think it's made in Germany, but it doesn't employ any super-duper German-cat-toy technology, as I'd imagined. I was expecting a few minutes of life-like rodent movements and maybe some squeaking. Instead, it makes a grinding noise as it wanders for about 18" and stops dead.

The cats were taken aback by it — for about 10 seconds. They were mildly intrigued and then tepidly concerned. What kind of animal can only move such a short distance while making that weird noise? It didn't seem healthy. Was it homesick? Had we neglected it?

Toffee and Wendy investigate with caution and then pity, wondering why

we brought them a guinea pig in such poor shape.  

Harris turned it over as Possum and Toffee looked on. He couldn't find a way to help the poor thing.

Then they politely ignored their new rodent; preferring that I didn't keep winding it up and torturing it further.

I reminded them that it was just a toy. Possum said, "THAT came from HARROD'S?

 Just bring us home some lutefisk from their Fish Hall next time, okay?" 
(I see that Possum has been perusing my guidebooks.)

 I can read Harris's thoughts sometimes: "Just get us a REAL guinea pig, please."

Eight Trees Cut Down for This

In March, I complained about the loss of eight beautiful trees on the former site of Charley's Eating & Drinking Saloon, which now houses the Frye Boot Company. 

Why were the trees sacrificed? So they could be replaced by one small tree and seven brick planters that look like overbuilt chimney tops. That's an awful lot of masonry to hold a few little flowers. I find then unattractive, unimaginative, and awkward (and if you ask me in person, I'll tell you how I really feel). As they were going up, I thought they would become bases for plate-glass shoe cases. But, no, all that construction was for some pansies.

If they wanted flowers, they could have planted them in the ground, or used several large, heavy pots or tubs. Those would have looked less silly and offered much more flexibility — and preserved the trees. If they were worried about theft, the pots could have been discreetly bolted to the bricks. I'm sure other businesses have found good solutions.

Isn't it a disappointment? If you remember how lovely the dogwoods and the white birch were, I bet you'll agree. What a senseless waste of mature trees, and bricks, and oh, yeah, money. I know the latter has got to be the real reason all those trees were taken. But it will never make sense to ME.

Postcards from London: Last Bits

I didn't bring home any vintage postcards on this trip, but here's something better: a five-minute, early color film of London sites in the 1920s by Claude Frisse-Greene. It's like watching old colorized postcards come to life.

I wrote to the folks at Paul, the French bakery chain that has dozens of branches in England and several in America, especially around Washington, D.C.. I told them we Bostonians desperately needed them. They wrote back and said they were glad to hear it and were looking for locations. I told them Back Bay has four cupcake shops and no decent bakery except Flour, where the lines are always insane. Shall we start an email campaign?

I like cold tea and I drink it iced when I'm in hurry.

I should also write to the folks at the Underground and tell them we desperately need them here, too. Trains are scheduled frequently more often than not, and arrival times are posted and accurate. The stations and trains are clean. And the riders behave. It's expensive to ride but we bought an Oyster card that gave us unlimited travel for a week and it was so easy.

"Mind the gap."

We were instructed to have tea at Fortnum & Mason by a London-loving friend who goes there often, (sometimes on a weekend when she has nothing else to do). And she was right. I make good scones using an English recipe and homemade, self-rising flour, but I need to look into finding clotted cream over here. I'm sure it's around. 

On this trip, I realized the truth of how restorative tea is after a long day of walking and sightseeing. We felt renewed afterward, and I'm sure the sugar had much less to do with it.

Having seen only one cat in London, I was happy to see this ancient Egyptian tabby in the British Museum (look under the man's right arm). He (or she) reminded me of Toffee: he's grabbing a bird with his front legs, has another bird with his back legs, and holds a duck in his mouth. 

A busy, happy cat.

There are no cats in the Elgin Marbles as far as I know, but I looked at them anyway.

To me, the soldiers seem rather depressed, as if they were missing their cats back home. Very touching reminder that art's meaning is in the eye of the beholder.

People-watching in Trafalgar Square before sunset, with double-decker buses and Elizabeth Tower (home of Big Ben) in the background.

We were very happy here.

A dog relaxes in a great antique shop on the Portobello Road. I crave one of those 19th-century burled-wood stationery cabinets in the background but they were all in the range of £600 to £800. Not today, thank you...

This is the kind of gorgeous, wild garden you can sometimes find behind those elegant blocks of Victorian rowhouses, accessible only by residents. When there's a garden running along the front of the block, the residents have keys:

After a terrible dinner in a handsome, atmospheric pub (tasteless chicken-and-mushroom pies and severely freezer-burned peas and carrots, which took almost an hour to arrive), we didn't attempt it again until our last afternoon, where we went to The Gloucester, "the only pub in Sloane Square." The menu was identical to the first pub (many old pubs were bought up by conglomerates and run as franchises), but the food and service were vastly better:

Get your drink and find a table. Go back to the bar to order your food and pay.

Our ploughman's lunch consisted of quiche, salad with mustardy vinaigrette, bread, Stilton, Cheddar, apples, Branston Pickle, and pickle onions (which we ignored). It hit the spot.

You can find Branston Pickle in the imports section at Shaw's. It's sweet, salty, and pungent, a bit like chutney, only picklier.

Mysteries

We're still wondering who ate the 6-inch, clear rubber hairband that our cat sitter lost last weekend. She was only able to find an inch of it when she hunted, leaving 5 inches unaccounted for — and probably inside a kitten. Everyone seems fine, but I can't imagine it's okay to have that in any pussycat's digestive tract. Although both sitter and vet have relayed reassuring messages, I don't feel good about this, and will call later to discuss in person.

I suspect the hairband resides in one (or more) of these bellies.

And now my Japanese coaster has gone missing. It has been sitting on my desk for years; I can't remember if I used it for my tea yesterday morning, but I'm sure it was there the night before. It's a sturdy piece of woven raw silk, about 3-1/2" square, rust-colored. Not particularly edible... but you wouldn't think a long piece of rubber hairband would be, either.

Since I can't find either item, I keep hoping (and it's ridiculous, I know) that I'll find both squirreled away together somewhere. We know that Harris likes to drag socks around; maybe he has carried both of these items off to a secret lair.

But if it exists, his lair is pretty darn secret. I've been hunting high and low — mostly low. I vacuumed yesterday and used the crevice tool to get under the bookcases, radiators, fridge, and the wood stacked in the fireplaces. Then I checked all those areas with a flashlight. I went through the vacuum cleaner bag. (Ugh. There's always a disgusting wad that seems to be nothing but coarse, gray, dusty wool, and since we have no coarse, gray cats and no gray yarn at all in our carpets, I have no idea where it comes from. Another mystery.)

I moved almost everything that's stored under the bed. I checked closets, under the edges of carpets, between sofa cushions, and in wastebaskets and recycling bags.

If you've got any suggestions for more places I can look, please let me know. This is a small apartment. I'm out of ideas. I'm now reducing to praying to St. Anthony.

Speaking of mysteries, I'd love to know who was behind this, although I have narrowed down the suspects:

Postcards from London 3: Shopping

Since we already have lots of good English things —Barbours, Hunter boots, a Simplex kettle, a stockpile of Yardley soap — we didn't buy very much in London besides books. We bought illustrated books about three of the house museums we visited: Dennis Severs, Linley Sambourne, and Leighton... and, somehow, lots of other books came along for the ride, adding up to an overweight baggage charge for my husband's previously half-empty suitcase. (I transferred a few from him bag to mine, and all was well.) 

We made a pilgrimage to Liberty, mainly to admire the store, which has an Arts and Crafts heritage that's still alive and kicking today. Since I already have a Liberty-print shirt and dress (J. Crew), I contented myself with a William Morris tray, although we coveted a Moorcroft vase and an antique Armenian rug.

Charming, inside and out.

Flowers greet you at the door.

The store is sprawling and full of pricey designer fashion, but this atrium area still has a wonderful, old-fashioned atmosphere.

We went to Harrod's on our last day, mainly because it was close to our hotel and we wanted to see the Egyptian escalator. But Harrod's is astounding in scale and scope; there's nothing like it here. There are about 25 different places to eat, for example, tucked here and there on every elegantly appointed and lavishly stocked floor.

Then there's the Food Hall — actually a series of huge, elegant rooms offering everything under the sun from chocolate to sushi. We wanted everything but we only bought tea.

Meat pies of every variety...

And a few dates....

Cherries and berries, including translucent currants.

The top floor of Harrod's has children's and pet departments. Guess where we made a beeline? We were disappointed to see that most of the fun was for dogs, but we did find fancy-looking cat food:

There were also two or three large displays of cat toys. We brought home a wind-up guinea pig, a German catnip hedghog, and a really silly giraffe pole toy, which the kittens love:

I'm kicking myself for not buying the flying squirrel and the charming catnip shrimp (prawn?). And what's that blue thing? A jellyfish? 

It seems Londoners have a taste for American junk food; I don't think this is a shop for tourists or ex-pats:

As usual in European cities, I noticed that most of the women's shops carry designs that look elegant and wearable for grownups, rather than sexy styles for babes going clubbing, as we have all over Newbury Street. Clothes in America seem to be designed to look good on store mannequins and very few female bodies. Clothes in Europe seem designed to flatter women in a wide range of ages and body types. I look in shop windows and constantly see outfits that look pretty and perfectly wearable, as I seldom do over here.

This white linen skirt and top with a trapunto jacket caught my eye several times as we walked from the Underground to our hotel at night:

Then there were these paisley slippers with little spikes across the toes... perfect for dealing with rush-hour crowds on the T or at Haymarket:

Postcards from London 2: Townhouses

We were amazed at the blocks of elegant and elaborate 19th-century townhouses we saw, particularly in the Kensington and Chelsea neighborhoods of London. Many of these blocks surround private, gated gardens, or have a hidden garden behind them. They are almost uniformly kept in pristine condition, too. I rarely saw a building that needed restoration... or even its brass polished. (But at the same time, we didn't see scaffolding and constant repair work going on everywhere, as there is around here. I wonder how they do it. Fairies? Mary Poppins?)

Compared to London's lavishly ornamental townhouses, Back Bay has an almost Puritanical restraint. But now we can see where those 19th-century Brahmins got the idea. We always thought that Commonwealth Avenue, etc. was based on the Parisian, Haussmann model of wide boulevards and so on. But it was London all along:

This appears to be a single-family house. Look at the window boxes on three floors — with topiaries!

Turn a corner and find a castle.

These white-trimmed rowhouses turn the corner and continue down the other side of the block, all beautifully regular.

Postcards from London 1: First Things First

On our first evening in London, we had a reservation at the Dennis Severs House in Spitalfields. I was able to snag a reservation before we left Boston. 

We passed this building covered with creepers as we emerged from a tunnel on the Tube:

This extraordinary house was the ideal beginning for our trip; as you wander silently through the candlelit, pomander-scented rooms, you can easily imagine yourself back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Photography is not allowed, of course, so I can only show you the exterior; do check out the website if you're intrigued. This is also where we met our only cat on the whole trip. She was so perfectly positioned, sitting on a chair, that we thought she was taxidermy at first. Eventually she turned her head and then allowed us to pet her.

The Dennis Severs House. Go there.

It felt odd and exhilarating to emerge back into 2013, which proved how effective the house's atmosphere really was. We admired the Gherkin:

And we roamed through streets of other fine old houses: 

The next morning, we set off for the Victoria & Albert Museum, which I knew would be an exciting, overwhelming experience. We fortified ourselves with sandwiches and pastry for breakfast at Paul. We had our share of their new tartes au sucre during our visit. And their eclairs are as good as they are in Paris:

I have a fancy little replica of the entrance to the V&A that I bought many years ago, so I knew the façade like an old friend. (And I didn't need to bring home a souvenir):

We went directly to my husband's favorite object in the collection — Tipu's Tiger, an automaton of a tiger attacking a British soldier (it also plays music). I admited it, too; how often does the tiger or the lion get to win?

I loved the V&A's costume displays. It often felt like my Pinterest pages for fashion, jewelry, and antiques were coming to life. I saw many "familiar faces" from my pages. Pinterest seems to have improved my ability to figure out the dates for clothing, too. I'd guess and then check the label. 

The V&A's architecture blew us away almost as much as its collections did. Here's the courtyard. Now that's a courtyard.

I have a high tolerance for Victorian bombast of all varieties:

But I also enjoy focusing on one striking work, like this bust of a saintly bishop by Alfred Gilbert:  

The V&A has a Chihuly hanging in its rotunda, which I liked better than the one at the MFA:

And we couldn't help comparing this glorious, tiled dining room with the ones at the MFA, too. The chairs are similar, at least:

We walked our feet off and left dazed and dazzled. But not before we considered this contraption for filling a bowl with oranges: