Greetings from Carkeek

We had gorgeous weather on Saturday, so we went to the beach at Carkeek Park and hiked around the beaver dams and lodge in the woods. It was nearly low tide when we arrived, so we got to see many anemones and snails, some chitons, a few sea stars and sea cucumbers, a bunch of little crabs, and the most red rock crabs we've ever seen in a single visit -- a few of whom I had to rescue from seagulls and crows who were looking for dinner. There weren't a lot of people and we did get to see a train.

 

We stopped at the Scandinavian store on the way home, then hit traffic because a large group of antisemites were blocking the highway, so we drove the long way around (which at least gave us a great view of the mountain). When we got home, Cheryl and I binged the rest of Renegade Nell together, which is quite entertaining if a bit derivative and leaves a bunch of things unresolved so I hope there's a second season. Now we're having our annual Easter weekend viewing of Life of Brian.

Poem for Friday and Seattle Zoo Birds

Tropical Town 

By Salomón de la Selva 

For Miss Eugenia L. V. Geisenheimer 

Blue, pink, and yellow houses, and, afar, 

The cemetery, where the green trees are. 

Sometimes you see a hungry dog pass by,

And there are always buzzards in the sky.

Sometimes you hear the big cathedral bell,

A blindman rings it; and sometimes you hear

A rumbling ox-cart that brings wood to sell.

Else nothing ever breaks the ancient spell

That holds the town asleep, save, once a year,

The Easter festival...

                                  I come from there,

And when I tire of hoping, and despair

Is heavy over me, my thoughts go far,

Beyond that length of lazy street, to where 

The lonely green trees and the white graves are.

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Friday was a nice, relaxing day after my unexpectedly strange Thursday. Around computer work, we went out to get bagels, including vegan bagel dogs for lunch that were excellent. While we were out, we discovered that the weather was spectacular, so we finished up work and walked to the beach, where we were unable to spot the hidden eagles' nest but did see one of the eagles hanging out in a newly leafed tree and getting branches to fly to the nest. 

Cheryl and I watched Taylor Swift's Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions together, which I've seen before but always love, then we left Disney+ on and watched the first two episodes of Renegade Nell, which feels kind of derivative of similar historical fantasy (Elizabeth: The Golden Age! Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves!) but has really enjoyable performances and scenery. Here are some of the birds we saw at the Woodland Park Zoo:

Poem for Thursday and Green Lake Waterfowl

Ducks' Ditty 

By Kenneth Grahame 

All along the backwater,

Through the rushes tall,

Ducks are a-dabbling,

Up tails all!

Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails,

Yellow feet a-quiver,

Yellow bills all out of sight

Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth

Where the roach swim—

Here we keep our larder,

Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!

We like to be

Heads down, tails up,

Dabbling free!

High in the blue above

Swifts whirl and call—

We are down a-dabbling

Up tails all! 

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I had an early lunch on Thursday and went to have the same eye surgery on my right eye that I'd had on my left a couple of weeks ago, assuming it would be just as easy. But where it took a single laser incision to pierce the left eye, it took six to pierce the right, and each one felt exponentially more painful than the previous one. I thought I was fine afterward, but when I went to stand up, the room tilted and my legs went out from under me. So instead of walking around for an hour at nearby shops, I was reclining, sipping water, and having my blood pressure taken regularly. 

The ophthalmologist thinks it was a vasovagal response to unexpected pain, not anything related to the surgery itself, so that's good news -- the pressure test an hour later looked fine. But I've been sleepy ever since, missing pretty much all of the Orioles opening day game this afternoon and only half-watching the Mariners this evening. We did take a walk to the park to get some fresh air and saw one of the eagles flying into the hidden nest there, and we had leftover Italian food from Sunday night for dinner. Here are some of the waterfowl we saw at Green Lake with Daniel:

Poem for Wednesday and Green Lake Flowers

The Diameter of the Bomb 

By Yehuda Amichai 

The diameter of the bomb was 30 centimeters

and the diameter of its effective range about 7 meters,

with four dead and 11 wounded.

And around these, in a larger circle

of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered

and one graveyard. But the young woman

who was buried in the city she came from,

at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,

enlarges the circle considerably,

and the solitary man mourning her death

at the distant shores of a country far across the sea

includes the entire world in the circle.

And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans

that reaches up to the throne of God and

beyond, making a circle with no end and no God.

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Our weather on Wednesday veered wildly between hail, pouring rain, and brilliant sunshine with a rainbow, with accompanying temperature swings. I chatted with two of my high school friends in the morning, did a bunch of chores around lunch, then watched the first half of Thor: Love and Thunder with Kristen. 

We took a walk that started in light drizzle, turned into steady rain with wintry mix, and ended in sunlight before we had dinner, then we watched The Masked Singer (theme song night, I'm all about the Clock), Animal Control, and Resident Alien. Here are some of the flowers around Green Lake and the surrounding neighborhood:

Poem for Tuesday and Kelsey Creek Animals

Self as Goat in Tree 

By Mihaela Moscaliuc 

Nine goats scamper up

the gnarly argan tree and graze it clean.

They ingest the wrinkled fruit whole,

though it’s the bitter pulp alone

that rouses their appetite for more.

Sated, they stare at the horizon

till branches wear thin and fall.

Farmers harvest goats’ droppings

to extract the pit rich in kernels of oil. 

Haven’t you too wished yourself a goat

perched punch-drunk on a linden tree,

blasé about the gold you might shit,

how it might serve both hunger and greed.

Haven’t you goaded yourself

to balance just a bit longer, 

chew on some fugitive scents,

forget what a ditch the earth is. 

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My Tuesday was fairly quiet, mostly chores and some computer work. Daniel took his car to the shop and was told that it is likely totaled, though the insurance estimators have a couple of days to get back to him; the wheelhouse is damaged and probably makes more sense to replace the car, which he just finished paying off, so that's unhappy news, though I am just relieved everyone was all right following the accident. We took a walk to the beach in the gorgeous afternoon weather. 

My Voyager group watch was "Child's Play" this week -- a good episode performance-wise and an engrossing story, though it leaves a bunch of questions unanswered from why the pathogen isn't affecting Seven of Nine to the crew's failure to protect Icheb's planet from what seems certain to be more Borg attacks. Now we're watching more Shogun, parts of which seem more like violence porn than historically accurate, but I like the women. Animals at Kelsey Creek Farm Park last weekend:

Poem for Monday and Green Lake Flowers

The Tulip 

By Emily Dickinson 

She slept beneath a tree

        Remembered but by me. 

I touched her cradle mute; 

She recognized the foot, 

Put on her carmine suit, --

        And see! 

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On the way home from dinner with us last night, Daniel's car got rear-ended on a highway exit ramp into the car in front of him. He and Cahaya are both fine, as was everyone else in what ended up being a four-vehicle collision, but his car has damage both in front and in back -- the latter worse, involving serious damage to a tail light and the panel to the right of the bumper. Tomorrow insurance is going to give an assessment; the police were on the scene, so there is a report. 

So this afternoon following a quiet chore-filled morning, we went to Green Lake, walked the dogs with him alongside gorgeous cherry blossoms and lots of daffodils and tulips, stopped for drinks at Chocolati, and drove him to a friend's to pick up the friend's key because Daniel is going to feed the friend's cat for a few days while the friend is traveling; it's right by the bus stop on his way to work. Now we're home watching Shogun, which is very well done. Some photos from our walk:

Greetings from Kirkland

Very quickly -- it's Paul's birthday and we got home late to some concerning news that required a lot of messaging, though it sounds like all's well that ends well. It was otherwise a lovely day: temperatures in the 60s, we went to both the farm at Kelsey Creek Park and the Bellevue Botanical Garden, we talked briefly to Paul's parents and my parents and had longer conversations with both of his brothers plus Adam and Haley, we were taken out to dinner at Cafe Veloce by Cahaya's parents along with Daniel and Cahaya. Now we're watching The Way Home and trying to catch up on things; more tomorrow.

Greetings from Redmond

It was drizzly most of Saturday and we had a bunch of chores to do, so we did not have the most exciting day. We watched some baseball, basketball, and ice skating, then we ate lunch and went to shop, stopping to see cherry blossoms at Marymoor and Redmond City Parks. We also got to see the Holi festival at Marymoor, though from a distance since only people who had registered could enter the festival grounds, and we stopped in Hoffman's, though they had no hamantaschen. 

I wanted to go to Kohl's while I had various coupons to get some shirts, so we did that, and we went to Trader Joe's and Safeway for food for the week. Then we came home, watched some more basketball, and had Israeli couscous with raisins and (fake) chicken for dinner, plus hamantaschen my parents sent for Purim. Now we're watching the rest of 3 Body Problem, which works better as a metaphor about humanity than as science fiction (so many bad decisions!) but I'm enjoying it anyway.