Poem for Thursday and The Alabaster Owl

From 'The Wizard'
By Jack Prelutsky

The wizard, watchful, waits alone
within his tower of cold gray stone
and ponders in his wicked way
what evil deeds he’ll do this day.
The wizard smirks a fiendish smirk,
reflecting on the woes he’ll work,
as he consults a dusty text
and checks which hex he’ll conjure next.
He may pluck someone off the spot
and turn him into...who knows what?

-------- 

My Thursday was mostly a chore day, though not a bad one -- one of my two missing packages showed up (no explanation from the post office but I'm just happy to have it) and it never got as warm as forecast because it stayed overcast, so we had a nice walk to the beach in cool weather. And I chatted with my Thursday night group. 

Then we watched this week's Shelter (nice lesbian storylines but still no idea how the Holocaust figures in) and now we're watching the season finale of What We Do in the Shadows (hahaha nice cameos)! This is The Alabaster Owl, aka The Shop Under the Stairs at Pike's Market, which sells wizard home decor but avoids giving JKR money!

Poem for Wednesday and Ballard Animals

Blue Vase
By Cynthia Zarin

Because you like to sleep with curtains drawn,
        at dawn I rose and pulled the velvet tight.

You stirred, then set your hand back on my hip,
        the bed a ship in sleep’s doubled plunging

wave on wave, until as though a lighthouse
        beam had crossed the room: the vase between

the windows suddenly ablaze, a spirit,
        seized, inside its amethyst blue gaze.

What’s that? you said. A slip of light, untamed,
        had turned the vase into a crystal ball,

whose blue eye looked back at us, amazed, two
        sleepers startled in each other’s arms,

while day lapped at night’s extinguished edge,
        adrift between the past and future tense,

        a blue moon for an instant caught in its chipped
                 sapphire—love enduring, give or take.

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On Wednesday I returned to the dentist to get a crown on the tooth whose ancient filling was damaging the tooth beneath it. They make the crowns right in the office, which is convenient in that no one needs a temporary one, but it makes for a very long appointment, which would have been annoying had I not been able to chat with my three high school friends via Zoom while I was waiting and if the OFMD season 2 trailer had not dropped. I was afraid to eat anything before the appointment because being practically upside down and given anesthesia sometimes makes me nauseous, so I was also very hungry! We stopped at World Market on the way home to get various food items. 

I only wanted to eat mushy stuff for lunch (peanut butter & jelly and yogurt), then we watched some baseball -- not a good day for the Orioles, but the Mariners pulled out a win -- and walked to the beach in chilly, slightly damp afternoon weather. Our evening entertainment has been Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which isn't as good as Raiders or Last Crusade and doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test, but is still better than Temple of Doom and Crystal Skull, and that is really all I asked; plenty of nostalgic callbacks, Too Many Nazis, and a gimmick about on par with the supernatural in the other movies, no aliens. Animals we saw in Ballard Locks and the fish ladder: 

Poem for Tuesday and Last Night's Mariners

Dreams
By Amy Lowell

I do not care to talk to you although
Your speech evokes a thousand sympathies,
And all my being’s silent harmonies
Wake trembling into music. When you go
It is as if some sudden, dreadful blow
Had severed all the strings with savage ease.
No, do not talk; but let us rather seize
This intimate gift of silence which we know.
Others may guess your thoughts from what you say,
As storms are guessed from clouds where darkness broods.
To me the very essence of the day
Reveals its inner purpose and its moods;
As poplars feel the rain and then straightway
Reverse their leaves and shimmer through the woods.

-------- 

My Tuesday involved a dentist appointment at which I learned that an old filling had not only cracked, but cracked the tooth beneath it, meaning I need to get a crown tomorrow, and then the first thunderstorm we've had since moving out here, meaning that the cats were beside themselves at not having a basement to hide in. In between, I had to deal with finding out that the post office had lost a package of mine (you have not been in voicemail hell or internet hell until you've tried to submit a tracking number that neither system will accept, though when you finally get through you learn that it was the right number tall along). 

So other than chatting with most of my Voyager group, who ended up deciding we didn't need to watch anything this week so we just talked for an hour and a half, and watching Ahsoka with Cheryl, it was not my favorite day. I still have a sore throat from trying not to choke on my own spit while having my teeth cleaned, sure to get worse tomorrow; how do seniors not die of pneumonia after dentist appointments with the new waterboarding tools? And the Mariners lost their starting pitcher to illness and two of their best players to injuries, so they lost to the As. So here are some photos from happier times last night: 

Greetings from T-Mobile Park

Quickie, just back from the Mariners game with Adam and Katherine -- Seattle beat Oakland 7-0 on a lovely cool night with the air quality much improved from the weekend, so it was a gorgeous night to be in the ballpark, and it was both Native American Heritage Night, so there were boats, dancers, arts, and special guests, as well as limited-edition Mariners jerseys created by Muckleshoot Tribal artists, plus Grateful Dead night, so there were tie-dye Mariners t-shirts with dancing bears and music during the game. 

I ate an acai bowl and lots of peanuts for dinner (everyone else had garlic fries with various other courses) and we got to see multiple home runs with fireworks and the Aquaman trident. And we met former Mariners pitcher and current broadcaster Ryan Rowland-Smith, whom we recognized at first more from his lovely Australian accent which we've heard often on TV than from anything else when he stepped into the elevator with us! Now we're watching the series finale of Miracle Workers and I will catch up on things tomorrow! 

Greetings from Green Lake

Sunday was the second day of global Pokemon Go Fest, so after a quick morning walk at Idylwood Park to get a jump on the day's research, we went to Green Lake to meet Daniel and Cahaya. We walked around the lake with the dogs and did many raids together, stopping for lunch at the excellent Bongos Cafe for Caribbean food. They had brought me pins from Pokemon Go Fest in New York earlier in the month, and we brought them Pokemon-themed tea from one of the arts festivals. Katherine was on call so she could only raid remotely, but she joined us for a few and caught more shinies than I did. 

 

We stopped to get drinks and acai at Kitanda on the way back to Daniel's house, where we got my parents and Adam on a Skype call before heading home in the afternoon. After lunch and snacks out, we weren't hungry for dinner, so we made sandwiches while watching late-in-the-day baseball. Then we watched Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on Disney+ because I'd been in the mood for it since seeing an ad for it the other day; it's actually a better movie than I had remembered, not as sharply focused and edited as the first but the messiness makes it more emotional for me, particularly whenever T'Challa comes up.

Greetings from Ballard

I spent Saturday with my friend-in-fandom of many years Pam and her husband Rick, whom I'd seen at a couple of conventions and talked to online many times in the past 25 years, but had not simply hung out with since they visited us in Maryland in 1997! They had been at the aquarium, so we met them downtown, walked through Pike's Market, then headed to Ballard for lunch at the Thai restaurant Secret Savory and a visit to the locks, which already have lots of salmon passing through -- and therefore seals hunting the salmon. Despite the wildfire haze, it was a lovely day and so great to spend time with them!

It was also the first day of Pokemon Go Fest, so I went to Idylwood Park in the morning to do some research and a couple of raids, then caught lots of Pokemon over the course of the day to eventually capture Diancie and a bunch of other new and rare creatures. Though we didn't see most of the Mariners or Orioles games, they both won -- the Mariners by a lot, the Orioles squeaking by -- and in the evening we watched You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, a lot of which is very cringey, not least on the occasions when it's somewhat on the nose about performative upper class Reform Judaism. 

Poem for Friday and Alki Sightseeing

Family Reunion
By Jeredith Merrin

The divorced mother and her divorcing
daughter. The about-to-be ex-son-in-law
and the ex-husband's adopted son.
The divorcing daughter's child, who is

the step-nephew of the ex-husband's
adopted son. Everyone cordial:
the ex-husband's second wife
friendly to the first wife, warm

to the divorcing daughter's child's
great-grandmother, who was herself
long ago divorced. Everyone
grown used to the idea of divorce.

Almost everyone has separated
from the landscape of a childhood.
Collections of people in cities
are divorced from clean air and stars.

Toddlers in day care are parted
from working parents, schoolchildren
from the assumption of unbloodied
daylong safety. Old people die apart

from all they've gathered over time,
and in strange beds. Adults
grow estranged from a God
evidently divorced from History;

most are cut off from their own
histories, each of which waits
like a child left at day care.
What if you turned back for a moment

and put your arms around yours?
Yes, you might be late for work;
no, your history doesn't smell sweet
like a toddler's head. But look

at those small round wrists,
that short-legged, comical walk.
Caress your history--who else will?
Promise to come back later.

Pay attention when it asks you
simple questions: Where are we going?
Is it scary? What happened? Can
I have more now? Who is that?

-------- 

Paul had a dentist appointment on Monday, possible trouble from an old root canal, so I took a ride with him while he was getting x-rays and went to Gamestop, DSW, and a thrift store that turned out to be run by a church group, which would have been more fun for me to browse in if they had not been blasting Christian rock. Then we went to the pharmacy at Target to pick up antibiotics and I tried on clearance rack clothes while waiting. This is the most gratuitous shopping I've done since we moved out here, so it was entertaining! 

In the late afternoon, we walked to the beach, from which the hills were a bit hazy from wildfire smoke but there were still plenty of ducks and a flock of geese. Then we came home for dinner, watched some of the Orioles game and some of the Mariners game, and saw this week's episodes of Billions (every time I really hate Chuck I remember what his father is like) and Foundation (Sareth is smarter than Seldon, she should have Dawn's baby instead of Day's, and the writers really need to start writing Gaal better). Some views around Alki Point: