Poem for Monday and Botanical Garden

Autumn Fires 

By Robert Louis Stevenson 

In the other gardens

   And all up in the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

   See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over, 

   And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

   The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

   Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

   Fires in the fall! 

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I spent over 5 hours on chat with Adobe today and their ultimate advice was: pay for the newest Photoshop license. Which might make sense if the problem was with Photoshop, but it's with Adobe IPC Broker, which is a component of Adobe Creative Cloud and what I and the three engineers helping me today learned is that there is no way to make Photoshop function any more without Creative Cloud, something no one could guarantee would be fixed if I paid more money, the same way Dell couldn't promise me they would honor my warranty even if I paid more money. 

Other than smacking myself repeatedly in the face with that hammer, and being shocked that a friend of many years posted that she thinks -- big surprise, somehow! -- that it's Jewish women's own fault for feeling threatened now because we're fans of mediocre allies like Taylor Swift, my day was all right. The weather was gorgeous, the light on the beach was amazing, the World Series has dramatic swings, and I realized that Kira's mother from DS9 played the evil DA on Suits. Some pictures from Sunday of the Bellevue Botanical Garden's last fall flowers:

Greetings from Kirkland and Bellevue

Evening quickie. Sunday dawned cold but gorgeous; we could see the mountain clearly when we drove to Kirkland. We walked around at Juanita Beach Park, where the trumpeter swans have arrived for the autumn, then we went to the Samhain PNW Witches' Market in the park nearby. After lots of enjoyable wandering, we went to the Burger King in Bellevue for lunch, then to the nearby Bellevue Botanical Garden, which has gorgeous autumn leaf color and they're starting to put up the winter holiday lights. The rest of my day was uneventful -- some football, some laundry, some Suits, more tomorrow!

Greetings from Washington Park Arboretum

It was below freezing on Saturday morning, with mist over the lake under clear skies. We had breakfast early and went to meet Daniel at the Washington Park Arboretum, the botanic gardens of the University of Washington. There are still some rhododendrons in bloom and a few hydrangeas, but most of the color there now are golds and reds, and the two most exciting things we saw there were a wild coyote who twice caught the attention of Daniel's dogs and a raccoon who desperately wanted to come eat the stolen top of a jack-o-lantern but did not want to come down from a tree until the dogs had passed by. 

When we left the gardens, we went to Daniel's house to drop off the dogs, then walked to Mykonos Greek Grill for lunch, where I had the awesome dip sampler and will again as leftovers for lunch later this week. Afterward we went back to Daniel's house and played Chai (and I actually won a board game against him, which may never have happened before). We got home for the start of the World Series, which was less exciting than the day before because it was a slow blowout. We weren't hungry for much dinner, and now we're watching a Suits episode waiting for the opening of SNL. Some pics from today: 

Poem for Friday and Snoqualmie

Waterfall

By Lauris Dorothy Edmond

I do not ask for youth, nor for delay

in the rising of time's irreversible river

that takes the jewelled arc of the waterfall

in which I glimpse, minute by glinting minute,

all that I have and all I am always losing

as sunlight lights each drop fast, fast falling.

I do not dream that you, young again,

might come to me darkly in love's green darkness

where the dust of the bracken spices the air

moss, crushed, gives out an astringent sweetness

and water holds our reflections

motionless, as if for ever.

It is enough now to come into a room

and find the kindness we have for each other

— calling it love — in eyes that are shrewd

but trustful still, face chastened by years

of careful judgement; to sit in the afternoons

in mild conversation, without nostalgia.

But when you leave me, with your jauntiness

sinewed by resolution more than strength

— suddenly then I love you with a quick

intensity, remembering that water,

however luminous and grand, falls fast

and only once to the dark pool below.

-------- 

My computer is giving me an Adobe IPC Broker error that pops up a window that won't go away, or comes back the next time I reboot, no matter how many times I repair or reinstall Photoshop, and it won't let me open Windows' own Photos app, and I am back to ready to murder someone or at the very least throw the computer over the balcony to let the rats gnaw on it. So I am in the same bad mood of the past three weeks. 

Otherwise, it was a nice day, quite cool, files sorted, photos filed, cats snuggled, the beach was nearly empty apart from geese and beautiful, World Series game one was a lot more exciting than I expected given that I don't have strong feelings about who I want to win! And we watched Lego Marvel Avengers: Code Red on Disney+, which is pretty silly but enjoyable (and has an appearance by Throg!), though it's no Frost Fight! 

We also watched the series finale of Billions, which was surprisingly upbeat, pretty much the opposite of the Succession finale; pretty much everyone got some kind of redemption arc or got away clean whether they deserved it or not, relationships were mostly warm and fuzzy, everyone stayed rich, and I'm not even sure how I feel about that. Here are some photos of Snoqualmie Falls and Salish Lodge from last weekend: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem for Thursday and Brightwater Art

Water

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

The water understands

Civilization well;

It wets my foot, but prettily,

It chills my life, but wittily,

It is not disconcerted,

It is not broken-hearted:

Well used, it decketh joy,

Adorneth, doubleth joy:

Ill used, it will destroy,

In perfect time and measure

With a face of golden pleasure

Elegantly destroy.

-------- 

 

Thursday was the first really cool day we've had this fall -- we even turned the heat on in the morning, which the cats were happy about once they were done being suspicious. I went out after lunch to pick up my new glasses, then we took a walk to the beach and out on the dock to see the ducks. We were also visited by a northern flicker, back for the season after a summer in the north, though he appeared angry that we took down the bird feeder. 

I watched the season finale of Our Flag Means Death, which was very satisfying, even the sad things, with Cheryl. Then we went to our Thursday night chat group (all six this week), after which we watched Loki together -- a show which, and it feels weird to say this, needs more Loki. Now I'm watching Suits season four and posting these photos of sculpture and design at the Brightwater treatment plant last weekend: 

 

 

 

 

 

Greetings from the Garden Store

Another quickie after another war with my computer, this time because Firefox has been a problem so many times that I thought maybe it was THE problem so I switched to Chrome and have been having a hard time making Chrome synchronize between my devices. Other than that my day was pretty ordinary: chatted with my high school friends in the morning, watched Good Omens with Kristen in the afternoon, walked to the beach in cool and gorgeous weather. 

We watched the Harry Potter episode of The Masked Singer and yes, I know there are good reasons for boycotting both of those things but I am weak and it was hilarious, then we watched this week's episode of Quantum Leap, which was amusing enough but this season's stories have felt pretty inconsequential, so I hope there's something earthshaking soon. Some photos from Molbak's, where it still looks like Halloween outdoors but it's turning into the winter holidays inside:

Poem for Tuesday and Issaquah Apple Fest

FaceTime
By Clint Smith

On another night
in a hotel
in a room
in a city
flanked by all
that is unfamiliar
I am able to move
my finger along
a glass screen
once across
once vertical
& in seconds
see your mother
smiling in a room
that is our own
that is now so
far away but
also not so far
away at all
& she can place
the small screen
near her belly
& when I speak
I can see you
moving beneath
her skin as if you
knew that this
distance was
only temporary
& what a small
yet profound
joy it is to be some-
where that is not
with you but to
still be with you
& see your feet
dance beneath
her rib cage like
you knew we’d
both be dancing
together soon.

-------- 

On Tuesday, for as little reason as it started working again, my computer gave me the blue screen of death and told me it could not start up correctly. It ran the Windows repair scan, again told me there was absolutely nothing wrong, then told me once more it could not start up correctly. And then, when I exited the diagnostic, it started up and didn't give me an error for the rest of the afternoon. So I have no idea what's wrong, when it will become unworkable again, or what in hell I can do at this point to fix anything. 

We had rain in the afternoon, but we knew it was coming so we took a walk in lovely cool weather to the beach at lunchtime. One of my earrings fell out so then I retraced my steps until I found it, which I fortunately did. My Voyager group (everyone this week!) watched "Dragon's Teeth" which none of us remembered but which actually did not suck, then we watched the last game of the NLCS, which was exciting though I feel badly for the Phillies players I like. Now, more Suits. Some pictures from the apple festival in Issaquah last Saturday:

Greetings from Brightwater

Sorry to be quick, I'm behind on everything -- our dishwasher sensor hasn't worked right since we moved in, and this weekend it set off the alert beep constantly, so today the local handyman had to replace the whole programming panel on the dishwasher, and then we had two big baseball games to watch (yay Rangers, now I don't care who wins the Series since it can't be the Astros). 

We did manage a walk in the gorgeous cool fall weather and my computer did not blow up, so that's all good news! And we watched a couple of Suits episodes after a late dinner that created so much smoke we had to open all the windows to avoid setting off alarms. Here are some photos of the gorgeous cool fall weather at the Brightwater treatment plant hiking trails on Sunday: