Greetings from Issaquah

We had a really hard Saturday for reasons I can't discuss. We were also tired from our covid-flu shots and from wildfire smoke that's making the air here very hazy -- lots of runny noses, the pharmacist yesterday said lots of people had come in for covid tests that were negative and she thought the air might have been causing the symptoms -- so we took it easy in the morning and went to the Issaquah fish hatchery for a little while after lunch, because we knew the salmon were starting to return to the streams, and indeed we saw many.

 

We ate freezer food for dinner, kind of glanced at the day's sports (Terps lost, Orioles lost, Mariners lost...at least Notre Dame also lost), and wanted something mindless to watch so we picked Irish Wish, which may have even more cliches about Ireland than Leap Year but also has likeable performances and lovely scenery. I'm not trying to vaguebook, but we need to talk to some family and friends tomorrow, so I will post more later.

Poem for Friday and Sunflower Farm

Leda and the Swan 

By William Butler Yeats 

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

And how can body, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

                               Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

-------- 

Friday wasn't as hot as Thursday, despite predictions, because of wildfire smoke from the south that created haze, meaning less sunlight got through but it felt oppressive outside anyway. We had 3 p.m. appointments for covid and flu shots, but a couple of hours earlier, we got a call that the Walgreens in Bellevue was short a pharmacist, so we rescheduled for a Walgreens in Renton at 6. We didn't get the shots for nearly an hour after that, and with traffic were not home till much later than we had planned, but hopefully we're done with vaccines for a year. 

We had picked up Blazing Bagels in the morning and ate half a bagel each at lunchtime, so we had the other halves for dinner with assorted (fake) meat products while watching the end of the Mariners game. Then we watched the last two episodes of Kaos, which were great -- loved what they did with Eurydice and Persephone, now we need a second season to see Artemis and Athena -- and the first episode of the new season of Slow Horses, where Jackson is even more detestable than usual, particularly towards women. Scenes from Bob's Corn and Pumpkin Farm last weekend:

Poem for Thursday and Farm at the Fair

Eurydice 

By Margaret Atwood 

He is here, come down to look for you.

It is the song that calls you back,

a song of joy and suffering

equally: a promise:

that things will be different up there

than they were last time.

 

You would rather have gone on feeling nothing,

emptiness and silence; the stagnant peace

of the deepest sea, which is easier

than the noise and flesh of the surface.

 

You are used to these blanched dim corridors,

you are used to the king

who passes you without speaking.

 

The other one is different

and you almost remember him.

He says he is singing to you

because he loves you,

 

not as you are now,

so chilled and minimal: moving and still

both, like a white curtain blowing

in the draft from a half-opened window

beside a chair on which nobody sits.

 

He wants you to be what he calls real.

He wants you to stop light.

He wants to feel himself thickening

like a treetrunk or a haunch

and see blood on his eyelids

when he closes them, and the sun beating.

 

This love of his is not something

he can do if you aren’t there,

but what you knew suddenly as you left your body

cooling and whitening on the lawn

 

was that you love him anywhere,

even in this land of no memory,

even in this domain of hunger.

You hold love in your hand, a red seed

you had forgotten you were holding.

 

He has come almost too far.

He cannot believe without seeing,

and it’s dark here.

Go back, you whisper,

 

but he wants to be fed again

by you. O handful of gauze, little

bandage, handful of cold

air, it is not through him

you will get your freedom.

-------- 

It was unseasonably warm on Thursday, 95 degrees and humid, so for obvious reasons we stayed indoors. I did some computer work in the morning, did some reading over lunch, and watched some of the early Mariners game, but it was so hot out that we decided to walk around Bellevue Crossroads Mall instead of outdoors, then stop at QFC since we were there for some produce and snacks. 

My Thursday chat group spared me having to watch the Ravens game against Kansas City, after which Cheryl, Paul, and I watched the new episode of The Rings of Power, which I am happy to have back. Now we're watching Kaos, where Janet McTeer is stealing all her scenes and David Thewlis is a blast. Animals we saw at the Washington State Fair with our neighbors last weekend:

Poem for Wednesday and Picnic with the Alpacas

Ariadne 

By Oliver Tearle 

It was amazing luck, to get that clue.

Threading between the darkened outer rooms

he sought escape, the bull’s head in his arms.

The bass was thumping as the blood within.

She, grateful for assistance, guided him

outwards, his half-drunk feet still holding true.

They bounced it past the guards. So they were free:

(not Crete but Mykonos) though the summer’s heat

and adrenalin made the whole street a haze.

Too soon to speak of love, they spoke of everything

except love: favourite books, weird kinks, lost hours,

first memories, last regrets, worst fears.

It wasn’t him abandoned her. The stars

made sure of it that they should walk apart.

The memory is good. But that’s tonight:

morning will come and take it all away.

To seagirt Dia (wherever that was) she went,

he weaving home, slowly losing the thread.

-------- 

I had a fairly typical but nice Wednesday, starting by chatting with two of my high school friends, followed by lunch and some computer work. Then Kristen and I watched the first episode of the second season of The Rings of Power together -- we met because of The Lord of the Rings and had watched the first season together, so it only seemed right to take a break from the MCU for Galadriel and Sauron. 

It was warm when we walked to the beach, but it was not a good day for Orioles fans, since they lost to the White Sox. At least the Rangers beat the Yankees, and the Mariners won 16-3! Now we're watching the second episode of Kaos, in which Jeff Goldblum plays Jeff Goldblum and the rest of the cast is great. Lunch with the alpacas at Enchanted Farms, including one trimmed to look like a stegosaurus: 

Poem for Tuesday and Fair Fowl

The Duck 

By Ogden Nash 

Behold the duck.

It does not cluck.

A cluck it lacks.

It quacks.

It is specially fond

Of a puddle or pond.

When it dines or sups,

It bottoms ups.

-------- 

Tuesday was a catch-up and chore day after the long weekend, which was fine because I really needed to get some laundry done. I didn't do anything exciting until after lunch, when someone decided to light a bunch of fireworks very loudly off the dock despite it being daytime. We walked to the beach in the afternoon, then my Voyager group got together to chat, though we didn't watch an episode because one person was visiting her family and another had family visiting her. 

Paul made arroz con (veggie) pollo with the leftover rice from our Indian food, which we ate while watching the end of the Orioles' glorious victory over the White Sox. The Yankees game had an even more exciting ending -- the Rangers hit a walk-off grand slam -- leaving the Os in sole possession of first place, though the Mariners yet again gave up a walk-off run and lost. Now we're watching the new episode of Only Murders in the Building. Duck races at the Evergreen State Fair:

Greetings from Bob's Farm

Labor Day here was overcast and much cooler than the rest of the weekend, which made it the perfect day to go to Bob's Corn and Pumpkin Farm, which despite the name is known at this time of year for its vast sunflower fields. We walked among enormous sunflowers and thousands of zinnias, where there were many props and spots set up with selfie stands for family photos. We got to climb on historic farm equipment, sit in a bathtub, and pose in picture frames after being driven through the corn and pumpkin patches being prepared for the upcoming corn maze and jack-o-lantern season. We also got a bunch of locally made food in the farm store.

 

On the way back from Snohomish, where Bob's Farm is located, we stopped at Safeway for cat food and other weekly necessities. We had watched the beginning of the Orioles ultimate victory over the White Sox before we left -- 13-3! -- and when we got home, we put on the Mariners game, though regrettably that one ended with a walk off home run by Oakland. Paul made veggie cheesesteaks for dinner after finding the ingredients at Safeway. We just watched The American Society of Magical Negroes, which is simultaneously hilarious and upsetting; the acting is great, as is the casting, and I appreciate the cynicism of the script.

Greetings from Puyallup

Our next door neighbors and sometime cat-sitters took us to the Washington State Fair in Puyallup on Sunday. We'd visited the fairgrounds in the spring, where there's a shorter, smaller fair, but the fall one is the big one, to which we hadn't been before and to which Coleen got educator admission tickets. They even drove us. 

We saw the Popnology touring exhibit, which is about science fiction and science fact, covering everyone from Carl Sagan to Gene Roddenberry to Octavia Butler (and so much Elon Musk that we wondered whether he helped fund it); a draft horse show with teams pulling carts; a six-actor production of a version of Beauty and the Beast for children; many farm animals, including newborn calves and piglets, plus pettable bunnies; local crafts; and much fair food, including very healthy things like mac & cheese tater tots, coconut shaved ice, glazed roasted nuts, and fried oreos.

 

We got home after 7 p.m., fed our starving cats, had a very small dinner after our big lunch, and watched Snowpiercer, which appears to have killed off two very important characters with several episodes left, so I'm a little bit bummed. (Melanie and Andre better make it to the end of the series or I don't promise that I will!) Now we're watching Secrets of the Zoo: Down Under with our still-feeling-neglected cats. More tomorrow!

Greetings from Duvall

On a warm and sunny Saturday, we drove to Enchanted Farms in Duvall for their Picnic With Alpacas, at which several families of humans eat first at their covered picnic tables, then at least 20 alpacas (mostly females with a couple of male crias) are released through the fence and the people get to feed them! We had our fingers nibbled and our bowls of food knocked around, and we got to pet many alpacas. Afterward we also went to see the farm's pygmy goats, donkeys, sheep, ducks, and bunnies, most of whom we got to feed as well (and many of whom attempted to munch us, hee).

 

Saturday was also a Pokemon Community Day, so after visiting the animals, we went to Redmond Town Center, where we got fancy drinks and I spent a couple of hours catching and evolving Popplios, plus stopped at the Bath and Body Works Labor Day sale. We got home in time to see most of the Orioles game, which was miserable, not only because they lost the game, but because several players were injured, including Dean Kremer who's my favorite pitcher. We ate leftover Indian food from Kanishka for dinner, then watched the first few episodes of Terminator Zero, which are really excellent!