Greetings from Leavenworth

Quickie again, just got home from Leavenworth, the Bavarian village in the Cascades. We left at 8:30 a.m. with our neighbors for the two-hour drive and got home at nearly 9 p.m., so it was a long day but a lovely one: perfect weather, lots of food, insanely gorgeous views driving through the mountains. We had pretzels with mustard and salt water taffy, and we also had a big lunch at Visconti's Italian Ristorante and shopped at Kris Kringl ("Where It's Christmas All Year Long!") and the store with the Russian dolls and the store with the Jim Shore and Thomas Kinkade Disney art -- hey, it's a tourist town! 

And we went to the Greater Leavenworth Museum, which follows the history from when the land was stolen from the Salish tribe that lived there through its time as a railroad town decimated by the Depression to its reinvention as a Bavarian haven based loosely on Solvang as a model, planned and implemented by (of course) local women's groups and a pair of gay men who were closeted until they were in their 70s but bought and transformed a local hotel and restaurant. We drove back at sunset through the mountains and I ate my leftover lunch as dinner. A few photos from the town and the Christmas store:

Greetings from St. Mark's

Quickie, just got home and I have to get up early on Sunday. I had a nice Yom Kippur, though all the spiritual accounting I did was in my head -- I had to pick up a prescription in Bellevue, so we went to the Bellevue Botanical Garden first and stopped at the PCC for food, and in the evening we had tickets to see Vienna Teng at St. Mark's Cathedral, which has fabulous acoustics and lets people sit on blankets in the front like it's an outdoor venue. 

We had reserved seats, which are more comfortable, but we had a picnic for dinner before the concert started. Vienna started with "Harbor," "Hymn of Acxiom," "Level Up," and "Stray Italian Greyhound," then played half the show with Founders, who are classically trained and did a great mix of her songs and theirs (some of her older, jazzier compositions; she had played the newest ones earlier, and their version of Scheherazade). Here are a few photos:

Poem for Friday and Aillte an Mhothair

The Irish Cliffs of Moher 

By Wallace Stevens 

Who is my father in this world, in this house,

At the spirit’s base?

My father’s father, his father’s father, his—

Shadows like winds

Go back to a parent before thought, before speech,

At the head of the past.

They go to the cliffs of Moher rising out of the mist,

Above the real,

Rising out of present time and place, above

The wet, green grass.

This is not landscape, full of the somnambulations

Of poetry

And the sea. This is my father or, maybe,

It is as he was,

A likeness, one of the race of fathers: earth

And sea and air.

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Friday, like Thursday, was mostly overcast and chilly but no rain, so a nice fall day. I did some online research, and then some online shopping, in the morning, then took a walk to the beach, where we saw a bunny for the first time in ages as well as the geese and ducks who are coming back as the season changes. We switched off between the Dodgers game (which ended well) and the Terps-Northwestern game (which was a hideous mess). 

Then, because I am observing Yom Kippur this year only in my head, we watched the first episode of The Franchise (somewhat entertaining, quite over the top, should be funnier) and the first episode of Bad Monkey (very entertaining, pretty dark but also often hilarious). These are the Cliffs of Moher, which are spectacular, with views of the Aran Islands, the coast of Clare, and a cave that may or may not hold a horcrux:

Poem for Thursday and Yeats' Grave

The Stolen Child 

By W.B. Yeats 

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

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Thursday was chilly but sunny after an overcast morning during which I did a bunch of chores. I am finally done washing, folding, and putting away laundry from the trip! We took a walk in the early afternoon to enjoy the weather, then we watched most of the Guardians game, which ended well. 

The Yankees game did not end as I had hoped, but I missed most of it on chat with my Thursday night regulars, after which we watched the last two episodes of Ridley, still quite dark, and looked for the auroras that my kids saw. Here is W.B. Yeats' grave at Drumcliffe Church in County Sligo:

Poem for Wednesday and Fairy Bridges

Bundoran 

By E. Daly 

The Fairy Bridges where the sprits,

In moon-lit splendour sport and play,

Span chasms dark and lowering where

The lashing waters dash and spray.

And then the dear old Wishing Chair,

Where heart sick maids petitions lay,

Where thousands found each wish come true,

And ever bless the "happy day". 

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For the first time in several weeks, I had a typical social Wendesday -- chat with high school friends in the morning, though one had a work meeting and the other had computer issues so I mostly talked to Kay and her son. Then we had lunch and I watched an episode of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with Kristen. I had half an eye on the day's baseball games -- happy about the Mets and Dodgers, not happy about the Guardians and KC -- but we did walk to the beach because it was a gorgeous day. 

Cheryl and I watched Agatha All Along together; it's been a darker show than I expected but I would watch most of those women in anything, and I appreciate the connections to Wanda Maximoff. Then we had dinner and watched The Masked Singer, which I'm ambivalent about because I love the Ship but I think the Buffaloes are Boyz II Men and they've been great. Here are some photos of County Donegal's Fairy Bridges and Wishing Chair, rock formations above one of Ireland's most famous surfing beaches: 

Poem for Tuesday and Knowth Passage Tomb

Knowth 

By James Caruth 

Five thousand years ago

they raised this mound

to house their dead,

dug two ditches around its edge,

etched on kerbstones, visible 

and invisible cycles of the moon.

Darkness weighs like a stone.

Somewhere a rat is scratching,

the sour air trembles at the throb

of a tiny heart, the quick insistence 

of claws seeking carrion, whetting teeth 

on bare bone. Night settles. 

The walls are closing in.

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Our dryer's broken temperature control has finally been fixed, so our trip laundries are finally finished! That was the big event here on Tuesday, apart from a trip to the dentist so Paul could get a crown glued back on that fell off in Ireland and I could do some shopping while he was in the chair. There were eagles flying over the Safeway, so I'm guessing there are salmon in the stream that runs behind it. 

My Voyager group watched "Shattered" which was as delightful as we had remembered it being; I'm going to pretend that was the series finale and the rest is bad fanfic. Afterward we saw the end of the Dodgers game over dinner, then this week's Only Murders in the Building (Melissa and Meryl!). Some pics from Knowth at Brú na Bóinne, which has at least 18 tombs and a vast amount of megalithic art: 

Poem for Monday and Derry Girls

Erin's Poetry on Derry Girls 

By Lisa McGee 

The bullets being fired on the streets as I lie in my bed 

Are nothing to the bullets being fired in my head. 

Be careful, child, of the doll made of glass, 

For if you hold her too tightly, she will break, and you will bleed. 

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Monday was just as gorgeous as Sunday -- 70 degrees and sunny -- though I was still finishing laundries in the morning and organizing stuff from the trip. Kristen and I caught up on watching Rings of Power together (we've both seen the whole series, but we just watched season two, episode four jointly). When we went for a walk in the afternoon, the frogs were out and a couple of eagles put in appearances. 

I was sad that the Guardians lost, happy that the Yankees lost, and bored with the Chiefs-Saints game though didn't really watch it. We just started the second season of Ridley on PBS, which thankfully so far isn't as dark as the first season. But speaking of TV, here are some photos from the Derry Girls exhibition in Derry's Tower Museum, which has costumes and props, some video clips, and background on The Troubles: