Greetings for Halloween

Happy Challahween! We have had a quiet, rainy night with only a single trick-or-treater, but we got to hang out for a while with all our neighbors -- the cat-sitters, the couple downstairs with the baby in a pumpkin costume, and, earlier, the other couple downstairs, who we ran into on the dock, one of whom was dressed as a Pokemon. 

I had my semiannual checkup in the afternoon at my very decorated doctor's office -- the PA who took my blood pressure was wearing cat ears. We watched the World Series over dinner, then we watched Jurassic World: Rebirth, since nobody was knocking. Here's my day, including one son and his wife and dog, both cats, and a neighbor's dog:

Greetings from Bellevue

Quick post after an evening in Bellevue -- it was a beautiful day, so we went to the botanical garden to see the changing leaves and what fall flowers remain, then we went to Bellevue Square to look at the Halloween displays and eat dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (Paul had a coupon for a free piece of cheesecake he was itching to use, and I like their fried macaroni and cheese balls). 

It was otherwise an uneventful day; I worked on a photo project in the morning, we caught the end of the Ravens victory when we got home, and we watched this week's Halloween episode of Ghosts before some Twin Peaks. I'll post garden photos after I sort them; here are Halloween decorations and dinner at the mall, where we also saw the Seahawks' Drake Thomas being interviewed for Hawks Live:

Poem for Wednesday and Witches' Market

From "Poems for the Sporting News" 

By Jack Spicer 

God is a big white baseball that has nothing to do but go in a curve or a straight line. I studied geometry in highschool and know that this is true.

Given these facts the pitcher, the batter and the catcher all look pretty silly. No Hail Marys

Are going to get you out of a position with the bases loaded and no outs, or when you’re 0 and 2, or when the ball bounces out to the screen wildly. Off seasons

I often thought of praying to him but could not stand the thought of that big, white, round, omnipotent bastard.

Yet he’s there. As the game follows rules he makes them.

I know

I was not the only one who felt these things. 

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I spent a lot of time on Zoom on Wednesday, starting with my three high school friends in the morning -- always great to catch up. Then I did a couple of chores, ate lunch, and watched the final third of the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with Kristen and Laurie, which is always awesome and even more so watching with people I've been friends with since the movie came out. 

We walked to the beach, saw lots of ducks, geese, and leaves, then came home for the Blue Jays-Dodgers game, which Toronto somewhat surprisingly won easily after leading off with two home runs on three pitches. We ate sandwiches in front of the TV for dinner, then we watched the end of the first season and start of the second season of Twin Peaks, which is still playing Good Girl, Bad Girl. In the drizzle at the PNW Witches' Market:

Poem for Tuesday and Juanita Bay

Praise the Rain 

By Joy Harjo 

Praise the rain, the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upward sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we’re led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten.

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

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We had drizzle on and off on Tuesday, which didn't bother me until evening when I realized we wouldn't be one of the places that get to see the aurora tonight. Most of my day was uneventful, though we did walk to the park, where at least 20 ducks were in the parking lot eating acorns and at least 40 geese were on the grass announcing that it was theirs (the eagle was high above everything looking disdainful). We came home for the World Series game, which thankfully was half the number of innings of last night's game and Toronto won. My DS9 group watched "Rivals."

Dinner was leftover pizza. We still haven't caught up on Watson, but we watched the season finales of Only Murders in the Building -- cute not earthshaking, I really wanted more Tea Leoni and Renee Zellweger and for the women to play characters a bit more than caricatures -- and Slow Horses -- the season felt less more cliched than last season but I liked it better, probably because there was so much less Gary Oldman. Now we're watching Reese Witherspoon need a lawyer the network seems to be lacking on The Morning Show. Juanita Bay on Sunday:

Poem for Monday and Fall City Farm Animals

Baseball's Sad Lexicon 

By Franklin Pierce Adams 

These are the saddest of possible words:

         "Tinker to Evers to Chance." 

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

         Tinker and Evers and Chance. 

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

         Making a Giant hit into a double— 

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

         "Tinker to Evers to Chance." 

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Per Wikipedia, this was first published in the New York Evening Mail in 1910 as "That Double Play Again" after the Cubs defeated the Giants with a 6-4-3 double play from shortstop Tinker to second baseman Evers to first baseman Chance. 

Posting while watching the 16th (!) inning of game three of the World Series -- we were going to watch Watson at 10 p.m., but the game was still going, and the punchline is that we could have watched the episode and still have caught the end of this game. 

It was a fairly quiet Monday anyway of laundry and working on photos I took over the weekend; we got the gorgeous weather today that we missed out on while sightseeing Saturday and Sunday, a great day to walk to the beach and catch Halloween-costumed Pokemon. 

We ate burgers for dinner in front of the TV so we didn't miss any of this game. Having to see Mary Hart's face behind batters for this many hours would be enough reason to root against the Dodgers. Much cuter, here are animals at Fall City Farms on Saturday: 

Greetings from Kirkland

We had a quiet morning Sunday because it was raining hard outside -- we'd lost power briefly the night before and internet several times -- so we chatted on Teams with our parents and did some chores before lunch. Then we went to the Samhain PNW Witches' Market in Kirkland, which was smaller than usual especially for Halloween season due to the weather -- my favorite clothing vendor wasn't there, nor the kettle corn truck -- but there were plenty of people in costume and dogs, and we looked at lots of jewelry and pottery. 

Since we were already in Kirkland, we went to Juanita Bay's boardwalk, from which we saw herons, ducks, and eagles, plus lots of pretty leaves and interesting mushrooms. We came home for dinner and the Packers-Steelers game (which ended as I wanted, as did the earlier Ravens game). Now we're watching the first two episodes of Talamasca: The Secret Order, which feels slow getting going to me, but maybe that's because I didn't keep up with Anne Rice's later books. Will get back to Twin Peaks after we check this out. 

Greetings from Twin Peaks

Extreme quickie, we're watching Twin Peaks (for the first time, believe it or not!) after an afternoon in Twin Peaks country a.k.a. Fall City and Snoqualmie Falls. We stopped at Si View Park to see the mountain that's the fictional one from the show, then at the remains of the Snoqualmie Mill, which was the Packard Sawmill on the show and is now the DirtFish rally car course (whose office served as the sheriff's department). We tried to take a photo of the Welcome to Twin Peaks sign, but apparently it gets stolen regularly, and it wasn't there. 

From Reinig Road we drove to the Salish Lodge and Snoqualmie Falls, which didn't have a lot of people because it had been drizzling earlier, but was clear while we were there and the views were spectacular. We walked around the upper trail, then drove to Fall City Farms, which has pumpkin patches, farm animals, seasonal displays, and a donut machine, so fresh donuts and cider. We stopped at Safeway on the way home, had soup and cheese for dinner, and watched the Dodgers beat Toronto before the first few episodes. Our afternoon in reverse: