Greetings from Lake Quinsigamond

Sunday was surprisingly chilly for the last day in May and we had drizzle at times, but there are flowers blooming everywhere, so we went to Green Hill Park after an early lunch. The farm animals apparently like this weather because they were all active -- goats and sheep, pigs and alpacas, donkeys and ponies, chickens and ducks, bunnies, peacocks -- and we walked along the lake to the Vietnam Veterans memorial, which also has a pond with fountains surrounded by irises and rhododendrons. 

Then we drove to the shopping center with SuperCuts, where we got haircuts, and Trader Joe's, where we got Israeli feta and Bamba plus some other things. We also stopped at Shaw's for cat treats and a few staples. By then the Orioles had beaten the Blue Jays, so we watched the Mariners (who won in 10) around dinner. Then we saw this week's The Way Home around my latest guilty pleasure, Star Trek: Discovery, which Sonequa Martin-Green made me want to give another chance after Boston Blue.

Greetings from Fitchburg

Spent the whole day in Fitchburg, first visiting Adam and Haley (they were away for a week and we hadn't seen them or Pepper), then visiting her parents, Hildy and Tom. We brought Adam and Haley lunch from the Bagel Inn and Hildy and Tom got us Country Pizza for dinner, plus Solveig and Sagar stopped by to say hi. 

In between the food, there were lots of conversations about academia, music, politics, and family stuff, including an upcoming birthday party that involves running a 5K (I volunteered to be in charge of water instead of running). A few pics:

Greetings from Mars

It took me over an hour to figure out how to post to LiveJournal last night; apparently we really may be in the last days of non-Russian users being able to access the site, permanent/professional account or not. So we'll see if this posts anywhere besides Blogger and Dreamwidth. I had a pretty quiet Friday: I backed up a month's worth of photos, we had nice weather and took a long walk, we saw many rhododendrons and azaleas (in a few cases photobombed by neighborhood bunnies) and walked through the neighborhood ruins. 

 

Around the Orioles' horrible loss, we watched the finale of Hacks, which was pretty good; I almost didn't watch because I loathe Hannah Einbinder so much. Then we watched the end of Spider-Noir, which is extremely satisfying as a Spider-Man story and even avoids the most annoying film noir cliches. Now we're watching the For All Mankind season finale, which is upsetting, exciting, and very well done -- I go back and forth on whether I want life on Titan, which makes the show more sci-fi than speculative.

Greetings from the Elements

Ran late on Thursday night chat, which was actually a highlight of my day, so I'll be brief. Had nice weather with a brief squall with hail, saw several bunnies on a walk, talked to my dad, kids, and their wives because it was the former's birthday. Watched a couple more episodes of Spider-Noir when not watching the Red Sox and later the Orioles lose. I've had a shitty couple of weeks friend-wise and today was the shittiest of all, so I'm not in a good mood. From the Worcester Art Museum's exhibit on weather and meteorology: 

Greetings from the Worcester Art Museum

Quick post while bingeing the first half of Spider-Noir, which thus far is excellent. I love film noir, I love the way its tropes are mashed up with Spider-verse elements, and visually it's beautifully done (I prefer the desaturated color version, which really show off how subtly the lighting works). It's also extremely well cast and Nic Cage is really throwing himself into it, when I've seen him phone in a bunch of bad horror roles; the women's roles are pretty cliched, but the performers make them interesting. 

I had a pretty typical Wednesday otherwise. Got some laundry folded and some work done, talked to only two of my high school friends because I was on another call and my computer failed to alert me in time so I missed the third, watched an episode and a half of Good Omens with Kristen and Laurie. We bumped into our neighbors headed out for a walk so we walked with them, and also saw three pairs of bunnies. Some images from Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth at the Worcester Art Museum:

Greetings from Assumption

Tuesday felt like a Monday, but that was fine because it started with a trio of wild turkeys walking through our cul-de-sac and we saw them two other times -- once while driving back from picking up photos at CVS and bagels at the Bagel Inn, and again while taking a walk in the late afternoon by the pond near the woods. In between I talked to Chris in WA, did some reading and did some computer stuff. 

My DS9 group watched the still-terrible-but-never-boring "Fascination" and chatted a bunch. Afterward, since I had discovered that the final season of The Way Home was on Hallmark and I hadn't realized there were already six episodes, we watched a few of those (love the music, like the scenery, appreciate all the women, ignore the sillier parts of the plot). Duck and goose babies we met at Assumption University: 

Greetings from Coes Reservoir

We had a really great Memorial Day for reasons I am not at liberty to discuss publicly, but it involved a most of my family and not a few friends. (ETA: No, I didn't win the lottery, sorry.) We also had gorgeous weather once the morning rain stopped, so we went to Coes Pond, a local reservoir that has a sand beach on one side and a boardwalk through wetlands on the other. We saw some ducks and geese, a snake, chipmunks, and a frog while walking around the lake, and we stopped for ice cream when we drove through Worcester on the way back. 

We also went to Assumption University, which has a pond with a fountain facing the street on which we frequently pass it. We only walked in the area by the water, but in that area we saw dozens of waterfowl, including a family of goslings and another of ducklings. We got home in time for the spectacular end of the Orioles' 13-inning walk-off victory over the Rays, ate sloppy joes and macaroni salad, took a walk in the neighborhood to see the baby bunnies, and finished watching the first season of Boston Blue, a decidedly guilty pleasure.