Greetings from the Spiderverse

Paul finished work at 2 on Friday so we could go see Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the Showcase Cinemas in Blackstone Valley. It was great; I really don't want to say too much because I walked in unspoiled for anything not in the trailer, not even via internet gossip, and I was really glad I didn't know where certain things were going apart from a couple of predictable things based on Things That Happen In Spider-Man Movies. I will say that the first hour in particular really reminded me of the Tobey Maguire movies in the best way. 

We decided to have dinner at Panera since it's in the same shopping center and we stopped in Barnes & Noble walking back to the car. Then we came home, watched most of the Orioles win over the Phillies, and and I watched The Devil Wears Prada 2 together on Disney+ (we'd seen it together in the theater but there's lots of fun stuff in it, particularly the music). Some more of the boats we saw at Mystic Seaport -- I can't wait to go back and see the rest during the Mystic Arts Festival in a couple of weeks!

Greetings from Wachusett Meadow

Quickie, had chat with 4/5 of my usual Thursday group and now we're watching this week's Silo, which apparently Apple always drops a night early. It rained all morning, though it slowed to drizzle right before lunch and I took a quick walk to stretch my legs during which I saw a little green heron -- first time I've spotted one in a neighborhood pond -- and one of the snapping turtles. 

Later, when Paul and I walked, we saw seven bunnies. We had sloppy joe's for dinner, talked to Paul's father, and watched the new episode of Strange New Worlds, which is dark and creepy and such a huge change from last week but at least this season isn't veering between serious and silly. Here are some of the many frogs we saw at Wachusett Meadow last weekend:

Greetings from the Sea Glass Festival

It rained from before dawn till late at night on Wednesday, and I only left the house long enough to roll the garbage can back into the garage after the truck came to pick it up. Fortunately I had my Wednesday chat groups to keep me entertained: my high school friends after lunch, one of whom had her sister and niece visiting and another who had her daughter come on the call to tell us that her mom's internet had gone down, and then Laurie, Kristen, and I watched Born of Hope, the excellent fan film about Aragorn's parents, together. 

I missed most of the Orioles game, but after yesterday's atrocious 14-0 blowout loss to the Tigers, they beat Detroit 10-9 in extra innings after trailing 7-0. We ate veggie cacciatore for dinner and now we're watching Lucky, in which there are plot holes and idiotic decisions by what's supposed to be a smart FBI agent (why do they tell people they can protect them when it's one agent instead of calling for backup? why do they never leave one guy outside the house in case the suspects sneak out via the garage?) but Anya and Annette are great fun to watch. Sea glass from Mystic:

Greetings from Brickwrecks

My Tuesday morning involved emptying a still-packed box of games in the garage, which turned out to have lots of Wizkids' Pirates constructable card game pieces, including many assembled little ships that I forgot we had and was excited to see though some of them are missing their flags. I also did some reading (City of Stardust, which reminds me in some ways of The Night Circus) and looked up a bunch of articles trying to ascertain whether the squirrel from last night's Orioles game was okay (the Tigers staff gave a half-assed "our understanding is that the squirrel was in fine health" but no details about where it was released or anything meaningful). 

We took a walk and ate tacos, after which my DS9 group watched the great Garak episode "Improbable Cause" ("never tell the same lie twice"). Now we're watching the end of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast; I like seeing things we saw when we were in Belfast (the Titanic shipyard, Derry Girls mural), but the plot makes no sense (why didn't [redacted]'s cop husband help cover up the accident instead of going along with the insane fake-body plot). Here's Mystic Seaport's Brickwrecks exhibit, including top-heavy Vasa, Franklin's Arctic expedition, the Titanic, and actual Legos washed up on Cornwall beaches from the Tokio Express container shipwreck:

Greetings from the Charles W. Morgan

Most of my Monday was quiet, starting with laundry and hunting for a pair of earrings I knew I had somewhere that I thought would match a necklace I bought yesterday at the sea glass festival (they were in with lampwork). After lunch I talked to Alice on the phone for a long time, and I started reading City of Stardust because I'm out of the mood for anything remotely realistic. When Paul got home, we took a walk and found what turned out to be a hermit flower beetle -- they are huge! 

We had burgers for dinner and watched most of the Orioles-Tigers game; the internet is laughing about the black squirrel on the field but I'm worried about the poor little guy, who was tossed around by players before being snatched in a towel by the grounds crew. Now we're watching more How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, in which I like the characters but it's quite dark. More photos from Mystic Seaport of the 1841 Massachusetts-built Charles W. Morgan, the world's last surviving wooden whaling ship:

Greetings from Mystic

Sunday was another gorgeous day and we spent most of it at Mystic Seaport at the Sea Glass Festival, where we met Kristen, admired the sea glass, bought some small jewelry, and ate lunch under one of the festival tents. We also walked around the seaport and its museums -- boarded the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan, talked to the shopkeeper in the nautical instruments shop about celestial navigation and the first grandfather clock, looked at the carvings and figureheads on exhibit, saw jellyfish in the river, admired the ships! 

 

We drove home from Connecticut in the late afternoon, had baked potatoes for dinner because they had those at Mystic Seaport so we got in the mood for them, and watched the rest of Pompeii: Out of Time, which has a lot of the flaws of all the National Geographic historical recreation shows but is interesting despite the clunkiness. Now we're watching the first episode of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, which is alternately very funny and extremely creepy, like an Irish comic I Know What You Did Last Summer with great acting.

Greetings from Wachusett Meadow

We had gorgeous weather on Saturday, so after lunch we met Adam and Haley at Mass Audubon's Wachusett Meadow park. We got there first, so we walked around the farm with sheep before Adam and Haley's car arrived, then we hiked in the woods for a couple of miles past mushrooms, wildflowers, and eventually apple trees, ending up by a pond with dozens of frogs. The nature center has several bird feeders with a variety of finches, red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, and hummingbirds, with chipmunks underneath cleaning up dropped seeds.

 

We stopped at Shaw's on the way home for food for the week, fed the cats, ate dinner, and watched Masters of the Universe, which I enjoyed enormously although I think they should have marketed it as a retro superhero comedy rather than an action movie. A lot of the jokes would be missed by anyone under 40 -- references to previous iterations, Highlander jokes, Queen music, Idris Elba shots stolen right out of Thor, lots of laughs! Then we watched this week's Sugar, and now we're watching the first episode of Pompeii.