Greetings from the Garden

I had a pretty quiet Friday working on cleaning up the black and white Tarot cards I found yesterday, plus enjoying the beautiful weather, though we saw a dead bunny on our walk in a spot where we've often seen him munching the grass, so I'm sad about that. The trees are starting to change and I'm not ready for that; I feel like we barely had summer. 

I watched Strange New Worlds again with Cheryl, then we watched Supergirl, which was okay. I didn't dislike it as much as some of the internet did, but it made me miss the early seasons of the TV show, which had a sense of humor along with the pathos. We saw some animals at Washington Park Arboretum but the dogs were sad not to get to chase them:

Greetings from Echobrook Nursery

It was raining when we woke up and pouring by mid-morning, so we had a fairly quiet local Sunday, though it was fun. We visited Echobrook Nursery, a local garden and landscape store in and around a pretty house, and looked at lots of flowers and planters before we picked out a pair of stone rabbit garden fixtures so we can always see bunnies outside the house. We also stopped at Whole Foods and Shaw's for food for the week, and it had stopped raining by the time we were finished.

 

So we took a walk and saw eight neighborhood bunnies when we got home as well as our new stone ones, plus we saw the end of the Red Sox game, in which they managed to hold on to a lead to win (the Orioles did not have as good a day). After dinner Cheryl and I watched The Vampire Lestat's "One Night Only: Live" concert, which was awesome though too short, and afterward we watched the new episode of Lanterns, which I'm liking though it's very blokey so far.

Greetings from Salisbury Pond

Quick post, my regular Thursday night chat ran late despite the fact that only three of us made it there because we were following the Red Sox, now in the 12th inning against the White Sox. My day was fairly uneventful anyway -- it was very hot so we didn't walk till after dinner, I just did some organizing and reading and a few chores. Here are some of the bunnies of Institute Park plus a photobombing swan: 

Poem for Saturday and Stone Zoo

For the White poets who would be Indian 

By Wendy Rose 

just once

just long enough

to snap up the words

fish-hooked from

our tongues.

You think of us now

when you kneel

on the earth,

turn holy

in a temporary tourism

of our souls.

With words

you paint your faces,

chew your doeskin,

touch breast to tree

as if sharing a mother

were all it takes,

could bring instant and primal

knowledge.

You think of us only

when your voices

want for roots,

when you have sat back

on your heels and

become

primitive.

You finish your poem

and go back.

-------- 

My friend Roger posted this poem by his friend, the poet, who sadly passed away a week ago. I had not read it before and was really struck by it. It's from her book Lost Copper. 

We went on Saturday to the Stone Zoo in Stoneham, which is part of Zoo New England along with the Franklin Park Zoo. My friend Meredith met us there, and we saw lots of animals in big wooded yards -- a lynx and snow leopard, macaws and flamingos, gibbons and tamarins, reindeer and fennec fox, tortoises and porcupines -- we did not see the family of wolves hiding in their enormous enclosure nor the ringtail hiding in its many hidey holes, but we did see bunnies that had snuck into several pens, and many, many birds. In the late afternoon we tried to get ice cream, but the parlor was closed, so we got drinks at Dunkin instead. 

 

We came home to feed our starving cats, eventually ate a small dinner, and, having missed most of the sports we cared about during the afternoon, watched Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice. I don't even know what genre to put it in -- crime caper? action comedy? buddy time travel? gangster sci-fi? -- but it's really funny when it's not extremely violent and worth watching just for the debates about Disney movies and Gilmore Girls, plus Vince Vaughn has better chemistry with himself than anyone in Bad Monkey with him. Now we're watching the first episode of Discovery's second season, and I'm glad to see Pike but the Sarek retcon irritates me as much as the Klingon retcon.

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 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 Late Night

Quick post while watching Colbert's last-ever show (much respect to the Jimmys for going dark tonight so Stephen has all the attention). It was much cooler on Thursday, I had the windows open all day, and while doing some photo and computer work, I took YouTube's advice and listened to my entire Thor-Loki playlist before the Nationals-Mets game started. We took a walk before dinner -- we ordered vegan Chinese from King Chef, one of my favorites -- and saw eight bunnies, our one-day record in this neighborhood so far! And I had my Thursday chat group in the evening, so that was more fannish fun.

 

Before that, we watched Honey Don't!, which Netflix describes as a Comedy-Mystery. There's nothing in it that I'd describe as comedy; The Nice Guys, which starts with a murder and features a lot of broken bones and dead bodies, is a SoCal neo-noir black comedy laugh fest by comparison -- Chris Evans being very over the top and nearly naked is the only really fun part, though Aubrey Plaza and Margaret Qualley's performances are good. It's like they decided that because they stuck to a lot of noir tropes it meant they could borrow a lot of porny lesbian tropes without actual characterization.

Greetings from Elm Park

Saturday morning was all about unpacking and laundry, plus placating cats who told us that they desperately needed food every twenty minutes to compensate for their lack of treats while we were away. Then we ate lunch and went to Elm Park, where in addition to catching lots of Lechonk pig Pokemon for Community Day, I saw ducklings, geese, herons, red-winged blackbirds, squirrels, sparrows, and a family of baby bunnies chasing each other. 

It was raining by 3:30, so we drove to the Auburn Mall, which is small -- only one floor and only one anchor, Macy's -- but has many Pokestops. We stopped at Shaw's on the way home, had Boba Fettuccini for dinner, and spent the evening catching up on TV -- The Boys (saw that coming so Sage should have too), For All Mankind (so so excellent), Margo's Got Money Troubles (Fanning is great), and Your Friends and Neighbors (Hamm should win an Emmy), now SNL.