Greetings from the Shire

Quick post after all day in Connecticut mostly at the Renfaire's Shirefolk Day with Kristen and Laurie plus the latter's husband and son -- there was food, jousting, royalty, smoking ice cream, lots of Hobbits, one of the Nazgul, and lots of fun. Afterward we went back to Laurie and Hal's house for pizza and pie. Now we're watching Dark Matter after a scare in which we thought one of the cats ate part of a chocolate chip cookie, but it looks like she just broke it into pieces and didn't eat much chocolate. More pics when I sort them! 

Greetings from Fenway Park

I did a bunch of computer stuff on Thursday morning -- had to clear a lot of photos off my phone, catch up on some news, do a bit of research -- and I did some reading around lunch. Then in the afternoon I had my annual mammogram, which hopefully went okay; though I had double checked twice to make sure my records had been sent from the place in Redmond, they didn't have them, and they need them to interpret the new one, so hopefully they'll get there sooner rather than later but they won't tell me anything until they do. 

We took a long walk when we got home (it was a four bunny, two frog day), then met with a woman we're hoping will cat-sit when we travel in the future (Katniss and Effie appeared to approve). We watched this week's Strange New Worlds, which started goofy and fun but ended up a lovely critique of how "The Inner Light" ends. We talked to both our fathers and after dinner we watched the Red Sox-Orioles game, in which I'm not sorry Adley hit two home runs, around Thursday chat. But speaking of the Red Sox, from the weekend:

Greetings from the Boston Raiders

My Wednesday was all the chores I neglected for the past several days around Zoom chats -- my high school friends after laundry and lunch, then Cel and Laurie later in the afternoon when we watched the first half of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. My cats were very vocal after being left at home for several days with no one to supervise, so they were probably overfed. 

We saw some of the Red Sox and Orioles' bad days, then took a walk and ate leftover Indian food. Afterward we watched The Mandalorian and Grogu with Cheryl long-distance. Here are some more photos from Heated Rivalry night at Fenway Park -- custom drinks, friendship bracelets, Rachel Reid greeting fans inside and out, decorations, t-shirts -- thousands of happy fans!

Greetings from Miss Worcester

We had rain all day Tuesday, but this was the least inconvenient of the days when Cheryl was here for rain. We went to the Miss Worcester diner for brunch because of the stuffed French toast, then we went to the farm at Green Hill Park, where we met a cat we hadn't seen before and saw most of the barnyard animals though the goats and peacocks were trying to hide from the weather. It really started coming down while we were there, so we swung by the Bancroft Tower, then came home. 

We watched the filmed production of Hadestown, which is excellent -- I knew the show's music but have never seen it staged, and the cast is terrific, as is the music. Afterward, we drove Cheryl to the airport, where apparently she had a weather delay but is now on her way home. My Trek group watched DS9's "Facets" -- Sisko! Curzon! Rom! -- and we've spent the rest of the evening watching both the disappointing Red Sox and Orioles games, though they both had great nights last night.

Greetings from Fitchburg and Worcester

Sunday was another gorgeous day. Adam's brother-in-law Sagar, who is training for a marathon, wanted to run a 5K with his friends for his birthday, so we went over there to offer cheering and dog-walking, though Pepper only made it 1K before she had had enough so we went back to hang out with Hildy and Tom plus others who did not want to run a 5K. There were snacks and eventually pizza and cake, so it was a lovely morning. 

It was also Pokemon Community Day, so Paul and I went to the Fitchburg State campus and then Elm Park, where I caught a bunch of shiny Nickits and saw many geese and ducks. We got home in time for the end of the rain-delayed Red Sox game, then we ate dinner and watched the new Lanterns, which I liked but I'm hardly enough of a Green Lantern fan for my opinion to count. Now it's more of the Worcester-hating Kevin Can F Himself.

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 Millbury

Paul only had to work half a day before the long weekend, so after a quiet morning, we ate bagels and drove to Millbury, which has a big outdoor shopping center with a big movie theater. We went into a bunch of stores (Barnes and Noble, Michael's, The Paper Store, Yankee Candle -- there's also a Sephora and an Ulta at opposite sides, and they were putting the finishing touches on a Yard House about to open), though we didn't end up buying anything. But of course we were there to see The Mandalorian and Grogu. 

Which was...a good new season of The Mandalorian; I liked it better than the second, though the movie didn't have some of the fun cameos and had fewer live-action versions of animated characters than we got on TV. I liked it a lot better than most of the prequel trilogy and some parts of the sequel trilogy. But it's no Rogue One. I'd probably rank it a little below The Force Awakens and above The Rise of Skywalker, though I must confess that part of that ranking is entirely for Sigourney Weaver. 

I will also confess that I liked the warg battles no more in The Lord of the Rings, the arena fight better in Thor: Ragnarok, the dinosauresque conflicts about the same in Jurassic World, and it's a tossup with the camping trip in Harry Potter. Which is to say I found certain elements nostalgic but for other franchises, so I give the writers few points for originality. The visuals are great, Grogu is adorable -- a good mix between credulous child and Force-powerful being -- and Pedro Pascal is fine though the helmet really gets distracting.

 

Now we're watching For All Mankind (so tense, I like the Star Trek part of this show much better than the Star Wars here) after Your Friends and Neighbors (also tense and sad) and the season finale of Ghosts (kinda hard to take seriously in comparison with the others, but reasonably entertaining). And the Orioles won despite rain in Baltimore! So a good start to the long weekend!

Greetings from the Green Monster

My Monday was all about chores and some visitors to the house -- someone from the radon mitigation company to replace our fan, which was making much too much noise for a new installation, and our neighbors on the cul-de-sac who also have a cat, so we could share pizza and introduce them to our cats. In between there was laundry, kitchen cleaning, a walk in gorgeous 70-degree weather in a neighborhood that now has crabapple blossoms, and uploading all the photos I took over the weekend. 

The highlight of our evening TV was the Star Wars: Maul – Shadow Lord season finale with the Maul-Vader fight we've always been waiting for. I'm not sure Vader was more brutal than the Yankees were to the Orioles in the game we watched around our May the Fourth Be With You viewing. Speaking of baseball, here are some more views of Fenway Park, including the original 1912 door and the numbers on the electronic scoreboard designed to match the hand-operated scoreboard in the Green Monster: