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 Red Apple Farm

Parts of my Monday absolutely sucked, and parts were fine -- the weather, for instance, high 50s and beautiful, though only a couple of bunnies were out while I was, including one right in front of the house. I spent some time in the garage emptying four boxes of CD binders and unexpected collectibles because one of the people we gave some boxes to wanted to pick up some more, in exchange for plastic shelving he's giving us once he packs up the things on them to move, and now I know where my ceramic turtles and Uncle Larry's collectible teddy bears ended up.  My DS9 group watched "Defiant" so got Frakes.

I have unfriended two very longtime friends in two days over rabidly antisemitic posts -- one I didn't even bother to respond to, the other I tried to point out how hateful it was and was met with more hate speech, so I won't miss her, but I miss the person she used to be when she was capable of independent thought. So for entertainment, after the detestable super-violent Punisher special and this week's stressful, depressing Margo's Got Money Troubles, we watched the first episode of Boston Blue, which is set locally and Jewish-friendly. Here are some animals from the Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire:

Greetings from Phillipston

I spent the better part of Saturday at the Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire at Red Apple Farm, my first faire in New England and probably the chilliest one! I didn't even try to dress authentically, since my Hobbit cloak and felt hat are the warmest ones I have, but I got lots of compliments on the hat and it was the kind of faire that had fantasy pirates, Dnd tieflings, and at least one Power Ranger. 

My friend Meri met us at the gate after we took the bus from the parking lot and we went to see the farm animals before we walked through the fairy realm, visited the vendors, saw some armored combat, listened to several different Celtic groups and sea shanty pirate singers, and ate in the brew barn to get out of the drizzle. There was a Viking encampment and lots of pirates and teams of acrobats.

 

The only thing I bought at the faire was a crocheted snake. We had to drop some things off at Adam's house on the way home and ended up ordering Mediterranean food to eat with Adam, Haley, Sagar, and another friend of theirs (plus Pepper who demanded bites of cheese and the doggie donut we got her at the Red Apple Farm store along with apple cider donuts for the humans).

Poem for Sunday and Green Hill Park

Pesach 

By Jehanne Dubrow

        post-op 

We are hungry tonight and pass 

quickly through the story 

of suffering, to the plates of food

before us: the bread flattened 

as though with fear, 

the apple ground to the rough 

consistency of mortar, 

forced labor of many hands.

Forty evenings out, my mother 

rises so easily from the table. 

We all admire how her body 

has been returned to her.

She cuts into the meat 

without wincing, the calm twisting 

of her spine. Yes, we think, 

we have come through our own 

small division of the sea. 

Escape from pain is a narrow 

passage carved into water—

no turning back, and anguish 

like a stretch of desert up ahead. 

My mother keeps holding 

a platter of roasted vegetables 

as though it is an offering 

to a god who will not have his fill. 

We hurry past the narrative. 

Some angels don’t mean light, 

but rather terror hovering, 

all that lies between us and disaster,

a swept palm like a scalpel,

a reddened scar above the door. 

-------- 

It rained nearly all day on Easter Sunday, but when it was lighter after lunch, we went to Green Hill Park to see the animals at the farm and walk around the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We had the place practically to ourselves, besides the goats, pigs, alpacas, peacocks, chickens, donkeys, miniature horses, and Icelandic sheep, plus the Canada geese who live near the pond. On the way home we stopped at Shaw's for some lunch food for the week. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Older son called us on Google Meet to chat, and we had Impossible Burgers for dinner. Now we're watching the start of the most important Easter movie, Jesus Christ Superstar, after finishing the second-most important Easter movie, Monty Python's Life of Brian. The latter feels more relevant every year -- I absolutely howl through the Middle East politics -- and the former, my first exposure to the Passion, remains my very favorite version of it.

Greetings from the Thaw

I'm not used to my new Wednesday schedule! I sorted my bookcase ornaments in the morning, then chatted with my high school friends after lunch instead of before. Then I organized the empty boxes in the garage because someone was coming to freecycle a bunch of them, sorted out the large mirror and photo boxes, hung up a few photos in the living room and hallway, and watched the start of the second season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with Kristen and Laurie. 

It wasn't as warm as it had been on Tuesday, but we walked through the neighborhood amidst melting snow. Now we can see that we have a bunny who lives or at least hangs out under our front steps! We ate leftover Indian food from the Bollywood Grill for dinner, saw The Masked Singer (finally the part of the season where it's all people who can sing), and now we're watching the back half of Bookish, which has been excellent. Winter animals from Old Sturbridge Village:

Poem for Thursday and Farrel-McWhirter Barnyard

People 

By Yevgeny Yevtushenko 

Translated by Boris Dralyuk and Jennifer Croft 

There are no boring people in this world.

Each fate is like the history of a planet.

And no two planets are alike at all.

Each is distinct — you simply can’t compare it.

If someone lived without attracting notice

and made a friend of their obscurity —

then their uniqueness was precisely this.

Their very plainness made them interesting.

Each person has a world that’s all their own.

Each of those worlds must have its finest moment

and each must have its hour of bitter torment —

and yet, to us, both hours remain unknown.

When people die, they do not die alone.

They die along with their first kiss, first combat.

They take away their first day in the snow…

All gone, all gone — there’s just no way to stop it.

There may be much that’s fated to remain,

but something — something leaves us all the same.

The rules are cruel, the game nightmarish —

it isn’t people but whole worlds that perish.

People die. Their deaths can’t be reversed.

Their secret worlds won’t be traversed

again. And all that’s ever left for me to do

is cry, How can we lose you, too?

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We had rain all day Thursday, very hard at times, though it let up enough in the afternoon that while we'd been thinking about going to walk around in the mall, we managed to walk to the beach instead and had it all to ourselves with the geese, ducks, and eagles. I was working on a project most of the morning and did some reading in the afternoon, then we ate dinner early so I could get on my Thursday night chat. We watched this week's Ghosts (cringe with Trevor's daughter), and we've been watching Twin Peaks afterward -- Richard Beymer in Oz! The pine weasel fashion show riot! Social media has been a shitshow of unprecedented proportions and the Seattle/King County votes haven't even all been tallied, so maybe tomorrow I'll read books entirely and avoid Facebook. Some of the Farrel-McWhirter farm animals on Sunday: 

Poem for Wednesday and Kelsey Creek Animals

From "Yom Kippur 1984" 

By Adrienne Rich 

What is a Jew in solitude?

What is a woman in solitude, a queer woman or man?

When the winter flood-tides wrench the tower from the rock, crumble the prophet’s headland, and the farms slide into the sea

when leviathan is endangered and Jonah becomes revenger

when center and edges are crushed together, the extremities crushed together on which the world was founded

when our souls crash together, Arab and Jew, howling our loneliness within the tribes

when the refugee child and the exile’s child re-open the blasted and forbidden city

when we who refuse to be women and men as women and men are chartered, tell our stories of solitude spent in multitude

in that world as it may be, newborn and haunted, what will solitude mean?

-------- 

I had a busy Wednesday, starting with chat with two of my high school friends, then lunch and watching the first half of Thunderbolts with Kristen. I had to leave early because I had my semiannual ophthalmologist appointment in the afternoon, which went fine, but having my eyes dilated always leaves me a little bit headachy, especially on a day with turbulent weather -- and we went from pouring rain in the early afternoon to a rainbow as we were leaving to brilliant sunshine just when my eyes wanted clouds as well as sunglasses. 

We took a short walk to see if we could spot a post-storm eagle when we got home, then we ate dinner over the end of the day's baseball -- sigh, the Yankees won at the very end. After the Dodgers game, we watched this week's Gen V, which was less violent than last week's but surprisingly predictable for a franchise that has generally been too out there to second guess. Now we're finishing The Artful Dodger, which includes Oliver Twist as an insufferable adult prat but sidelined too many of the awesome women to center the men. Farm animals at Kelsey Creek: