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 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 Elm Park

I had a quiet Thursday getting things done -- I actually sewed something for the first time in ages (don't get excited, it was just a little pouch). And I did some computer work and read some of Mieville's King Rat, his first novel; I've read the rest, I figure I may as well read the beginning. 

It was warmer today but not too hot by the time we took a walk. I had chat after dinner, and since then we've been watching the US play Turkiye in the World Cup in L.A. (Norway plays France in Boston tomorrow). We saw this family of squirrels chase each other all over Elm Park last weekend:

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.

Greetings from Elm Park

It was nearly 80 degrees in Worcester on Tuesday and beautiful outside until after dark, when the cats were subjected to their first thunderstorm in several years. So I took two long walks in the neighborhood, though I missed seeing the snapping turtle my neighbors saw walking between two of the ponds; I did see at least two bunnies. It was otherwise a fairly quiet chore day with lots of catch-up on computer stuff. 

While the Orioles were losing, my DS9 group watched "Second Skin", the superb episode in which Kira is kidnapped and surgically altered to look Cardassian. Now we're watching Daredevil, which I'm quite certain is about to fridge its most interesting female character and Matt's mostly making stupid decisions so I'm apathetic about the rest of the show. Here are some photos from two visits to Elm Park in the middle of Worcester:

Poem for Wednesday and Chilly Brookside

The Winter Jasmine Fairy 

By Cicely Mary Barker 

All through the Summer my leaves were green,

But never a flower of mine was seen;

Now Summer is gone, that was so gay,

And my little green leaves are shed away.

In the grey of the year

What cheer, what cheer?

The Winter is come, the cold winds blow;

I shall feel the frost and the drifting snow;

But the sun can shine in December too,

And this is the time of my gift to you.

See here, see here,

My flowers appear!

The swallows have flown beyond the sea,

But friendly Robin, he stays with me;

And little Tom-Tit, so busy and small,

Hops where the jasmine is thick on the wall;

And we say: “Good cheer!

We’re here! We’re here!”

-------- 

I was one of the several million Americans whose Verizon service wasn't working for several hours on Wednesday, though it could have been worse: Paul never lost service, I still managed to get on chat with my high school friends because our cable is Comcast, I needed to go to urgent care because for two days my ears have felt like they were underwater so I knew I needed the earwax flushed out, and I watched half an hour of The Rings of Power with Kristen and Laurie. 

So apart from being bummed that I couldn't text, the outage didn't cause me any crises. We took a walk to the beach in the afternoon -- there was a pair of eagles together a tree. Around dinner, we watched more episodes of The Pitt, which is excellent -- great acting, terrific pacing, not so gory that I can't look at it except with a couple of wounds. We also took a break for The Masked Singer, which is not excellent but is stupid fun. From December at Brookside Gardens, winter animals and flowers:

Poem for Wednesday and Cat-Squirrel Chase

Squirrels 

By Nate Klug 

Something blurred, warmed

in the eye’s corner, like woodsmoke

becoming tears;

but when you turned to look

the stoop was still, the pumpkin

and tacky mum pot wouldn’t talk —

just a rattle

at the gutter and a sense

of curtains, somewhere, pulled.

Five of them later, scarfing the oak’s

black bole,

laying a dream of snakes.

Needy and reticent

at once, these squirrels in charred November

recall, in Virgil,

what it is to feel:

moods, half-moods,

swarming, then darting loose; obscure

hunches that refuse

to speak, but still expect

in some flash of   luck

to be revealed. The less you try

to notice them,

the more they will know of you.

-------- 

Other than catching up on election results (still no decision in the King County executive or Seattle mayor's race), I had a fairly typical Wednesday morning -- chat with two of my high school friends, some computer work -- followed by lunch and an hour of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with Kristen and Laurie. Then I had my annual dermatologist appointment; she did not like the look of the tiny recurring pimple on my upper lip and removed it, but otherwise said I was good to go for a year as long as I use sunblock every day on the backs of my hands, which I usually forget about. 

In honor of Guy Fawkes Night, we had bangers and mash for dinner. Then we watched a bit of Toledo's blow-out of Northern Illinois before putting on the live-action How To Train Your Dragon, which I enjoyed greatly -- a lot of that had to do with recognizing places in Northern Ireland and Iceland where it was filmed, from the Causeway Coast to Reynisfjara Beach. Now we're watching some second-season Twin Peaks. Here's the saga of a barn cat and Douglas squirrel we met at Farrel-McWhirter Park, which ended with me carrying the cat back to the farm so it couldn't keep chasing the poor squirrel:

Greetings from Farrel-McWhirter Park

Sunday was a beautiful day. We had a quiet morning talking to Adam and Haley about possible travel plans and Paul's father about his week, then after lunch we went to Farrel-McWhirter Park. We went to the farm to see the animals, walked on the perimeter trail in the woods for a couple of miles, and met a cat in the woods stalking a Douglas squirrel; we ultimately carried the cat out toward the farm, where we met a volunteer who said she thought it was one of the barn cats who sometimes sneak away from their job hunting barnyard rodents.

 

We stopped at World Market and Safeway on the way home for provisions for the week and had enchiladas for dinner for the Day of the Dead. Then we watched the Seahawks clobber the Commanders, though I missed the beginning of the game because Kris Waldherr of the Goddess Tarot was reading cards for Kickstarter patrons and again it was a small group, less than ten of us. Afterward we finished watching King & Conqueror, which has a number of historical absurdities (Harold has both his brothers killed! Edward the Confessor murders his mother!) yet I enjoyed anyway.