Greetings from the Massachusetts Turnpike

Attempting to post from the car driving home from Logan Airport, where we landed just before midnight Eastern time. We had a nice morning -- went with Daniel to Seahurst Park and walked on the beach before going to the airport, from which he took an Uber to work downtown and where we ate Great State Burgers and got Seattle Chocolate before boarding our plane. I spent most of the flight reading Hild. Here is a Theo lookalike we met by Puget Sound in the morning!

Greetings from Seattle

Quick post after long travel day! We got up at 6 a.m. to drive from Worcester to the airport in Boston, where we had an uneventful flight (I was dozing and reading Hild around snacks and lunch), then a ridiculously long wait to pick up a rental car, which we drove to a hotel in downtown Seattle where Daniel met us on his way home from work. 

After helping me fight with the hotel wifi, he went with us to his new house, where we played with the dogs and hung out with Cahaya who's on call for work this weekend, then we went to dinner at Naam Thai and walked a bit in the nearby Madrona neighborhood. Now we're back at the hotel and I'm very sleepy even though it's not even 10 p.m. here! More tomorrow!

Greetings from My Laptop

I had kind of an exhausting day. My friend's surgery went well, but she's still in pain and there's just always a lot of stress and not sleeping well when someone you know is going through something like that. It was also hot and muggy -- the muggy takes it out of me more than the heat alone. Apart from putting together some storage boxes and finishing King Rat after having taken a break to read some other things, I didn't do a huge amount. 

While on calls and our computers, we did watch the Orioles win over the Cubs and most of the France-Morocco game. I talked to several technicians who agreed it's not worth the money to fix the 8 key on my computer, then did some research on replacements and decided I can live with not typing that key. We had Pokemon Spaghetti-Os for dinner, then I had Thursday night chat on Zoom. Here are some more mammals from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence:

Greetings from Broad Meadow Brook

It was chilly Friday morning, so much so that Katniss curled up in the Hobbit bed for a while. I did some cleaning up of my social media accounts, read some more King Rat, ate half a bagel, and watched the France-Norway World Cup game being played in Boston. 

In the late afternoon we went out to a hardware store to get gardening shears, then to nearby Siam 9 for curry, drunken noodles, and Thai basil tofu. We stopped at Shaw's on the way home, then took a walk to look for evening bunnies (saw at least six) and the snapping turtle. 

We caught most of the Orioles win over the Nationals, then we watched Sugar, which I wish had more old-movie cuts but is really well done, and Star City, one of the darkest hours of television I've ever seen. Flora and fauna at Mass Audubon's Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary:

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 A Bug's World

Monday was mostly rainy, so I tried to do outdoor chores early -- sweeping the deck, setting up the new hose which I didn't get to use because I couldn't find the master switch for the outdoor spigot -- it was already drizzling when I wiped down the railings out front. Then I did laundry, unpacked a box of astronomy books and Grateful Dead souvenirs I found in the garage while looking for the water valve, and finished reading Mieville's Un Lun Dun. 

It was pouring when Paul got home, so we never took a walk, though I did a lot of running up and down stairs doing chores. Instead we had Cincinnati chili for dinner, watched the finale of The Way Home -- pretty satisfying all around -- and now we're watching the second season of The Agency, which is less stressful now that my two favorite characters aren't sharing the screen much. From the Bug's World exhibit at the Roger Williams Park Zoo:

Greetings from Green Hill Memorial

My Tuesday morning was chores -- folding laundry, cleaning a bathroom -- plus we went out to pick up a screen door someone nearby was freecycling (we have to figure out how to install it, but the cats will be so happy to have glass or screen to look out once we do). I also finished reading Railsea, which I enjoyed enormously; it's a steampunk tall ship tale except set on trains, the characters are enjoyable, the language is a less abstruse than usual for Mieville. 

My DS9 group watched both parts of time travel episode "Past Tense" -- one of the best episodes of TV I've ever seen, and more relevant now than when it was made because of the things it uncannily predicted. The Orioles beat the Red Sox as it was finishing, so we watched the first episode of Star City, the interesting but violent For All Mankind spinoff, followed by an episode of Discovery. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Green Hill Park last weekend: 

Greetings from Worcester Polytechnic

Wednesday was thankfully a little cooler than Tuesday, but not much. I did exciting things like dyeing my hair and cleaning the bathroom in the morning, then I chatted with Kay, who was the only one of my high school friends around after lunch. I read some of Railsea before getting on chat with Kristen and Laurie, the former of whom was at a Tolkien conference in Michigan last week and filled us in on the Stupid Sexy Sauron panel! 

Paul and I took a walk in the early evening when the temperature started to drop, ate a quick dinner, saw the start of the Red Sox win, and watched the series finale of The Boys, which was actually less violent than I was expecting and did not kill off every single character or blow up the world. Now we're watching the not-quite-believable solve-dad's-murder episode of Boston Blue. Some views of WPI's pretty campus last weekend: