Greetings from Green Hill Park

I did almost no unpacking on Saturday! I did a bit of arranging stuff in the morning, then we ate lunch and went to Green Hill Park, which has a farm, the Massachusetts Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and several ponds, sports fields, playground areas, and wooded hiking trails. Unfortunately the animals were being brought inside when we arrived in low wind chill, so we just got a glimpse of the sheep and donkeys, but it was Pokemon Community Day, so I was happy to walk around the memorial pond catching Scorbunnys and appreciating the views.

 

We also stopped at Trader Joe's, Shaw's, Starbucks, and -- since we were right nearby, how could we help it -- Gerardo's Bakery for cannoli. We did not eat those until after dinner -- shepherd's pie for Pi Day -- after which we watched Hamnet, which I wanted to see before the Academy Awards just in case it wins. It's excellent, superbly acted and beautifully filmed, though I think Sinners is the more groundbreaking film and therefore I'm rooting for it in most categories; I do love movies that explore Shakespeare's relevance.

Poem for Tuesday and Cougar Mountain Lion Cubs

Sonnet 19 

By William Shakespeare 

Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws

And burn the long-liv'd phoenix in her blood,

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,

And do what e'er thou wilt, swift-footed time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets:

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,

O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

Yet do thy worst, old time, despite thy wrong,

My love shall in my verse ever live young. 

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I had a fairly quiet Tuesday morning doing paperwork and talking to a couple of friends, then lunch, making PDFs of some of the things I scanned yesterday, and a walk to the beach just as the rain was ending, so dozens of ducks and a huge murder of ravens were emerging. We came back for my DS9 group, which watched "Blood Oath" -- the episode in which Kang, Koloth, and Kor gather with Dax to fulfill a blood oath, and while some of them take issue with the fact that Dax is no longer Curzon, none of them care that Dax is now a woman who wants to be called Jadzia. There's also a wonderful scene in which Kira talks to Jadzia about what happens when you kill people and a bunch nicely unresolved between Dax and Sisko. 

We ordered Ballard Pizza for dinner and ate it while starting to watch the last several episodes of the new Robin Hood, which remains anachronistic, hard to pin down politically (is it good English values against the invader French, or nascent Christianity softening the Saxons into better people?), and extremely entertaining. Sean Bean, Connie Nielsen, and Steven Waddington own every scene they're in, the younger women are interesting and complicated, and there's so many Plantagenet dynasty shenanigans that it feels like a Lion in Winter prequel with a much stronger Prince John. Lots of things aren't resolved so I really hope there's another season! Speaking of lions, here are the cubs at Cougar Mountain Zoo: 

Poem for Monday and Gingerbread Village

From 'The death of Robert, earle of Hun­ting­ton,

otherwise called Robin Hood of merrie Sherwodde' 

By Anthony Mundy and Henry Chettle 

I promis’d him a play of Robin Hoode,

His honorable life, in merry Sherewod;

His majestie himselfe survaid the plot,

And bad me boldly write it, it was good.

For merry jeasts, they have bene showne before

As how the frier fell into the well,

For love of Jinny, that faire bonny bell:

How Greeneleafe rob’d the shrieve of Notingham,

And other mirthful matter, full of game.

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Monday was a chore day early -- recycling, dishes, laundry, phone calls to the bank -- but it wasn't raining, so we got a nice walk in the park and a beautiful early winter twilight. In between, I did my semiannual scanning of receipts, pamphlets, holiday cards, printouts from doctors/vets, and other things to be saved digitally so we can get rid of paper clutter, which is kind of a fun way to relive parts of the year. We wanted to watch the 1996 Twelfth Night with Helena Bonham Carter, but couldn't find it streaming free anywhere. 

Instead we got a week's free trial of MGM+ so we can watch the new Robin Hood series with Sean Bean as the Sheriff, Tom Mison as Robin's father, and Connie Nielsen as a very enjoyable Eleanor of Aquitaine. The history and costumes are nonsense but the characterizations are engaging and it passes the Bechdel Test in the first 15 minutes. I'm not sure how I feel about Robin being so violent; the Norman Christian invaders are the main villains and it's funny to see the "true English" as the pagans struggling against imperialism. 

Rumor has it that the show may return for a second season, which makes me hopeful that Sean Bean won't die too quickly (there are ten episodes and we're not even halfway through). I like that the women aren't judged for their sexuality except by fathers/priests and the lovers have decent chemistry. More on that tomorrow; meanwhile, here are some photos from the Gingerbread Village at the Sheraton Grand Seattle, constructed by local architects as a fundraiser for juvenile diabetes -- this year's theme is Toy Shop Time Machine.

Greetings from the Fish Ladder

Quick post! We had rain again all day Friday. I spent the morning reading Adam Louis-Klein's articles on the history of antizionism and watching towhees and Steller's jays, both of which are too big to land on our little seed bell, try to eat the seed. Then younger son and his wife called and we talked to them, plus her mom and sisters, before we ate acai bowls for lunch and went to walk in the rain to the park. 

Our evening TV was the PBS broadcast of Shakespeare in the Park's 2025 Twelfth Night with Lupita and Junior Nyong'o, Peter Dinklage, Sandra Oh, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson among others. I've never seen actual lookalike siblings play Viola and Sebastian before and it's quite effective! Now we're watching the new Maigret, whose first episode is very good. The Issaquah salmon hatchery last weekend: 

Poem for Wednesday and Autumn Birds

Autumn Birds 

By John Clare 

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,

And heron slow as if it might be caught.

The flopping crows on weary wings go by

And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.

The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,

And darken like a clod the evening sky.

The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,

Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.

The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud

With white neck peering to the evening cloud.

The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.

With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on

To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow

While small birds nestle in the edge below.

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Apart from being overcast all day, so yet again we couldn't see the northern lights, I had a nice Wednesday. All my high school friends made it to chat, and younger son's wife and one of her sisters (and many pets) visited as well, so that was a lovely morning, and after lunch, Kristen, Laurie, and I watched some more of the extended Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Paul and I walked to the beach so late in the afternoon that we got to see a beaver swimming around the beach. 

We had veggie burgers for dinner, watched the second episode of Pluribus -- engrossing but what I was expecting -- then saw Secrets of the Dead: Picturing Shakespeare on PBS, in which the science of examining the Wadlow painting is more interesting than the problem of proving the unprovable. Now we're watching Freakier Friday mostly for Jamie Lee Curtis, though first we watched the LEGO Frozen: Operation Puffins, which is a short delight. Waterfowl and other birds enjoying autumn:

Greetings from Regal Bella Bottega

Most of my day was about Taylor Swift, which is a very good way to spend a day these days. I didn't stay up late to listen to The Life of a Showgirl when it started streaming -- I ordered the CD, but it hasn't arrived yet -- so I spent the morning doing little things on the computer while listening to it. Then we had lunch, I did a little reading, and in the early afternoon, we went into Redmond, where we stopped at World Market (where it's already Christmas, the Halloween stuff is on sale) before heading to the movie theater. 

The Official Release Party of a Showgirl is half a making-of video for the wonderful first music video from the album, "The Fate of Ophelia" (Taylor and I both love Shakespeare, Pre-Raphaelites, and old Hollywood, and all those things plus pirates are in this video, plus a loaf of bread Taylor baked that she's very proud of), and half the lyric videos for the rest of the songs introduced by Taylor; "Elizabeth Taylor" is my second favorite (I like them all on first listen except "Wood" because Travis's ego is already big enough). 

Only a few people had brought friendship bracelets to trade, so I only got three new ones, but Swifties are always lovely though we were the oldest people there even counting parents with their teens; the women next to us asked me if I had favorite song off the new album as soon as I sat down. Afterward, we went out for Yummy Pho and now I'm watching the Eras Tour movie. A closeup so you can see my Eras Tour guitar pick earrings, the hat I didn't end up wearing and purse I did, and the friendship bracelets I ended up with:

Greetings from Family Game Night

Another quick post tonight because Daniel just left after pizza, blueberry pie, and Wingspan. He had a stressful day, since Cahaya is in Chicago on business and he had to work while Thandi was being sedated for x-rays because she has a leg injury (it sounds like the x-rays were okay, but she's still uncomfortable because she doesn't understand "you have to take it easy for a few weeks" and keeps straining the original injury). 

So we had a nice evening hanging out with Daniel after watching Cal Raleigh win the Home Run Derby, with his dad pitching and his brother catching. It was otherwise a quiet Monday with laundry, computer work, and various chores. I finished reading By Any Other Name, whose Bassano-wrote-Shakespeare-era story, while not convincing, is much more enjoyable than its modern-era story. Some of the crafts at Redmond's Derby Days:

 

Poem for Tuesday and Victoria Insect Zoo

Insect 

By Annie Finch 

That hour-glass-backed,

orchard-legged,

heavy-headed will,

paper-folded,

wedge-contorted,

savage—dense to kill—

pulls back on backward-moving,

arching

high legs still,

lowered through a deep, knees-reaching,

feathered down

green will,

antenna-honest,

thread-descending,

carpeted as if with skill,

a focus-changing,

sober-reaching,

tracing, killing will.

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Tuesday was another beautiful June day. My morning was uneventful, cleanup on the computer and in the apartment, and all the trip laundry is finally put away! I finished Spear and started By Any Other Name, which is already making me grind my teeth because William Shakespeare wrote William Shakespeare's plays, with the occasional improv and added lines by people in his troupe and possibly Heminge in the Folios -- I read the article on Emilia Bassano in the 2010s and found it nearly as laughable as Anonymous -- but it's nice to read be reading a book about a Jewish woman that isn't focused on her religious oppression. 

We walked to the beach in the afternoon, visited the ducklings, then I watched Deep Space Nine's "Battle Lines" with my Star Trek group; I love Kira episodes. The Orioles were winning by so much when we finished that I got to finish season 3 of The Mandalorian with Cheryl without missing any more runs. Now Paul and I are watching the end of the last season of Veep, which predicts the current administration shitshow in so many ways, every form of ego and corruption, that it shouldn't be funny but it's hilarious (and Selina and Tom deserve each other so I'm sad they don't run together again). Some pictures from the Victoria Bug Zoo: