Greetings from Yankee Candle

My entire Thursday morning was taken up with an ophthalmologist appointment. Since I'm a new patient, there were lots of forms and questions and calling my former doctor in Redmond because the records hadn't all been faxed. But he said things looked fine, the iridotomies I had a year ago were working, and he'd see me in a year, so that was all good, and we stopped at Shaw's for food on the way home for a late lunch. 

Strange New Worlds' "Off-Hour" was excellent -- so many original series deep cuts and a great science-focused disaster story. My whole Thursday night group made it to chat, now that one is back from traveling and one is logged in from out of the US, and now we're watching an episode of My Brilliant Career after most of Thursday Night Football. Here is the Bavarian Christmas Village at Yankee Candle in South Deerfield:

Greetings from Deerfield

Quick post after spending most of the day in western Massachusetts, where Haley's sister Cindy was playing a duo piano concert at the Memorial Hall Museum (which also has local history, and a Barbie exhibit!). Before we went there, though, we went to Yankee Candle Village, which we haven't visited since 2004 -- we used to go regularly when my in-laws lived in Hartford, and were happy to discover that although the factory is now closed, the Bavarian night market, castle, and toy shop are still open and much as we remembered them. 

We toured the museum exhibits quickly before the concert, which was excellent (some classical music, some New England historic music, some video game music), and afterward there was a reception in the garden with fruit, cheese, and brownies. We stopped at Adam and Haley's house on the way home and ended up walking his dog and his in-laws' dog (who was decidedly not invited to the concert) with him and Haley, after which we decided to order Country Pizza. We drove home afterward and are watching Kevin Can F*** Himself because it's set in Worcester.

Greetings from Fitchburg

Quick post after late Seder with Adam, Haley, and Sagar, who'd never been to one before (Haley and Solveig have Jewish first cousins, so she knew what to expect). First we went to the New England Botanic Garden in Tower Hill, which now has hundreds of daffodils as well as crocuses, dwarf irises, snowdrops, and heather in bloom -- it was chillier than we expected but we walked to the lake and enjoyed the greenhouse. 

Then we drove to Adam's house with veggie beef tips, charoset, flourless cake, and various Passover accoutrements to go with the carrot and sweet potato casserole that Adam and Haley had made, and we had a quick Seder. The 30-Minute Seder puts the whole service including Elijah before the meal and skips some important backstory, I was not impressed with the book, but the food and company were lovely and even Pepper got egg.

Greetings from Colchester

Extremely quick post after lovely Seder at the home of Laurie and Hal, with two of their kids, Kristen, and another friend. All the food was amazing and the Haggadah was an updated version of the one my parents have had forever, so very familiar to us. I ate way too much -- she made veggie matzah ball soup just for me, and there were multiple varieties of homemade chocolate matzah, plus lots of local cheese, veggie kishka, and excellent charoset -- and got to play with many dogs. And I got to talk to a couple of my high school friends on Google Meet earlier, so it was a good day. More tomorrow!

Greetings from the Armory

My breaks from unpacking on Monday were courtesy my neighborhood Freecycle and Buy Nothing groups -- a mom and daughter who are moving came to pick up some of our boxes after I listed them, but while I was putting up the post, I noticed that someone nearby was gifting a bag by Grichel's, the artist who makes handmade bags with faces whom I've known for decades from the Maryland Renaissance Festival. So after lunch, I went to pick it up, and managed to finish the Pokemon Go Precious Paths Finale Timed Research while driving through Worcester -- the area where I live is a Pokemon desert.

The late afternoon involved putting holes in walls (to anchor a cabinet, to mount the surge suppressor for my computer and accessories) and finishing putting the breakables in the bedroom on their shelves. We had veggie brisket and hamantaschen for dinner to celebrate Purim, then we watched some more of the new season of The Night Agent -- which has a plot that makes no sense but I like all the relationships and many of the actors -- with a break for the heartbreaking new Paradise episode. The Worcester Art Museum has an incredible collection of armor, including a vast open storage section:

Greetings for the Year of the Horse

My hands were recovered enough to build a new cat tree while Paul was working and the cats were hiding under the covers because two men were in the house installing a radon mitigation system, which required some hammering, some drilling, and some jackhammering into the concrete in the garage, all of which made for very unhappy kittens. 

We watched Alysa Liu win the gold medal while they were finishing, at which point the cats appeared to test the cat tree. We ordered King Chef to celebrate the lunar new year and ate some excellent vegan sesame chicken, orange chicken, and kung pao. Then we watched this week's shippy Starfleet Academy, I went on chat, and we saw The Pitt.

Greetings from the Cougar Mountain Zoo

We spent much of Saturday at Cougar Mountain Zoo, which is in the final days of its annual Reindeer Festival -- Santa has gone back to the North Pole but the large herd of reindeer live at the zoo year-round, so we got to see all the girls with their winter racks and the boys stuffing themselves on apple pieces. We also got to see the three new lion cubs; two of the cougars for whom the zoo is named; all three wolves; the one remaining tiger; lemurs, alpacas, and deer; and the emus, cranes, and raptors who are the only birds outdoors in winter. Since we were in Issaquah, we also stopped at Wild Birds Unlimited and at Safeway.

 

We ate Christmas week leftovers for dinner, saw the delightful end of the Ravens game (sorry Packers fans but I'd really like to be in the playoffs and you already will be), and watched Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World just because we were in the mood for it; everything about it holds up beautifully, especially Russell Crowe's Jack Aubrey. Now we're watching Four Weddings and a Funeral because it's another on the "everybody but me has seen" list and I've disliked Hugh Grant for so long, for so many reasons, that I figure he's never going to get better and probably can't get worse. It feels overrated, but then I'm biased.

Greetings for Christmas

Merry Christmas if you celebrate! I only celebrate as a guest in other people's celebrations, but that's generally been fun for me. This year Paul wanted to make most of the Swedish holiday foods his mother always made, so we had homemade rye bread, meatballs, mashed potatoes, and lots of cookies. Daniel came to eat them with us -- Cahaya wasn't feeling well -- and we played some Azul and played with the cats. 

It was otherwise a quiet day; we talked to our parents and kids on Google Meet, took a walk in the mist, and saw lots of birds because our neighbors gave us a seed ring (and a blown glass hummingbird) as Christmas presents when we got together in the morning to exchange gifts. We watched some football, I chatted briefly with some of my Thursday chat group, and now we're watching the Heated Rivalry sexy season finale.