Greetings from the Red Sox

My Tuesday morning was a bunch of chores I didn't do over the holiday weekend, followed by fresh bagels for lunch that Paul picked up, then some computer stuff before I talked to Chris for an hour and then Paul and I went for a walk (only four bunnies today but the frog was back). 

For Star Trek's 60th anniversary, my DS9 group watched "The Adversary" (the excellent end of the third season) which had the added benefit of making me miss most of the horrible Red Sox game. Carol told me to watch Younger, which is actually pretty fun. Adley Rutschman on the Red Sox for Kate:

Greetings from Wingaersheek Beach

We went out early Tuesday to drop a package off at the post office and to pick up bagels (plus I got Pokemon into four showcases, three of which I won). Then I folded and put away laundry and did some other chores, we ate lunch, I did some reading, and then I got a package containing the Oracolor deck Illuminated Paths so I read with that for a while. It was another gorgeous not-too-hot day, so perfect for walking and seeing bunnies. 

My DS9 group watched "Shakaar" (Kai Winn! Lupaza! Bajoran politics! And, fine, Shakaar, though he and Kira bother me less together since I know it doesn't last). Then we watched the end of the extra-innings Red Sox-Marlins game (grand slam!) and a bit of coverage of the Orioles blowout of the Cardinals (13-1!) before the new episode of Futurama (Taylor Swift?!). A gull and her very hungry child we met at Wingaersheek Beach seeking potato chips:

Greetings from Smoky Massachusetts

Our plan for Saturday was to meet Adam and Haley to pick blueberries early, before the afternoon storms arrived, but the air quality had dropped into the unhealthy range by mid-morning from the Canadian wildfires, so instead we picked up bagels and brought them to Adam and Haley's house to share. We hung out for a while chatting afterward, then drove home in the late afternoon between bouts of heavy rain, which unfortunately did not improve the air quality; it's supposed to be poor-to-unhealthy through Tuesday. 

 

The last photo above is from yesterday when we could actually see the disc of the sun, though it was a weird orange circle in the smoke; we never saw the sun through the clouds today. When we got home, we watched the Orioles extra-innings win over Houston and the last few outs of the Red Sox victory over Tampa Bay, and we're spending the evening watching Avatar: Fire and Ash, which seems to be exactly the same plot and rhythm and characters as The Way of Water only with more, you know, fire and ash.

Greetings from the Diner

Monday was a chore day for me, but a successful one. I put together two big plastic shelving units in the garage and started working on the last bunch of boxes we haven't unpacked -- mostly stuff that got tossed in boxes when our basement flooded in Potomac and were in a storage unit the whole time in Redmond, so we weren't even sure what was in some of them. 

We took a walk, then watched the US lose to Belgium in the World Cup game, though I can't say I had really passionate feelings about it. Now we're watching some season four Discovery, which is only barely holding my interest. Here are some photos of the Miss Worcester Diner, with its massive French toast menu and its sticker-covered walls and ceiling: 

Greetings from Purgatory Chasm

Someone I care about got some awful private news on Tuesday, so I was a little distracted by that. It was otherwise a nice day -- good weather, we went out to pick up bagels, I talked briefly to Daniel about World Cup chaos in Seattle, we took a walk and saw baby bunnies. Our next door neighbor was getting her windows washed by a local company, so I went out and talked to the guy doing the washing and it turned out he's worked in this neighborhood for many years and knew the original owner of our house, so we got him to do our windows too. 

My DS9 group watched "Heart of Stone" -- an episode I really did not like when it first aired, which in hindsight (and after seeing the rest of the series twice) is not only much more likeable but absolutely crucial to three storylines that run through the entirety of the show. Now we're watching some more of the final season of Grantchester, whose mysteries are feeling both a little stale and bitterly dark. Some of the formations at Purgatory Chasm, including the Devil's Pulpit and Coffin, His Majesty's Cave, Fat Man's Misery, and Lover's Leap:

Greetings from Assumption

A lot of my Monday was typical (laundry and chores), but Paul and I got to have lunch with my friend Rachel, who was at a nearby college for a library conference. We went to the Miss Worcester Diner, originally built in the 1940s -- it's on the National Register of Historic Places -- with an enormous menu of stuffed French toast as well as a full menu of all-day breakfast items and lots of sandwiches and burgers for lunch. It was a fun place to eat and lots of fun to see Rachel in person for the first time in several years, though we chat often on Facebook! 

We took a neighborhood walk in the late afternoon, and after dinner we watched the episode of The Way Home that we skipped last night for The Vampire Lestat, which definitely feels like it's winding down in a timely manner. Now we're watching the new (and final) season of Grantchester, in which Alphy and Geordie aren't working together as much as I want but the stories have been pretty good so far. On the way back from Purgatory Chasm yesterday, we stopped at Assumption University to see the baby (now adolescent) goslings and ducklings:

Greetings from Fitchburg

I had a lovely Mother's Day with Adam and Haley, plus at various times her parents, both her sisters and their husbands, and Daniel plus my parents on Google Meet. Adam made us pancakes, eggs, and veggie sausage for brunch with Hildy, Tom, Solveig, and Sagar there, we chatted with my family online, then we went to Cindy and Hans's house for a while before all heading to the beautiful Acton Arboretum in bloom. 

The siblings headed their own ways in the early evening while we went with Adam and Haley (who got me mini roses) to Asian Imperial in Lunenberg and had lots of Chinese food, followed by Cherry Hill Ice Cream, which we headed toward under a rainbow after a squall and ate under a tent watching the sun set. Then we retrieved our car and headed home, where we caught up on Widow's Bay and Ghosts from our trip. 

Greetings from NBMAA

Monday was chilly but beautiful; the groundskeeping team turned on the fountains in the ponds in our neighborhood, and we had two bunnies eating and squabbling right in front of our house. We went out to get bagels in the morning and were relieved to see that the local weeping cherry blossoms appear to have survived the freezing overnight temperatures. 

I got new tablecloths and those had to be washed along with regular Monday laundry. Most of my evening TV has been the extra-innings Orioles game we're watching in the 11th, though I did watch the new Maul episode, and The Unforgettable Augustus Post on PBS. From the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Pop Art exhibit (Indiana, Lichtenstein, Thiebaud):