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 Massachusetts

Quickie, Cheryl is here and we're watching Strange New Worlds after a crazy day during which she endured many, many hours of flight delays and rerouting (we were supposed to pick her up in Worcester, we picked her up in Boston). I have a family member out of state in the hospital, so that's upsetting, and I talked to several relatives in the morning before cleaning the bathrooms and doing laundry in preparation for guests. We picked up Thai food and ate it with Adam and Haley before heading to the airport. More tomorrow!

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 Home

Nearly all of Friday was a travel day for us, with a couple of nice breaks. We ate breakfast in the hotel, then drove to Paul's father in Hanover, bringing Thai food with us for lunch. The roof of the building was being repaired, so the ducklings who live in the courtyard were hiding, but we got to see Clair play the violin and tested his computer by getting Adam on Teams for a few minutes. 

In the afternoon, we drove through parts of three states and over several bridges (with a quick pit stop at a gas station across from the Bayer headquarters in New Jersey) to Mount Kisco, New York, where we had an excellent dinner at The Turk with Tracey, my good friend from college. Now we're home with our cats who claim they were not fed one single time.

Greetings from Potomac

I spent most of Thursday around Washingtonian Lake, which I walked around four times, and it was another lovely day. I ate breakfast with Paul before he went to work, walked to Kohl's and the new local crafts store though I didn't buy anything, and saw several cormorants as well as two big families of goslings, then I stopped back at the hotel to drop off my coat and walked around the lake again before meeting Kay at the Silver Diner for lunch. We took a walk together to see the goslings, and after she went home I made one more circle and helped a man rescue a tiny red-eared slider turtle that was trying to cross a busy footpath. 

My dad is still sick but probably not contagious, so after Paul was done for the day, we picked up Pana Thai that my parents had ordered and drove to their house. (While in Park Potomac, I managed finally to get a gold Pokemon gym badge at Founders Fountain after not being able to get to it for months!) We had dinner and dessert and chatted for a while, then came back to the hotel just in time for me to get on Thursday chat, which just finished so I'm not even sure what the final Orioles score was though I heard a rumor that it was not good. We're driving home to our cats tomorrow -- our catsitter neighbors sent photos today -- so more then!

Greetings from the Worcester Art Museum

Quick post because I had to finish putting together a cabinet for my bags and socks (quick question, how do normal people organize their socks?) because a cat would certainly have climbed into the frame and probably knocked it over if I didn't. But I had a nice day: woke to scenic snow that only stuck to previous snow, not the local roads, and it stopped early enough for us to drive into downtown Worcester to the art museum, which was hosting its annual exhibit Flora in Winter, during which local garden clubs and professional florists create and recreate famous art using floral arrangements. The displays covered a wide range of styles and it was lovely to see flowers in winter.

 

There was live music and we also got to enjoy the museum, which has a stunning collection of armor plus lovely religious and Impressionist art, in a beautiful neighborhood of old mansions. We stopped at Shaw's on the way home (so much St. Patrick's Day stuff in this area!) and Adam dropped by with a high school friend who's visiting, since they'd been in Worcester at the climbing gym. We ordered Thai since we were in the middle of putting together the aforementioned cabinet and took a break to watch the SAG Actor Awards and do stuff in the living room; I'm glad Sinners did well, the Harrison Ford retrospective was lovely, I'm happy for Keri Russell, and there were no BS speeches!

Greetings from Alki

I spent Thursday morning starting to pack the books and Tarot decks in the bedroom -- I'm about 5/6 done with the little bookcase, meaning I still have the big bookcase and both nightstands -- and the afternoon underground in our storage facility, making sure the boxes there are fully condensed, taped, and labeled for the move. We also stopped at the food store for food for the Super Bowl and next week -- maybe our last trip to this Safeway. When we came home, I took a quick shower and we ate leftover Bangkok noodles so I could get on my regular Zoom chat, after which I watched The Pitt with one of my friends from chat. 

Then we watched this week's Starfleet Academy. There are things I love about this show, and things I think are idiotic even by the standards of the worst of Trek. I like the idea of a Sisko Museum, but it looks so much like the Las Vegas Star Trek Experience that I spent the scene wondering if they were planning to reopen that. I'm not sure how I feel about all the alien cultures losing their distinctiveness (can one pop a Trill into any multi-species descendant?), and I felt it when Kelrec asked what's the point of Lanthanite lifespans when so much of what holds their interest seems to be trivial. Anyway, photos from our last visit to Alki Beach: