Greetings from Spencer

Quick post because after an early lunch and late-morning appointment for the new covid and flu shots, we went to the Spencer Fair for most of the day! We met cows and alpacas and saw chicks hatching, we watched a magic show, we ate healthy things like a fried snickers bar, fried mozzarella sticks, and ice cream, we saw bees making honey in a craft barn with pottery and crocheted clothing. 

We went to a two-hour concert by a local yacht rock group, Below Deck, at which I knew every word of every song (there was some Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston as well as "The Pina Colada Song" and "All Night Long"). We got home, had chicken soup for dinner, and watched the Red Sox beat the Orioles before the Silo season finale, and now we're watching this week's Dark Matter.

Greetings from Fenway Park

I did a bunch of computer stuff on Thursday morning -- had to clear a lot of photos off my phone, catch up on some news, do a bit of research -- and I did some reading around lunch. Then in the afternoon I had my annual mammogram, which hopefully went okay; though I had double checked twice to make sure my records had been sent from the place in Redmond, they didn't have them, and they need them to interpret the new one, so hopefully they'll get there sooner rather than later but they won't tell me anything until they do. 

We took a long walk when we got home (it was a four bunny, two frog day), then met with a woman we're hoping will cat-sit when we travel in the future (Katniss and Effie appeared to approve). We watched this week's Strange New Worlds, which started goofy and fun but ended up a lovely critique of how "The Inner Light" ends. We talked to both our fathers and after dinner we watched the Red Sox-Orioles game, in which I'm not sorry Adley hit two home runs, around Thursday chat. But speaking of the Red Sox, from the weekend:

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 Tidepools

I did a lot of chatting on Wednesday -- with one of my high school friends in the morning, watching the second half of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl with Laurie and Cel in the afternoon, and with Daniel at 10 pm when he got home from work tonight. So I will be brief! 

Kay told me to watch My Brilliant Career on Netflix, and I remember that I liked the movie a million years ago when I saw it though I barely remember it, so we're doing that now that the Orioles have won (not the Red Sox, but given the week in celebrity tragedies, that's a small thing). 

I've spent much of the night fighting to send my records to my new ophthalmologist. Here are some of the creatures we saw at Wingaersheek Beach; one of the crabs was in a clear bucket where it had been placed by kids, but the mussels, snails, swimming isopod, and barnacles were all around the tidepools:

Greetings from the Azalea Garden

I had an appointment at UMass in Worcester on Monday morning to get my second Hepatitis B shot, some routine lab work, and a med check. It was already 80 degrees before I got home, and it just got warmer from there -- now we know which rooms the AC works really well in and which rooms it doesn't work as well in. We took a walk late in the afternoon when it was finally shady enough in the trees, and even the baby bunnies were out. 

The Orioles score was so horrible by the time we finished dinner that we started watching the second season of Rivals before it ended. I still wish there was one person I consistently liked or who consistently made me laugh. Then we watched some more Boston Blue, which is weirdly relaxing for a show with murders, corrupt firemen, dirty cops, and all the rest. From the azalea gardens at Moore State Park on Sunday:

Greetings from Northbridge

I had a busy Thursday starting with an appointment with my new primary care doctor at UMass in Worcester -- I like her, she's not as young as my previous doctor and had read my chart pretty thoroughly even though I had to spend an entire morning yelling at MyChart about sending my records to this office the other day -- and it wasn't a long wait or anything aggravating with the practice. I got my first Hepatitis B shot and have to go back in six weeks for labs and the second one, so I may have more opinions then. 

We stopped to pick up bagels on the way home, ate those for lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon mostly doing computer work. Even though I saw Laurie and Kristen yesterday at the seder, we didn't want to miss watching Rings of Power this week, so we saw an episode together online, and I also chatted with my usual Thurday night group after the season finale of The Masked Singer -- I approved of the final order. Now we're watching The Pitt. Here are Blackstone Park and River Bend Farm last weekend: 

Greetings from Oregon

I spent the first several hours of Monday unpacking from the trip, doing laundry, and packing for the move -- now four and a half of seven living room bookcases are empty as well as all the bookcases in the spare bedroom. After lunch, we went to Home Depot to get more book-size boxes, plus we stopped at Bella Vision so I could get the temples of my new glasses adjusted and at World Market which was sadly out of potato sticks. 

We watched the season finale of The Night Manager, which had a fairly preposterous plot but was enjoyable anyway (I appreciate that the villain flirts with Tom Hiddleston so much). Then we watched The Wrecking Crew, which is even more preposterous and has lots of punching and car explosions, so cartoonish by comparison; at least I like the female characters. Here are some views around the capitol in Salem, Oregon:

Poem for Wednesday and Chilly Brookside

The Winter Jasmine Fairy 

By Cicely Mary Barker 

All through the Summer my leaves were green,

But never a flower of mine was seen;

Now Summer is gone, that was so gay,

And my little green leaves are shed away.

In the grey of the year

What cheer, what cheer?

The Winter is come, the cold winds blow;

I shall feel the frost and the drifting snow;

But the sun can shine in December too,

And this is the time of my gift to you.

See here, see here,

My flowers appear!

The swallows have flown beyond the sea,

But friendly Robin, he stays with me;

And little Tom-Tit, so busy and small,

Hops where the jasmine is thick on the wall;

And we say: “Good cheer!

We’re here! We’re here!”

-------- 

I was one of the several million Americans whose Verizon service wasn't working for several hours on Wednesday, though it could have been worse: Paul never lost service, I still managed to get on chat with my high school friends because our cable is Comcast, I needed to go to urgent care because for two days my ears have felt like they were underwater so I knew I needed the earwax flushed out, and I watched half an hour of The Rings of Power with Kristen and Laurie. 

So apart from being bummed that I couldn't text, the outage didn't cause me any crises. We took a walk to the beach in the afternoon -- there was a pair of eagles together a tree. Around dinner, we watched more episodes of The Pitt, which is excellent -- great acting, terrific pacing, not so gory that I can't look at it except with a couple of wounds. We also took a break for The Masked Singer, which is not excellent but is stupid fun. From December at Brookside Gardens, winter animals and flowers: