Greetings from Old Deerfield

I had a quiet Tuesday morning, then went with Paul to a doctor's appointment at UMass Medical Center so I could hang out and catch Pokemon in downtown Worcester while he was getting poked and prodded. It was a gorgeous not-too-hot day, so we also took a walk, and though we only saw a couple of bunnies, we got the full fountain rainbow. 

My DS9 group watched "Explorers" -- the one which not only introduces Leeta and Kasidy Yates (the latter not even by name yet) but has Jake writing, drunk O'Brien and Bashir singing "Jerusalem" while the latter is stewing over med school regrets whose origins we don't even know yet, and Dukat has to admit that Cardassia knew Bajor got to space first. 

We also watched some of the Red Sox loss to Toronto (Adley started and played fine, at least) and some of the Orioles win over the Twins, and our past hour has been more Kevin Can F*** Himself; I like the lesbian storyline, though I doubt Patty and Allison get to live happily ever after. Here is the Barbie exhibit at the Memorial Hall Museum in Old 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 the Blackstone River

Sunday was a gorgeous warm day. We thought about going to Sturbridge Village, which was having a battle reenactment, but after how far we drove Saturday, we decided to stay closer to home and went to several parks in Worcester -- first Blackstone Gateway, which has a new visitor center with a museum about local history and culture, plus a long boardwalk through the wetlands from which we saw frogs, turtles, ducks, a bunny, and the dreaded spotted lanternfly, then Worcester Common, which encloses City Hall, has a cemetery of patriots who died in the American Revolution, and features several war memorials plus a Celtic cross commemorating the Irish immigrants to the area. 

We stopped at Cool Licks for ice cream since we had to pass by it to go to Institute Park, where we knew there were a couple of swans but didn't realize that they also had two cygnets who came within a couple of feet of us in the water. We also saw the Canada geese we met as goslings a couple of months ago, a big flock of ducks, a couple more bunnies, and a great blue heron. We stopped at Shaw's on the way home for food for the week and got home for the end of the innings played in the terrible horrible Orioles game, plus the very end of the Mariners walk-off win. Now we're watching the end of this season of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, which has a bit too much hysteria but remains interesting.

Greetings from the Sea Glass Festival

It rained from before dawn till late at night on Wednesday, and I only left the house long enough to roll the garbage can back into the garage after the truck came to pick it up. Fortunately I had my Wednesday chat groups to keep me entertained: my high school friends after lunch, one of whom had her sister and niece visiting and another who had her daughter come on the call to tell us that her mom's internet had gone down, and then Laurie, Kristen, and I watched Born of Hope, the excellent fan film about Aragorn's parents, together. 

I missed most of the Orioles game, but after yesterday's atrocious 14-0 blowout loss to the Tigers, they beat Detroit 10-9 in extra innings after trailing 7-0. We ate veggie cacciatore for dinner and now we're watching Lucky, in which there are plot holes and idiotic decisions by what's supposed to be a smart FBI agent (why do they tell people they can protect them when it's one agent instead of calling for backup? why do they never leave one guy outside the house in case the suspects sneak out via the garage?) but Anya and Annette are great fun to watch. Sea glass from Mystic:

Greetings from Brickwrecks

My Tuesday morning involved emptying a still-packed box of games in the garage, which turned out to have lots of Wizkids' Pirates constructable card game pieces, including many assembled little ships that I forgot we had and was excited to see though some of them are missing their flags. I also did some reading (City of Stardust, which reminds me in some ways of The Night Circus) and looked up a bunch of articles trying to ascertain whether the squirrel from last night's Orioles game was okay (the Tigers staff gave a half-assed "our understanding is that the squirrel was in fine health" but no details about where it was released or anything meaningful). 

We took a walk and ate tacos, after which my DS9 group watched the great Garak episode "Improbable Cause" ("never tell the same lie twice"). Now we're watching the end of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast; I like seeing things we saw when we were in Belfast (the Titanic shipyard, Derry Girls mural), but the plot makes no sense (why didn't [redacted]'s cop husband help cover up the accident instead of going along with the insane fake-body plot). Here's Mystic Seaport's Brickwrecks exhibit, including top-heavy Vasa, Franklin's Arctic expedition, the Titanic, and actual Legos washed up on Cornwall beaches from the Tokio Express container shipwreck:

Greetings from the Charles W. Morgan

Most of my Monday was quiet, starting with laundry and hunting for a pair of earrings I knew I had somewhere that I thought would match a necklace I bought yesterday at the sea glass festival (they were in with lampwork). After lunch I talked to Alice on the phone for a long time, and I started reading City of Stardust because I'm out of the mood for anything remotely realistic. When Paul got home, we took a walk and found what turned out to be a hermit flower beetle -- they are huge! 

We had burgers for dinner and watched most of the Orioles-Tigers game; the internet is laughing about the black squirrel on the field but I'm worried about the poor little guy, who was tossed around by players before being snatched in a towel by the grounds crew. Now we're watching more How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, in which I like the characters but it's quite dark. More photos from Mystic Seaport of the 1841 Massachusetts-built Charles W. Morgan, the world's last surviving wooden whaling ship:

Greetings from Mystic

Sunday was another gorgeous day and we spent most of it at Mystic Seaport at the Sea Glass Festival, where we met Kristen, admired the sea glass, bought some small jewelry, and ate lunch under one of the festival tents. We also walked around the seaport and its museums -- boarded the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan, talked to the shopkeeper in the nautical instruments shop about celestial navigation and the first grandfather clock, looked at the carvings and figureheads on exhibit, saw jellyfish in the river, admired the ships! 

 

We drove home from Connecticut in the late afternoon, had baked potatoes for dinner because they had those at Mystic Seaport so we got in the mood for them, and watched the rest of Pompeii: Out of Time, which has a lot of the flaws of all the National Geographic historical recreation shows but is interesting despite the clunkiness. Now we're watching the first episode of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, which is alternately very funny and extremely creepy, like an Irish comic I Know What You Did Last Summer with great acting.