Greetings from My Laptop

I had kind of an exhausting day. My friend's surgery went well, but she's still in pain and there's just always a lot of stress and not sleeping well when someone you know is going through something like that. It was also hot and muggy -- the muggy takes it out of me more than the heat alone. Apart from putting together some storage boxes and finishing King Rat after having taken a break to read some other things, I didn't do a huge amount. 

While on calls and our computers, we did watch the Orioles win over the Cubs and most of the France-Morocco game. I talked to several technicians who agreed it's not worth the money to fix the 8 key on my computer, then did some research on replacements and decided I can live with not typing that key. We had Pokemon Spaghetti-Os for dinner, then I had Thursday night chat on Zoom. Here are some more mammals from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence:

Greetings from Red Apple Farm

Parts of my Monday absolutely sucked, and parts were fine -- the weather, for instance, high 50s and beautiful, though only a couple of bunnies were out while I was, including one right in front of the house. I spent some time in the garage emptying four boxes of CD binders and unexpected collectibles because one of the people we gave some boxes to wanted to pick up some more, in exchange for plastic shelving he's giving us once he packs up the things on them to move, and now I know where my ceramic turtles and Uncle Larry's collectible teddy bears ended up.  My DS9 group watched "Defiant" so got Frakes.

I have unfriended two very longtime friends in two days over rabidly antisemitic posts -- one I didn't even bother to respond to, the other I tried to point out how hateful it was and was met with more hate speech, so I won't miss her, but I miss the person she used to be when she was capable of independent thought. So for entertainment, after the detestable super-violent Punisher special and this week's stressful, depressing Margo's Got Money Troubles, we watched the first episode of Boston Blue, which is set locally and Jewish-friendly. Here are some animals from the Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire:

Poem for Tuesday and Zoo Lizards

Lizard 

By D.H. Lawrence 

A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up, listening

no doubt to the sounding of the spheres.

And what a dandy fellow! the right toss of a chin for you

And swirl of a tail!

If men were as much men as lizards are lizards

they’d be worth looking at.

-------- 

My Tuesday was uneventful -- dyed my hair, organized photos, tried to clear up a clusterfuck involving a package with the post office that is still clusterfucked. We were going to take a walk as soon as Paul finished work, but of course the sky opened up just at that moment and it poured for half an hour, so we took a much shorter walk than intended; at least the eagle was out. My Trek group watched DS9's "Babel" which isn't one of the greats but it lets Kira be badass and hits the Bajoran-Cardassian conflict so I like it. 

Then I watched Daredevil with Cheryl, which irritated me more than anything (so once he found out Fisk killed lots of other people but NOT his friend, he decided to take a bullet for him? Like so many vigilante stories, I feel like contrived excuses are invented for escalating violence -- and for making us dislike major female characters). Afterward I watched the Orioles lose, and our fire alarm went off, neither of which improved my mood. Now House is at least making me laugh. Reptiles at the Woodland Park Zoo: 

Poem for Thursday and Farm Horses

The White Horse 

By D.H. Lawrence 

The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on 

and the horse looks at him in silence. 

They are so silent, they are in another world. 

-------- 

Thursday morning was pretty quiet around here -- a bunch of computer work, a couple of phone calls fighting with the post office and a shipping company over a Kickstarter package I never got that everyone blames someone else for. We watched the Orioles lose to the Red Sox around lunch, then we took a walk; it was a little chilly but sunny and beautiful. One of the pairs of eagles seem to be making a nest west of the lake, but the other pair were right by the water, watching the cormorants and ducks. 

My Thursday night chat group talked for a couple of hours about politics and entertainment, after which we watched Ghosts (I like the new '40s Hollywood ghost but Thor needs to grow up), followed by Doctor Odyssey (the nepo baby spring break episode with Paris Jackson and Ava Phillippe; everyone needs to grow up but it gets very didactic when they try). Now we're watching The Wheel of Time with its kick-ass women and men I mostly don't care about. Horses at Farrel-McWhirter farm last weekend:

Poem for Thursday and Seneca Creek Lights

Near misses 

By Laura Kasischke 

The truck that swerved to miss the stroller in which I slept.

My mother turning from the laundry basket just in time to see me open

   the third-story window to call to the cat.

In the car, on ice, something spinning and made of history snatched me

   back from the guardrail and set me down between two gentle trees.

   And that time I thought to look both ways on the one-way street.

And when the doorbell rang, and I didn’t answer, and just before I slipped

   one night into a drunken dream, I remembered to blow out the candle

   burning on the table beside me.

It's a miracle, I tell you, this middle-aged woman scanning the cans on

   the grocery store shelf. Hidden in the works of a mysterious clock are

   her many deaths, and yet the whole world is piled up before her on a

   banquet table again today. The timer, broken. The sunset smeared

   across the horizon in the girlish cursive of the ocean, Forever, For You.

And still she can offer only her body as proof:

The way it moves a little slower every day. And the cells, ticking away.

   A crow pecking at a sweater. The last hour waiting patiently on a tray

   for her somewhere in the future. The spoon slipping quietly into the

   beautiful soup. 

-------- 

The major event of my day, a follow-up vet appointment with Effie to make sure her ear infection had cleared up, went very well -- she has some minor skin infection but the inside of the ears looked good. And we made it home in time to walk to the park before dark. 

The rest of my day, which included a jury duty summons and UPS screwing up my address and failing to deliver an important package YET AGAIN (in this case a replacement for one they lost months ago), is not worth discussing, apart from chat with my Thursday regulars. 

We watched Ghosts, which was kind of meh, and now we're watching the first episode of Black Doves, in which Knightley and Whishaw have delightful back-and-forth. From Seneca Creek State Park's Winter Lights Festival a few hours before the lights went on:

Greetings from Marysville

We're at Cahaya's parents' house with them, Daniel, and Cahaya for dinner and marshmallows over the fire pit (plus hot showers), which has been lovely. In general it would have been a nice day -- morning snuggling cats, folding laundry, emptying freezer, getting free bagels and coffee at the neighborhood office; afternoon chatting with neighbors and walking to the park to see the dozens of uprooted trees -- except that our power, which originally they said would be back on tonight at the latest, is now estimated to be back maybe Monday morning, assuming they don't delay it again. Headed home soon to sleep with cats. Here I am with one of the five dogs currently in the house (plus a tortoise!):

 

Greetings from Green Lake

Friday, like Thursday and Wednesday, involved waking up in the cold, driving to Daniel's -- he had to work in the city and took one dog with him, so we only had one supervisor -- and working in his house, eating things we had to take out of our own fridge before they went bad for lunch. We walked partway around Green Lake in the late afternoon and picked up dinner from Zaina for Daniel and Cahaya. Now we're home, with cats bundled in blankets, catching up on Ghosts and Silo while the power for the phone hotspot and the tablet hold out. The power company is still saying they expect to restore power by 8 p.m. tomorrow night and we are really, really hoping this is true.

Greetings from North Hanover

Monday was a hard, busy day. We went to the cemetery because Paul's father had to sign the papers approving the planned burial, and there was some confusion because of how different the location looks now versus when it was chosen in 2017. Then we had to go to the funeral home to pick out memorial folders and talk about proof of death paperwork for various agencies, and we also stopped at the bank to facilitate some financial issues. 

In between, we went to a Mexican restaurant my father-in-law picked because Paul's brothers had both been there with him. We had a quiet late afternoon hanging out at his place trying to set up a Roku so he can watch the MLB Network, then we came back to the hotel, took a walk along the wooded area nearby, and ate leftover Thai food for dinner while watching first baseball, then Monday Night Football. Some local scenery:

Poem for Monday and Chihuly in Tacoma

Glass 

By Robert Francis 

Words of a poem should be glass

But glass so simple-subtle its shape

Is nothing but the shape of what it holds.

A glass spun for itself is empty,

Brittle, at best Venetian trinket.

Embossed glass hides the poem of its absence.

Words should be looked through, should be windows.

The best word were invisible.

The poem is the thing the poet thinks.

If the impossible were not,

And if the glass, only the glass,

Could be removed, the poem would remain.

-------- 

Monday was lovely and cool. I had a bunch of chores to do and I also have some idiocy going on with my credit and identity -- someone has apparently attached an address in Tennessee to my social security number, and though as far as I can tell, they haven't managed to use it to access any of my accounts, all the major credit agencies now think I'm deployed active military so my credit should be locked for the next year, and I may spend the rest of my natural life on hold with Equifax, Experian, and Transunion straightening this out. 

We took a walk to the beach in the afternoon to enjoy the weather. Since both the Orioles and Mariners had the day off, we watched the start of the Cubs-Guardians, a bit of the Dodgers-Brewers, and the magnificent end of the White Sox-Yankees (12-2!). Then we had dinner, went to see the eagles, and now we're watching Netflix's The Decameron, which has some funny moments yet seems weirdly less feminist than the Medieval original. Chihuly from Tacoma's Bridge of Glass, Union Station, Museum of Glass and the Tacoma Art Museum: