Greetings from Wildfire Smoke

Thursday was another smoky day, though not as bad as Wednesday; it seemed to be clearing in the morning, then came back in the afternoon. So I was mostly indoors again, though we did get a walk in the evening and the bunnies seemed to be doing all right. I worked on setting up the Star Trek Tarot cards Paul drew me as a gift over 30 years ago for printing and I read some more of The Book of Air and Shadows. 

We had veggie burgers for dinner with cheese fries and I just got off a Thursday night chat which ran two hours, so I'm running late, but we only watched a bit of tonight's one baseball game (Phillies-Mets) and half an episode of Discovery. Here are ships and skyline in the background from Sail Boston, including Bunker Hill Monument, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and (I'm told) the building where Paul works:

Greetings from Sail Boston

Most of my Monday was the chores I didn't do over the weekend -- laundry, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning up after the cats -- and sorting the photos I took at Sail Boston, which was really fun because I went looking for photos I took of the same ships at other seaports and festivals, some of which went back to 2004 when my kids were very young. Here are some of them, including (in order) Amerigo Vespucci & ARA Libertad, Sagres, Kalmar Nyckel, Liberty Clipper, Capitán Miranda, Mayflower II, and the ship with my favorite name because I am eleven, Gorch Fock! 

We took a walk in the evening when the rain had stopped and the temperature had dropped below 80 -- I got sunburned a bit on the waterfront yesterday -- and saw five bunnies. Then we had dinner and watched the Home Run Derby, in which I was ostensibly rooting for the Red Sox catcher and first baseman Willson Contreras, though it was okay with me if Kyle Schwarber won because I liked him on the Nats and he's been very consistent, but the Cardinals' Jordan Walker made the end so exciting that it's fine with me that he won. Now we're watching some fifth season Discovery.

Poem for Friday and Nautical New England

The Secret of the Sea 

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me

As I gaze upon the sea!

All the old romantic legends,

All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,

Such as gleam in ancient lore;

And the singing of the sailors,

And the answer from the shore!

Most of all, the Spanish ballad

Haunts me oft, and tarries long,

Of the noble Count Arnaldos

And the sailor’s mystic song.

Like the long waves on a sea-beach,

Where the sand as silver shines,

With a soft, monotonous cadence,

Flow its unrhymed lyric lines:—

Telling how the Count Arnaldos,

With his hawk upon his hand,

Saw a fair and stately galley,

Steering onward to the land;—

How he heard the ancient helmsman

Chant a song so wild and clear,

That the sailing sea-bird slowly

Poised upon the mast to hear,

Till his soul was full of longing,

And he cried, with impulse strong,—

“Helmsman! for the love of heaven,

Teach me, too, that wondrous song!”

“Wouldst thou,”—so the helmsman answered,

“Learn the secret of the sea?

Only those who brave its dangers

Comprehend its mystery!”

In each sail that skims the horizon,

In each landward-blowing breeze,

I behold that stately galley,

Hear those mournful melodies;

Till my soul is full of longing

For the secret of the sea,

And the heart of the great ocean

Sends a thrilling pulse through me.

-------- 

Friday was, yet again, a gorgeous day -- chilly but sunny. We saw many ducks and geese in the lake and both pairs of eagles, again, one in the big tree at the south end of Idylwood Beach and one in the big tree at the edge of Marymoor Park where the Sammamish River flows into the lake. I talked to Laurie on Zoom after lunch and watched the episodes of Loki with Kristen that we meant to watch on Wednesday, but my neighborhood's internet went out. We watched the season finale of The Agency before dinner because I couldn't wait to find out what happened, but it left so many things hanging that it was almost a cliffhanger! Meanwhile Paul discovered that it was National Peanut Butter Day and made peanut noodles for dinner. 

We had read so many bad reviews of Section 31 that we decided we really needed to watch it. And I wish I had good things to say about it, but apart from Michelle Yeoh always being a delight to watch no matter how absurd her dialogue, it's...pretty bad. It starts as The Hunger Games except a version where Katniss has to murder Prim and enslave Peeta, then turns into Mission: Impossible. It alternatively feels like bad old sci-fi or like parodies -- we were citing Galaxy Quest and Red Dwarf -- and although it occasionally drops the names of familiar Star Trek people and planets, nothing about it feels like Star Trek, not even the bits I remember of Discovery. The naval base and nautical monuments around the USS Constitution and Charlestown Navy Yard:

Greetings from the Navy Yard

Our Sunday started with a group brunch at the hotel at which a lot of people came and went as their travel plans allowed -- Adam, Haley, Daniel and Cahaya, my parents, Haley's parents, sisters, and other relatives, several friends -- then many farewells, though a few friends came to visit while others headed out. I know I need to post lots more photos from the wedding yesterday, but I got to spend Sunday afternoon with the bride and groom along with two longtime friends at the USS Constitution and the Charlestown Navy Yard, and I wanted to share a few photos of that!

 

Adam and Haley drove to her parents' in the late afternoon to retrieve Pepper. The rest of us went to Dunkin for hot chocolate after the ship tour, visited the museum shop for souvenirs, and eventually came back to the hotel, where we ordered Area 4 pizza for dinner. Maddy came to join us for food and to say goodbye because she is flying out early tomorrow, back into the L.A. area which has a curfew because of the fires. My Boston-area friend also headed home and Cheryl and I watched The Mayfair Witches together before Paul and I watched the Commanders beat Bucs!

Greetings from Marymoor Park

Quickie, we're watching Titanic for reasons that should be obvious to anyone not under a rock this week (I have been told that this is morbid, but there has been lots of footage of the ship during coverage of the sub reminiscent of the beginning of the movie, and I don't think it's too soon to discuss parallels about rich people whose hubris extended to safety shortcuts). 

It was another spectacularly beautiful day, so after an uneventful morning and early afternoon, we went to Marymoor to walk around the heron nests in the dog park (still lots of baby birds!) and along the river to the top of the lake, where we saw families of ducks among the boats and the beaver dam. Then Paul made Swedish meatballs and potatoes for Midsummer for dinner. 

Poem for Wednesday and Queen Anne Waterside

The Carousel
By Zachary Schomburg

I’m in a carousel.
The kind that spins
people to the wall.
There is a woman
and a man and a man
inside of it too,
and a man operating it.
Everybody I love is
looking down at me,
laughing. When I die,
I’ll die alone.
I know that much,
held down by my
own shadow, wanting
to touch the woman,
the man, the man,
across the curvature.
I won’t be able to even
look. I’m on a train.
I’m a tiny spider.
A tiny star.
Or a giant spider.
When everything stops,
I’ll open the only door
to the carousel and
it’ll be the wrong one
I’ve forgotten entering.

-------- 

Tuesday was another uneventful day that started with me cleaning out some dresser drawers that hadn't been opened in years, where I found kippahs from every wedding and Bar Mitzvah we ever attended, pantyhose that I wore to all those events that now have useless elastic, and a bunch of ancient keychains, pocket mirrors, and movie ticket stubs from college. We had some more craigslist and freecycling pickups, and we took a walk in the park before eating the leftover Ethiopian food from this weekend. 

My Voyager group watched "Dark Frontier" which we didn't realize until we started didn't have a convenient break between parts one and two, so it was the full movie-length episode, which was fun. Then Paul and I watched This Is Where I Leave You, which has a fantastic cast with great chemistry and a sometimes great script though sometimes over the top (postmortem family comedies are always strange and everything Jewish is played for a joke). Some waterside views from Queen Anne in Seattle: 

Poem for Wednesday and Mystic Seaport

The Ocean
By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Ocean has its silent caves,
Deep, quiet, and alone;
Though there be fury on the waves,
Beneath them there is none.

The awful spirits of the deep
Hold their communion there;
And there are those for whom we weep,
The young, the bright, the fair.

Calmly the wearied seamen rest
Beneath their own blue sea.
The ocean solitudes are blest,
For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,
Unquiet are its graves;
But peaceful sleep is ever there,
Beneath the dark blue waves.

-------- 

I had ambitious plans for Tuesday that involved starting holiday cards, finishing laundries, and various other projects, but I ended up spending an insane amount of time deleting Giving Tuesday emails, rescheduling a doctor's appointment, and burying a dove that died on our deck, so a lot did not get finished. I was also distracted looking at the awful images from the fire at Mystic's marina, which thankfully spared the Mystic Seaport museum and ships, so some photos from our visit a few weeks ago:

 

With my Tuesday night group, I watched Voyager's not-good "Extreme Risk" -- third of three episodes in a row this season in which a major female character has a major mental health crisis with no meaningful support, surely someone on the writing staff could have called a mental health professional for minimal advice? Then we caught up on the two Masked Singer episodes we missed during Thanksgiving week, which were huge fun, great music this season, and I could actually guess from clues for a change.

Poem for Friday and Mystic Seaport Ships

Docks
By Carl Sandburg

Strolling along
By the teeming docks,
I watch the ships put out.
Black ships that heave and lunge
And move like mastodons
Arising from lethargic sleep.

The fathomed harbor
Calls them not nor dares
Them to a strain of action,
But outward, on and outward,
Sounding low-reverberating calls,
Shaggy in the half-lit distance,
They pass the pointed headland,
View the wide, far-lifting wilderness
And leap with cumulative speed
To test the challenge of the sea.

Plunging,
Doggedly onward plunging,
Into salt and mist and foam and sun.

-------- 

I had a very social Thursday! In the morning I ran out to Locust Grove so I could finally catch a Jangmo-o, then I went to meet Alice at Montgomery Mall for Cava and shopping (Macy's Black Friday sale has already started and they have $20 fuzzy sweaters). Eventually we got Starbucks, met the mall Santa, and said our farewells without even overspending in Sephora as we sometimes do. 

 It was quite chilly by the time Paul and I took a walk in the late afternoon, though very worth it because we got to see three bunnies in one yard. We had pumpkin soup for dinner, watched the Ghosts rerun and the start of the Titans-Packers game, and I chatted with several of the people I was just in Salem with. Also from that trip, tall ships seen at Mystic Seaport: