Greetings from North of Boston

I had a great maritime Saturday in Salem and Revere north of Boston, seeing ships and at the beach! The Salem Maritime National Historical Park was having its Heritage Days festival, with people demonstrating historic crafts like aspects of shipbuilding, lace-making, furniture carving, and traditional cooking, plus there was a band singing sea shanties and a Cardboard Boat Regatta which I'd thought meant people tossing models into the water but was actually cardboard boats crewed by several people in a race. 

There were food trucks (Paul got fried Twinkies) and since Salem's tall ship the Friendship is being restored, Pride of Baltimore II was visiting and letting people tour the deck. We had brought a picnic and ate it at a table behind the Custom House, which was also open for tours and had an actor dressed as Nathaniel Hawthorne talking about his work there. We got to see the scales and measuring equipment, the public stores for items no one could pay duties on, and the original wooden eagle that adorned the roof. 

Since we were in Salem, we also visited several of the witch shops -- lots of Tarot, crystals, herbs, crafts, and statues, though I didn't buy any -- and walked through the downtown before driving in the late afternoon to Revere Beach. The water was much warmer than I expected and there were clam shells, mussels, and some snails, plus many seagulls and a few pigeons looking for dinner. We were at the nearly empty north end of the beach and I got so much sand in my toes that I rode the rest of the way home barefoot.

 

We ate cheesesteaks for dinner and watched part of the terrible horrible Orioles game against the Phillies before giving up and putting on the start of the second season of A Good Girl's Guide To Murder, which is pretty well written and acted but very dark. And we discovered that the rain last week stained one of our windowsills, so we cleaned that up. Now I must sleep after a really nice day!

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:

Poem for Friday and Ocean Shores Mini-Golf

Boy in Video Arcade 

By Larry Levis 

Some see a lake of fire at the end of it,

Or heaven’s guesswork, something always to be sketched in.

I see a sullen boy in a video arcade. 

He’s the only one there at this hour, shoulders slightly bent above a machine.

I see the pimples on his chin, the scuffed linoleum on the floor.

I like the close-up, the detail. I like the pointlessness of it, 

And the way it hasn’t imagined an ending to all this yet,

The boy never bothering to look up as the sun comes out

In the late morning, because, Big Deal, the mist evaporating & rising.

So Death blows his little fucking trumpet, Big Deal, says the boy.

I don’t see anything at the end of it except an endlessness,

The beauty parlors, the palm reader’s unlighted sign, the mulberry trees

Fading out before the billboard of the chiropractor.

The lake of fire’s just an oil speck.

I don’t see anything at the end of it, & I suppose that is what is wrong with me,

Among the other things. And it’s slow work, because of all the gauzy light,

It’s hard to pick out anything. 

-------- 

I did not talk like a pirate at all on Friday, though it was Talk Like a Pirate Day. I did a bunch of computer work in the quite chilly morning, but by early afternoon it was 70 degrees and sunny, and we had a lovely walk to the beach, where the ducks were congregating and a big group from the Tibetan monastery a couple of blocks away appeared to be having a tour. The Orioles and Mariners games overlapped, but they both ended in victory -- and the Yankees and Astros lost to them, even better. 

We watched Superman with Cheryl now that it's on HBO Max, and while it's still a bit warg battly for me, it has lots of Krypto and lots of Lois and that makes it enjoyable, plus it's reasonably funny. The temperature dropped, so we had chicken soup for dinner, after which we watched the last current episode of Miss Scarlet and started watching The Studio since it won a lot of Emmys; it's hilarious. Since it's not a beach vacation without mini golf with an arcade, here's the one in Ocean Shores:

Greetings from Ocean Shores

We're in Ocean Shores on the Pacific Ocean for the weekend, under very foggy skies exacerbated by the Olympic Peninsula fires -- the forecast was for temperatures in the high 60s, but it was 61 degrees when we arrived and the first thing I did was buy a sweatshirt in a store with a giant shark mouth entrance! We had a nice drive with a bit of drizzle through Aberdeen (hometown of Kurt Cobain) and past military bases and a never-finished nuclear power plant, and saw deer on the dunes. The signs said there might be snowy owls, but we didn't see those! 

The beach was extremely foggy but it's always great to see the ocean and there were lots of gulls, though the crabs and jellyfish we saw were mostly expired. We walked back through the town only to discover that most of the restaurants were packed because Furvana is in town -- we wound up having Mexican food because we could get a table at Los IV Hermanos. Then we picked up some fudge and salt water taffy on the way back to our hotel, where there are many anthropomorphic characters walking around. We have Avengers: Age of Ultron on the TV as I type this. 

Greetings from the Washington Renfaire

We spent Sunday at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire! It's in Snohomish County, so not as long a drive as we used to have to Maryland's Renfaire, and lots of the people who attend camp on site, so there's a huge sprawling campground adjacent to the fairgrounds and nearly everyone who attends makes some effort at costume even if they don't spring for full garb. It was pirate weekend, so there were lots of Jack Sparrows and Blackbeards around. 

We had crepes and mini-donuts for lunch between the equestrian show, the strong woman-aerialist, the falconry demonstration, numerous musical acts, a puppet show, some crafts demonstrations, and lots of looking at art, garb, and musical instruments (I bought a little bottle to strap to my belt and a forest-themed mini-bodice that goes with a lot of dresses). Here I am with the Queen, the Archbishop, Admiral Bunbun, and Paul, who almost got me boiled alive!

Poem for Tuesday and Snohomish Block Party

Honestly, 

By John Ashbery 

we could send you out there

to join the cackle squad,

but hey, that highly accomplished,

thinly regarded equestrian—well there was no way

he was going to join the others’ field trip.

Wouldn’t put his head on the table.

But here’s the thing:

They had owned great dread,

knew of a way to get away from here

through ice and smoke

always clutching her fingers, like it says

to do.

Once we were passionate about the police,

yawned in the teeth of pixels,

but a far rumor blanked us out.

We bathed in moonshine.

Now, experts disagree.

Were we unhappy or sublime?

We’ll have to wait until the next time

an angel comes rapping at the door

to rejoice docently.

(I know there’s a way to do this.) 

-------- 

We had cool weather for most of Tuesday -- it was in the 60s by mid-afternoon when we walked to the beach, but I was chilly at my desk all morning after we chatted with younger son and his fiancee, who have both started their new jobs (and who went to the Guardians game tonight, though it was rained out after the 5th). We only saw one frog, one turtle, and one eagle today, but we had several hummingbirds visit. 

My Voyager group minus Carol, who was visiting her grandkids in Canada, watched "Nightingale" -- an episode I did not remember at all -- then we watched the late west coast Orioles-Dodgers game, which was tense but ended gloriously, and now we're watching the season premiere of Only Murders in the Building, which I have missed! Some of the shops and entertainment at the Snohomish Block Party last weekend:

Greetings from Silverton

Another quickie, now home from Oregon, after spending most of the day in Silverton at the Canterbury Renaissance Faire, where we met Cheryl's longtime friend Christine and her daughter, and saw jousting, musicians, crepes, the Queen, the Queen's emotional support cryptid, jewelry, dogs, D20s, shaved ice, lots of great garb, and the very naughty Spanish king, among other entertainments! Then we drove back by way of Tacoma, where we stopped for dinner at Elmer's, and visited Idylwood Beach before we came home, where we're watching IF since it's a Ryan Reynolds sort of a weekend!