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 the Sunflower Festival

Most of my Tuesday was pretty quiet for me except online. I did a bunch of chores and reading and I also talked to Chris, plus we took a walk and saw several bunnies. My DS9 group watched "Family Business" which is a must-see because of Kasidy Yates and Moogie, but the Ferengi story is really hard to watch even knowing that it ends well a few seasons along. 

Then we watched the Red Sox win (Adley hit a home run) and now we're finishing Kevin Can F Himself, which I guess doesn't end with a murder so that at least is good, though maybe Kevin and Neil will destroy each other and I might be okay with that. Some of the music, local craft vendors, and decorations at the Sunflower Festival at Red Apple Farm last weekend:

Greetings from Mystic Arts

On Saturday we drove to Connecticut to meet Kristen and Laurie and the latter's family for the Mystic Outdoor Arts Festival, which is in tents all along the river on either side of the boardwalk. We looked at lots of crafts, including wood and resin cutting boards, glass jewelry and ornaments, decorated picture frames, and nautical pottery, plus lots of other things, and we got to see the ships around Mystic Seaport. At lunchtime we walked past Mystic Pizza to Cucina Al Pantheon. 

We stopped in the Polish pottery store and watched the drawbridge open to let a tour ship through, then drove home in the late afternoon and saw most of the Woosox game with Adley Rutschman catching. Then we started the Orioles game, but it was not going well, so we watched The Dink, whose cast is better than its script but so many of my friends play pickleball that it was fun watching tennis players complain about it. We had another thunderstorm which hopefully will make tomorrow less humid.

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 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 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.

Greetings from the Worcester Center for Crafts

My Wednesday was a mix of talking to friends online -- all my usual high school group after lunch, Laurie later in the afternoon so we could watch some Staged -- and watching the Orioles-Red Sox doubleheader, which they split, which I'm ambivalent about because I want the Os to make the postseason but I wanted the Sox to get the consecutive win record just because that's a cool thing for a team with a bunch of players I like. 

In between, I put together a shepherd's hook stand to hold Adam's onetime Turkish lanterns, which are now looking awesome in my living room after reorganizing some furniture and a portable AC unit we don't really need here, and which cast a nice glow while watching baseball. Now we're watching more Ride or Die, which made me howl with Lord of the Rings references. Bands at the Worcester Center for Crafts' festival last weekend: