Greetings from Fireworks Night

I had a chatty online Wednesday -- talked to my high school friend group right after lunch, then watched the first half of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl with Cel and Laurie in the late afternoon. In between I did some chores and some writing, and afterward Paul and I took a walk and saw a tiny toad on the cul-de-sac with the pair of baby bunnies. 

We watched the season finale of Lucky, which was pretty satisfying; the women made good decisions and most of the men got what they deserved. It was a wild baseball day: the Red Sox lost to the Diamondbacks in extra innings, the Orioles were robbed of a home run by a bad call and lost to the Yankees, the Mariners came back from their worst-ever loss to beat the Brewers. 

Now we're watching Futurama; this week's episodes are "Our Flag Means Medical Coverage" which has pirates, yay, and next is "Lords of the Ring" which is a promising title. Here are some photos of the fireworks at Polar Park after the Woosox game last weekend; if I had known Mickey Gasper was going to play so well when he got to the majors, I'd have taken a picture of him!

Greetings from the Woosox

I don't remember what I did on Monday early besides laundry and some weekend photo sorting, but we ate dinner very early and in the late afternoon we drove to Millbury to see Six: The Musical Live! which stars the original West End cast and starts with a feature interviewing them and the show's creators filmed mostly around the open-air concert in the courtyard of Hampton Court Palace. 

I've seen the North American tour cast at the National Theatre and a high school production at a drama school, and obviously the energy is different at a movie, but it was a pretty full theater, the woman sitting next to me was wearing glitter shoes and a tiara, and the whole show was a blast. I still wish Anne Boleyn was smarter and Katherine Parr was more direct about her ambitions, but it's all so much fun. 

We got home for the end of the Orioles and Red Sox games (the Os lost by one but the Red Sox clobbered the Diamondbacks, and Adley finally got a couple of hits and a run), after which we watched some more Kevin Can F Himself, which we're finishing because we only have three episodes left. But speaking of baseball, here's Polar Park with its own mini Green Monster, Citgo sign, and other Boston Red Sox tributes: 

Greetings from Polar Park

Another quick post because we got home late after tonight's Woosox game, which we decided to go to this morning so we headed out to Polar Park when Paul got home from Boston. There was a forecast for some rain but that lasted maybe 45 seconds, and otherwise it was a magnificent not-too-warm evening. We parked a few blocks away, walked to the stadium, I got a quite-good Beyond Burger and fries with (of course) Polar cola, we ate it during the national anthem and Puerto Rican Heritage Night events with Roberto Clemente's son. 

The Woosox were playing the Buffalo Bisons. Gage Ziehl, who pitched last week when Adley Rutschman was catching, was the starter. Unfortunately the home team only led for one inning and lost 6-2 (not as bad a night as the Red Sox had, they lost 8-4; at least the Orioles won), but we got to sing "Sweet Caroline" and watch mascot races and t-shirt tossing and, after the game, there was an excellent karaoke fireworks show mostly to 80s and 90s music. We got home just in time to save the cats from starvation, and now we're watching this week's Silo.

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 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 Tower Hill

My morning was chores plus going through a bunch of old photos -- tall ships as old friends, like Kalmar Nyckel and Mircea -- and my afternoon was reading, computer work, and a walk in what we expected to be beastly heat but was unexpectedly not as hot, though extremely overcast, and when we noticed that the sun was orange, we discovered that Canadian wildfires were blocking the sun but also making the air quality more worrisome. 

That trend continued into evening, when we put on the All-Star Game and discovered that Philadelphia also had hazy air. The AL won, which was as I wanted it, though I took a break to watch DS9's "Distant Voices" with my Tuesday night group -- the Bashir episodes are more interesting now that we know more about his childhood secrets. Paul made Coq au Vin for the date. From Glass In Flight by Alex Heveri at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill:

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.

Greetings from the Flamingos

Tuesday was just as rainy as Monday. I spent the morning doing chores with a break to run out and catch Squawkabillys, then we had lunch and in the afternoon I talked to Chris for an hour and a half. Then we went for a walk as the drizzle slowed before dinner. My DS9 group watched "Destiny" -- I love the Emissary episodes though I don't love Kira in this one, and I love that the smart Cardassian scientists are all women and really want peace. 

Apart from baseball, the rest of the evening has been watching some episodes of The Agency, which I wish had more Martian and Samia, though I enjoy Gremlin's story (I can't say I like her -- she's a sociopath, whereas Martian's weaknesses as an agent are also what make him sympathetic). I love when I go to a zoo and a wild animal has snuck into an exhibit, so here is the groundhog swiping food in the flamingo exhibit at Roger Williams Park Zoo: