Greetings from Northbridge

I had a busy Thursday starting with an appointment with my new primary care doctor at UMass in Worcester -- I like her, she's not as young as my previous doctor and had read my chart pretty thoroughly even though I had to spend an entire morning yelling at MyChart about sending my records to this office the other day -- and it wasn't a long wait or anything aggravating with the practice. I got my first Hepatitis B shot and have to go back in six weeks for labs and the second one, so I may have more opinions then. 

We stopped to pick up bagels on the way home, ate those for lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon mostly doing computer work. Even though I saw Laurie and Kristen yesterday at the seder, we didn't want to miss watching Rings of Power this week, so we saw an episode together online, and I also chatted with my usual Thurday night group after the season finale of The Masked Singer -- I approved of the final order. Now we're watching The Pitt. Here are Blackstone Park and River Bend Farm last weekend: 

Greetings from the Bookseller

I did a bunch of chores on Wednesday morning, then we had lunch and I chatted with my high school friends. It was a nice nearly-50-degree afternoon, and when we took a walk, we could hear spring peepers in the water around the glacial erratic in the middle of our neighborhood. Then I watched the coronation episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with Cel and Laurie. 

It was semifinals night on The Masked Singer, so we're at the point where all the performances are really good. Afterward we put on the first episode of the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, which is just not my kind of superhero show, and now we're watching the start of The Forsytes and I feel like I should just watch the older version. The printer at Old Sturbridge Village:

Poem for Wednesday and Aerial Art

The Orchids 

By Jose Santos Chocano 

Translated by Alice Stone Blackwell 

Freaks of bright crystal, airy beauties

Whose enigmatic forms amaze the eye—

Crowns fit to deck Apollo's brows on high,

Ornaments meet for halls of splendor rare!

They spring from knots in tree-trunks, rising there

In sweet gradation; winding wondrously,

They twist their serpent stems, and far and night

Hang overhead like wingless birds in the air.

Lonely, like pensive heads, all fetterless,

Lofty and free they bloom; by no dull chain

Their flowers to any tyrant root are bound;

Because, they too, at war with pettiness,

Desire to live, like souls that know no stain,

Without one touch of contact with the ground.

-------- 

Wednesday was quite cold -- around freezing, but the wind chill was much lower -- so it's just as well I had online chats in the afternoon, though we did take a walk that made me realize I need better touchscreen gloves. I opened some more boxes of books we haven't seen in several years in the morning, put some on shelves, put some in a pile to go through and decide if we really want to keep them, and hung three paintings in stairwells, then we ate lunch and I chatted with my high school friends. In the early evening I watched some Rings of Power with Cel and Laurie, the start of the Sauron/Celebrimbor romance, which I love. 

Then we ate dinner and watched The Masked Singer's Star Trek night, which was very fun -- the audience was dressed as if they were at a convention, the judges were in costume (Rita Ora as Seven of Nine, Robin Thicke as Captain Pike). After that, we watched Tim's Vermeer, which and her husband had suggested; it's about an Emmy-winning graphics expert who believed Johannes Vermeer must have used mirrors and lenses to create greater verisimilitude in his art and set out to prove it by copying his painting. From Tower Hill Botanic Garden, some of the orchids and aerial art by Cicely Carew in Elevated:

Greetings from the Thaw

I'm not used to my new Wednesday schedule! I sorted my bookcase ornaments in the morning, then chatted with my high school friends after lunch instead of before. Then I organized the empty boxes in the garage because someone was coming to freecycle a bunch of them, sorted out the large mirror and photo boxes, hung up a few photos in the living room and hallway, and watched the start of the second season of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with Kristen and Laurie. 

It wasn't as warm as it had been on Tuesday, but we walked through the neighborhood amidst melting snow. Now we can see that we have a bunny who lives or at least hangs out under our front steps! We ate leftover Indian food from the Bollywood Grill for dinner, saw The Masked Singer (finally the part of the season where it's all people who can sing), and now we're watching the back half of Bookish, which has been excellent. Winter animals from Old Sturbridge Village:

Poem for Wednesday and the Chapter House

At Tynemouth Priory 

By William Lisle Bowles 

After a tempestuous voyage. 

As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side,

Much musing on the track of terror past,

When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast,

Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide

That laves the pebbled shore: and now the beam

Of evening smiles on the gray battlement,

And yon forsaken tower that time has rent:--

The lifted oar far off with transient gleam

Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep!

Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature's breast

A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest;

While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep,

Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre,

Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire!

-------- 

Apart from the endless unpacking, my Wednesday was pretty normal, albeit shifted three hours from the previous three years. Everything that isn't books is out of boxes in the living room, though most of the items are on random shelves and I haven't managed to set up my desktop computer because I have to set up all the tchotchkes on the desk first. I talked to my high school friends after lunch, and a couple of hours later I watched some Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power with my usual pair of friends. 

We ate leftover food from Siam Nine for dinner before this week's The Masked Singer (Ozzfest in honor of Ozzy with Kelly Osbourne as a guest judge, looking like a ghoul with fake lips). Now we're watching Young Sherlock, which is kind of uneven -- decently interesting mystery, good acting, lots of nice shots of Oxford, some weird character dynamics. From the Worcester Art Museum, the Chapter House, purchased and moved stone-by-stone from Poitiers, the first medieval structure rebuilt in an American museum:

Greetings from Clutter

Moving van came. House and garage are absolutely stuffed with boxes and half-assembled furniture, at least a couple of pieces of which will have to be replaced, hopefully at their expense. And you know how they promise that they'll reassemble anything they take apart? My experience of our last three moves with three different national moving companies says that's half-true at best. 

So don't expect to hear from me much for the next couple of weeks, particularly since I haven't figured out where my desktop computer is packed and my desk is in many pieces! At least the cats are speaking to me now that the movers are gone, and even while they were hiding in the shower, they ate when we brought up treats. Plus I half-watched The Masked Singer while sorting bookshelf pegs!

Greetings from Redmond

The packers from the moving company came on Thursday to pack the things we couldn't -- photos and mirrors, TVs and glass candlesticks, dishes and mugs, and an unholy number of collectibles. I spent the day packing linens, sweatshirts, shoes, and sorting everything in the bathroom (pack myself because it's new/unbreakable, have the movers pack it because it's not sealed well enough, toss it, ask my neighbor if she wants it). We watched yesterday's Twilight eposode of The Masked Singer on the computer.

We had no TV from early on, so we missed pretty much the whole day at the Olympics (what a shock, a French judge rigged the scores so French ice dancers could win, this has never happened before except in 2002). We're watching Starfleet Academy on a tablet now. But our neighbors with the baby got us pizza, so our day was not nearly as difficult as that of our cats, who spent most of it hiding under our bed (they even ate lunch there, though I'm glad they ate) and are now climbing the upside-down couch:

Greetings from Old Salem

My Wednesday was mostly about packing, though I did take a break to chat with Kay in the morning and to watch some Rings of Power with Kristen and Laurie in the afternoon. We also walked to the beach -- it was 60 degrees! -- and saw three eagles and many ducks, geese, and coots. 

 After eating leftover Kanishka for dinner, we watched this week's The Masked Singer, and now we're watching Ponies, which is excellent -- great acting, not too much violence, and a major holocaust-related storyline. Flickr is down, so here's a rerun of a previous visit to Salem, Oregon in 2008: