The Middle Distance

It's always been a while. I wish I posted more regularly. And who is to blame for that, I ask you me?

Yesterday Geoff and I went kayaking for the first time this year -- almost; he went with a friend last weekend while I went hiking with a different friend, but this was my first time this season and our first time together. This was also my first time with my new kayak! He wanted to upgrade our kayaks but couldn't find one he fitted comfortably in, so in the end I got a shiny new one -- longer and lighter than my old one, cuts through the water more cleanly -- and he is taking my old one, which although a bit clunky is still lighter than his old one. He's trying to sell his old one, but no bites so far, apparently. Anyway, we got out on the water for two hours and saw goslings, and cygnets, and even a baby loon with its mama! We've only seen a loon once before, so that was really special. (The chick was swimming on its own, not riding on its mom.) Also, the first clutch of cygnets we saw were young enough that one parent huddled at the edge of the reeds with them while the other came out to meet us and warn us off; when Geoff got a little closer than it liked, it rushed him with great flapping wings! No actual contact, but the message was clear and we rapidly paddled away. The second clutch we saw were a little older and were out on the water in an adorable toddling line between the parents, and we were able to pass by them rather closer than we'd been to the first family without anybody getting upset.

(Loon chicks don't seem to have a special name? We tried to think of one: Geoff suggested "lunatics" and I counterproposed "lunettes," French for "glasses.")

I've just finished going through the most recent season of Yellowjackets for the second time, since I've been watching it with two friends on slightly offset schedules. It continues to keep me riveted without being what I'd call "a good show"? I love how Shauna has been slowly revealed (yes, I know it's probably more like "how the writers have slowly changed their minds about Shauna" but I'm living in Watsonia here, okay) and we keep hoping that all the spouses and kids are safely off somewhere starting a mutual support and therapy group, never to be seen again. I'm dying to know where Melissa will turn up next, and what Jeff and Cally are going to do. (Poor Jeff and Cally.) I'm still not entirely sure which Taissa we've been seeing all season. And I love it when the teen and adult versions of the characters get to interact. I admire how the show has managed to hedge its bets on the supernatural-or-not? question for so long (I hope it's not), I'm delighted that we've finally wrapped around to the beginning of the show, and I really hope the mystery of the weird symbol does get explained in the end. The show was originally planned for five seasons, but it's hard to see how they could keep it going that long; I will be quite content if they wrap it up in the fourth season, especially since the alternative will be biting my nails hoping they actually get a fifth! I just hope they do actually wrap it up...

Having finished YJ, I'm now watching Interview with the Vampire with one friend (new to both of us) and Shetland with the other (a rewatch for me, but it's been a while). IwtV is slow-moving and sometimes I wonder why I'm interested, but I am, and now that previously unadmitted mysteries seem to be being hinted at I am more intrigued... (No spoilers, please! I read the original novel in like 1982, and saw the original movie when it came out, but remember basically nothing of either of them [except that I remembered for decades the stupid way in which movie-Claudia's hair curled when she was turned].) And I love Shetland and the way that (after a shaky bit at the end of the Perez stories) it refocused to center on my girl Tosh and our new DI Ruth Calder. I mean, it basically did what I wistfully hoped the fourth season of Ted Lasso would do: waved goodbye to the dudes and settled in to tell a story centering women. I absolutely adore Tosh.

I'm doing a bunch of traveling this summer, which used to be par for the course but is excitingly new since the pandemic! I had that brief trip to Virginia in May, and then my inlaws had two (TWO) family reunions in Quebec, and now I'm leaving on Friday for almost three weeks in the States, visiting friends, some of whom I haven't seen in years. I'm excited! And then (after my stepmother visits here for four days) Geoff and I are going on our first big trip since the Before Times, spending two weeks in Wales! I'm even more excited about that, and also somewhat intimidated; I'm out of practice at managing logistics for this kind of thing, plus the first week is going to involve some rather challenging hiking. And of course I am still afraid of COVID. But we're both over sixty, we won't be able to travel like this forever even in the best-case scenario, and COVID isn't going away, so we want to do this travel while we can. We're still going to take as many precautions as we reasonably can.

And I'm not reading much that's meaty, but last night I remembered that I was halfway through World War Z and picked it up again, which was a mistake at ten pm; I read for a while, freaked myself out, and had to do crossword puzzles for a while before trying to go to sleep, so today I am le tired.

vaguely political stuff

I mentioned to a Canadian friend the the day that I was about to go to the States, and she got that look you get when someone tells you someone has died and said, "Oh, I'm so sorry." I keep thinking I can't reel any more and then there's more. The volunteer work I was doing so much of last year for the Movement Voter Project is slowly beginning to start up again; two different people in the group have independently asked me to develop a training program to teach other people to do the kind of Zoom tech support that I do for them. (I'm not the only person who does that work, but they tell me I'm the best 😊) I don't have time to do that right now -- look at all my travel! -- but I brain-dumped a whole bunch of tips and advice for the first person, who has written them up and will incorporate them into a training she'll do, and told the second person to connect with the first. And the work itself will really start up again in the fall, when I'll be back and ready to take it on.