House
Before midnight on the 3rd:
Before 7th:
Garden
Cooking
Errands
Kinwork
Reading
Two 3.7-mile city rides.
Monday afternoon I saw a woman and boy on a tandem looking like she'd picked him up from summer camp. I waited at an intersection near them, and he was narrating some melodrama from the day as only a nine-year-old can.
Tuesday afternoon I got to pet the horse cops, who were in the hinterlands instead of downtown for the National Night Out. The horses are yet another thing I miss from working downtown.
Wednesday morning I met a Bouvier. I don't think I've ever seen one before.
This morning I saw Maven as we both headed for work. Hooray for the foot-powered commute! We talked about the upcoming book (Kal doesn't like it, though I didn't know that at the time) and another dress she will probably fit better than I do and whether she's coming to ballet in the park tonight. (Unfortunately, what came out of my mouth was, "Are you going to ballet tonight with AEK and I?" I blanched, and gabbled desperately, "Me. With AEK and me.")
Dresses! We had a clothing swap several weeks ago and Maven took the two dresses I brought, a short yellow sheath that has been snug across the beam for a while but which was now snug across the bodice and tight across the ass, not a good look in yellow silk, and a long simple celadon number that has always been snug across the bodice--reasonable in stiff linen--but now didn't want to zip.
And last summer or the one before I bought a white linen dress from J. Crew. White linen is already dicey, but it had a huge seam across my non waist and possibly a vertically bisecting seam as well and it's not doing me any favors. Maven is paler than me so it might not work on her either. Maybe we should make like Henny and dye Ella's dress in tea. One of the later All-of-a-Kind Family books
However! The Little Black Dress I bought in 1990 that, sometime in the past, I thought I really should give up on, maybe fits acceptably. It is certainly snugger than it was, but it doesn't give me pit-tit and my paunch isn't nauseating. I can't say it made RDC fall out of his chair, as the 1990 man did, but he thought it was fine (in more than a "you look pretty" way). I love simply cut clothes: it does not scream its year to me as much as some glaringly (to me) outré other, trendier pieces do.
In this book, unlike in most of Alison Weir's previous, she employs endnotes, but feh, I cannot agree with her conclusions. She overlooked and elided earlier points that she made when she wanted to draw a different one.
I can believe at least two things: that Isabella was not an accessory to Edward II's murder, and that Edward II, though murdered, was not murdered with a red-hot iron shoved up his bowel. I can stretch to recognize the remote possibility that he escaped and lived out his life quietly elsewhere (though she says once that he left Ireland for fear of being recognized and returned to England, where, you know, no one would recognize him).
I cannot quite embrace the idea that he escaped to the Continent and had audiences with the French king and the pope and died a hermit and no one in either court ever mentioned a word of this in their own records. And the suggestion that he ventured from seclusion to visit England once as "William de Galey" (William of Wales) and see his son is entirely over the top, as is the fancy that his monastery shipped his embalmed corpse to Albion when his natural death occurred.
An example of Weir's seeing only one possibility: When Edward II possibly escaped, he possibly killed a porter, whose body conspirators possibly dressed as his. Weir alleges that since Isabella would not have wanted to be lie alongside a porter, her willed intent to be buried in his tomb indicates she knew it wasn't the commoner's body but that of her husband, finally parcel-posted from Italy. Much nearer-fetched is the likelihood that it was Edward's body all along, or that if it wasn't, she didn't know it; or if she did know it, she also knew she should keep up appearances even in death.
What intrigues me is that, according to the evidence Weir has compiled, no one in any court in England, Paris, Hainault, or Avignon (where a version of the pope was in the 14th century) wrote anything about Isabella's sexual relationship with Mortimer, even in the veiled terms they weaseled about Edward II's homosexuality. And for a woman fertile enough to bear four healthy children to a man who preferred men not to bear, to a man who preferred her, even a pregnancy that lasted long enough to show, is odd. Weir excuses this with her being 30 and more, but Henry II thought Eleanor of Aquitaine at 27 was still a good enough dynastic bet to shatter the commandments on the spot "The Lion in Winter"for.
No we don't.
At the beginning I liked how Lionel Shriver (a woman, originally named Margaret Ann) portrayed the narrator, Eva, as a reluctant parent. I was grateful for Eva's honesty about her disquiet and regret about her child (the titular Kevin). So far I could sympathize with her. But when she snapped and unleashed her frustration over him upon him in violence, I was as disgusted with her as I was with Kevin and his father.
Most important, since she knew her son was a malevolent sociopath, I thought it was a crime for her to have a second child; and when he did, in fact, maim the daughter, I held Eva culpable for not removing her child to safety. It reminded me of Lisa Steinberg, whom I had not thought of for years. Joel Steinberg had abused poor Hedda Nussbaum for years, and while even in my 18-year-old's omniscience I didn't feel justified getting into her head about why she didn't leave, I did judge her for not safeguarding the child. All I am now is less certain.
At first I remembered the case but not the name Steinberg, and I strongly associated it with 12th grade into freshling year. Lisa Steinberg died in November 1987, fall of sophomore year.
HEBD stayed with me this past weekend while she was in town for a conference. She liked Blake, about whom ZBD wanted to know everything, and if Blake didn't fall in love with her the way he does with mostly men, he liked her fine and bowed and chucked to her. We went to the Botanic Gardens and to the gym to swim and to jazz with the neighborhood on Sunday, and Monday she came along to bookclub.
A surviving sunflower. The other weekend I brushed a guinea pig-sized pile of fur off Mia and stuck clumps of it in the cleavages of leaves to stalk of this surviving sunflower. The other one--only two of these seeds sprouted--squirrels toppled when they decapitated its newborn flower, this despite my carefully choosing non-seeding varieties. I guess the flowers still taste good, or--here's a thought--maybe the squirrels are just malevolent vermin.
Two miles, my first such long swim of the summer. But I have gained some endurance, because my shoulders never bleated, neither in the third k nor afterward.
Yesterday AEK, Soccer, and I drove out to Littleton where our friend George was in an arts festival.
(I would call George "Monkey" because she likes monkeys a lot, except that Scarf's daughter is already Monkey, but George has precedent as a woman's name and a monkey's name and her square for our first baby quilt was, of course, of Curious George. She is in the neighborhood bookclub, though emeritus for having removed to Capitol Hill.)
She and her mother design and create handbands and purses. Handbands as an accessory I could take or leave (meaning, leave), but her fabrics are fabulous and AEK and Soccer looked adorable in theirs. The purses are works of art and I actually bought one, pretty and impractical as it is. It joins the dress I bought a couple of months ago and am reserving for my upcoming 20-year high school reunion.
Thursday as my coworkers and I discussed the new restrictions on carry-on baggage, I lamented that I didn't want to check a bag containing The Dress and risk its going missing in Cincinnati, where I have to connect. CoolBoss and Minnie liked the dress I was wearing at the time, thought it flattering and appropriate and lisaish, and therefore wanted to see The Dress. I brought it in on Friday to model briefly and they both approved. They didn't question my workaday Dansko sandals with it, but Saturday when I told my three bookclubmates about my plans for the purse, they wanted to see the dress, and later when they saw (and strongly approved) it, they hated the sandals with it. RDC agrees that they are "too big" for such a dainty dress.
AEK has my same sandals but in bone, which I thought was too close to the dress color (and privately considered to teeter between white leather and cringeful taupe). Maven suggested black, since the purse has black in it, and I have the sandals in black too but I don't like black shoes with pale colors. Scarf suggested red shoes, for sassyness. But I am not sassy, and I do not believe Cynthia Heimel's suggestion that all you need are white sneakers, black boots, and red heels. I would not be comfortable in red shoes. I would consider, say, celery- or lime-colored shoes (oo, I sound like Treehorn's mother, trying to find a hat that matches her dress, in just the right shade of green). But not red.
Then I remembered my linen slingback sandals, "natural" colored linen and thinly trimmed in brown leather. I can walk and dance in them, they are dressy and belong to that small number of shoes I keep in their boxes, and they do good things for my legs.
Sunday RDC and I stopped for a bite of sushi after the gym, and as we walked home we passed Scarf and a visiting friend of hers whom I had met on Friday and liked immediately. I abandoned RDC and accompanied them shopping, where they tried to suggest wedges and stacked heels and toe-floss and t-straps and shoes that tie up the calf and Scarf insisted slingbacks don't go with a sundress (?!) and I stood fast.
I am going to wear eyeliner to this event, and that is enough costuming for me. I am not going to wear garish shoes--garish in color or style--too. Plus if I wear the slingbacks, my additional refusal to have any pedicure that involves sloughing off my callouses (which I need to walk on) or putting make-up on my feet won't shame the local What Not to Wear collective. Based on photographic evidence, Haitch called the Dansko sandals atrocious with the dress, buth both she and my sister said the slingbacks, on the other hand (literally on the other foot, since I posed in one of each) were fine, so I'm calling myself done.
But it's awfully fun to have girlfriends (and a friend, and a sister).
This might be Philippa Gregory's first non-V.C. Andrews book. She spared me Flowers in the Attic and I thought she did an okay job of creating a character whom both Mary and Elizabeth Tudor would speak frankly to, but goddamn, the comma splices.
Lovely brain candy while cuddled on the couch in fleece, once I was home showered and warm, with a pot of Earl Gray Lavender tea beside me and a cockatiel nearby.
I ventured into my first Sephora and allowed someone to brush a powder foundation on my face. While I stood there, another woman entered. She wore garments whose conservative cuts indicated her fundamental religious stance.
This interested me. She bundled her hair into a bun and wore a white net cap over that, and the garment's skirt skimmed the top of her feet, its sleeves ended past her elbows, and the collar buttoned closely at her neck. The whimsy of the fabric, in addition to the manner of her head covering, led me to assume she was Christian rather than Jewish or Muslim: white with multicolored polka dots in a pattern I would choose only for a romper for a toddler. She stood at a shelf inspecting products a few feet from where I stood, so I could see further that she wore white flip-flops, and makeup on her toenails--pearly pink translucence, but still color. I was befuddled: her body and hair disguised but nail polish? and looking at cosmetics?
And me, yeah, considering how foundation looks on me. What it looks like, applied by someone who supposedly knew what she was doing, is powder accumulating in and therefore enhancing the fine lines around my face: a lot more offensive than whatever is allegedly wrong with my 38-year-old skin.
Two puzzles.
We had reached Idaho Springs when a dread thought occurred to me. RDC was already annoyed with me for having to drive all the way back to the vet to drop off Blake's food--not only had I forgotten his supplies, all bagged and ready by the door, but also my phone, so when he noticed soon after I left he couldn't tell me. Oops. So I didn't say anything until we stopped in Frisco for lunch: I had forgotten my boots.
My Merrills are nine years old and leather, so arguably I needed new boots and maybe lighter hybrids anyway. We found me a pair of Asolos at Antlers and the crisis was, for a reasonable fee, averted. I could not have gone backpacking in hiking shoes, which I had packed, low and no ankle support.
Away from Aspen, I remember how beautiful it is; being there I know how much more beautiful it is than I remember. And I hadn't been there for two years, since Lou's wedding. My first time over Independence Pass, eleven years ago, was an adventure: hard rain had loosed a rock- and mudslide over half the road--my half--and I didn't know what the downhill car meant when it flashed its brights at me. Around a curve I saw: my half of the road was impassable, so I had to go into the oncoming lane, against the drop-off, without a guardrail. It hasn't been so interesting since, not even in the winter when the fun passes close and you have to stay on the highway.
If I were a bazillionaire, Aspen is where I'd live. It's unwaveringly liberal and unspeakably gorgeous. It's also not a little unreal.
Fr'instance, the whole of Pitkin County has fewer than 15,000 residents. It doesn't have a lot of people but it does have a Dior shop. (In Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days, he describes the place as looking like a small town but spending like Rodeo Drive.) This paragraph is foreshadowing.
If I hadn't been breaking in new boots--which luckily didn't need any breaking--this is the sort of hike I'd've worn hiking shoes with. As with the Hawaii trip, while I wait for RDC to process official pictures I rely on the kindness of Flickr strangers.
This picture was taken in late June; late August had less snow. We saw more green than this and autum wildflowers instead of spring.
It was heart-stoppingly specatcular, especially the weather. We had strong sun, light rain, heavy rain, and light snow, and all the clouds and variations in light that such changefulness warrants.
Ruth White's 1987 Newbery Honor book. It was fine, especially read on the couch in the sun with magpies quarreling just outside. I knew the big reveals ahead of time, but then, I'm not a child.
RDC went to do responsible things at the National Forest Service and I idled off to window shop and read by the Roaring Fork.
On the way to dinner the first night, we passed the Dior shop, and I fell in love with a gown in the window. Stormcloud gray--a few different shades of gray, all lovely and harmonious--strapless, floor-length, gathered into a slight train behind, and from the bodice poured a sweep of (chiffon?) in a paler gray. I had a lot of fun being in love with that dress until today, when in daylight I finally noticed that in its variation of gray was lettering, "Christian Dior" around the hip. Abruptly, my crush flopped.
I looked at jewelry, always on the search for new rings for my large hands and a bangle for my right wrist. In one shop I met a large hairy black dog named Jack and when the proprietor asked if anything caught my eye I said, "Just the dog." Only later did I realize I might have insulted his goods. Oops. In another store I met a Great Pyrenees the size of a Newfoundland, with legs as big as a lion's; my first words to it as I flopped down beside it were, "Hello, rug," because I mistook it for a polar-bear rug at first.
In the library, I updated my Pitkin County account (Colorado goes by counties, and I have seven bar codes on my card), borrowed a book, and continued down Mill Street to the Roaring Fork. Tragically, the riparian spatch I had in mind for reading was occupied, so I continued downstream along the 'Fork hoping to find another.
I had more of a walking along a river day than a lying along a river day.
And that was a great thing, because on Saturday I felt myself getting sick, and Sunday I knew I was sick. Hiking at 12,000 feet was gorgeous but more exertion at less altitude than I needed. Walking five miles along the Roaring Fork in the more abundant air at 8,000 feet, inhaling all the glorious scent of the black willow cottonwoods, healed me right up.
Or so it felt.
A mountain taxi brought us to the trailhead by 8:30. We hiked up Conundrum Creek to Conundrum Hot Springs, arriving by 2:30.
(Dogs met: a Vizsla mix that looked like a hound, named Muddy, and a half-blind heeler, Sammy. Another reason Aspen is great: dogs everywhere, in the stores and on the allowed trails.)
Sunshine and the magical exhalation of redolent trees had masked my illness the day before. After nine miles and 3,000 feet of elevation gain with 40 pounds on my back--despite more sunshine, aspen, and blue spruce--I knew I was sick. Damn.
We set up camp with our minimalist gear and sprinted for the springs.
For hot springs, Conundrum Hot Springs is neither very hot nor very springy. The main pool is merely a bermed area of creek, maybe two feet deep. Whatever it may lack in depth and heat, however, is far surpassed by its surroundings and more surroundings. Happily, the few people there during our stay knew better than to risk their health with bathing suits--though I'm just as glad that no cameras appeared either.
I was sick indeed if springs, nudey-dipping, scenery, and squeaking pikas didn't make me feel better. On the way up Conundrum Creek, we'd even seen a snowshoe hare, all brown except its gigantic white feet, and the creek and valley were spectacular, and we were seriously backpacking because here we had definitive proof of the age-old question of whether the bear shits in the woods. But I wouldn't let myself think about being sick. Well, except for when I told RDC I felt like Tucker, having to blow my nose on ferns instead of Kleenex. Tucker's Countryside
We admired flowers and stars and rockslides and boggled at people traversing a scree field on the way up Conundrum Peak. I discovered, not at all to my surprise, that I prefer a hole I have dug myself in nice clean dirt to campground toilets. We shivered in the springs and shivered getting out. RDC took photographs and I read The Persian Boy. We ate rehydrated "lasagna" and brushed our beaks with cinnamon-flavored toothpaste because that was the one travel-sized tube we had found. And I was not sick, damn it.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Hiking from Conundrum Hot Springs to Triangle Pass brought us through the most spectacular, eye-wrenchingly beautiful scenery I have ever beheld or imagined--and that's from someone who's seen both Kauai's Na Pali coast and Emlet laughing. Unfortunately, my health was not up to the task and I spent a lot of time looking at my feet. I was trudging, not hiking.
We passed treeline almost immediately and no thousand feet up has ever felt like so much to me. I had had a nice smooth shoulder in mind and when I finally saw the already steep trail angle up again for the final ascent, I gasped, "I can't do that!" and really could not imagine how I could. But I could, the way I had moved for the previous two hours: one foot ahead of the other, sometimes just ahead of the other.
At Triangle Pass, we rested, drank, and ate, and let the vistas back into Pitkin County and ahead into Gunnison County dazzle us. I was glad of the GPS indicating where Copper Pass ascended from the trail down to Copper Lake, because the trail itself didn't look like much. RDC wanted to go down into the bowl and up again closer to the Copper Pass, but leaving the trail, descending into the scree fields, looked like rockslides and severe injury waiting to happen.
I was steadier where the trail had washed away from the scree, leaving dirt, because all I could think of was rockslides and how the one best friend died in The Last Season. RDC found his footing better in the scree, because on his every footfall in the dirt, he felt himself--15 pounds heavier than I and with five more pounds on his pack--slip. I had held his hand on some stream crossings, not because I could keep him from falling but because that handhold is another point of reference for balance, and I did the same here. I could have traversed this bit on two points while being careful to lean starboard into the mountain rather than port toward the drop, but his being nervous and slippery frightened me onto a third point, my right hand. I went ahead, to scout footholds.
We both were supremely glad to reach Copper Pass with all of our bones and ligaments and backpacks in the right places. I had been so supercharged with adrenaline that I had actually breathed clearly, but on reaching the summit and comparative safety I clogged up again, and RDC had been charged enough to become jittery, which is exactly what he didn't want. But we had made it, and if I ever want to hike between Aspen and Crested Butte again I will not take that pass.
At Triangle Pass, I had already asked that we eliminate the detour down to Copper Lake. After the fright and delay the traverse between passes caused, I was even gladder now to face back into Pitkin County and down.
The landscape down from Copper Pass into East Maroon Canyon nearly compelled me to break into song--"The Hills Are Alive," as either Julie Andrews or Ewan McGregor did it, and of course the last scene of "The Sound of Music" with the von Trapps traipsing into Switzerland. It was beautiful enough that I wouldn't so violate its sanctity, of course.
We violated it a little: we tested the valley's echo, which was in terrific voice and reverberated for many seconds.
This valley looked and felt a little more like home. There was moss! and big trees! and fallen trees! and babbling burns and becks and brooks, though I am not allowed to say "brook" west of the Mississippi and perhaps not "beck" or "burn" at all. And a lot like Colorado: sunshine and mountains and big trees and contorted rock and lightning strikes and vistas and illegal cairns and no litter and creeks and criks. From the top of Copper Pass and for all the miles before the end of our trek, we had eyefuls of the Maroon Bells and sister peaks--not like home at all--and the beauty bowled us over from every new perspective.
Uphill is laborious but downhill is abusive. I had a physical the week before I left and came away with a referral to sports medicine and words like "meniscus" and "MRI" in my head, none of which did me any good here. We cranked right along when the trail approached level but both goosed gingerly along any descent.
We wanted to get far enough down and out that Thursday's trek wouldn't be all day. I could have continued past 4:30, I thought, but ahead of us the topographical lines began to run very close together: bad camping, too steep. Our first trailside exploration showed us dead snags, bear scat, and many game trails, and we pressed on. Just past a little stream that cross the trail, we found what was obviously a popular site. Not too popular: we hadn't seen another human for 30 hours. But frequented enough that perhaps bears would avoid it. Or perhaps prefer it, for scavenging.
Overnight I managed to sleep through a storm whose thunder shook the valley for long moments after every crack.
Thursday's hike down and out was a lot easier than the downward angle we'd begun on Wednesday afternoon: walking down, rather than hiking down and rocks. It was so easy, in fact, that it's a frequent horse trail, which meant the heady smells of aspen and spruce were sometimes overpowered. It had two great creek crossings that were fun but took, I thought, longer than they should have needed. But you have to take off your pack to loose your river sandals, replace it, change your footgear, and knot your boots (with socks tucked inside) around your neck such that they don't swing and upset your balance. The actual crossing takes no time, and next time crossings will not be the only reason I bring my trekking poles. Drying your feet with an already damp backpacking towel from water that's not only very pretty but rushingly cold and wetter than common is the other long bit.
When we were nearly down, we saw the road, the wonderful, dear road, and the periodic bus to Maroon Bells (no regular traffic is permitted). The bus, I suspected, could be a mirage. We waited at a campground for maybe three minutes before the next mirage arrived, and when the driver opened the doors I told him he was my favorite person in the world.
Back to Aspen, back to the Independence Square, and as RDC checked us in I carried both packs up to the room (by the elevator). The desk clerk was a little clueless about the one small bag we'd checked and I think needed all the minutes it took me to scurry (slowly) the three blocks to the car to get RDC's duffel and my wheelie. But he did produce the bag, and there was much rejoicing. Also there was showering. Sweet, sweet showering. And shampooing. And shaving.
We had a snack at the Jerome, a nap, and later a yummy light meal at Pacifica. I was not quite so tired as I was our first night in London, when I fell asleep sitting up three times and spoke as if inebriated, but I was finally allowing myself to be the level of sick I had suppressed for the past three days.
Have I mentioned the ducklings? Last spring in the Botanic Gardens Kal and I watched a clutch of duckings doze in such a heap that we could not accurately count them what with the odd leg sticking out, and we watched one duckling fall asleep so inexorably but inexperiencedly that it didn't tuck its beak in its wing but just let its head fall forward, and down, and down some more, until its head and neck rested on the tip of its beak. I was about that tired, if not as cute.
I spent a day in Aspen napping, reading, listening to books, and soaking in the hotel's rooftop hottub watching storms pass down the valley. I'd call it a waste of a day in Aspen except for the scenery and the sleep, neither of which I could get enough of.
In the late afternoon I achieved enough verticality to windowshop a little more. By the time RDC found me in a boutique, I was modeling a fabulous jacket. It might not have looked as good if I hadn't been wearing a brown linen skirt, but look good it did: luxurious soft fawn suede (fawn-colored, not made of--I think), lovely embroidery, foolish clasps closing the asymmetrical front, completely impractical and over the top. And beautiful.
The shameful thing is that its price, while ridiculous, was not out of range. It was out of sense and reason, but not range. For the price I'd rather fly somewhere--somewhere more exotic than Connecticut. But it reminds me of RDC's and my first Yule together, when I had fallen in love months before with a violet glass and worked "silver" perfume spritzer-flask thingie in a William Morris style, and I thought it was enchanting. We did not spend money on completely impractical and solely decorative things, except he did on this occasion. The difference in their prices and our reactions to them illustrates the change over the past 14 years. To be clear, no, I didn't get the jacket.
I had wanted to get s'mores from the St. Regis to bookend breakfast from the Main Street Bakery and Café but after dinner at whatever the restaurant now in the Howling Wolf's space, my energy was spent. More sleep.
We got up early and forewent another breakfast at the Café--blueberry pancakes at a communal table there is my favorite meal maybe anywhere--to get home and pick up Blake from camp. I wanted another nap before J's blessing ceremony that afternoon.
I did achieve laundry, but that was it.
The ceremony was lovely. She had insisted that she didn't need anything new because she had everything left over from Stick, but she is our dear beloved and Scarf wanted to mark the new arrival--especially since we all have such crushes on Stick.
We made a baby quilt, again, as we have done for all the babies. Mine was not a scene from a children's book but a moon-and-stars scene taken from a greeting card NBM sent lo these many years ago and that I have always found lovely. Several people did yoga-themed squares, including a wonderful book Kal found, a Babar book called Yoga for Elephants. It tells you how to hold your trunk in specific poses. Yoga and elephants both are good for J.
Also we each brought a bead to string together, that probably she won't be able to have with her during the baby's arrival but anyway. And London played a piano piece and Sherry danced a belly dance. I learned only this year that belly dance is usually performed not only by women but for women, during womanly rituals like marriage and birth.
And that was all the energy I had for on Saturday, and besides, the pregnant one and the recently hatched one didn't need me breathing on them too long.
I managed banana bread and chocolate-zucchini bread for the block party. It was really nice, especially since in the past year I've spent so much time on the next street over. Even during the party, Drums came over to borrow one tool or another, and Stick's father walked Stick and the dog past and he showed off the new stroller--that's right, J admitted that the one new thing they would like is a double stroller, so that was our group gift. Dodger the dog kept snapping at yellowjackets and eventually caught one, poor thing. Later in the day I had Stella over one leg and Rosie on the other. Stella I love, a golden retriever, but Rosie, a six-month-old black Lab, was new to me. She rented Dodger's downstairs apartment. The people too, course, but though we spent hours with them I'm not quite at alias level. Oh, and since we were only two houses down we occasionally heard Blake yell when he happened to hear one of us. I fetched him and set his cage on the porch wall, where he immediately got happy and only sweetly chatty rather than frustratedly yelly, even though he was still inside his cage, and we stood in the front yard rather than closer to him, and the presence of dogs.
Another four hours there and I was tired again. I came home at 7 but RDC was there until after I was in bed: we do have great neighbors.