And you parted your lips for a herring fish

I appear to be somewhat aggressively vacationing. gaudior and I spent the afternoon at the New England Aquarium. It was great.



That's me with an Atlantic goliath grouper (Epinephelus itajara), quite possibly the same one I've seen in the Caribbean blue hole exhibit for years. It's sort of Newfoundland-sized. I am in the picture for comparison and also perhaps to show off my Captain Sashay T-shirt. I got compliments on it from two identifiably genderqueer people and one apparent dude in a lab coat. I am not sure what the cuttlefish with which I had an inadvertent conversation thought. Mostly I am concerned that way I unfolded my fingers communicated something rude in Sepiida, because it startled back from the glass immediately and flung up two of its arms. Its colors fluttered in intensity, although not in hue. Later it was distracted by one of its fellows stalking and suddenly engulfing a crab with a movement rather like being attacked by a collapsing umbrella. One of the other cuttlefish already had a crab in its arms when we got there and was patiently crunching its way through the stiff carapace. I visited the electric eel as usual and Gaudior spent time with the leafy sea dragons. The renovated octopus exhibit is a beautiful little installation of transparent or patterned glass jars suspended on knotted ropes for the cephalopods to climb along or curl up inside. In the crowd around us, I heard at least two languages I couldn't recognize by ear. We weren't sure if the ungodly yells that echoed from the first floor as we were leaving belonged to a small child or a penguin.

Afterward we walked for dinner to Boston Public Market, where we split the fancy mac and ginger switchel from Jasper Hill Farm and the cabbage knish and jaw-dropping shakalatkes (shakshuka served over latkes: a great moment in Jewish food) from Inna's Kitchen and finished with apple crisp and cider slushies from Red Apple Farm, all of which was unexpectedly epic. Gaudior pointed out afterward that latkes and apple cider are autumn-to-winter foods and I said that I did not think Cernunnos, Lord of Summer was going to hold it against them. I was really limping badly by the time we got back to the car, but so far it doesn't look like there's blood. This cannot be the most inconvenient thing that has ever happened to one of my feet—the chillblains were pretty stupid—but it's pretty far up there.

In other home news, I am intrigued that the line of berbere I sprinkled along my threshold at four in the morning actually appears to have kept off the ants that were swarming into my room from the hallway where the next door over is the basement stairs—I kept seeing red pepper used as an ant deterrent in the Benjamin January books and then my mother independently mentioned it and I haven't had to contend with any foragers so far tonight, fingers crossed. I did not appreciate being bitten as I was trying to go to bed.

I have no idea why one of our neighbors just set off a string of firecrackers or cherry bombs. Maybe they also solved their ant problem and felt like celebrating.