Day 142: The Cambridge Parking Ticket, and Pink

Last day at work!  After a brief venture to the boys' new place in East Cambridge to go a on a scavenger hunt for my long black skirt and shoes (concert attire) for Calliope (which was quite easily accomplished!), I headed over to BBN.  My boss and M. [her co-worker, and my close friend, who told me about the job in the first place] took me to lunch and we ate our tasty Whole Foods meals outside BBN at the picnic tables.

After work, the boys were hosting a welcome-to-our-house/bye-to-me/happy-birthday-to-Kim (a friend) party.  Only fitting for my third-to-last day in Cambridge, I got a parking ticket while picking up some beer for the party on the way back from work.  Also fitting that I would spot the pink car featured to the left -- E. and I have been spotting this car all over town all summer.

Upon arriving at the boys' place, and shockingly finding it already to be spic-and-span, I hung out while waiting for K., who had decided to come on the early side since she's been getting over a cold.  She brought ingredients for a drink (the name of which I don't remember) involving gin, soda, and bitters (the bitter making it a "pink" version).  We enjoyed these while the guests began to arrive.

You may remember from earlier posts reading about former parties thrown by our house, fondly called Jack-in-the-box (after its namesake, my cat).  Well, this was no J-i-t-b party; it was decidedly the largest party I have been at this year.  Amongst other things that occurred, I heard tales of bloody guitars (from rough/excitable playing, not from any sort of actual violence), a pair of grad students up to their shoulders in bubbles in the bath tub, a faculty member's presence at the party, and sundry other instances of rigmarole.  Mostly I was in the basement, singing along to guitar, but there was also quite the dance party upstairs.  Two days left!

Day 139: River Gods

The moving continues!  This morning I shipped some extraneous packages that I had been hiding at MIT, and helped G. move some more things from MIT into their new place, as well.  But then it was back to the grind -- to work, then to Calliope.  It felt wonderful to have those tiny bits of sanity back in place, even if it's just for a few more days.

After choir D. and I looked at each other and asked, "Do you have anything planned tonight?" to the other.  It was in a state of shock we realized that there was nothing planned, and so we took the opportunity to go to one of my favorite bars in Cambridge -- River Gods, pictured above. Always cool music (you can't see it, but there is a DJ way up in the corner behind the bar, perhaps even poking his head out?), always cool (and changing) decor, depending on the season, and good veggie options for food (as well as good beers on tap).  The first Friday of grad school at MIT, I remember for some reason my adviser and his wife took me along to Trader Joe's (probably because we were all leaving lab at the same time and they had a car), and as we passed this place on the way back to my house they gave it a shout out.  Very good vibe there.

As D. was giving me some very good life lessons and suggestions for how to proceed in grad school tonight, I got a call from a friend of mine who lives in Colorado but who often travels to Boston for business.  I have been planning on staying with him one of the nights of my trip out west, but he was apparently also in town tonight!  So he swung by and said hi, was nice to see him.  Five more days.

Day 71: Iggy's Breads of the World

Happy birthday to my beautiful mother! :) To celebrate her birthday (surely this was the reason and not because I think freshly-baked baguettes are delicious), I headed to the very tasty Iggy's Breads of the World with a co-worker for lunch today to pick up fresh sandwich and some java goodness.  One consequence of the recent move of our "unit" to Building 19 is that we are just enough closer to Iggy's to have finally realized it was there, just around the corner from our new building, in a weird wasteland of old warehouses.

BBN is located in a sort of no-man's land in the strip-mall-suburbia area near Fresh Pond, at the other end of Cambridge from my normal stomping grounds, which actually makes getting anywhere for lunch rather difficult.  To get to the Trader Joe's by foot is not terrible but involves crossing some annoying streets -- and forget going to the Whole Foods across Alewife Brook Parkway.  Driving such a short distance seems silly, but might be an alternative if it weren't even more painful due to an excruciating left turn onto Concord Ave. followed by two rotaries from hell.

The discovery of Iggy's for us meant not only access to unlimited breads and coffee, but accessible access!  Er, access that didn't require entering into a mind-fog of navigating Cambridge traffic.

This evening involved enough of that, as I was reminded of the reasons I both love and hate biking in Cambridge in the summer when I bike to and fro for Calliope.  Pros: beautiful evenings solo rides are heavenly; not taking the T is always a plus; not driving a car is always a *big* plus.  Cons: hot, somewhat sweaty late-afternoon rides are not conducive to vocal warm-ups; Boston traffic is still terrifying on a bike (though somewhat more exciting to navigate, somehow); I always forget just how annoying I find the Longfellow Bridge to go up and down (I know, lame of me).  Opted for the "Harvard" Bridge on the way back, as it's much flatter, and repeated last week's veggie burger foray at Miracle of Science because that was a delicious idea.

Day 62: Johnny Foodmasters

After all of this weekend's festivities, today was primarily spent in Building 19 (i.e., at my desk at work).  But as the end of the evening drew nearer, I got very excited, for the season finale of Mad Men was approaching!  And what's more, one of the hosts had just received a deep fryer as a birthday gift (because whose dream birthday gift is *not* a deep fryer?) along with about 2 gallons of peanut oil and accompany potatoes, so we were to have Mad Men french fries.

I typically come from work when I watch tv at this location on Sunday evenings, and I'm right by Trader Joe's here in Fresh Pond, so I typically ask what can I bring?  The answer today was that more gravy was imperative.  After work I traipsed over to TJ's, and searched in vain for the item of the day.  Finally, I succumbed to asking a sales associate, and was looked at incredulously and told, "Gravy is a seasonal item."

.

?!

Yeah, right.  Maybe in, like, Canada.  Anyway, the next step was obviously Johnny Foodmaster's, the neighborhood-feeling Somervillain grocery store near the Mad Men / potato-ey fiesta, where there were plenty of terrible-for-you packets of the stuff.  Of course by the time we got there, the french fry maker herself had already eaten too many gravy fries for anymore, but there's always next time.

Day 54: City-hopping

Each day I drive around this area, I find myself adding more pieces to the jigsaw puzzle in my brain that encompasses Cambridge. It took me long enough even to connect Harvard Square to Porter -- you can imagine my difficulty in trying to connect Powderhouse Square to Medford, for instance.

Well, today was a treat for my mental representation of said puzzle and pieces, for it took me to six different cities in the Boston/Cambridge area -- all so very accessible with my little Corolla.  I'll abbreviate as much as I can, but it was such a fun day that I might indulge in description just a little.  Hemingway was never my favorite author anyhow.

First, back to Fresh Pond (in Cambridge) for a little work in Building 19 (see previous post).  The original plan was to pick up B., pick up a gift, and head with her to an anniversary barbecue (note: it was raining. all. day.).  Then she was thinking of going to another birthday party later in the day. And now, for what actually happened. [Note: skip the next paragraph if you don't to read tedium about a missing phone.]

Last night, I realized when I got home that my phone was no longer in my bag (which, admittedly, was a slouchy, open bag with no zipper/etc.).  I retraced some of my steps but forgot to check at Zuzu (probably the easiest place to lose track of stuff in Central, given that people are always setting their bags on tables in order to dance -- precisely what I did).  So after work, I decided to go there first in order to see if they had miraculously found it, and if not, to at least leave my email address.  Zuzu didn't have the phone but took my info and directed me to the box office at the Middle East where the main lost and found is located for the entire Zuzu/Middle East/Upstairs/Downstairs/Corner Bar complex (yes, 5 entities!).  There I was told that they only had soft stuff like clothes/etc., and that the valuables were kept in the manager's office at the Corner Bar.  So, I was a "barfly" (except for the drinking part) for a bit while the Corner Bar bartenders hunted down the manager from his lair so he could check for me.  No phone was found, but on the plus side I was a) asked if I was a songwriter for a They Might Be Giants song (I was singing a few bars of "Whistling in the Dark"--there was a reason but I'll spare a *few* details) and b) I didn't get a parking ticket even though my hazards were on / my meter runneth empty.

Next stop was to pick up B. from a party she was going to in Somerville -- a so-called "Brew-off", where 7 different amateur brewers allowed their friends to rate their (anonymous) beers.  Pretty cool concept. Ended up staying for a bit to chat and taste beers 6, 7, and 4 (my favorite), and then we headed onward to pick a present for the fifteenth anniversary of two of our friends.  B. noted that the anniversary was the "crystal" gift year, so she first suggested Cristal... when I vetoed this and asked for another gimmicky "crystal" idea, she brilliantly voted for "Crystal Light", and we ended up bringing a nice bottle of vodka and some powder-y lemonade sugar-y goodness in a yellow bottle, with a bright yellow bow I had picked up earlier in the day adorning the booze.

Stop with B. #2 was in Boston, in the South End -- the anniversary barbecue. Rain or no rain, those boys were outside grilling.  Lots of good people there, including E. and his brother and dad.  When I asked about his mom, E.'s dad replied that she was still at home in Waltham, on "baby duty" -- E.'s middle brother and wife were expecting TWINS and the doctor had said it could be any time (though they had scheduled her for several weeks down the line).  An hour or so later, E. got a phone call -- and if you haven't guessed where this is going, you have under-estimated the epic-ness of this city-hopping night.  The twins were coming!

After lots of jumping and hugging and the exodus of all family members related to said twins, B. and I also departed from Boston, and made for destination #3 together: Arlington, where a friend was having his birthday party at B.'s brother's house.  Lots of delicious food, a fun party game, and then B. and I were again departing for our (almost) final destination -- Belmont, where most of the clan was hanging out, waiting for news from the hospital, with E'.s brother's older child (he's 15 months and was sleeping when we got there).

First, a pit stop at a 7-11 for coffee, ice cream, and other midnight-baby-waiting essentials.  And when we walked in the door at stop, #4, Belmont -- they had ARRIVED. Phone calls were happening just then (in a lovely mixture of English and Spanish) and there is now even more beauty in the world.

Stop #5 for B. and me was to take the boys (read: E. and his brother) back to Medford, beautiful Medford, with a sing-a-long to Robert Plant and Allison Krauss along the way.  A beautiful end to a beautiful, rainy day, when two beautiful little girls came into the world.  Cheers to June 2!

Day 53: Building 19

Today was The Moving Day.  All of the annotators from the Speech and Language department at BBN were moved to Building 19.  I was later told that apparently "Building 19" has cultural significance, and a quick google search confirmed that there is a chain of stores called Building 19 with the slogan "Good Stuff Cheap."  It's kind of funny and a fairly accurate description of the annotators.  They say that any change in the workplace is good for productivity (no matter what the change is) -- but I'm not totally sure about that.

Let me describe the BBN version of Building 19.  First of all, it's a warehouse--it's where shipping and delivery at BBN resides, and trucks come in to the room next door to drop things off throughout the day.  (At some point, when the fumes were bothering someone, I checked it out with a co-worker, and we were told by a guy in that department that "I sneeze once in the morning but then you get used to the fumes" and that "sometimes we turn a fan on if it gets too bad".)

Anyhow.  Our particular corner of the world in Building 19 is kind of cool.  It actually looks like the room would make an amazing bar (kind of reminds me of the pizza place in Davis that is converted from a warehouse).  There are huge, brightly-painted pipes and scaffolding above us (the ceiling is probably about 16-20 feet -- I'm not great at such estimations!), and rows of medium-sized "cubicles" -- really just desks with dividers between them.  Above the desks are fairly low-hanging rows of fluorescent lights, but the room is so big that the lighting is not actually very depressing.  The girls formerly living in 3/123 (ah, that beautiful building, with offices right next to the library and cafeteria...) snagged the first row, right by the door, with frosted glass panes letting in light (but no peeking!).

They also say that groups of people, even strangers, become closer when they have to go through a hardship -- and probably this almost counts.  So we spent part of the day trying to make the space look nicer by hanging up posters that M. (our supervisor) had scavenged and hanging up some hooks that she'd nagged us for coats/bags/hats/etc.  It's a pretty sweet work environment, if you ask me -- even came with fancy bathrooms (close by, just for us, *and* they have a decent-looking shower and lockers) and a mini-kitchen (full fridge, hot/cold water device of some sort, coffee maker, sink, microwave).

After work, I had a good-but-not-so-cheap dinner with Z. at the Druid, where a friend from my class at MIT met up with us.  We headed down the street to Courtside -- which was the deadest I have EVER seen it -- and then sprinted back to Central to catch a song or two to dance to.  Back to Building 19 tomorrow!

Day 36: Secrets

Today was a day of secrets, on many levels. First: BBN had its first "fire drill" of my tenure, which in fact was not a fire drill at all but apparently a faux prank - meaning that someone pulled the fire alarm in one of the buildings for no reason at all, à la grade school.


At any rate, the fire "drill" was rather informative. Apparently, each building has a group or "squadron" which has a fire marshall that should be reported to.  And ours apparently had a migraine today, so she wasn't there.  There were only two of us "annex" annotators in today, but after we'd come back in from the alarm, a guy came by to ask if we'd gone out for the alert.  Of course we had, but this left us to speculate.  The guy who came in let us know that someone from a different building had erroneously / falsely set off the alarm, leaving us wondering: "Why?" Why had someone set off the alarm and if they had, WHY WERE THEY TRYING TO STEAL OUR GOVERNMENT SECRETS?

I won't reveal those reasons just yet.  But apparently there are secrets.  Another secret item du jour was a long discussion about { intimacy }, a place I've longed to go to for years and to which two of my good friends from choir ventured this evening for specialized fittings.  Ah, secrets.

Day 4: BBN

Not that I don't go to work every day, but today I decided that I am pretty darn lucky to have my job, so much so that I should include it early on. I work in the northwest part of Cambridge (close to Fresh Pond). While the route from mid-Cambridge (where I live) to this area of Cambridge north of Harvard Square is not the most beautiful, there are very many beautiful things around the workplace itself. Fresh Pond is a reservoir, so it's not possible to go very close to the water, but the paths surrounding it are constantly filled with joggers and bikers (and lots of dogs!) making it a quite scenic location for a picnic lunch. However, if the short trek to Fresh Pond seems ambitious, my workplace also provides its employees with a lovely area outside of the building, complete with the shade of some trees and many picnic tables.

This evening was the wonderful kind of evening where you don't quite know what will happen, and something beautiful emerges. Several people ended up convening at a friend's house in Medford, where there was grilling and chatting and, most of all, singing! It turns out that evening the most casual of singers among us was cutthroat at the board game we played called Encore, where teams battle to show they can come up with the most songs based on a single word or category.

But more on beautiful Medford some other time.... and likely, more on the venue of the night's final events, which involved dancing (which has been done before and will be done again) in Harvard Square, followed by a surprisingly delicious bout of midnight Chinese. Well done, Hong Kong.