Day 113: Biking along the Charles

For Day 3 of biking to work, I took the path not through Central and Harvard but rather through Cambridgeport and along the water.  The Charles River has always been my favorite part about the city I live in (I speak loosely hear of course -- I suppose I just mean in gross geographical terms, or something), and I will darn well attempt to see it a lot over the next month.  One time my first summer here I managed to make it out by the MIT sailing dock in time for sunrise -- just gorgeous.

After work, I met E. in our "old place", Thelonius Monkfish in Central, for some sushi -- this time, veggie sushi for me.  (I have never, ever ordered vegetarian sushi before.  What is becoming of me?)

Capitalizing on the nice summer air some more, there was a later venture out to Harvard to the beer garden at Charlie's, and later to a friend's house in Somerville who has something that almost qualifies as a roof deck.  It's definitely a... well a roof.

Boston must be a city with some of the best and most diverse views, honestly.  For having so few really interesting geographic features, to boot -- the river winding through really makes it.

Day 112: Shakespeare on the Common

The best part of today was all of it.

Day two of biking to work meant that I needed to bike all the way from Fresh Pond to Newbury St. in the evening for Calliope.  I thankfully left in plenty of time, not realizing that bike paths in Boston are actually full of pedestrians (well, mostly runners).  Who knew Boston was so athletic?

It was a fantastic day for the ride.  Biking on the Boston side of the river across from Cambridge turned out to be stunning, even if the path was pedestrian-ridden.  Thank you Dr. Paul Dudley White.

One of the coolest parts of the ride was biking past the hatch shell (see above), which was apparently hosting some crazy cardio exercise which only women were attending.

I had a few moments just before chorus to myself, so I plopped down under a tree (viewed the correct way as shown in the photo) and just breathed for a few minutes.

Rehearsal was a bit rough this evening, but afterward, we had the reprieve of some William S. in the park -- Coriolanus.  Only got there in time to see the last two acts (out of five) -- "I will be loved when I am lacked."

Beautiful day.

Day 111: Views in downtown Boston

It's rare enough that I go out in Boston -- other than the occasional excursion to the 'Snake after Calliope -- so it was somewhat bizarre to realize that a friend's birthday dinner tonight was to be held at the same bar/restaurant where I had crashed a wedding after-party a few months prior: Woodward, in the Ames Hotel.  The food was surprisingly good and the company was of course lovely, so it was a pleasant night spent out-of-doors at dinner. The views from the terrace of the restaurant were also a treat -- I hadn't realized this the first time I was there.  I'll try to go back for a picture before I'm out.  Walking back to the car after dinner through the State St./Government Center area was pretty great, too.  Not sure I'd done much of that at night-time before.

We popped in for a nightcap at the Field on the way home, a place that is fast becoming another one of my favorites now that it has an outdoor patio.  It will be nice to live in a place where being outside is an option twelve months out of the year.... Maybe from now on (i.e. for the last 34 posts) I should end with an optimistic statement about southern California.

Day 110: BSO behind the scenes

Never thought I'd be the type of person to wake up at 8am on a Sunday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but it's happened.  Sundays in Georgetown for rehearsal are fab-o, and we stepped it up a notch today.

Rehearsal itself was a bit sluggish today compared to last week.  Our first attempt at running through Act 2 off-book was not as glitch-free as our first attempt at Act 1 -- and most of us had to resort to using scripts.  But it was great to get everyone there for Act 2, as we had spent less time on it thus far.

The second part of the day involved a foray to Crane Beach in nearby Ipswich -- my take was that it was nice, but next time I'd just drive a bit farther and go back to Ogunquit/York beach (this was pretty close to Georgetown, in its favor) -- free to park there and fewer folks around. Again, nearly none of us had brought bathing suits, but BNap saved the day by having a car full of dirty laundry -- one piece of which was the t-shirt I'm sporting above, touting the same radio frequency as D's (different cities, though; funny).

Part three of today was great.  I was stoked to find out earlier in the week that Mercury Orchestra, a local/community-based group that is quite a bit larger than Calliope, was looking for choristers to accompany the orchestra for Daphnis et Chloe, Ravel's longest piece of music and only ballet (it's short for a ballet, only about an hour).  The choral accompaniment is stunning -- and apparently REALLY HARD!

The first cool thing about the whole ordeal is that my name was on a list with a security guard at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, allowing me to enter its under-belly and poke amongst the scattered music stands that are always floating around where there are orchestras.  Got a big twinge of .... -- well, something more pleasant than food poisoning -- being in that atmosphere again, the basement of a symphony hall.  Felt like a big production and reminded me of singing with the Kokomo Symphony Orchestra as a kid in the KCC -- we would always accompany their biennial rendition of the Nutcracker.

The second cool thing about this schtick is that the conductor is fantastic.  Whole different style from what I've become used to -- and it's always nice to start with chorus only before trying to put the whole thing together.

And the coolest thing is that the music and the singers are beautiful -- and we get to perform this beauty in Sanders Hall.  This blog -- and this summer -- have turned into a sort of feschrift for the arts, and I like it.

Day 109: And to think that I saw it on Newbury St.

Happiness is walking out your front door into your favorite coffee shop on a Saturday morning at 8:30, finding that a close friend has also arrived (freshly back from Germany, no less!), and having an unplanned 45-minute long conversation.

It is not minding the fact that you're working on a Saturday and having no plans at all after, but making it up as you go along. Today was a breath of fresh air.  Eek, I'm sounding rather trite today, eh?

This evening, after a brief stint at a barbecue this afternoon, I met up with the brothers E. to run lines on Newbury St.  [The phrase "run lines" has become a part of my daily vocabulary, but I still think it sounds like I'm into hard drugs every time I say it.]  Sitting on Newbury St. and people watching somehow feels quite like Harvard Square.  Maybe it's all the brick?  Anyhow, the Saturday evening patrons of Newbury St. Starbucks were treated to a double-feature (that is, simultaneously doubled, not in sequence) of some buskers and a trio of aspiring thespians doing our rendition of Rumors -- the whole of Act 1, I believe -- on the patio outside.  We later finished Act 2 in Beautiful Medford, making it an early night before our now-weekly Sunday morning gig practicing on the stage in Georgetown.

Day 106: The Last Hurrah

 
Some time ago, possibly the day of the most epic photo scavenger hunt known to man (or at least to this hu-man), I ran across a bar called The Last Hurrah.  Even then it spoke to me of the parting of the ways of the four tenants of Jack In The Box (as our place is called), and when I mentioned it to V., she was enthusiastic about it being a part of her last night out in Cambridge. Er, Boston.

So tonight, we went.  I arrived there on the on-time/early side, and E. was already there and well into drink 1.  I joined him at the bar and quickly we were joined by others, and ceded our spots to move to a larger table.  We migrated once more to move to a spot which happened to be directly in front of the television that was broadcasting the Olympics. Luckily the patrons who seemed interested in watching both a) were very nice and b) departed shortly after.

The portion of the night held at the Last Hurrah was (fortunately) fairly short-lived and involved a lot of talk about water conservation.  We relocated to one of my favorite Cantabrigian bars, River Gods, not too far into the night.  On the way we passed a lovely sign entreating us to shred any suspicious evidence [so weird; see above photograph], and once there we were greeted by many summertime lovelies in the form of butterflies hanging from the ceiling and such (River Gods always has bizarre creatures hanging around to celebrate whatever season it may be).

The point: Good-byes are terrible, but a part of life.  I don't know why you say good-bye, I say hello...

Day 98: Biking the city

It was raining today, so after I drove home from work, I took the T to choir rather than biking.  Thank goodness it rained -- the heat just disappeared.  But like most summer rains, this rain was temperamental, and had ceded by the time we were done piping out our Bach [side note: singing Bach's Mass in F Gloria at the appropriate tempo is not easy, but it's a helluvalotta fun].

So after I got home via T, I grabbed my bike to head to Inman Square to meet up for a) Punjabi Dhaba and b) a board game night.  Fewer pleasures greater than biking in a post-rain evening around here (love the smell -- if I'm not going to get to enjoy the crispness of Cambridge's autumn I'll damn well enjoy the cool after the summer rain).  And if it's warm, not so bad biking in the rain either.

Get ready for some sappy posts.  Roomies leaving at the end of the week is hitting me hard.

Day 88: Hatch Shell

 Going to see the Boston Landmark Orchestra play Aaron Copland at the hatch shell near the Charles (Boston side) was just great.  Apart from one cranky audience member who freaking stole my hot pretzel.  (Seriously: "Oh, ma'am, I've been waiting about 10 minutes.  I think that's--" "Oh, what a pity. [walks away]")

Gorgeous evening! Hatch shell! Who cares I had to wait a few more minutes for the next pretzel! Plus Appalachian Spring and other Copland for free.  Unfortunately, I had to leave early - a friend from choir was part of the All-Boston chorus singing some of the folk songs, but it was in the second half so I missed it. According to M., who invited me, the folk songs were a bit strange because they sounded so "formal" -- not at all like sing-song-y folk stuff.  There are free concerts every Wednesday for the rest of the summer at the hatch shell -- everyone should go!

OK.  That was the most salient point I had to make for today. Other great things about today:

1. Got to have dinner with K&L like old times at Oleana!  (YUMMY food, AMAZING baked Alaska, and tasty muscat and other wine...)
2. Got to walk across Longfellow from the Hatch Shell to Oleana. Love doing this at a moderate pace when it's nice out. Beautiful.
3. Z IS BACK! From London.
4. After chatting with Z I ended up grabbing a quick drink with a friend I hadn't seen in a while at Brick and Mortar. Good good evening.

Day 87: The Cambrige Street Code

When you live in a city for a long time, certain aspects of the city become like second nature.  Little things that you barely notice on a day-to-day basis, but rules which, when "violated" (when you're traveling, in strange situations, etc.) strike you as very strange. For instance, the other day I was out late-ish at night, and was crossing a street with someone from out of town who tried to stop me as I began to cross at a red light. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "There's a cop right over there!"  I had to explain to him that in _this_ town, pedestrians are treated like gods, bicyclists are given quite the run of the street (though not as much as pedestrians), and cops can barely even get to motorized vehicles through the morass of pedestrians, cyclists, and god-knows-what-else -- maybe even roombas. At the very least, pedestrians jay-walking is not frowned upon in the slightest, and in fact, once a pedestrian is in the street, it is the motor vehicle-ist's responsibility to stay-out-the-way-b****, stay-out-the-way.

What I'd like the reader to come away with here is two-fold: (1) Cambridge and Boston have their own street codes (apparently not obvious to visitors) and (2) it is such that if you have to travel very far not on foot, you should stay-out-the-way.  I.e., Take The Damn MBTA (the "T").

Now, the T is not perfect either. For one thing it stops running about 90 minutes before bars close (terrible planning on the part of the city for the hoi polloi, but great planning if you want to increase the existence of drunk or cab drivers).  For another, there is only one route into Cambridge (well, two if you count the brief foray across the river by the green line to Lechmere, but for Pete's sake).  However, Cambridge-to-Boston's red line is pretty speedy, and it's pretty clean, stations don't smell bad, etc.  Pros outweigh cons.

I have taken to T-ing to choir practice in Back Bay on Tuesdays -- I drive from work to park at home (work is difficult, though not impossible, to get to by public transit) and then grab the red line by my house.  Soon I hope to turn this into biking, but bike is still out of commission due to broken lock (and probably air-less tires).  At any rate, once in a while you meet someone interesting on the T.  A friend once got a long-term girlfriend this way.  I've not quite had that success rate, but I did have a nice chat with a woman with a 3-ish-year-old in a stroller (she was rather precocious -- maybe she was a tiny 4-year-old).

Apart from extolling the T, I'll take this opportunity to extol Dvorak, who wrote the one piece (Stabat Mater Dolorosa) we rehearsed today.  Granted, it's an over-20-min-long piece, so it was warranted.  I realized the other day that our conductor must have a bit of a music-crush on big D because she has included something from his vast repertoire in each of our three concerts.  I don't mind :).  Following up singing about the virgin Mary watching her son dying from torture on a cross (luckily it's in Latin so typically we can ignore this), we celebrated with some beers at the 'Snake down the road.

Day 83: Fireworks on the Charles

Happy Fourth.  To celebrate, I skimmed about three hours off my work day, attended a Neil-Simon-themed bbq (which involved quite a bit more rehearsing than I had anticipated), and then moved on to the night's entertainment -- watching fireworks drunk.

First stop was All-Asia -- on the way to this fine drinking establishment, I happened to run into a woman I hadn't spoken to since freshman year of college, when she lived across the hall from me in my honors-college-floor freshman dorm.  Nuts.  She's apparently doing a music PhD in NYC and is in town for the summer to accompany the Boston Ballet School.  Pretty sweet, eh?  More on that later.

Upon arrival at AA (ironic), there was no live music of yet (always a plus for All Asia), but by the time T. arrived to join Bnap and me, they had arrived in full ska-terrible form.  Such terrible form that it caused a) Bnap and I to become rather drunk and b) T. to leave.  No matter!  B and I headed to a friend's house (she's a graduate student RA for the MIT undergrad dorms, lives right on the river), played with a really cute baby, and then eventually rejoined with T. in time to watch the lightning-storm-esque fireworks from Mem Drive.  Brilliant.

After, I was coerced (my words, not theirs) by both Bnap and M. to walk down to the hotel down the street to sit outside and chat about life.  Which ended up being mostly chatting about abortion and psychiatric disorders.  Go figure.  Yay America, Yay Boston, Yay fireworks. EOM.

Day 79: The Tam

A dear friend (M.) who I met through Calliope chose to celebrate her "double-butts" birthday (her terminology, not mine!) at The Tam.  I've no idea what in the world a "tam" is (except isn't sort of a muff thing for your hands from the Victorian era? or maybe a parasol or hat or something? hmm...) but I love that place. Ok, I have just looked it up, and apparently it is short for "tam-o'-shanter", which is perhaps an even better word, and m-w.com tells me it is "a woolen cap of Scottish origin with a tight headband, wide flat circular crown, and usually a pompon in the cente."  In that case, I approve, and am very glad that M.'s affinity for the good ol' Tam still abides -- the story goes that she and her friends frequented it in their Emerson days (it's next to the theater district).

Over the course of the evening I was trying to remember the circumstances that first brought me to the Tam.  I remember who it was with (a bunch of the MIT crew, including my former boyfriend, my former roomie, and surely more of our old motley crew), when it was (give or take a few months), what we did (playing cards, their deck, not ours), and that it was fairly spontaneous.  But I don't remember exactly how we came to find it - perhaps just wandering in?

It always makes me smile to see this place -- it's extraordinarily divey - next to all of the ballets, musicals, etc. that happen in the area.  The opera house is not far, and it's right next to the Boston Common.  Boston of course is known for its Irish pubs, but this place really does _not_ have that feel.  Too little wood and too many random pictures on the wall in too disorganized a fashion.  Perhaps someone else can pin down for me exactly what it is about the Tam that is so damn charming -- for I cannot.

Day 75: Pirates of Penzawesome

Today was certainly a day which turned out much differently from how I expected. My thoughts upon waking were to try to get some chores done, get as much work done as possible, make it to a hair appt. on time, etc., and then go to a Gilbert and Sullivan show at 6p with friends before returning for a bit more work.  I even thought about giving the ticket to a friend, as they were sold out and I knew I wanted to get some work done.

But things don't always go the way we plan them, and so in fact, the day went more like do a few errands, attempt to work but actually just pay some bills, get a (rad!) haircut from a(n even radder!) gal in Harvard Square, return to work, come _back_ to Harvard Square for the show... and then the night took nice summer evening twists.  And I'd venture to say that part of the reason for letting the rest of the evening be such a random-walk is that seeing Pirates of Penzance at the ART's Oberon (as part of the Emerging America festival) was blow-your-mind remind-you-of-why-life-is-awesome awesome.  Plenty of talented folks (singing, acting, dancing, playing their own musical accompaniment on washboards/fiddles/guitars/saws/etc. (!)) -- but the whole vibe was just different and great.  Kids sitting on the floor, the performers moving the audience around, there being no stage whatsoever (except the whole room was the stage), kiddie pools on the tables, beach balls flying through the air... all set to Gilbert and Sullivan's wickedly witty lyrics and tunes.  We were just so darn happy when we walked outside after the show into the beautiful Cambridge evening.

And then lo! and behold, we cross paths with a roving minstrel.  From down the road we heard someone singing one of the sadder of the Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs ("We still dance on whirling stages / In my Busby Berkeley dreams"), and the voice belonged to D., who was busking in Harvard Square in our direct path.  E. and I should know better by now than to be floored by such random run-ins, but we still found it a riot and joined in for a few tunes.... er, well, they were supposed to be tunes (!).  We headed on to dinner shortly and then received word that some friends were heading to a roof deck at a restaurant nearby for drinks, but I stopped to check on the busking scene on the way back and somehow managed to sneak an invite to the "after-party" of a wedding later that evening.

But first, to the roof deck of Daedalus went I to meet the crew from PoP and some other friends.  There was a quite funny scene involved in the evening between some locals (that is, pretty, educated drunk girls) and our crew (that is, E.) which left one of our crew to chuckle and point to her beer glass, which read "Hoegaarden".  It was a good scene, and I felt bad when I had to leave on the early side - because I had to find something decent enough to wear to a wedding after-party.  Honestly I had no idea what a wedding after party even was, nor that it was going to be in a public place at the bar of a hotel (albeit a very fancy hotel with a very nice bar!).  So I figured I might as well wear something moderately fancy, just in case.  The bar at the Ames Hotel, for the record, is an excellent place to roll into solo-style on a Saturday night in a fancy dress and heels, in which to order yourself a white wine, and in which to whip out a novel whilst waiting for your friends to arrive (Sarah B. from the _real_ wedding reception, and D. from god knows where).  The Ames Hotel also appeared to have many eligible young bachelors (including members of a bachelor party) in addition to not just one but two bridal parties.  Fun way to end the night dancing and carrying on in fancy clothes!  Maybe not a bad idea to try it on a random night?

Day 74: Non-Rand Anthem

Tonight I had plans to hang out with a friend (K.) who worked at MIT while I was a student there.  One thing I love about hanging out with K. is that her version of Boston is so different from mine (which is super Cambridge-centric... fairly obviously).  She lives in Brookline but often hangs out near Newbury Street/Copley, near the seaport, at Drink, etc.  Adult places.  Tonight she asked if I might be up for meeting in Faneuil Hall, and I ended up joining her and a friend of hers at a place called Anthem.  I had to think about the word for a second when I heard it -- for some reason I find it to be a really striking word that is not used often.  Of course it calls to mind Ayn Rand [aside: I've somehow managed to get through the tomes that are Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead -- one of my favorite books of all time, but don't worry, it's for literary reasons -- but have never managed to read the much more reasonably-sized Anthem], but for me, it also brings to mind some sort of image.  Maybe it's from the cover, but I imagine a person, usually a very young person with a true heart, standing, looking up, shining with justice, and standing FOR SOMETHING.  Ok, sorry for the weird diversion.

Back to Anthem the bar.  This all goes to say that while I like the word, it also seems kind of a weird name for a bar, and it kind of bugged me, because although the bar was fine (and it's fun to be in that area once in a while), I didn't feel it lived up to its fairly patriotic name.  Unlike People's Republik, which most certainly does.

After Anthem, I parted ways to join my choir folk at a last-minute charity karaoke event.  The money raised was to go toward fighting cancer.  Really cool idea... did not win the raffle, but did enjoy a beer or two and belt out that awesome song by Megara from the movie Hercules.

Day 60: Commencement

Lesson learned today: sleeping through alarms and phone calls due to karaoke-induced exhaustion and therefore arriving three hours late to your MIT graduation does not mean you cannot walk. It did, for me, mean that people were worried, but also that I got to stand in the shade with friends for 60 minutes rather than sit in the beating hot sun with people I barely knew for three hours and then slip into the line to walk across the stage to receive my diploma.


It was a beautiful day until about 3pm, well after graduation was finished.  Commencement at MIT is held in Killian Court, the lawn in front of the dome on Memorial Drive, on the Charles River.  Absolute perfection for a graduation ceremony in which everyone, undergrads included, gets to walk, so there is a lot of watching and waiting.

After graduation, I did a brief stroll around campus with the friends who came (E., T., and two of my roomies), which was lovely and resulted in many pictures.  Then to BCS, for a brief reception, and back home for some rest. Z. cooked one of my favorites, mac and cheese, for dinner, which was great, and then we all met up with some folks from my choir for the monthly karaoke sesh at Charles Playhouse.  Great end to a somewhat stressful day.

Cheers to MIT for being organized enough to remember to call the name of the girl who overslept by about three hours.

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 41: The Arboretum.

Today was going to be completely a waste, or so I thought when I woke up at 11. Excessive awake-ness lasted throughout yesterday night to this morning until about 8am, when I finally finished uploading pictures from the scavenger-hunt-to-end-all-scavenger-hunts.  However, surprisingly enough, it was by no means a waste.  Around noon, I got a message from my former housemate inviting me to do something low-key and outdoors-y, and we settled on going to the arboretum -- neither of us had ever been before.  E. came with, and the three of us drove out past JP to the Arnold Arboretum and climbed to the moderately tall hills, one spiraling upward, one a straight shot.  With a couple of rest stops under some weeping-willow-esque hemlock trees of some sort (so perfect they looked like Disney World fakes, honestly), and a nice view of the city at the top, it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Afterwards, I headed back to do some work outside with my old housemate, who still lives in my former back yard which is beautiful this time of year -- it has a garden and pluot tree! Then I met up with some girls from my class at MIT whom I hadn't seen in awhile. We headed to Park, the new restaurant by the Kennedy School that I tried a couple of weeks ago.  The risotto did not disappoint, and the company was lovely. Finally managed to make it an early night, mostly out of desperation!

Day 40: 80 Photos in Boston -- Part 3.

Phase 15: The return to the Common.

We thought we were returning to the common life. We really did. But then I noticed that when L had asked me for the clue list in the Beantown Pub, she had marked each remaining clue (over 20, still) with the location (e.g. “BC” for Boston Common, “F” for Fenway, etc.) – and suddenly I realized, she wanted to finish this at least as much as I did.  A slight glance at her and I saw she was raring to go.  We had already decided we might head back to the Common to get a couple of shots we wished we’d gotten when we started out, but that we hadn’t quite decoded yet. So we ventured back to the common… and onto the second “big” Phase-with-a-capital-P of the day. For we were really just beginning (though without a crucial team member – making it even more epically difficult!).

#47: Two Princes having a Semi-Charmed Life.  This is another clue that marked a break-through moment for us.  Near the time I figured out that “cold” meant really, really “cold”, M and I also had a brain-storming session about what “Two Princes” could me – and we realized that Frog Princes almost have a charmed life. We also realized that M had, just for fun, taken a picture of me posing there – but only with one. So the rest of the crew (at this point, just “Jamel-toes”) returned to the princes, and took the shot.

#13: Gangway for goslings. So catchy, and somehow so close to “Make way for ducklings”, that we could only assume they were analogous!

#65: This ugly duckboat grew up. I cannot remember which team member made this break-through, but someone (perhaps L?) recognized that ugly ducklings might grow up to be swans—and reside on very different boats than their duck compatriots. Also, going back to the Public Garden made me realize how very, very beautiful it is (even if swan boats seem super cliché).

Phase 16: From Boston proper to the west!

So far, all of our ventures had been very close to the tiny radius comprising Boston’s downtown. No clues, in fact, had much to do with the slightly sprawling Back Bay which I am much more familiar with, and Fenway had just seemed so, so far.  But I’m glad we made the venture. And our first “destination” was on Mass Ave.

#5: A really long kick line. Though we failed at finding a kickline at the Boston Opera House, we happened upon an organic version (albeit a 3-person-long version) on the way to our next destination, coming out of the Public Garden. Three ladies swinging their toes in line.

#43: A hidden village in the middle of the city. I was lost on this one, and it definitely took some smartphone action to figure it out. Apparently Bay Village, in the epicenter (ish) of Boston, has a population of barely over 1,000.  So, there we hiked!

#28: Reflect upon this church. This was obvious to us – and we were happy to get to the beautiful Christian Science Center’s reflection pool. None of us really knew the beauty that awaited us!  You have to walk behind a building or two to find it, but it’s glorious, and there is also a great view of the Prudential and a certain building with a crown. We took the scenic route through some parks in the South End (an area I know because E. dog-sits there several weeks a year), and everyone was the happier for it.

#36: An artsy photo (no Instagrams/filters!). Originally we had planned to use this shot for #28, but L rightly remarked that it was definitely the artsiest we had (with a close second from a beautiful shot that J took in the common). A reflection of a reflection – where it’s unclear what is real and what is an image of something else, the city behind both us and behind the reflection pool.

#52: A building with a crown. There were so many opportunities to photograph this building on the way back from the South End, but this one (next to the Pru, in front of the reflecting pool) really struck me.

Phase 16: On to Fenway.

Perhaps one of the first locations to come to mind when thinking of Boston, we made it to Fenway pretty late in the game, with several clues on our list in our minds to check off. We wasted no time in getting to Bleacher Bar, where we’d planned to have dinner, but it was a bit too packed.  Not to worry, these scavengers had no problem finding food at the nearby Mexican place down the road.

#21: Holding up theCitgo sign. Perhaps not the best job, but we captured this time the first time we had anywhere near a decent angle to do so. Props to L for holding up something that heavy, and to S for finding the right angle.

#26: At Fenway (bonus points for being in the stadium, super bonus points for being on the field). L’s idea was to be at Bleacher Bar, where a mere mesh net separates the bar from the field. Perhaps we get bonus points because she found a little hole at the bottom of the net and got her fingers to touch Fenway dirt!

#16: Most Bostonian person. We toyed with the idea of faux Sam Adams, but today’s Most Bostonian person clearly needed to be a Red Sox fan in Bleacher Bar near Fenway watching the away Red Sox game. Clearly.

#78: The Sacred Cod. So we looked this up. It was in the State House. The State House was closed. We took a picture. I couldn’t find the picture, and it wasn’t of a cod anyway. We had been pervaded by cod. Codzilla, crazy monkfish-labeled-as-a-cod, etc. So . . . we decided that instead of a sacred cod, we’d submit a sacred Mexican wrestly. Because WHO puts photos of Lucha Libre in the bathroom?  Well, that random Mexican place on Lansdowne (or nearby?) – that’s who.

#22: Most Red Sox paraphernalia. The guy from #16 was also a contender, but S was able to snag this shot of the Red Sox official store.

Phase 17: Smoots.

One of the best clues, in my opinion, was simply labeled, “A Smoot!” Exclamation necessary, explanation not. The so-called “Harvard Bridge” (far from Harvard, close to MIT) is labeled with “Smoots”, a length of measurement which is the actual length of a specific individual, and in which is measured the length of the bridge linking Cambridge’s Mass Ave. to Boston’s Mass Ave. Halfway across from Boston to Cantabrigia is “Halfway to Hell.”

#53: The worst statue. On the way we found this statue. It was pretty horrible

#79: A Smoot!. And there you have L, posing next to one of the many markings on the bridge (we’re on the left-hand side going from Boston to Cambridge, technically the “wrong way”).

Phase 18: Using the “T” for real.

We were tired. We were going back to the North End to rally for one of the hardest photos on the list. And we were in Fenway. The only thing for us was the (shudder) Green Line.

#66c: Photos of your team on all 5 MBTA lines – the Green Line.  This time, the whole team got on at Hynes station and we captured L on the Green Line – with her team joining her for once.

#11: Highest person-to-space ratio (e.g. a lot of people in a small space).  There were other contenders – at some point we thought about the choir M was going to see standing on the stage, the chaos that is Haymarket, etc. – but eventually we decided that the quintessential terribly-packed scene in Boston is the ever-hated Green Line.

#34: A tourist carrying both Mike's and Modern boxes. We caved and pseudo-staged it, I’m not going to lie. But we also had the experience of waiting in line at Mike’s for some pastries (which were so delicious I almost forgot that our primary goal was the box), talking in Boston accents about the Kardashians with some randos in line, and asking a Modern Pastry box holder to take pics with our Mike’s box – and being responded “Oh no, that’s the Antichrist!” The perfect response.

Phase 19: One of the first clues we figured out.

Early in the game we recognized a clever clue as pointing us to Post Office Square – a location quite near to us, as we were still in our starting point at Boston Common. However, the excitement got to us and we ventured on to bigger and better things, forgetting to stop there. But never fret! We made it back, near on 11pm.

#29: A short 4-photo panel comic. First, we stopped for some tomfoolery near Government Center. We had debated what to do for this clue – it seemed something that could be done anywhere, at any time. My initial interpretation was that we were supposed to find a comic to photograph. Other interpretations involved drawing comics (something we wanted to recruit E. for, but my phone was dead). Finally we realized we could just stage our own photo-comic – and that we finally did, once inspired by the insane statue featured at the end. Note: make sure to click through all four pics if viewing from the link here.

#17: USPS * USPS. Obviously: Post Office Square. They don’t call us MIT students for nothing.

Phase 20: The last hurrah.

One more pretty quick trip on the Green Line took us home-ward, and also toward the last few stops on our list. We thought we only had two more items to check off – turns out, it was three.

#6: Reptilian guard of the place where lightning is made. Others on my team figured out this one early on, but it was hard to get to – the closest (well, almost) clue to Cambridge.  The raptor guarding the Science Museum was also guarding some school-age kids who were having a lock-in there!

#54: The Charles River locks.  I’d originally thought a “lock” was a physical object projecting into/out of a river, but in fact it makes more sense – “locks” are small enclosed bodies of water within a larger body of water. We had our closest encounter with the po-po while trying to trespass (though there were no signs) down to get a better view/picture.

#7: You’ll know it when you see it.  And our LAST photo of the night was impromptu/serendipitous – as it absolutely should have been.  We originally took some shots of the strip clubs / porn stores in Boston in Chinatown (you know.. you get it), but we KNEW when we saw disco bikers that they were what we knew when we saw (‘em). DISCO BIKERS!

Phase The-Last-One: Cambridge.

We thought we were done. But then – we took the long way Atwood’s, a pub where my friends were meeting… turns out they were meeting from about 5-7 pm. Eventually this became clear, and after walking for nearly an hour, S. picked us up and brought us more inbound to Cambridge, where, S, L and I (J had already departed MIT-/home-ward) enjoyed some frost libations before the (SO SHORT) prance home.

What. A. Day.

Day 40: 80 Photos in Boston -- Part 2.

Phase 8: More museums.

#56: 2 Dunkin’ Donuts in one photo (no editing). A hallmark of the Boston area is the sheer magnitude of Dunkin’ Donuts gracing its presence – it’s almost higher than the number of Starbucks per capita.  So clearly, the intentional meaning of this clue was to get a photo where you could clearly see two facilities in the same shot.  We accomplished this fairly early on, but given that our high-definition camera shots were limited (what with 4 smartphone cameras and my almost-dead Canon with the busted screen), we weren’t super happy with the results.  However, we were quite happy with our own interpretation of “2 Dunkin’ Donuts in one photo”.

#55: Best mural. Taken at the Fire Museum, this shot was M’s idea – Boston burning.

#58: Fire museum.  Not quite sure if you’re supposed to be able to make some noise from that thing, but a girl can try.

#63: The biggest milk bottle. This was a no-brainer for some of us – those of us who actually knew Boston, that is. J works at the Children’s Museum several days a week collecting data on the kiddies, and he was well aware of this, as were L and M.

#30: A chalk drawing on the sidewalk. And clearly the best place for these was also the Children’s Museum.  We saw many, but decided to include hop scotch!

#27: Donuts that are not for Dunkin’. We tried several things – life preservers, tires – but decided in the end that some doughtnuts really are just not for dunkin’.

Phase 9: More water fun.

#70: A barking crab. Well. This was too easy.

#59: On a boat. Normally I would feel a bit iffy about climbing into a stranger’s boat, but somehow one feels as though they have carte blanche while on a photo scavenger hunt. Oh, and we saw another team doing it immediately before we did.

#38: The Plywood Palace.  No idea what this clue really referred to, in the end. But we decided this was pretty close.

#49: Quacking at a Duck Tour boat.  Really, who doesn’t quack when they see a Duck Tour boat?  Gotta get on one of those one of these days.

Phase 10: And even more water fun!

#40: The Big Dig. I think we did manage to capture something that came of this, in the end, en route to the aquarium.

#4: The fearsome fish: Codzilla. So – we really thought we had this one at the Chinese supermarket. But when we randomly saw the real Codzilla, we figured we might as well use the beautiful non-codfish from C Market as another epic photo.

#42: Photo of another team. There were many opportunities to take this photo – but how cute that J ran into someone whom he knew from school in Mexico?

#48: Seals of approval.  I think pretty much every Banditos team today had this idea – but up to today I had no idea there were seals available for free public viewing outside the aquarium! I hope they have lovely lives :-/.

Phase 11: Hong Kong.

I feel this one event should get its own phase – though many more pictures happened around the same time because L & S broke off again to help with #66, the T.  Up to today I also had no idea that Hong Kong existed in both Cambridge and Boston, in addition to China!

#50: Go to Hong Kong without leaving Boston. How epic would it have been if we had also included the one in Cambridge?

#19: Bronze shoes fit for a Bird.  Larry Bird, that is. L & S snagged this near Faneuil Hall.

#67: A hug. What’s the best kind of hug? A macaroni hug.

#76: A giant golden grasshopper. Apparently there is one atop Quincy Market.

#62: A lion and a unicorn dancing on a roof.  Boston sure loves its animal-topped buildings. This one’s the old State Building.

#66e: Photos of your team on all 5 MBTA lines – the Blue Line. Since we were in the area, S & L nabbed this shot.

#66b: Photos of your team on all 5 MBTA lines – the Orange Line. Perhaps nearly as elusive as the Silver.

Phase 12: The North End.

By far one of the coolest areas of Boston.  And one I wish I went to more often. My favorite sandwich shop (which doubles as an Italian grocery store) resides here as well – called Going Bananas, it also boasts excellent smoothies!

#31: Public art. This I just came across while going through photos – we had so many photos of public art, we didn’t event attempt to take the “best” one on purpose. L took it, and I really liked the perspective.

#3: Two Foo lions. Unfortunately we didn’t notice this clue until we were well out of Chinatown. Fortunately, we saw some awesome lions in the North End!

#35: With a statue of a dead white guy.  A contender for the easiest photo to take in Boston.  This one of J and St. Francis of Assisi was too adorable to pass up for the winner.

#75: A high-five for the ages. Happenstance these photos happened to both be taken with St. Francis – I just thought he’d be a great guy to high-five, independently.

#71: Re-enacting a historical event at its site. Another “forgotten” opportunity that worked out. The original plan was to take a photo of us re-enacting the Boston Massacre at its original location – but not drinking tea at Paul Revere’s house also seemed fitting.

#72: This house went on a diet.  Such a cute clue.  And such a neat way to find out this “skinny house” existed!

#32: A tourist carrying a Mike’s Pastries box.  Easy. Done and done. They’re a dime a dozen.

#33: A tourist carrying a Modern Pastry box. I didn’t even realize Mike’s had a serious contender, but this was only moderately more difficult. (See a much later section for notes on how difficult #34 was, though.)

#37: Recreate the Abbey Road cover (watch out for traffic!).  Possibly the North End was not the optimal location for this, but it worked out pretty well (note how carefully I positioned my legs – the others had a good effort too ;)).

Phase 13: Re-entering the heart of Boston.

#10: Team pyramid.  Our team was almost too exhausted for anything resembling a pyramid at this point, but we attempted to rally and came up with this. Another team saw us doing it, and we took a picture of three pretty adorable kids doing a pyramid next to us.

#73: A giant tea kettle. M totally had our back on this one and knew exactly where this was located, near Government Center and on our way to what we thought was going to be the last stop of the day. Little did we know…

#68: With a historical re-enactor. L and I interpreted this one: I thought that it should be a PP attaching to the NP immediately preceding in clue #67 (a hug); she thought it should be a stand-alone. Either way, this one totally rocked. We passed a pub (I think it was the Green Dragon Tavern; at any rate it was around the corner from the historic Bell in Hand) that had two extraordinarily-dressed period costumers sitting in the window, sipping on a couple of Sam Adams, and L balls-ily walked inside and asked to have her picture taken. And succeeded.

Phase 14: Our “Last” Stop.

The last clue was clearly indicating we should have a beer. Making us think we should go there for the epic end of the day. It was nearing 6pm, and M was meeting a friend at 6-ish to have a drink before going to a concert of a choir she has been in for a long time (though she took a break this year) called Coro Allegro. Originally I had been planning on meeting up with her a bit before the start of the concert (and even thinking I might go home and change beforehand) – but again, little did I know. At any rate we headed to the location of clue 80.

#80: A place where you can see a cold Sam Adams across the street from a place where you can get a cold Sam Adams. At first we had just been thinking “statue” – statues are cold and are pervasive in Boston. Somewhere around clue #80 it hit me that actually dead people are “colder” than statues, and we realized the clue had to indicate the cemetray (apparently called Granary Burial Ground) near the commons where Sam Adams lies. Thus to Beantown Pub we went!  Though it took about 20 minutes (and three servers) to get the other kind of cold Sam Adams, it was worth it.  Though there was crazy, bar-shaking bass, there was also juice for my phone, which let me text about two people before it died again.  A day without phones is like a day without… feeling tied down by technology.

Day 40: 80 Photos in Boston -- Part 1.

Phase 1: Get there.

Banditos misterifotos. Quick explanation: Banditos Misteriosos are a group in Boston that host free, Boston-tastic events that often involve roaming around the city exploring or hosting a fun activity in a public space.  Today was my first banditos experience, and the theme was a Boston photo-based scavenger hunt.  I had very little idea what to expect.  There were five of us, with our first initials being M (that’s me), J, M, L, and S. JLS are first-years at MIT, and M is a friend I know from choir. This is how we eventually formed our team name, “Ma-jamel-toes”. I know. So sue us.

After a quite epic-in-nature night out at Howl at the Moon, somehow I wound up with an uncharged phone and a ability to sleep easily until 10:30am – the time when we were all supposed to meet outside my apartment (except from M., who was meeting us there). L&S had rallied and woken up J, and then they woke up my roommate, who woke me up. After a 3-minute shower and some hobbling around to find a scavenger-hunt-worthy outfit, I was out the door and we were on our way. M was there early (read: on time) and already had our list of clues: 80 items!

Phase 2: Initial photo-taking frenzy near the Public Garden / Boston common.

We met Meg at the entrance to the Public Garden, and immediately began snapping the camera at anything we could find that vaguely resembled some of the clues on the list.  From my estimation, we snapped about 9 images immediately in or very near the Common:

#61: Public Toilet. Amusing how this was our first hit!  By the end of the day, this row of portable toilets near the park had disappeared...

#8: A person that looks like their pet.  Not our finest effort, but we did see many adorable pups in the park at 11am and one of them had delightfully curly hair – only slightly more delightfully curly than his owner.

#14: This red line carries thousands, but never actually moves.  Now, I know I’ve heard this line before – and of course, it was referring to the red line that connects much of historic Boston on the Freedom Trail, which begins (I think?) quite near the common / near the State House.  I like our particular rendition of it, which is why it also serves as the head picture to this post J.

#15: Period costume tour guide using modern technology.  Perhaps it is cheating to stage events, but we found a Sam Adams-esque man nearly immediately (I think he may even have been an actual tour guide) and handed him a cell phone.  As I said, this part of the journey was a blitz.

#44: A squirrel and a pigeon.  Unfortunately, my camera (which has a non-functional screen, though it does have a viewfinder!) was on a quite low resolution setting.  Great for saving space on my SD card; bad for capturing tiny animals in a wide shot of Boston Common. But I promise you, they are both there.

#39: Playing on a playground. J was, of course, the first to high-tail it to the playground near the Duck Pond in the Common (any time there is a playground around that kid is down to party).  Weird thing was there were no kids on it, at all – at this point it was nearing 11:30a.  When we were back in the Common around 6p, a gaggle of little goslings (I mean children) were out and about.

#45: Wearing a plant.  This one happened without my even realizing at first – I thought S was just wearing a plant for the hell of it.

#46: In or on water. So many opportunities for this today – but L valiantly strolled past the sign proclaiming there was to be no going in.

#69: Impersonating famous movies outside of a movie theater.  Unfortunately we only impersonated one – J and I did Rose and Jack at the helm of the Titanic. Of course.

Phase 3: The not-so-little building.

We realized that an epic day of traipsing about would probably require some cash, so we headed to the Little Building at Emerson College.

#23: An oxymoron. As it turns out, the Little Building is not so little.  Kind of an oxymoron.  More ironic.  Unlike nearly everything Alanis mentions.

#25: Arm wrestling with a stranger. The security guards at the Little Building seemed to me to be slightly suspicious of our exuberance at retrieving money from an ATM.  So to put them at ease, we decided we probably better ask them to help us with our tasks, that way they’d know we were 2legit2quit. By arm wrestling one of them.

Phase 4: The Tam.

The Tam is really a destination in and of itself, anyhow, so it was quite excellent that we found a way to seamlessly worked it into our adventure. I was still not quite ready to daydrink, so I indulged in some orange juice.

#9: An arcade game! Bleep! Bloop! Bloop!. We captured both Big Buck Hunter and Pac Man, but the latter beat out the former.

#57: Most Bostonian image. It has the Patriots. And some old Bostonian dudes. It has a sign that says “Cash only”. It’s at the Tam. It’s pretty damn Bostonian.

Phase 5: Random walk.

This bit of the journey was definitely not at all consolidated by grid cells in my hippocampus. But it was the happiest-go-luckiest random walk in awhile, and the first of many that day.

#20: A sea monster!.  This little was, at first, our best shot at Codzilla (and honestly I think he might be better than the original).  M claims it was clearly a mistranslation. I claim it’s really just Codzilla.

#51: A photo of your camera, no mirrors allowed!. We had the best time at this Chinese supermarket. Trying on scarves was part of it – the picture-of-my-camera part was nearly inadvertent. L & I ended up buying a scarf, too J.

#74: อยากเต้นรำไหม . Most people would give up at this clue. M went: “Oh, that’s Thai. Let’s just go ask someone who reads Thai what it means.” Effing brilliant. Apparently it meant, “Would you like to dance?”

#1: Give a fellow team member a makeover. At first we had walked to the Boston Opera House to find a picture of a long kickline (presumably from A Chorus Line or something), to no avail.  However, we passed a little shop called So Good on the way, so we were all set for giving S a makeover!

#64: It is most often the casement, that names are determined by placement, when push comes to shove, there’s nothing above, then you can no longer call it a basement.  Answer: Filene’s!.

#66d: Photos of your team on all 5 MBTA lines – the Silver Line.  Happily for us we were able to nearly walk on to the Silver Line without breaking stride – oh-so-elusive, it is!

#66a: Photos of your team on all 5 MBTA lines – the Red Line. Of course, it is the line most of us take the most often, and also the line we took in to the scavenger hunt this morning. However, we were not aware at the time that we should simply photograph everything that happened to us! So L and S ventured out to grab a picture of a couple of lines leaving from Park St. while we all walked on foot to South Station.

Phase 6: The waterfront.

It was a bit of a trek to the waterfront, so some of our team members split up to start the “T” journey (one of the clues involved a team member being photographed on each of the 5 lines of the T). It was honestly the only reason we ever split up, which was great.

#24: Using a photobooth.  One shock of the day was that there actually do exist payphones in the city of Boston.  We saw perhaps no actual booths, but this seemed pretty darn close.

#41: The Little Dig. Apparently there is actually (in the French sense, too) a project going on called “The Little Dig” – named as the little sister of “The Big Dig”.  It’s unclear whether this photo actually captures that dig, but either way, it’s definitely a smaller one than The Big Dig (the preceding clue).

#77: The “lobster tours” boat.  After looking at the pictures that other teams posted, it was clear that it was hard to capture a shot of the real lobster tours boat.  We did in fact make it to the correct dock, but in going through the picture later, I couldn’t find it, so subbed this pic, which M took of boats which clearly looked as though they should be hunting for lobsters.

#18: Getting chased by a zombie.  The misteriosos planners clearly knew what they were doing, because there were zombies all over Boston today. And L definitely got chased by some near South Station.

#60: Best beard. Perhaps the planners also knew there would be some serious contenders out for best beard today, because we almost instantly ran into the one we felt was obviously the best.  He was also quite fond of getting photographed with the lovely L J.

#12: Pinkies out at the Tea Party museum.  Though we didn’t go inside most of the museums we ventured to, we did get some excellent shots of them – and an idea of the astonishing number of quirky museums in Boston!

Phase 7: Some serendipity on the trek back from the waterfront.

#2: Peter Pan burned this down. One of the most serendipitous moments of the day was randomly walking along the water and realizing that tout d’un coup, we were at James Hook and Co. Lobsters. I remarked, seemingly off-the-cuff, that oh, perhaps Peter Pan had burned this down – and remarkably, L knew that the lobster place actually had burned down – and all of our cogs turned at just the right time to include this on our list. (S & L also took the opportunity to scavenge some seafood!)