Day 126: Phone a friend

This evening was very phone-y.  Nice to know (especially for future reference when I am in the middle of nowhere, er, rather, the middle of no one I know, i.e., Souther California) that good friends are only a phone call away.  And in my case, currently they will still come running when you call them!  Especially if your gourmand roommate is cooking...

Tonight after errands (dropping off various goods at MIT), full day of work at BBN, choir practice sans D. (who had escaped for some family time at Martha's Vineyard), and a healthy bike ride back, I arrived home to find Z. doing his usually symphonie gastronomique in the kitchen.  Realizing that I hadn't seen his fellow first-year compatriots in a while, I gave J. a call and he and M. came over to hang around and chat in front of our "fireplace" (see photo).  Which I must say was very nice -- a relaxed evening once in awhile is not so bad, not so bad at all.  Over the course of the evening, further phone conversations were had with E., who is still dogsitting in the South End, and D., who was in the throes of a serious game of "before-and-after band names", a game originally construed at Sunday's garden party.  [The idea is simple: think Jeopardy!'s before-and-after categories, and add the constraint that both the "before" and the "after" must be band names.  Some of my favorites include "Tracy ChapMannheim Steamroller", "Animal Collective Soul", or D's very favorite, "Bu(sh)Cher"; and what we call a "level 2", e.g., "The Dave Matthews Band", or "Queen Latifah". We never said we were classy.]

At any rate, it's nice to know your friends are a phone call away, both physically and mentally.

Day 27: Island Time

Technically this blog is suppose to be about Cambridge, but we can make allowances for things like trips to other nearby areas as spectacular as Martha's Vineyard. Day two on the island started out with a walk to a nearby bakery. In keeping with an adventurous islander spirit, I handmade a map to bring with us telling us the trails to follow to get us out to the main road -- we would nearly spill out on top of the bakery. After turn after correct turn, we indeed spilled out onto the little highway... Yay for handmade maps! Except... at the end I may have drawn an arrow pointing the exact opposite way to walk down the highway.  So after shamefully resorting to looking at my phone, we turned around and were duly rewarded with breakfast sandwiches, lemon bar for dessert, brief catnaps in the sun on picnic benches, and the like.

The rest of the day was spent wandering aimlessly, mildly trespassing on private property to get to a dock on a pretty little inlet of water, and sneaking in another catnap or two in the sunshine. Instead of taking cabs back to the boat/"downtown" Vineyard Haven, we double-rode bicycles (*not* tandem bikes) down the hill from John Hoft Road. As I was on the back, this involved me keeping my legs in what I would call one of those evil yoga positions that is probably very good for you, and reminded me that I might want to get in shape before moving to the land of sunshine and outdoor activities that is California :).

After dinner at the Black Dog Tavern (which I was made to realize is quite famous, and which was also absolutely delicious), E. and I got back on the ferry and returned home to the Boston area, no longer on "island time" but very happy we went!

Day 26: Martha's "F'in" Vineyard, part 1

When I first moved to the Boston area, one of the things I was most excited about was the proximity to the ocean.  However, I quickly realized that the Charles River was the closest thing I'd see to that ocean on a day-to-day basis... And although I adore the Charles River, I am also exuberant to see a glimpse of the real ocean. Sure I've seen Boston Harbor a few times, and even going down to the area around the ICA is nice, but being on a real beach in New England is very much my cup of tea. Past adventures include Singing Beach (only an hour away and accessible by train), a trip to Ogunquit in the southern part of Maine, and a brief trip to Truro on Cape Code.  I think the above beach seen at Martha's Vineyard this evening might trump them all.  It's early in the season, so there are very few tourists around the island, and the beach above was absolutely empty at 6pm on a Saturday evening. The sky was cloudy but turning all sorts of beautiful, stormy blue-grey.  E. and I came down for the night for just the very beginning of a week-long trip that is apparently taken my some new friends.

Before the beach, there was a delightful car ride down to the ferry in Wood's Hole, the ride over to the island (involving my first game of Banana-grams - I'm hooked!), and an even more delightful tramp around some trails close by the place we're staying on John Hoft Road.  The foragers amongst us found some greens, and somehow managed to whip up a fantastic little dinner of rice with turmeric, salad, and a calzone stuffed with herbs.  I could almost be vegan if every meal were like that (almost; pretty sure it would take a whopping force to take away the cheese and eggs).

The end of the night was just as epic as the beginning, sing-a-longs and phone calls to far-away friends and all.  I'll leave the post with this little anonymous snippet:

Guy: *plays Johnny B good*
Doll: oh my parents love the Beatles!