Day 68: Go to Casablanca without leaving Cambridge

In addition to going to Hong Kong without leaving Boston, it is also quite possible to go to Casablanca without leaving Cambridge. I believe this was only my second time going there, which is a shame, as it's quite charming and usually fairly empty. Today, there were too many plans to keep straight (festivals in Central and Harvard, two barbecues, etc.) so I opted for what I thought the simplest option with the highest pay-off would be and bike to get hot dogs to grill at my former housemates' place on Plymouth St. near Inman.  After walking there with T. and spending a couple of hours chatting, etc. (in the it-was-supposed-to-be-beautiful-but-instead-it's-kinda-blah weather), we decided to rejoin the rest of our crew in Harvard Square, where they had attempted to enjoy the music festival but found more solace in enjoying Charlie's beer garden.  By the time we got there, people were ready to head to Brattle St. for some Casablanca action.

After a drink or two and some appetizers, it was apparently time for bbq #2 (a "not-the-father's-day"-themed bbq, no less), located in East Cambridge -- a bit of a hike.  We took a cab, and the end of the evening was apparently quite lovely (with lots of food and sing-a-long), but I missed a portion in favor of going to Courtside (seriously like 2 blocks away -- how could I resist?). But the end of the night involved reconnecting with friends and making some new ones, so all in all, a very nice (and actually somewhat relaxing) Saturday.

Day 20: Earth Day

Now obviously the point of Earth Day is to be universal, and its celebration should clearly not be constrained to the city of Cambridge. However, I'm pretty sure that Cantabrigians are right up there in their knowledge of how to celebrate it. A former neighbor/house-mate of mine, along with her roommates, threw a pretty swanky affair, complete with green Earth Cake, a "coal" pinata busting, t-shirt tie-dying, and a surprise performance of "They Say It's Your [Earth]-Day" by a talented young musician.  The best part of course was that I got to re-visit my former apartment*, which shares a back yard with hers (including a garden and the best pluot tree of all time).

After the Earth Day celebration, another friend of mine had decided it was also pork day and made some Korean-style slow-roasted pork, with delicious trimmings. Pork day might indeed be the antithesis of Earth Day in some senses, but we'll just avoid that topic for now.  In other senses, pork day turned out to be even more epic than Earth Day, at least in its longevity, as we lounged around for nearly seven hours chatting, eventually ending the night in a short round of Celebrity. Happy Earth Day!

*Full disclore: I cheated, and this picture is a blast from the past including my old (dearly departed) bicycle taken at the location of the Earth day party.

Day 8: Toscanini's

This past September, I moved into an apartment right smack dab in the middle of Central Square. It also happened to be above my favorite coffee (and ice cream) shop, for better or for worse (I think for better) -- Toscanini's.

For months, I didn't mind the fact that I couldn't find my old coffee maker after the move, or that my second coffee maker was still in its original packing on top of a shelf in an office at school, because I could just grab a cup-o-joe on my way out the door (see today's cup above). A few months ago, I finally retrieved the mini-coffee-maker that was in the school office, only to have the plug melt due to its proximity to our very feisty gas stove.

This evening, I was making dinner (carbonara and salad) in another apartment in the same building of my old apartment on Plymouth Street. When I moved in with two other MIT graduate students three summers ago, it just so happened that four of our friends (*also* graduate students at MIT) were moving in to an adjacent unit in the same building (we shared a beautiful back yard -- hopefully there will be a picture of that once summer comes for real! -- with an incredible garden and a pluot tree). Anyhow, I was cooking with a friend who still lives there, and I remembered that I still had some things in the basement and popped down to see what was there. Lo and behold, I found my original coffee maker.

After transporting it and a few other items upstairs, my friend kindly offered to carry the coffee maker out to my car. Mere seconds after I had expressed that I thought this was very nice, he picked up the appliance and the glass pot slid out from the coffee maker and shattered all over the ground (I really can't express how perfect the comedic timing of all this was). I burst out laughing of course, because really I was still ahead -- I now have one working coffee maker with no glass pot, and one coffee maker with a bunk cord but a perfectly acceptable (if smaller) glass pot.

The upshot of all of this is that I have decided that Toscanini's must be conspiring against me -- perhaps I am just not meant to own a working coffee maker right now, but rather to bask in the bliss of no-hassle Dancing Goats each morning.