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 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...