Day 124: The Cambridge garden party

Today marked the beginning of one of the ends of summer -- that end being the production, and therefore finale, of Rumors.  And by that, I mean that today marked our first full dress rehearsal in Georgetown.  Well, nearly full; there were a few stray "threads", if you will, such as some evening gowns-turned-shorts-and-a-t-shirt and faulty walkie-talkies!  But overall it seemed worlds beyond the rehearsal on Thursday, which was a pleasant surprise.

This weekend's chaos left little room for error, but somehow in between the dress rehearsal and the garden fête this afternoon (more on that in a minute), there was some room for a quick oil change and finishing the cookies!  Almost vegan, not quite; still haven't quite figure out the whole baking-without-eggs thing.  Ok, so not so vegan at all, though the butter substitute worked like a charm. [Sidenote: apparently, upon a quick google search, bananas can sub for eggs.  Must experiment.]

At any rate, I arrived at M.'s house (where the garden party was being thrown for T's birthday, partially organized by me -- i.e., me being the constant source of harassment and verbal berating asking them to come to the damn thing) later than I had hoped but earlier than I had expected, allowing me to help prep a bit and to bake some of the cookies at her place.  It was a really nice afternoon for an outdoor Cambridge garden party. [M.'s place is exceedingly well-suited for throwing such gatherings -- beautiful outdoor garden mostly maintained by the two landlords, who live upstairs, and to some extent M. herself, I expect, with plenty of space for grilling and sitting or standing around, chatting.]  Eventually many of us devolved into devising some strange antics, some of which involved wearing bright sunglasses, hats made of plastic bags, and tiny spatulas (so cute!) for decoration; the antics may also have involved creating some videos of upside-down talking heads.  No further comment on that one.  But the moral of the story is, it was a relaxing end to a long week (fortnight? month? summer?), and presumably one happy birthday was had.

Day 95: The importance of having neighbors

Today felt like a very Saturday-y Saturday.

Began at a very Saturday-y time, around 9:30.  Involved some chores, a bit of work, some mild organization for packing, a trip to pick up some belongings which were still at my old apartment, etc.  And even grocery shopping!  And baking a cake -- a delicious Trunchbull (think: Matilda)-type cake, at that -- for my roomie's birthday.  Unfortunately there were a few hiccups in this process.  The last and most minor was the lack of candles (totally spaced it at the grocery store, where I should have attempted to purchase them), but a lighter can always sub in for that bit.

The first and most major was the fact that my cake-carrier still resides in Indiana as my space-cadet self left it at my aunt's in WV and my mom transported it home.  You would think that a cake carrier is one of those things you don't really _need_ -- until you do need it, which I often do, which is why I own one.  How else are you supposed to transport cakes?!

Well, I will tell you one way.  First, you live close enough to your friends that you can carry a cake down the street in an interesting apparatus.  Second, you concoct the idea for the interesting apparatus.  In this case, the first idea was to put the plate that the cake was on into a big metal salad bowl, hoping to stabilize it -- but then there was the problem of how to cover it.  Next there was the idea to simply put the metal bowl over a big plate -- but none of the plates were big enough, so there was no real way to to stabilize the bottom (er, top) of the bowl, as it didn't make contact with the plate.  I am no engineer, but I must say I was impressed with my idea of taking Z's mildly rusted cast-iron which has been sitting on our kitchen floor for approximately 3 months (or more?) and setting the plate inside -- the slightly curved lips of the unbreakable Corell plate fit perfectly in the medium-size cast-iron, and the handles of the skillet protruded out far enough so that the metal salad bowl perched atop them. It pretty much looked like I was either carrying a meal fit for a king or someone's head down the street in Central Square, and the only issue was that the uber-gooey DELICIOUS chocolate icing on this cake pretty much ensured that its two layers would slide all around and drip a bit of the goo on to my hands (though there are worse problems to have than chocolate icing on one's fingers).

At any rate, cake worked out and had a lovely b-day dinner for Pap at G-Dog's house.  The hub of Central Square comes through again, serving as the center for so many folks.

Day 84: All Asia

Thank goodness for Mariposa.  The best part of waking up... is waking up early enough to go have coffee and chill a bit before work.

Otherwise you're screwed.

Somehow, All Asia played in to my day two days in a row.  The first (as you'll know if you religiously read all my blog posts... which you should NOT) was yesterday, pre-fireworks.  The second was today, post-work, pre-live-band-karaoke.  One of the few times recently that E. and I have carved out some chatterbox one-on-one time that didn't involve riding in a car (for 12+ hours at a time).

It was, of course, again ruined by the music, but luckily better music was in our near future.  However, first, on the way to Asgard, in the same damn plaza as yesterday, we again run into my former dorm-mate from college!  This is getting uncanny, so it seemed like kismet that she should join us for karaoke at Asgard -- which (about an hour later) she did.  Excellent.

Asgard was dead tonight until it just wasn't -- nearly everyone showed at the same time.  D. showed with JRock about the same time as C. and party came in for her birthday.  Everyone was having a smashing time (on multiple levels), I sang some crazy-sappy tunes ("Sugar Pie Honey Bunch" and Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours"), and the night was LBK as it should be.  The night ended with some falafel, some funny lines, and some funnier moments. All that was missing was ... you know what? I don't think anything was missing.

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 32: Oh, the people you'll meet!

One of the things I love most about living in this area is that it's big enough to feel somewhat anonymous when you want to, yet very much small enough that you run into people on the street that you know (for instance, in both heading out towards and back from the airport, I ran into the *same person* -- and yesterday alone, I ran into both my ex-boyfriend, walking toward the coffee shop located in the same building as my apartment, and my roommate, in Harvard Square).  It's also small enough that if you frequent a location for a short while, you'll run into the same people over and over and often become friendly.


Tonight, I first made a cake for a friend's birthday party located at her house in Somerville, and later in the evening took the T into Boston to go to karaoke with a bunch of friends from my choir, two members who were celebrating birthdays tonight as well.  Charles Playhouse was the locay, and of course there were regulars there whom I'd met at least on two separate occasions before.  I also got offered a job working there, for whatever reason (my hypothesis: it's because I helped bail out a girl who got roped into singing along to "Girls just wanna have fun" with some random drunk chick -- sweet, but drunk). At any rate, if you live here in Cambridge, you get to feel like you really, really *live* here.  And it's wonderful.