Day 144: Good-bye for now

The Friendly Toast has apparently become the location for good-bye brunches.  Good-bye for V. as we fared her well on her way to Japan post-(pen-)ultimate party, good-bye to 905 Main St. after moving day, and good-bye to Cambridge, for me.  After E. helped me re-pack the Jeep this morning, we headed there with the boys to meet some others.  It was a good crew-- you'll see I've broken my rule of not posting too many pictures of people for this very last post, because today's theme is how much I'm gonna miss these people, not how much I'm gonna miss Cambridge. [NB: There are lots of other people not pictured who I will also miss terribly.]  Above we're outside of the Friendly Toast, and below, I am being group-hugged by most of the group whom I've recently dubbed "the boys".

Alright.  I have remained (mostly) un-corny for perhaps too long, so here is some corn (I am from Indiana, after all).  Thank you to all (you know who you are) for being some of the most inspiring people I've ever known.  You have helped me grow, served as role models, and been there when all I needed was to drink a beer and listen to some bluegrass.  Or when what I needed to was to sit in a corner and cry for a while.  Or when what I needed was a board game night with my cat trying to knock over everything in Russia (which he is roughly the size of).  I have been around some of the most creative, supportive, and caring people I've ever known the last four years, and I look so forward to returning.  All of that sap which was building the last few weeks is hitting, and while I am so very excited for new adventures, I will not forget past ones.  Sending you all warm thoughts and electronic hugs, and now, on to Brooklyn, leg 1 of the journey west!

Day 143: Mt. Auburn Cemetery

As today is the second to last day in Cambridge, I decided it warranted three pictures.  All three come from Mt. Auburn cemetery or thereabouts -- the first is a cozy picture of bikes (hi Yoshi!) just outside Sofra; the second, a beautiful gravestone inside the cemetery; and the third, a spiky chestnut propped carefully in hand, also within the cemetery.

After some mild putzing around in the morning (always advisable after one's going-away party), a bike ride to the part of Cambridge which could almost be considered Belmont was in order.  We went to Sofra, a cafe I'd never been to before, and which was simply delightful.  Also a sort of haven for kitchen odds-and-ends (think: dozens of jars labeled things like "fennel sugar", "pickled green garlic", "raw honey", etc.; oh hell, here's another picture, to the right).  Anyhow, it yielded some very delicious food, and it was right next to our afternoon's destination, the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, which I'd never been to before and which I now sorely regret.  I only had about 45 minutes or so to spend there due to a birthday gathering before Calliope stage call, and I could have spent hours.  Every time I go to Paris, I always want to visit Père Lachaise, and for some reason or other it never works out... cemeteries are often such beautiful places.  And somehow seem the opposite of morbid.  Very peaceful, I think.

After a brief rest, I headed to the birthday party of a former classmate, which was really nice.  Could only stay a minute before Calliope, but was good to see everyone's face one last time.

Tonight's concert went amazingly well.  By far the best performance I've ever been involved with during my (albeit short) tenure in Calliope.  Very hot, so the men didn't wear their jackets, but we managed to get through with no casualties throughout the steamy-rainy evening.  I think the audience really liked it, and lots of friends came, which is always a great feeling.

After, a few friends joined us (us = Calliope) at the Rattlesnake around the corner on Boylston.  The 'Snake had kindly put a sign out for us ("Reserved for the Band") which made us all laugh.  I got to say good-bye to all of the Calliope folks (M. nearly made me die laughing with her depiction of why you should never leave the east coast) and have a beer with some close friends, a great way to spend the last full evening in Cambridge.  Somehow at this point I have still managed not to crack... not breakdowns, not once.  One more day!

Day 140: ArtBar and round 1 of goodbyes

Although leaving Cambridge has many disadvantages, one of its main advantages is that I have been making time to spend with close friends. And so have they. So tonight, T. took me out to dinner at a place he (and several other friends, actually) have been talking up for a while -- ArtBar, part of the Sonesta hotel.  The weather was being too unpredictable for us to be able to sit outside on the patio overlooking the Charles, but our table next to the window suited us quite well.

On the walk over (I walked to MIT to meet Tim, and then we walked the mile or so to the Sonesta), we crossed through the parking lot of a converted school (?) to business, which apparently happens to be the location where one of our good friends is now working.  Quoth Tim: "Oh look, that's where N. Works."  (Then point to the window:) "Oh look, that's N."  And so it was. He came outside and we chatted a bit then carried on to dinner.  Quite tasty, and with some sort of very festive drink dispensing device (see picture: that's what you get if you aorder a drink "for two").

After dinner, Tim walked me back to Cuchi Cuchi, where I was meeting the girls from my year at MIT for a drink (well, those who remain -- 2/5 of us are gone!).  It was really nice to be able to spend the end of the evening with just the four of us -- it seems that we had been trying to coordinate this all summer and it never quite worked.  Cuchi Cuchi was one of the first places we tried such a "girl date" in our first year... nice memories there.  It's less than a block from 905 Main and just a few blocks up from MIT.

Funny thing about whining all summer about how you're leaving is that when you're still here a few days into the month of September, you start getting people asking confusedly, "Aren't you supposed to be gone?"  Four days!

Day 134: Indiana in Cambridge

This last trip to Indiana, I brought a little bit of it back with me to Cambridge.  That little bit being in the form of fresh sweet corn from my dad's garden (delicious).  I got back in town around 4 or 5pm, and headed over to D's soon after -- he was to host a dinner party for a friend who was coming in front out of town (another soul displaced from Cambridge to the West, though in her case, Seattle).  Anyhow, he incorporated the bit of Indiana into the stir-fry concoction (which was delicious), and created the above fruit salad, all locally grown and foraged from area trees the fruits of which would otherwise have been forgotten. (None were forgotten by us!)

The evening ended with a nice group of friends singing at with our favorite LBK B, B11.  Note the spooning action going on in the above fruit picture, by the way.  I think today can be considered the day that the emotional aspect of all of this saying good-bye to things started to hit me, as I am getting emotional thinking about the tenderness of the spoons, symbolizing all of us sharing the bowl of fruit [someone snap me out of this!].

Day 101: The Cambridge House Party.

Our third attempt at throwing a party was ... a blast.  Slightly less messy than party #2, much wilder than party #1, and brimming over with people more than either of 'em.
In some sense, this whole shindig [read: blog] could be considered the beginning of the end.




But really today marked it.

It was our choose-your-own-theme theme party, a theme fitting for the party sending us all off on our respective life paths.  I suppose the majority of those paths were pre-determined; mine the least so.

So, I'll chronicle the day.

I worked a lot.  But left early for the sake of the party and gathered the necessary elements from the liquor store and the Trader Joe's near my place of work, so that I could get home and start to clean before my roommates got back.  Having a car does have its perks.

I transformed my bedroom so that it actually looked like a) a place where people could live and b) a place where people could chill during our party.  [The first theme, by the way, was mostly Titanic, complete with tunes from the second soundtrack and liner notes + a poster from the first two albums.]

It ended rightly, with the important folks doing a sing-a-long at my 14-year-old keyboard (shitty Casio from the 90s), my roommates playing my XBox game of RockBand 2, and everyone else dissipating at the appropriate pace.  Plus, some long-lost friends showed up, to my delight.

Cambridge is my favorite.

Day 100: B11

A slight ode to B11 seemed to be a fitting topic for Awesome-Cambridge-Thing-#100.

Upon reflection, I felt it would behoove me to estimate the number of times the crew has been to Asgard in the last half year or so since the glory of live-band-karaoke was unveiled to me.  The first time was before the creation of this blog -- end of February -- when I went for a friend's birthday party and was shocked find the venue was across the street from my house.

The second time was the following week, when I couldn't resist and stopped by (by myself, mind you) on the way home after drinks for a friend who was going away.  Never underestimate the siren song of karaoke.

Since I really avoid doing estimation when exact count can be done (this is probably something that hinders me drastically in many walks of life, particularly in doing science), I have counted, and the exact number is actually 18 -- I'm pretty darn sure about that, too.  No error bars required.

That mean 18 nights spent with Boyan and the B11 crew.  They were in fine, fine form this evening -- and so were we!  Huge crew amassed for it -- out-of-town folks, folks from the cast of Rumors, regulars, irregulars, many!  Even ran into some long-lost friends.  The combo of rehearsing for Neil Simon's brilliance and then following it up with crooning Sting (well, tonight it was Sting) to Boyan's groovy guitar is something I'm really going to miss... What a perform-y summer -- And cheers to B11.

Day 73: Rumors -- A Farce

As I have previously mentioned, it has come to pass recently that I have some pretty great friends who are truly going to make this play thing happen.  The play is called Rumors, and it's a farce by the lovely Neil Simon.  Today marked the final night of try-outs, again at S's house, and might I say that there is so much talent involved in this!  I was blown away by so many performances over the course of both nights.

For me, today was a bit of a farce in itself.  I had some tasks that one would think might be simple -- go to the doctor's office because my eye seemed to be acting up, pick up some cat food, pick up a prescription.  But for various reasons, any simple task I engaged in seemed to have about a thousand barriers keeping me from accomplishing.  I'll take the cat food for example.  As many readers may know, my cat (Jack) is obese.  Not mildly chubby, not just kind of fluffy -- utterly obese.  Therefore I do my best to keep him on a strict diet of just over half a cup of diet cat food per day, fed to him over the course of the day by my wonderful roommates and me.  However, it is rather difficult to procure this cat food, and I don't like the idea of switching up on him briefly, so I try to carefully plan to stop by the vet the weekend before he's about to run out.

Needless to say, I didn't get around to that this time, and he needed cat food NOW.  So I found a pet store near my work that has a vet in-house (which, apparently, is required for the sale of "prescription cat food").  This cat food is seriously just like all other cat foods except that it's a little harder to chew (supposed to be great for the teeth), is higher proteins, and is lower in carbs.  Sigh.  I am getting frustrated just re-telling this story so I will abridge.

How to buy prescription cat food in 25 steps or less

1. Call store;
2. They will tell you to fax the prescription;
3. Call your cat's vet;
4. The vet will fax the prescription;
5. Go to store;
6. They will give you a prescription card;
7. They will point you to the prescription cat food;
8. The woman might start to say to say "it's in a turquoise bag" and you will tell her "oh, yeah, I buy it all the time, thanks";
9. You could even get two bags;
10. You go to the cash register;
11. They check the prescription card;
12. You leave;
13. You get home;
14. You open the bag. It's dog food that was mixed in the with cat food and in a nearly identical bag.;
15. You look dumbly at your cat who is starving.;
16. You call the pet store;
17. The pet stores says you can exchange, no worries;
18. Your house is far from the pet store, but the pet store is on your way to your play auditions;
19. You pick up your friends from their house in Somerville, and then you drive to the pet store in north Cambridge by where you work;
20. You bring in the dog food;
21. You go get the cat food;
22. You un-pay for the dog food;
23. You pay for the cat food;
24. Eventually you get rid of the friends; (:))
25. You give your cat the cat food.

Addendum: Then you go sing your usual live-band-karaoke song.

Day 18: The Beer Garden

I know I have mentioned it in a number of posts, but the beer garden at Charlie's Kitchen is the real show-stealer in Harvard Square. From what I hear, it is actually one of two locations in H. Square with outdoor seating in the summer, though also from what I hear, the other place "is a shitshow."  I supposed I'll report back on that at some point this summer.

Anyhow, if it's one of those first nice spring days, it's going to be packed -- and so worth waiting for a seat. Tonight was one of those nights where someone sent out an impromptu emailing saying she'd be there at 6p, and people crawled out of the woodwork for some open-air celebration in a cozy back corner outdoors, a few of us crouching on the steps leading up to a higher-level street.  For once I didn't get my standby order - grilled cheese on white. Only two places in C-bridge top Charlie's grilled cheese, and that is only because they come with tomato soup.  It is sort of the perfect meal.

Methinks the MIT sailing pavilion will open soon... sailing is definitely on the bucket list for this summer.  I sort of want to get an actual bucket. And make a list on it. Or in it. And carry it around with me for when I have new ideas.