Day 82: The 1

This is it -- I've found him!

Just kidding.  The title actually refers to a freaking bus.  However, this freaking bus is pretty useful.  But back to the beginning...

My friend J. has been out of town for the last three weeks in Bolivia for a research field experience (how cool is that?).  Incidentally, he was with my former adviser at MIT and another lab member who was there for nearly all of my tenure in the lab.  They are doing some very cool work on number in cultures who a) are isolated and b) speak languages with pretty unique properties (or absence of properties).  The work basically began in Piraha villages in Brazil, but they wanted a control group where the language wasn't so different, but where the culture was isolated and kids were matched for (lack of) education, that sort of thing. Pretty darn cool stuff.  They needed a Spanish translator, and that's where J. comes in.  So it's basically double translation -- from the local language to (poor) Spanish relayed to J., to English.  Sweet gig, eh?

So J. is back, and I somehow managed to convince him to come with me to a party in the South End (K.'s house).  First we had MoS veggie burgers with another friend who opted to stay back in Cambridge.  Then we were griping about having to take the T... (well at least I was gripey about it) and realized that the 1 would save us.  It's pretty much the only bus in Cambridge that I will agree to ride on a somewhat regular basis.  Mostly because figuring out bus schedules is a pain -- although riding on a bus is typically not as much of a pain as my brain conceives it to be, and honestly, the 1 might be the most pain-in-the-ass bus route in the area (mostly 'coz it's freaking. packed. always. with. crazies -- but that's why we love Cambridge :)).

At any rate, the 1 took us into Boston toward the South End [see goofy picture of us above], and we left just early enough to catch it back into Cambridge.  In between, we chatted with the most business-y of my friends, admired their red, white, and blue, attire, and drank patriotic Budweisers (the KING of beer!).

1 is the loneliest number that you'll ever do... 2 can be as bad as 1, it's the loneliest number since the number 1, hey...

Day 71: Iggy's Breads of the World

Happy birthday to my beautiful mother! :) To celebrate her birthday (surely this was the reason and not because I think freshly-baked baguettes are delicious), I headed to the very tasty Iggy's Breads of the World with a co-worker for lunch today to pick up fresh sandwich and some java goodness.  One consequence of the recent move of our "unit" to Building 19 is that we are just enough closer to Iggy's to have finally realized it was there, just around the corner from our new building, in a weird wasteland of old warehouses.

BBN is located in a sort of no-man's land in the strip-mall-suburbia area near Fresh Pond, at the other end of Cambridge from my normal stomping grounds, which actually makes getting anywhere for lunch rather difficult.  To get to the Trader Joe's by foot is not terrible but involves crossing some annoying streets -- and forget going to the Whole Foods across Alewife Brook Parkway.  Driving such a short distance seems silly, but might be an alternative if it weren't even more painful due to an excruciating left turn onto Concord Ave. followed by two rotaries from hell.

The discovery of Iggy's for us meant not only access to unlimited breads and coffee, but accessible access!  Er, access that didn't require entering into a mind-fog of navigating Cambridge traffic.

This evening involved enough of that, as I was reminded of the reasons I both love and hate biking in Cambridge in the summer when I bike to and fro for Calliope.  Pros: beautiful evenings solo rides are heavenly; not taking the T is always a plus; not driving a car is always a *big* plus.  Cons: hot, somewhat sweaty late-afternoon rides are not conducive to vocal warm-ups; Boston traffic is still terrifying on a bike (though somewhat more exciting to navigate, somehow); I always forget just how annoying I find the Longfellow Bridge to go up and down (I know, lame of me).  Opted for the "Harvard" Bridge on the way back, as it's much flatter, and repeated last week's veggie burger foray at Miracle of Science because that was a delicious idea.

Day 64: Close Encounters of the Veggie Kind

Truth be told, I have put great efforts into discovery of the best grilled cheese and the best cheeseburger in Cambridge, but not until recently did I come to believe that a similar quest for veggie burgers might be in order.  Mostly because I feel like veggie burgers are usually crumbly bundles of poorly cohered beans and tofu - not so appealing, right?  Well, I stand corrected.

In addition to providing an edgy yet very Cantabrigian environment (complete with the fixture of a periodic table of burgers and other foods chalked onto its back wall and serving as the menu), the Miracle of Science also serves up a damn good veggie burger.  Saved by the grace of not being a vegan burger, some magical creamy sauce saves the day, and it's delicious.  I stopped by with a friend after our choir practice in the Back Bay, and at first we thought we could get away with splitting one... which turned quickly into two (and I'm pretty convinced he could have gone further if we'd have let him).

After a long day of work, softball (we came thisclose to not losing...), and singing some masterful pieces from a piecemeal mass (more on that later), Miracle was the perfect end to the day.