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...

Day 105: Have you ever seen the rain? Or, The Importance of Living Above Toscanini's.

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm.
I know
It's been comin' for some time.


Today was Calliope's second chorus-only practice in a row (well, chorus and orchestra separate, that is) -- and it's always really nice to have Julia (our conductor) to ourselves. The orchestra is amazing, but when it's everyone together there is just so much going on.  Tonight we arranged in small semi-circles in order to hear one another better and get a good mix, and the altos in circle #1 (i.e., the circle I was in!) tore it up.  It was a great rehearsal -- the Bach that so intimidate us a few weeks back is now one of my favorite pieces to sing.


I had ridden my bike into Boston when the sky was only vaguely threatening to do much more than release a light mist, but by the time we were done rehearsing, a downpour had unleashed itself.  After a bike ride over the Harvard bridge, I went back home to dry myself off thinking I might go back out again.  But after a shower and a realization that I could grab ice cream without getting wet, I opted to stay in and play Rock Band with V., who is leaving for Japan on Thursday.

But back to the main point--I realized tonight that I can procure the most delicious saffron ice cream you ever did taste on a stormy Cambridge evening without getting wet.  How many people can say that?  I'd approximate about the 20 that live in my building, and that's it.  Honestly, even without the ice cream (which served as my dinner, mind you), I'd have been happy tonight.  I love summer rain.

Day 104: vegetables.

I don't have any stats on this, but I have always taken it for granted that Cambridge must be one of the most liberal pockets in the U.S. Other than the Bay Area / the west coast in general... Mass. must rank pretty darn high, right?

Along with recycling ease and access to health care, Massachusetts also does a bang-up job of providing access to non-meat-eater-friendly fare.  Just next door to the location of my new favorite veggie burger is the Middlesex, which apparently serves up yummy stuff at non-lunch hours (I never knew!).  Some sort of dumplings with some pretty delicious greens and a water chestnut or two (love 'em) accompanied our evening's treat tonight -- the last Monday of the month brought Nerd Nite again.  This time, the talks were on immunology (and how the immune system might be programmed to fight cancer) and silk (and, essentially, some thoughts on how it might save the world).

Whoever decided to put that vegetable thing on the menu had an idea that didn't suck.  We had two.

Day 103: Small-town pubs

Our second rehearsal on-stage in Georgetown--and our first rehearsal off-script--was a big success, though we did take nearly three hours to get through the first half of a 90-minute play.  Highlights included the initial orchestration of a prat-fall trip my character gets to make, finally seeing the physicality between lots of the pairs of actors in the play, and the scene where my character gets to hide in the bathroom and drink double vodkas with her best friend.


After rehearsal, E. and I headed to have a snack with "Ernie" (2.0 -- the original cast member had to bail!) to a pub around the corner.  We ended up shooting the breeze for a couple of hours, while people wandered in and out. It's always funny to me to walk into an establishment that is clearly more designated for drinking than for eating purposes and find, e.g., a stroller inside.  Anyhow.

E. and I rehearsed lines in the car all the way back home, and weren't quite done chatting so we enjoyed the nice weather in his back yard in beautiful Medford for a while.  When I got home, V was there, and we ended up hanging out for hours.  Really nice Sunday.

[As an aside: I'm not going to lie... after our rager, we seem to have encountered a bit of a Rock Band problem which is continuing, and we just left it set up in Z's room while he's away in Japan.  Above you see an alternate use of Rock Band as an addition to audience participation during Bollywood films from the 70s.  I believe it's probably a good thing we didn't have it set up all year long, else we would have gotten very little done otherwise.  V. commented that they should just put Rock Band rooms on 14-hour-long flights to Japan and the flights would feel approximately 30 minutes long.]

Day 102: Brunch served after 2pm

It was not my intent originally to applaud the Friendly Toast, but applauded it must be, as it is one of the places nearby that serves brunch throughout the day.  So that if you throw a rager and your entire household awakes after noon [as ours did, including Z, who was writing on a poster of mine at 12:30 in his underwear when I found him upon waking], you may still enjoy brunch.

Other highlights of the day involved cleaning x 1000, practicing lines via E. for Rumors, and meeting up at a newly-made friends house to play Encore, one of my favorite games.  DING!

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.