Other Things in Boston
Other pieces of the Boston weekend puzzle, which fit together so nicely. Primarily for my own future reference, since I fear forgetting things that I don't write down now.
Near constant rain, for one thing. I buy an umbrella at 7 pm at Harvard Square on Friday and leave it in a restaurant near Harvard Square at 7 pm on Saturday. (New personal record for umbrella loss!) Party at college friend Blair's apt. Friday evening; met up with college friend Olga there, walked back to her dorm to crash for the night.
Saturday morning alone at the aquarium, where there is a fascinating exhibit of jellyfish and of course a whole huge lot of young kids, whose presence makes me feel surprisingly out of place. The Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common is being gawked at by tourists in a duck tour car. The old grave markers in the Granary Cemetery are quietly absorbing: remote but not really so far in the past. Cheating into five minutes of a tour group teaches me that Sam Adams in fact married into his brewing business and drove it into the ground.
Candlepin bowling after Nate's arrival, in Somerville with college friend Rory; we are neck and neck and don't do very well (as expected) but we all improve by ten points in game #2. Dinner with college friend Al. BMOP concert; Blair comes on a whim and a rush ticket; afterwards drinks (Corona, margarita, Corona) at a Mexican place with Blair and her boyfriend and their roommate, who's a Pittsburgher.
Blair & Patrick drive Nate & me to the Motel 6 all the way the hell down in Braintree at about 2 AM. We were going to take the T, earlier, till the drinking thing came up. I mailed them a "Thanks for driving my twin brother and me all the way out to Braintree the other night" card this morning, Tuesday.
("Braintree" has got to be one of my favorite place names anywhere. The other terminus of the Red Line, "Alewife," is also pretty good.)
Long Sunday brunch with Nate's friend Lisa. Nate & I have a quick beer near Fenway before he leaves for the airport and I hit the park for a two-hour rain delay. (Pictured, via camera phone. A coworker had emailed around the office Friday that she had, suddenly, two extra tickets for Sunday. I bought these on principle & couldn't quite give away the extra one.) After the rain delay, late afternoon sunlight and a swath of a radiantly Norman Rockwell-looking baseball evening that rather redeems the whole lead-in to it. The whole crowd has stuck it out; Jason Varitek hits a first-inning, bases-loaded triple; I leave at the seventh-inning stretch for dinner with Al again, back up in Cambridge, and then the 9:45 train home.
Sandburg:
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
Or, in this case, images of harbors and their associated industry floating by in the dark, and a long, inane cell-phone conversation emanating from the woman in the seat in front of me.
Near constant rain, for one thing. I buy an umbrella at 7 pm at Harvard Square on Friday and leave it in a restaurant near Harvard Square at 7 pm on Saturday. (New personal record for umbrella loss!) Party at college friend Blair's apt. Friday evening; met up with college friend Olga there, walked back to her dorm to crash for the night.
Saturday morning alone at the aquarium, where there is a fascinating exhibit of jellyfish and of course a whole huge lot of young kids, whose presence makes me feel surprisingly out of place. The Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common is being gawked at by tourists in a duck tour car. The old grave markers in the Granary Cemetery are quietly absorbing: remote but not really so far in the past. Cheating into five minutes of a tour group teaches me that Sam Adams in fact married into his brewing business and drove it into the ground.
Candlepin bowling after Nate's arrival, in Somerville with college friend Rory; we are neck and neck and don't do very well (as expected) but we all improve by ten points in game #2. Dinner with college friend Al. BMOP concert; Blair comes on a whim and a rush ticket; afterwards drinks (Corona, margarita, Corona) at a Mexican place with Blair and her boyfriend and their roommate, who's a Pittsburgher.
Blair & Patrick drive Nate & me to the Motel 6 all the way the hell down in Braintree at about 2 AM. We were going to take the T, earlier, till the drinking thing came up. I mailed them a "Thanks for driving my twin brother and me all the way out to Braintree the other night" card this morning, Tuesday.
("Braintree" has got to be one of my favorite place names anywhere. The other terminus of the Red Line, "Alewife," is also pretty good.)
Long Sunday brunch with Nate's friend Lisa. Nate & I have a quick beer near Fenway before he leaves for the airport and I hit the park for a two-hour rain delay. (Pictured, via camera phone. A coworker had emailed around the office Friday that she had, suddenly, two extra tickets for Sunday. I bought these on principle & couldn't quite give away the extra one.) After the rain delay, late afternoon sunlight and a swath of a radiantly Norman Rockwell-looking baseball evening that rather redeems the whole lead-in to it. The whole crowd has stuck it out; Jason Varitek hits a first-inning, bases-loaded triple; I leave at the seventh-inning stretch for dinner with Al again, back up in Cambridge, and then the 9:45 train home.Sandburg:
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
Or, in this case, images of harbors and their associated industry floating by in the dark, and a long, inane cell-phone conversation emanating from the woman in the seat in front of me.
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