#52 Boston - Attack of the Dust Particles June 2, 2005

My friend Lisa Miller got viciously attacked by some filthy dust particles in the New York subway, her shoes melted and apparently I was in a bar fight that I do not remember anything about - I simply woke up with a disfiguring gash on my head. Bottomline: we had fun in the Big Apple!!! One-eyed Lisa eventually recovered from her ocular ailment, while I still sport the laceration on my forehead. What is a trip without battle scars, eh?

NYC welcomed us with spectacular weekend weather, temps in the upper 70s and lower 80s - after three weeks of pretty much constant rain and tenebrous skies in Boston, it was a well-deserved change. New York was, as always, amazing, dazzling, like a shot of adrenaline - jam-packed with tourists, and some folks who actually live there.

I met up with Mrs Miller this past Friday to spend a few nice days in her family's apartment on the Upper East Side (Thanks Roger and Susan!!) - we pretty much wasted no time and immediately zipped down to Rockefeller Plaza (http://www.nyctourist.com/rock_center1.htm), where we decided to take a tour of the NBC studios. I was very impressed with 30 Rock (as the NBC staff calls it) - in particular the set of "Saturday Night Live" (http://www.saturday-night-live.com/). It actually features stadium seating which was given to a cash-strapped Lorne Michaels by none other than George Steinbrenner. Apparently Michaels did not have enough pesos to support "his little show" and Steinbrenner, in a rare fit of munificence, decided to "lend" him a few rows of Yankee stadium seats. Little did he know that the "little show" would go on for more than 30 years!! Of course, the SNL family now considers the seats a good luck charm and they are never replaced (fixed, yes). Gotta keep the good juju!! After pictures were taken of us as NBC newscasters on the set of Dateline NBC, we hightailed it out of there, back to the Upper East Side, to meet up with my German friends Marion and Ulli (both teach in NYC) for a delectable meal at Lentini's, which was quite a treat.

Saturday morning, and every morning thereafter, started out with a trip to the corner-deli-cafe-gourmet-grocery-shop "Agata" - one of the lovely typical New York East Coast deli style places, where everyone who lives in the neighborhood stops in for their morning coffee and probably for their lunch as well. Agata's did welcome us every day with a primo selection of breakfast foods, even if the staff seemed to reside on Planet Spacey at times, and could only handle one coffee order at the time.

We hopped on the subway and were prepared to get into the dreadful lines for TKTS half-price tickets at Times Square (http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/) - generally the wait is at least one hour, and I recommend bringing a folding chair, and a picnic basket, maybe some wine. However, we did discover a secret that I am going to spill now to everyone in the entire universe: you only need to be in the bloody line if you want musical tickets!! (I wished someone would have told me that last year!!!) For plays, you simply go to the cash registers/exits, line up behind the one or two people there at Register 6 (Plays Only) and get your ticket. 5 Minutes, wham, bam - you are done!! Six million thank yous go out to the kind soul in line who told us this!!
This opened up our schedule big time (no kidding), so we trekked toward downtown and my favorite place in New York, the Saturday Union Square Farmers Market - you can buy anything from NY rooftop honey, "mango-on-a-stick", freshly baked pretzels, strange herbs and bad art.

The off-Broadway play "The Paris Letter", performed at the Roundabout Theater on West 46th Street, was impressive - the story of a successful Wall Street power broker, whose life and personal happiness eventually succumbs to the lie he has been living and to the desires he had repressed for decades. Tony award winners Ron Rifkin, John Glover and Michele Frank headed the remarkable cast that also included Daniel Eric Gold and Jason Butler Harner.

On Sunday, we decided to follow a recommendation from my friend Linda and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/bbridge/bbridge.html). What a wonderful thing to do!! Opened on May 24, 1883, it is truly a marvel of engineering, with its wooden caissons, a terrific view of the Manhattan Bridge to one side, and Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty to the other. And of course you have to stop by the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory located at the foot of the bridge. Just four flavors (vanilla, vanilla choc chunk, chocolate and chocolate-chocolate chunk) - but the most excellent ice cream!! We stopped for lunch in the artsy-loft district, before heading back over the bridge and then cruised through the entire length of Manhattan.

A walk through Manhattan affords a glimpse -and some stops- in many of the city's engaging neighborhoods - we passed by Tribeca, made a pit stop in trendy Soho (check out Dos Caminos - dynamite Latin food, spectacular Guacamole bar, and Ceviche to die for!!!), looked for the Olsen twins around NYU (absolute gem: Washington Mews between 5th Avenue and University Place in the Village -http://www.forgotten-ny.com/Alleys/GREENWICH%20VILLAGE/green.html - was originally used for stables servicing the expensive homes facing Washington Park; it still retains its original cobble stones, and looks as if it was plucked right out of 19th century Europe), and finally rested our weary feet in Central Park (not before stopping at Trump Tower, and Tiffany's, of course!!). http://www.centralpark.org/

All in all, a most enjoyable weekend, and of course I have to end it with a few little unusual tidbits about New York:

- When you pay for the subway's Metrocard, it asks you to "dip your credit card"
- Street Signs tell you to "curb your dog"
- Winning restaurant names include (our old favorite) "Senor Swanky's" and (new on the list) "Nancy Lee's Pig Heaven" (wonder how the pigs feel about it)
- Favorite New York Moment: Dinner at Empire Wok on Second Avenue, with a table facing the street, and within five minutes we had a sailor throwing us a rose, a dog performing tricks on command and a pretty hammered drunk trying to do the same. Gotta love it.

Back in Boston - after some more joyless weather, spring has finally forced itself onto us, and I was able to have my first nice-weather jog along the Charles River.

On the social front, I was invited to another movie preview screening, this time an absolutely phenomenal flick called "Capote" with Philip Seymour Hoffman portraying Truman Capote so vividly and to the point, that he should get two Oscars! The audience (myself included) was so absorbed by the movie that there was total silence afterward, and the discussion with director Bennett Miller went on for quite some time. The movie will come out sometime this year, so stay tuned.

OK, folks, gotta go! It is nice out, and I want to get a little walk in before it gets dark. Tomorrow is my 1-year anniversary in Boston - a year ago this Friday, I arrived at Logan airport, tired, with three monstrous suitcases and a frightened little bird.

All my love to you - miss you, please keep in touch.

pet:)

#51 Boston - A Week of Culture and The Great Outdoors - May 26, 2005

Wow! What a week! A culture wave of sorts - a play, a musical, a concert, an Indie film screening, documentaries on Netflix on the cultural side, supplemented by a wonderful hike in New Hampshire to explore the Great Outdoors.

The weather here in New England has made every effort to keep us inside - it has been raining non-stop, and I mean, NON-STOP! Contributing also has been an extremely vicious wind, so any attempt to open your umbrella is pretty much useless. Might as well just get drenched. I admit to a certain level of insanity when it comes to my refusal to take the subway as opposed to getting in a nice long walk to and from the theater, but when I arrived at my apartment last night, soaked as can be, I myself had to question how far the psychosis has progressed.

The hike this past Sunday led up north to New Hampshire, Pawtuckaway State Park in particular, just east of Manchester (http://www.nhstateparks.org/ParksPages/Pawtuckaway/Pawtuckaway.html). The trail drifted through lusciously green and unspoiled woodlands, past hoards of impressive granite boulders ("glacial erratics" for the geologists among us) and mysterious caves at Devils' Den, to a most rewarding view on the North Mountain. The beaver ponds (again) revealed no beavers, and we encountered only a few souls on this gray, but perfect hiking day. Having done mostly local hikes on flat territory all winter, I definitely rediscovered some muscles, who had been in hiding all this time - pleasantly sore as they say, with a smile though, remembering a lovely day.

The cultural divertissements started off on Friday evening with the play "Shakespeare in Hollywood" at the Lyric Stage Company (http://www.lyricstage.com/). The company is a most charming venue right in the heart of Boston, and this play by Ken Ludwig, a farce featuring a Jewish movie producer who escapes to Hollywood from World War II Europe, captivated, enthralled and tickled a very hopped up audience with its wisecracking and drollery. Said producer is trying to bring a little "cultscha" to Tinseltown, and picks "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as his play of choice, only to have the real Oberon and Puck appear in some sort of time-travel trickery and all kinds of flimflam starts to happen.

Saturday, in a complete change of pace, the cultural locale was the Avalon, according to citysearch.com "the closest thing to a big-time New York Club you'll find in Boston". Excellent concerts there, not too overpriced and even pretty decent beer. The group performing this evening was "Snow Patrol" (MY NEW FAVORITE BAND!!!!!) http://www.snowpatrol.net/ . Their website describes their style as a "heart-crushing mix of distorted British pedal rock and US alternative guitar pop" - absolutely fun music, great band, terrific tunes! Check them out if they come your way!! (You can listen to "Spitting Games", "Run" and "Chocolate" on the web!)

Tuesday night, it was time for the next ushering job/ culture fix, this time at the Huntington Theatre Company for a musical called "Falsettos". Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the story centers around a family whose father, Marvin, leaves his wife for a guy named Whizzer and has the lofty goal of keeping everyone "one big happy Jewish family". Again, the Huntington affirmed its reputation for great stage display and original choice of playwright. Energetic performances by a stellar cast, in particular 12-year old Jacob Brandt, who plays Marvin's son Jason and whose vocal performance was quite impressive (very clearly, puberty has not hit this young man yet....).

Rounding out this week of fun, was yesterday's screening of a new movie called "Friends with Money". As volunteers for the Independent Film Festival, we were invited to this exclusive event, and were not told much about the movie beforehand. "Just be there, 7:30 PM, watch the flick, we would like to know what you think" - kind of event. I certainly enjoyed the movie - fits probably into the category "bitter comedy" - Frances McDormand, Jennifer Anniston and Joan Cusack were among a very absorbing cast of characters. Following the film was a discussion with writer and director Nicole Holofcener ( "Lovely and Amazing" is one of her earlier accomplishments) and feedback from the audience. Cool.

So, quite a week, eh? And a short one too, as I am heading to New York City tomorrow to meet up with my friend Lisa Miller for a fun-filled weekend.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend and stay dry!

pet:)

#50 Boston - What happened in Florida and Other Useless Observations - May 19, 2005

I am back in town - returned from the Sunshine State, and the city of Boston welcomed us at the airport with a scorching 45 degrees!! Overall it was not that much of an adjustment as I spent most of my time in Orlando in the Orange County Convention Center, which featured about the same temperature. Conferences, in particular this one, are very exhausting, and I basically headed home Tuesday and slept for a day-and-a-half (some of it in bed).

Some observations (most of them useless) from my trip:

You have heard of a hammer toe, right? Well, the guy next to me in the plane (a fellow attendee as it turned out) had a "hammer thumb" - an enormous behemoth of a finger I must say. Freak.

Experienced one of those families we love and cherish on plane rides, in particular the 5-year old son, who delighted his mother and us fellow passengers with a barrage of statements like "Are you sure we are on the right plane?", "Is anyone getting play dough?" (Ain't gonna be me!")

First time I flew into Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, DC - right over the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. Cool.

Palm trees in Florida were a site for winter-sore eyes, ahh, warmth, feels good, sense memory comes back.

Westgate Lakes Resort - my hotel - aha, this is where families with eight or more children vacation.

Met a 2 1/2-year old alligator in hotel lobby (his mouth was taped shut, which was a good thing). Meanwhile MGH in Boston with all its construction displaces whole colonies of mice.

Playing the name game at the ASCO convention, discover participants named Donald Trump (no kidding), Kim Chi and (very cutting edge) Roger Rodgers.

Love the non-smoking sign at the Convention Center (remember this is a cancer conference):

"Smoking is prohibited"
"Smoking causes cancer"
"Secondhand smoking kills, too"
"Your fellow oncologists and patients appreciate you not smoking"

Lots of business dinners in the evening, highlight is the French Restaurant "Le Coq au Vin", absolutely the best food in Orlando. Ingestion of alcohol leads to indulgence and revelations - who knew the pharma industry rep has a degree in Middle Eastern Studies and used to sell fork lifts?

Cabbie gets completely lost on the way to the restaurant, and gives us the grand tour of Orlando - we pass a church named "Mary, Queen of the Universe" (??)

If you wonder where the bee line (that we take so often) is, I am happy to report that we discovered it in Orlando (Bee Line Parkway, right near the convention center).

Conference turns into reunion with many friends from California - hello all!! It was good to see you.

Highlight of the conference for me is a movie called "Frankl's Choice" which juxtaposes the life and teachings of Victor Frankl, the developer of existential psychology, with interviews of terminally ill patients and cancer survivors (among them my boss Bruce Chabner, who is an oncology physician, and his wife, Davi Ellen Chabner). Here is a quote from his book "Man's Search for Meaning" - "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

Aside from being THE meeting every year where scientific results in oncology get highlighted, this is also the mecca for marketers. The exhibit halls overwhelm with gargantuan booths, high-tech gadgetry, and every tschotschke known to mankind. Lots of cool little items, some of which now reside in my home..... at the end of the day you stagger out of there like a drunken sailor on shore leave and packed like a mule, just like after a sale at Filene's Basement....

Disney is unbelievable - those of you who have ever been to Disneyland in California know, it is in the hood, somewhere in Anaheim, in an uninspired neighborhood - just when you have given up all hope, there is the parking lot! Disney World in Orlando (if you are into that kind of stuff) is mind-boggling. You drive through the lush Florida vegetation, and all of a sudden the freeway signs turn Disney Color, you know just like at Toys R Us. Fake boulders appear out of nowhere, castles line the side of the road and you expect all vehicles to be driven by 6-year olds. 47 Miles of property are occupied by the different parks (Epcot, Disney, MGM, Universal) and all of them charge $65 a pop to get in!! The whole area reminded me of one of the old Star Trek episodes, where Captain Kirk and his crew land on a real pretty and clean planet, where all the people are smiling and have probably been drugged and brainwashed.

Back in Boston, work is insane, immediately following ASCO, organizing a huge meeting, which took place this afternoon, and went very well. Heading home now, exhausted, happy that it is Friday tomorrow.

Ciao for now!

pet:)

#49 Boston - Scuttlebutt and Limeys - May 12, 2005

Greetings from Sunny Florida, where I landed today - and let me tell you, it is a bit of a surprise that I got here at all. Not the airline's fault, but it can be entirely attributed to my early morning scatteredness. Went to the wrong terminal at Logan for starters, then hiked to the right terminal, found US Air, even though they do their best to hide, sat at the wrong gate for a while (looked at seat # instead of gate #), realized it in time (phew!!). Maybe I should switch away from decaf!

It is my first time in Florida - I am attending the annual meeting of ASCO, the American Society for Clinical Oncology. 30,0000 cancer specialists will descend onto the city of Orlando (www.orlandoinfo.com) over the next few days. The conference is absolutely insane, overwhelming and as I experienced two years ago in Chicago, so huge that it is essential to have a decent, sturdy pair of walking shoes.

I am staying at the Westgate Lakes Resort and Spa, one of six million "resorts" on the outskirts of Orlando. The place is a huge, 1300-room sprawl. I occupy the most lovely studio - the design is definitely "Golden Girls", about the size of my apartment, with a view of Turkey Lake and a Jacuzzi!

As a great segue into my trip, the weather in Boston changed drastically and was nice for once over the past two days (and yes, again, the flip flops came out).

The past weekend was again rainy and drab though, so hiking was definitely not on the agenda. On Saturday, my stir-craziness drove me out of the house in the afternoon and led to a brief, rain-soaked stroll over to the Science Museum. I had wanted to see the Butterfly Garden, their newest exhibit, but since everybody and their cousin were there, the program was sold out. So I headed to the Charles Hayden Planetarium and listened to a presentation on stargazing, which was pretty decent. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the "hands-on" explorer section of the museum, where some six-year olds and I put all the right organs (or so we thought) on a human dummy. The Velcro strips were not so crisp any more and the kidneys kept falling down, but aside from that we did pretty good.

Saturday night, I went out with my Indian friends, Rohini and PJ for a superb dinner at the Silvertone Bar and Grill, definitely one of my new favorite places in the hub. The Silvertone convinces with a hip crowd, spectacular food (best Mac and Cheese ever) and very affordable prices! It was a most educational evening - Rohini is the world's best resource on - well, pretty much anything. Just like Barbra Streisand in "Hello Dolly" - "Just leave everything to me" - she dazzled us with one business card after the other. No matter if you need your eyebrows threaded, your car tires rotated or your neck adjusted - Rohini knows!

On Sunday, it was time to visit the final two stops on the Freedom Trail that I had omitted to visit until now: The USS Constitution and the Bunker Hill Monument, both located in Charlie aka Charlestown.
The USS Constitution, "Old Ironsides" is a spectacular experience. The oldest commissioned warship afloat in the entire world, she is still part of the US Navy and can boast a colorful history. Her name, "Old Ironsides" stems from a historic battle with the HMS Guerriere in 1812. The British 380-gun frigate, famous for terrorizing the US naval fleet, should have flattened the Constitution. The Guerriere started firing like mad, only to see their cannon shots bounce off the sides of the USSC - so one of their sailors shouted "Huzzah, her sides are made from iron!!" - which gave the old girl her famous name. (The strength of the hull is actually due to a triple layer of white oak-live oak (very strong wood)-white oak - no iron whatsoever). After 20 minutes, the British were toast, and the HMS Guerriere was so badly damaged that they had to sink the ship.

The tour of the USS Constitution was equally engrossing, and a very dapper young naval officer gave us a glimpse of what life was like aboard the ship. 500 men were on duty, worked on the gun and spar decks and slept in their berths, always in 4-hour shifts (250 a piece). One of the artifacts on deck was the "scuttlebutt", the ships drinking water supply, which was the only place on the ship where you were allowed to chat (the "water cooler" of yesterday) - hence the word scuttlebutt is used for gossip. The barrel was a "butt barrel" with a scuttle opening. Needless to say the water allocated to every sailor (35 pints a day) was not used for personal hygiene that much, this made the whole 500-man-on-a-boat experience a bit of a smelly affair.
My other favorite amenity on board was the grog tub, which for the US Navy contained whiskey, not rum as one might expect. (The Royal Navy had rum). In order to prevent the all-prevalent scurvy, lemon juice was added, whereas the British added lime juice to their rum, hence the term "limeys".

I then met up with Elaine and we zipped over to the Bunker Hill Monument, a 221-foot obelisk, which marks the site of the first major battle of the American Revolution. "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" - untrained and ill-equipped to match up against the far superior British forces, the American colonists made up for their shortcomings with fierce determination. The Battle of Bunker Hill, fought in June of 1775 awarded the British of loss of half of their 2200 ground forces and artillery. The colonists did loose eventually, but not without inflicting serious pain and damage on their enemy. You can climb up all 294 steps to the top of the monument, which is a serious workout, but does reward with spectacular views.

Completely exhausted, Elaine and I retreated to her new and extremely comfortable new couch, and spent the afternoon with tea and cake, just as it should be. I also got to meet the newest addition to her family, Nipsy, a little budgie just like my Oscar. He was absolutely adorable, even though he tried to evade his first German lesson by hiding behind the refrigerator.

The weekend ended with a lovely visit by Melanie and Tom from California, which was celebrated by way of a delectable meal at Croma, one of the nice, but not too upscale eateries on Newbury Street. Their chocolate cobbler is definitely worth a visit.

On Monday, I made use of another resource for us rat-poor, cash-drained Bostonians - citystylist.com, where you sign up for a haircut with a student at one of the fancy schmancy hair salons in Boston. $15 dollars - I am now sporting a very snazzy, albeit a bit short do courtesy of Runway Salon.

My friends, it is bed time - all my love to you from Orlando......

pet:)

#48 Boston - Return of the Flip Flop - May 5, 2005

No, my friends, I am not talking about John Kerry, even though he does hang around here. This is another unsettling phenomenon, closely related to the quilt bag movement I eluded to in one of my earlier updates. The same women who last year, during my first encounters with New England urban culture, carried the flowery Vera Bradley bags (coined "diaper bags" by my friend Ruth) have now - at the first signs of spring and the sweltering 50 degree weather - pulled out their beach wear -flip flops, which go so well with their professional outfits (not!!). I don't know who started this people!! In addition, I have to say something to the guys accompanying these women - no matter how much you love your girlfriend, fiancée, wife, mistress, spousal equivalent - do not, I mean DO NOT carry their hand bags (in particular if it is one of those bedspread bags...). I know you mean well, but - no, no, no - very unbecoming....

Speaking of returning - this Wednesday, the resident Public Garden swans, Romeo and Juliet, have returned to their summer lagoon - they reside at the Franklin Park Zoo all winter. There was a little parade to welcome them back to the hub, led by none other than our own Boston Park Ranger Lt. Reginald Sampson.

At this point, I am pretty much convinced that no more snow is coming to Boston, and the weather has kept steady at temps in the 50s, albeit with not much sunshine, and last weekend was a rain-out, so any attempts at hiking were balked at by Mother Nature. This drencher of a weekend put a major damper on WBOS's Earth Fest, which took place on the Charles River Esplanade, and had actually a pretty nice line-up with The Wallflowers, Carbon Leaf, Five for Fighting as their headliners. I did not attend, but was able to hear some of it, as I was stuck in traffic on Storrow Drive with my friend Renee's mattress crunched right above my head. I was helping her out with moving and there was gridlock everywhere! All went well though, and Renee, Clover (the cat) and Rufus (the dog) are now comfortably settled in Somerville.

Saturday evening I headed toward Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street (http://www.emmanuel-boston.org/) to usher for Boston Cares. The evening featured a performance by the Spectrum Singers (www.spectrumsingers.org), one of the many choral ensembles here in New England, and definitely one of their finest!! They have been around for a quarter century and generally perform pieces from all periods of music history. English baroque composer Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695 )(http://www.baroquemusic.org/bqxpurcell.html) and his opera "Dido and Aeneas" were portrayed that night. Considering that I just saw the play about Dido and Aeneas at the ART, this was a fitting addition to my cultural program, and a spectacular performance by this choir. Bravo!!

I was determined to do some hiking on Sunday, but again - rain, rain and rain. Change of plans, time to hit the museums. For starters I had to visit the one museum in Boston that I had been negligent in visiting - the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. From the outside, you would never guess what a gem this place is - a 15th century Venetian Villa, right in the middle of Boston!! (http://www.gardnermuseum.org/). Isabella, bless her, was an art collector, philanthropist, music enthusiast and designed this marvel to inspire in people a love for the arts. It is one of the finest collections of paintings, tapestries, sculptures, furniture and decorative arts. The courtyard with its amazing display of flowers and, my favorite, the tapestry room, where concerts by the Gardner Chamber Orchestra take place, they just take your breath away. The museum opened in 1903 and has not changed since Isabella's death in 1924. The collection features objects from ancient Rome, medieval Europe, Renaissance Italy, Asia, the Islamic world and 19th century France and America. Titian, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Manet, Degas, Whistler and Sargent are among the artists displayed, and its archives hold thousands of letters from the likes of T.S. Eliot, Sarah Bernhardt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, in addition to original Dante manuscripts. This is a must for every visitor to Boston!

Artist in Residence Dayanita Singh provided an interesting exhibit on chairs - come to think of it, actually a pretty neat idea. Not all chairs are created equal (or seat equally comfortable), as they say!

Well, once I had exhausted myself there, I ambled over to the Museum of Fine Arts to make another attempt at seeing the Ralph Lauren Caaah Exhibit "Speed, Style and Beauty" and this time my quest was successful. (http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/cars/default.html). Quite the car enthusiast he is, our Ralphie! I was not quite sure what to expect, but I have to say, I got swept up in the excitement over the horsepower in that room. Contrary to my expectations, the audience was a pretty mixed bag (not just guys), but definitely different from the "Spring in Bloom" crowd downstairs, which leaned strongly toward the 70+ female demographic. The cars were absolutely cool!! You just wanted to hop into one of those bad boys and go (not that my little Ella is not fun too, but...). Bugattis, Bentleys, Alfa Romeos, Porsches, Jaguars and Mercedes - up-close and personal!! My favorites were the 1937 Bugatti 57SC Gangloff Drophead Coupe, the 1955 Mercedes Benz 300 SL Coupe (with its airplane-type doors) and of course the Porsche Spyder. The McLaren Formula 1 all-carbon was quite stylish in a futuristically sort-of-way (also goes 240 mph). Write-ups on the walls depicted the inventors and designers of these cars - and some interesting tidbits about them. Walter Bentley was part of the "Bentley Boys", a "gaggle of British gentlemen, who drove fast cars and lived fast lives, with dusk-to-dawn parties and escapades all over Europe." (ooh, lala!!). Etore Bugatti apparently was a peculiar bird, he once refused to sell a car to King Carol II of Romania, because he did not like his table manners. And William Lyons, the Jaguar guy, once went to test race one of his cars with a friend. He forgot his glasses and instead of heading back to get them, he simply told the poor passenger to direct him where to drive (we are talking race car speeds here!!).

After that adrenaline-laden experience, I headed for a cozy little exhibit the MFA had on baseball and the Red Sox, the center piece of which was a famous Norman Rockwell painting called "The Rookie". It was the cover page of the Saturday Evening Post on March 2, 1957. (http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/rockwell_baseball.html). A small exhibit, but what a great collection of Memorabilia:
- a picture of the first game ever played in Fenway Park on April 20, 1912 between the Boston Red Sox and New York Highlanders
- Harry Hooper's Sweater (he still holds the Red Sox record for most stolen bases (300) and triples (130))
- Jerseys from Carlton Fisk, Carl Yazstrzemski, Ted Williams and Cy Young (did you know his first name was Cyclone??)
- Score cards from the 1915 World Series
- The famous promissory note to the New York Yankees for the partial payment for Babe Ruth
- Johnny Damon and Curt Schilling's cleats and other paraphernalia from the 2004 World Series
- The diehard Royal Rooters, who used to perform their baseball battle song "Tessie", which is still played at Fenway Park, now in its newest interpretation by the Drop Kick Murphys. (http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/dropkickmurphys/tessie.html)

At the end of this rainy weekend, I was suddenly attacked by a vicious virus of sorts and since then have been fighting a cold, that has pretty much afflicted everyone here at the hospital and in my circle of friends (not that I stated it!!). Raspy throat, runny nose (call me Rudolf), the whole works. I have been heading home every night this week and pretty much straight to bed, so nothing new to report.

Got my picture in the paper again, sort of - the Boston Courant had snapshots from the Back Bay Road Race, and while my friends Ruth and Eric can be seen quite nicely, Elaine and I are featured partially, but hey - I'm not picky.

Amigos, Happy Cinco de Mayo, I am head home now and will eat a truck load of chicken soup!!

Ciao,

pet:)

#47 Boston - A Weekend at the Movies - April 29, 2005

Hello All,

Week 47 here in Boston, this time littered with movies and some other incidents of random madness.

The cinematic excitement was due to the 3rd Annual Independent Film Festival (http://www.iffboston.org/index.html), which took place in several locations across the hub - at the Somerville, Brattle, Coolidge and MFA movie theaters. I had signed up with IFFB for a couple of long shifts at the Somerville movie theater near Davis Square and it made for a very exhausting weekend. The festival was definitely compelling - only one celebrity sighting for me - famed African-American actor/director/composer Melvin van Peebles (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/van_peebles.html). He was wearing a t-shirt with the words "Original Badasssss" on it, referring to his controversial 1970s movie "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song". On opening night, which I did miss, Indie favorites Steve Buscemi and Casey Affleck were also seen in town attending the premiere of their project "Lonesome Jim."

I did manage to see two stimulating pictures, a Canadian flick called "Childstar" (http://www.iffboston.org/2005/film_childstar.html), which was a funny, but darkly bitter comedy on child actors in the film industry. "Rhythm is It" is a documentary on a project done between the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the conductorship of Sir Simon Rattle (great name for a composer!!), and British choreographer Roylston Maldoom. Roylston took 240 kids and young adults, from elementary school age to about 22 years of age, and taught them to dance accompanying the symphony orchestra's performance of Igor Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps". What an inspiring project and equally motivating and touching movie!!!! (http://www.iffboston.org/2005/film_rhythm.html)

Somerville is a very nice part of the Boston municipal area - home of my favorite Boston pub, The Burren, all very neighborhoody, great restaurants. The Somerville Theater, in one of its previous lifetimes was originally a Vaudeville-style performance theater with a reputation for excellence.
Spending some time waiting for the subway in Somerville, reminded me that a some of the T stations here feature much appreciated diversions. The Davis Square T for example features poems by Emily Dickinson and other women poets on its brick tiles on the platform floors. At the Kendall Square/ MIT stop local artist Paul Matisse installed three sculpture-instruments - Pythagoras, Kepler and Gallileo. "Pythagoras" is a set of long tube bells tuned in B minor struck by a line of pendulum hammers. When passenger move the handle on the station wall, the hammers swing back and forth, striking the tubes, creating the most wonderful sounds.

The weekend started off on a good note, on Saturday morning, I participated in the first ever Back Bay 5 K (http://www.aviewoncities.com/boston/backbay.htm) along the Charles River Esplanade. Organized by the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay and the Chi Phi Fraternity of MIT, it was a very community-based, low-key event with about 120 runners attending. The Chi Phi frat boys did a commendable job, and the race was definitely enjoyed by all, in particular because we all put up spectacular running times. This was partly due to the fact that the race was not exactly 5K (3.1 Miles), but according to my own calculations about 2.75 Miles. If my math is correct, I can now applaud myself on a new personal best of 8.45 minutes/ mile!!! Yeah! The weather was perfect for running, cool temps in the upper 40s or so, and just a little windy. My running companions included Ruth, Eric and Elaine - for Ruth this was her first official race, and she did spectacularly.

Sunday was a bit of a messy day, as other kinds of madness kicked in. First, after peeling myself out of bed at the ungodly time of 7:15 AM to meet up with an acquaintance to go bird watching at the wonderful Mt. Auburn cemetery (http://www.mountauburn.org/), I got stood up! There I was waiting in the pouring rain, freezing, tired, and no one showed up (at least nobody I knew)! That pretty much set the tone for the day. Being overtired and grumpy do not make a good combination, I have to tell you. During my afternoon shift at the theater, I walked outside to look for one of the coordinators, only to find some 65-year old psychopath freak out on me simply because I "stepped in front of him." Completely lost it, the dude, screaming on the top of his lungs, his eyes bulging, and he did not stop his rapacious tirade until the end of the next block. The whole day was like this - loonies everywhere - and by the time I came home, I went straight to bed. No use in staying up or meeting more crazy people.

The week has been pretty low-key as a result of my extreme tiredness following this past weekend, the evenings were filled with couch time, movies, books, and an acceptable allotment of exercise. The weather has been less than inviting, warm but mostly rainy. The weekend promises mixed weather - plans include a concert, some hiking, maybe a road race (possible spontaneous moment coming up!). Sunday is National Arbor Day (you know, good for the trees, that kind of stuff). As a nice contrast, Germany celebrates Labor Day on May 1st - everyone usually goes on a hike and gets drunk! My friends, have a beer on me and enjoy the weekend!!


pet:)

#46 Boston - In Fine Fettle - April 22, 2005

Healthy as a Horse, as they say! I returned from a physical check-up with my PCP with a boastable cholesterol level of 182 (not even fasting), and an HDL level of 74 (greater than 40 is optimal). No word on my mental capacity, but you guys all know me! No reason to check any further, eh? I hope this will bode well for my running efforts, in particular for the road race tomorrow morning (the 1st Annual Back Bay 5K), where I hope to improve my running time, and maybe get a wee bit closer to that 9-Minute/Mile mark. I have been practicing diligently, but again learned that I suck when it comes to jogging during warm weather. This past Wednesday, where the erratic spring climate dropped an 87 degree day on us, I put on the most despicable performance ever - it was like running through molasses (considering that it was still 80 degrees out at 5:30 PM). It has cooled down a bit since, and we are hoping for no rain tomorrow. Spring bloom is in full force, and the magnolia trees along Comm Ave and the cherry trees on the Charles River Esplanade are putting on a most splendid display.

The weather has been inviting for hikes and such, so last weekend I hopped in the caah and barreled up to Nashua, Hew Hampshire for a hike with the AMC. Nashua, situated in the Merrimack Valley, is the second largest city in New Hampshire, about 30-some miles from Boston, and has an interesting history (http://www.nashuahistory.com/). It originally started out as the Dunstable Massachusetts Bay Settlement sometime in the 17th century, in 1746 became a bona fide NH town named Dunstable and in 1803 changed to Nashua. Our hike in the granite state took us to Mine Falls Park, a very nice 325-acre area along the Merrimack River, and we were rewarded there with turtles, herons, one lonely swan and a lovely lunch alongside a pretty impressive waterfall. (http://www.bikerag.com/nh_mines_falls_park_pics.htm)

Back in Boston, I lumbered to the Hynes Convention Center where the John Hancock Sports and Fitness Expo was taking place - the city was abuzz with the excitement of the upcoming Boston Marathon (http://www.bostonmarathon.org/), which was to take place on Monday. The city was jam-packed with people, athletes and cheerers-on alike, and the nice weather put them all onto our fine streets. Forget about getting a spot for dinner anywhere.....

Sunday started off with a nice breakfast at the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, where on the weekends the lines are out the door - with the size of their flapjacks that is no surprise to anyone. It is one of my favorite breakfast places - their pancakes come in plain, buckwheat and sweet potato, and their tea selection is quite eclectic. Owner Don Levy prides himself on offering what he calls "fine dinering" fare (http://www.ronsaari.com/stockImages/diners/town.php).
Aside from a quick 5-mile run along the Charles River, (where some of the sun-hungry Bostonians attempted to enhance their chances of getting skin cancer) Sunday turned into a lovely lazy day with some chores and lots of R&R.

Monday was Patriots Day which equals Marathon Day - what an excitement!! Many people take the day off to cheer on the 20,000 runners in the race! "Catherine the Great", Catherine Ndereba from Kenya captured her fourth crown in a row, and Hailu Negussie from Ethiopia crossed the finish line as the men's winner - both of them in times barely over two hours!! That is 26 miles, 40 Kilometers!

The week has been good at work, progress in "posterland" (with a mildly scary first presentation today to the executive committee of the cancer center, but it did go well) and lots of social activities, among it two nights of jogging with my friends Ruth and Joanne. The book group met Tuesday night, where we descended on a snazzy desert place called "Finale" (check out their creations - they are pieces of art - http://www.finaledesserts.com/ ). In the sugar rush that followed the consumption of a Manjari Mousse, I was a little out of control, but I was not alone there - fellow book worm Coleen called her father, telling him that I have a fact fetish, and solicited the story of Boston-born Republican statesman Henry Cabot Lodge (he grew up in Nahant, where Coleen resides). She then proceeded to tell me some cockamamie story about Cabot's family making their money by cutting ice in chunks and shipping them out for refrigeration. I have not been able to find anything about this anywhere, so I am just assuming that it was the chocolate talking!

Wednesday night I joined my friend Nesli Basgoz for a little trip out to her neighborhood in Brookline, a rather lovely part of Boston. My favorite part was "Emack and Bolio's" - http://www.emackandbolios.com/icecream.htm, an "ice cream shop with more than a lick of promise". Started in the 1975, it is a Boston ice cream institution and was apparently named after the first two customers that walked in the door.

Last night, it was time to taste the whiskey, this time for the "Johnny Walker Journey of Taste" at the Hotel Commonwealth at Kenmore Square. A rather sloppily and hastily organized event, so aside from tasting some of the whiskeys that go into their blends, it was definitely not worth attending.

My friends, it is time to head into the weekend, I leave you with a couple more local morsels.

Ciao.

pet:)

Morsel 1: Boston has the world's smallest suspension bridge (in the Public Garden - http://www.ebpm.com/bost/regpix/glry_bost_pubgar.html)

Morsel 2: The city of Rockport, MA voted last Tuesday night to allow the sale of alcohol by restaurants (ending 150 years of being a dry town). Only 14 dry towns remain in this lovely state of ours. Let's go get'em!

#45 Boston - Weather Jumble - April 15, 2005

Hello All,

I know that you might be tired of hearing about the lovely, but unpredictable Massachusetts weather, but this week has been and is definitely noteworthy. The signs of spring are here - absolute fact - and last weekend us New Englanders (actually probably just me) thought we had it nailed. The weather kept getting better and better, and on Sunday we enjoyed a very balmy 68 degrees, everyone was out and about, sandals were freed from the back of closets and the sound of children playing echoed in the streets. Monday morning, I put on my nice new spring blouse, and left the house with just a jacket, when I noticed everyone wearing their fleece and down jackets and a minute later a nice 42 degrees hit me in the face! What in the world?? It stayed cold most of Monday, warmed up a little on Tuesday morning, and when I left the hospital on Tuesday evening, I was greeted by snow flurries (yes, snow!!??!!). It has since warmed up again slowly, and we are expecting a nice warm weekend with temps in the upper 50s and even 70s for Sunday. For next Wednesday a high of 78 degrees is proposed. That folks, is spring in New England!

Aside from this hodgepodge of weather, it has been a good week off work and an operose one at work. The grant is coming back to haunt all of us as we are preparing for the NCI (National Cancer Institute - the folks with the dough) site visit in June. I am in the midst of preparing posters, making friends with many Excel spreadsheets and having flashbacks to February (not the good kind).

This past weekend, on account of the peachy weather, I headed to the most lovely city of Carlisle and Estabrook Woods, which consists of about 1200 acres of woodland, hills, ledges and swampland just a couple of miles north of Concord. The name was given to the forest area by none other than our friend David Henry Thoreau. Carlisle was first settled in the year 1650, is located about 40 minutes outside of Boston (20 Miles NW) and - interesting fact - 25% of the town is protected conservation land. (http://www.carlislehistory.org/history.html). I joined my friends from the Appalachian Mountain Club for a very agreeable hike, slightly muddy on occasion, dotted with gratifying conversations including some solid advice from an investment banker and a slight disagreement with the trip leader about pine trees. He was a bit of an odd duck, got lost a few times, and we backtracked quite a bit, so the 5 miles we hiked might have been a bit of an underestimate.

Upon returning home to Boston, I was not yet satisfied with the amount of physical activity for the day, so I headed out for a 5-mile run along the Charles River Esplanade, which was packed with roller bladers, bicyclists, joggers, dogs, cats, squirrels, you name it.
The snug weather on Sunday invited for a few things, but mostly for lazing and dilly-dallying, catching up on some reading. I spent the afternoon attending my friend Nakia's baby shower, "Little E" (Evan Jr.) is expected by the end of the month and we are all anxious to meet him.

On Tuesday night, I volunteered (sort of - we did not have to do that much....) with Boston Cares at the American Repertory Theater, this time at their Zero Arrow location between Harvard and Central Square (http://www.amrep.org/). The play was "Olly's Prison" by controversial and award-winning English playwright Edward Bond. His first play "Saved" which was produced by the UK's Royal Court Theater Group (1965) depicted the life of disenchanted youths who were driven to monstrous acts generated by the brutal economic conditions they faced. The play stirred up quite a scandal, and eventually led to the abolishment of censorship in theater plays in England. "Olly's Prison" (http://www.amrep.org/olly/) is an interesting play - and having a bit of distance in between now, I would say a very powerful one. The theme for me was that all the characters in the play were looking for some sort of order in their lives or in their minds in the midst of violence and turmoil. The actors were absolutely phenomenal, Bill Camp as Mike the main character, was an astonishing force on the stage, and so was Angela Reed. The performance was quite violent at times, either with its writing and words that were thrown at you with the potency of a whip or with the actual portrayal of violent acts. An amazing and exhausting experience.

On Thursday evening, I headed out to Weston - the site of some of my XC skiing and snowshoeing exploits in winter, which is now a golf course. The Charles River Canoe and Kayak folks had organized a slide show by the Maine Island Trail Association, featuring Maine's 100 public and private islands along the state's coast line. I will have to stock up on Dramamine and sea bands if I want to hop into a kayak and not get queasy, but the striking photographs will leave me no choice. MITA is a very cool organization, as their mission is to make all visitors (kayakers and boaters) "stewards" of these islands. They train visitors on low impact techniques and practices that assure that the fragile ecology of these islands will be preserved. (http://mita.org/index.php).

Hiking season has begun, and this weekend I will attend a couple of short hikes, Nashua, New Hampshire and Middlesex Fells, MA; there is a Sports and Fitness Expo at the Hynes Convention Center (on account of the Boston Marathon on Monday!) and meeting up with some friends, you know, just your average weekend. A little running also, as next week another road race awaits - the 1st Annual Back Bay Road Race! I will also be volunteering for the Boston Independent Film Festival in Somerville, so no shortage of entertainment there!

My friends, I hope you all have a nice weekend too. Be well and enjoy the great outdoors!

pet:)

#44 Boston - Daily Notes, A Shakespeare Sonnet and a Civil Righs Poem - April 8, 2005

Friday, April 1:
April Fool's Day - No apparent traps anywhere, we'll see when the bank statement comes or if someone delivers a washing machine to my door. Who knows? The week does end on a high note - my first 5-mile test run in the evening (no collapse) - MGH to the Boston University Bridge and back. Christmas pounds and winter weight finally melting away!

Saturday, April 2:
AMC's all-day Bicycle Repair and Information Workshop in Concord. Perfect activity to pick, as it is raining cats and dogs all day. Learned something (what kind of bikes to use for what, how to replace an inner tube (yeah!!), what a derailleur is and that I better not fix it myself - no intention of touching that stuff on my own!). Now I can go out biking in the wilderness and have a flat (again, no intention of doing that either).
Saturday night, first to the gym - then onto Netflix night, I can't believe I am telling you this! I watched "Walking Tall" with "The Rock". 'Nuff said. Note: There was no beer involved!! (As a matter of fact, I had my last beer on March 20th!). Also some TV time at my neighbor Claire's place (feeding the cats and enjoying the big screen TV).

Sunday, April 3:
Lolling around on the couch, followed by successful retail therapy at Filene's Basement. Finally realized in my Sunday stupor that the clock had jumped an hour ahead - bloody daylight savings time... All of a sudden, lolling and dragging did not seem like such a good idea any more. Get crackin!

The Museum of Fine Arts (http://www.mfa.org/) was next - to see the Ralph Lauren car show on "Speed, Style and Beauty" (http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/cars/default.html) - sold out, my friends! As the MFA is always a good bet on any day (rainy or not), I stayed and checked out the Asian Art collection, in particular a photography exhibit by Hiroshi Sugimoto, who became well known in the 1980s through his extremely long exposure photography, in which he was trying to combine the Eastern ideas of the creative process with the Western idea of conceptual art. Stunning photographs, simple in their beauty, in particular his nocturnal seascapes (the view from Mount Tamalpais included) and his somewhat bizarre obsession with theater and outdoor movie screens (including a phenomenal shot of Oakland's Art Deco Paramount Theater). [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/sugimoto_hiroshi.html] Moved on to a great exhibit on the "Sword of the Samurai" and stunning selection of Japanese wedding kimonos (uchikake) and furisodes (kimono for unmarried women).
As only a fraction of the MFA's permanent collection is on exhibit at any given moment, my attempt to see my beloved Vermeer was for naught, but I did spend a few enjoyable minutes with the impressionists (always reliable).

Sunday evening - more Netflix ("The Day After Tomorrow") and Cat/Big-TV-sitting.

Monday, April 4:
Extended lunch hour, snuck away to Suffolk University Law School for a book reading by famous author Ha Jin - presenting his newest work "War and Trash". Got my copy of his book "Waiting" signed, one of my first ever book group books. http://www.powells.com/authors/jin.html)
Evening - gym activity (remember the Christmas pounds!) - rowing machine for 6 K. More Cat/Big TV-sitting (I am so glad I do not have a cable hook-up at my place - you would not be reading any updates, ever!)

Tuesday, April 5: Same as yesterday (except for no rowing).

Wednesday, April 6: Attended the volunteer orientation for the Boston International Film Festival which will take place later this month (http://www.iffboston.org/index.html). Continued over to the auditorium for the Third Annual Boston Shakespeare Sonnet-thon, where my friend Renee presented Sonnet #141 (http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/):

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

Unfortunately I missed her reading, but enjoyed quite a few others along with an extremely giddy and delighted audience. His birthday and day of death are both April 23rd, so every year this poetry marathon is held in the Boston Public Library.

Wednesday, April 6:
Weekly jog with the Running Partners from MGH (Lynda #2 and I)

Thursday, April 7:
Opening Reception at the Panopticon Gallery in Hotel Commonwealth at Kenmore Square - Ernest Withers, famed African-American photographer, who captured many key moments of the civil rights movement (His "I am a Man" portfolio is legendary), and also depicted the music scene in the 1950s and 1960s in Memphis, Tennessee. His exhibit was named "The Color of Baseball" and featured both prints from the Negro Baseball Leagues (in black and white) and modern day baseball (in color). He is an absolute icon and at the tender age of 83 quite spry!
http://www.panopt.com/photogra/withers/galleryew.html
(http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=639&category=artMakers).

"I am a Man"
by Robert Worsham

Don’t look at me with disdain,
For I am not a weakling, I am a man.
I stood when to stand
brought severe reprimand,
I spoke, when to speak
brought denunciation from the weak,
and brutal attacks from those in power,
But to me this was my greatest hour,
With chin thrust out and head up proud,
I stood up straight and I said out loud,
I am a man!
And I shall always defy
the oppression of mankind
until the day I die.

Friday, April 8: Notes to Friends.

#43 Boston - I'm Having a Hot Flash - March 31, 2005

Well, I am not quite that old, just in case if you wondered. I might go off the deep end once in a blue moon, but that is a whole other story. I actually went to the Stuart Street Playhouse this past weekend to see "Menopause, The Musical". Now, I love musicals to begin with, but this one was absolutely hilarious and so much fun! A platoon of four women (Power Woman, Soap Star, Earth Mother and the Iowa Housewife) danced and sung their way through the funk that attacks us babes a little later in life. Pop songs took on a whole different meaning - Smokey Robinson's "My Guy" turns into "My Thigh", Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave" becomes the "Hot Flash" and "Puff the Magic Dragon" ends up as "Puff, Boy I am Draggin". Girls, go see it and have laugh while you can! Guys, you better check it out, so you can see what's coming your way - start construction on that separate "man room" in the basement right now! (http://www.menopausethemusical.com/)

I hope all of you had a lovely Easter weekend - it certainly was most wonderful here in New England - the weather was picture perfect! I had to put in some work time on Saturday morning (a great "opportunity to excel" over the past two weeks had presented itself - good project, lots to do, with some solid progress being made, so I am padding myself on the shoulder officially - right here, right now!!) - but I made up for it big time.

First I headed to Haymarket - located between Faneuil Hall and the North End, this very popular Friday-and-Saturday outdoor produce market is quite impressive. You can find some excellent bargains there, especially if you show up a little later in the day, where they practically throw the stuff at you. For a few bucks you can come home with pounds and pounds of carrots, potatos, salads, all fruits and veggies imaginable - it is quite the scene. Of course you really want to make sure that you do indeed want to buy ten bell peppers (even if they are only a dollar) or 6 pounds of carrots.

After visiting Bostix, the half-price ticket booth for my musical tickets, I headed out to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum - it is the official memorial to JFK, who grew up here in Brookline and who was Massachusetts Senator before running for president. (http://www.jfklibrary.org/) I have to say that this has been probably one of my most enjoyable outings here in Boston - after an introductory movie, you head out on a self-guided tour, which leads you through galleries depiciting anything from a mock 1960 Democratic Convention set-up, to 60s street scenes reminiscent of his presidential campaigns, multi-media presentations with the Nixon-Kennedy debates, and complete reconstructions of White House rooms. There are loads of original items from his presidency, including notes, desk accessories, speeches, letters, gifts received from foreign dignitaries - even Jackie's baby sweaters are there. Mixed in are tons of screens with original footage, John Glenn's astronaut suit, and other fascinating memorabilia. Very moving is the section with footage of his assassination in a completely black corridor, with just the words "22 November 1963" written on it, and three TV screens showing the news reporting from this tragic day. The last room contains a quite sizable section of the Berlin Wall and a statement that was made by JFK in June of 1963 : "Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades." Once you exit the tour, you end up in the Pavillion, which is stunning - a 115 -foot high atrium, whose walls are made from a scaffolding-like structure and glass - with a stunning view of Boston!

On Sunday, it was time to get moving, so I joined the AMC on a 6-mile hike in Groton, Mass. Thanks to some rather cryptic directions, I got to know the area really well and arrived a bit late, but the group was nice enough to wait. The Groton Town Forest turned out to be a lovely place to hike, there was still snow and ice galore, and Ella got to prove her "all-wheel-driveness" in a pretty slick parking area. The march lead along some abandoned railroad trails and we ended up having a lunch on an old railroad bridge, which was pretty cool. This was not a botanical hike, so no explanations by our trip leader (who was remarkably quiet), but I did make everyone at least sniff at the Wintergreen plants and explained the difference between red and white oaks to a few folks who were interested. Boot would be so proud of me! Once I got home, I decided the weather was too nice to sit inside, so I went for a 4-mile jog along the Esplanade - amazing what a little nice weather can do! Puts a little spring in your step!! I can never get tired of the view you have when jogging along the Charles River on the Cambridge Side looking over at the lovely city of Boston.

The week has been busy with work, work, work and work, and exercise in the evenings. This Tuesday I met up with my friend and neighbor Mike, who is an anaesthesiologist at the hospital and who was showing me pictures from his trip with an MGH crew for Project Hope, which provided medical help in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, to victims of the tsunami. Quite amazing pictures and it was impressive to hear first-hand accounts on the situation down there.

That's the news from the hub for now - Have a great weekend my friends, we are expecting torrential rains (some snow showers maybe), so it might be time to hit up some more museums!!

Toodles,

pet:)

I have to add a little Boston tidbit (of course), from one of my favorite websites, Adam Gaffin's "Boston-Online.com", where he describes the "Great Molasses Flood of 1919" (I know, by now you are saying, what kind of a place is this? - Good thing is, we have not had one since!):
"If you had to choose how to die, drowning in molasses would probably not rank high on your list. On Jan. 15, 1919, 21 people, a dozen horses and at least one cat had no choice. A 58-foot-high, 90-foot-wide cast-iron tank holding 2.2 million gallons of molasses burst, sending a tsunami of the viscous liquid down Commercial at 35 m.p.h., destroying houses, commercial buildings and a part of the elevated railroad. Today, only a small plaque at the entrance to Puopolo Park commemorates the disaster. But climb up the terrace (which looks like a stone medieval rampart), look out over Commercial Street toward the harbor and imagine a three-story wall of molasses flowing past."

#42 Boston - Spring, haltingly.... March 25, 2005

Dare I hope that spring has arriveth? It looks alarmingly good, even though the threat of snow and cold weather still lingers in the air - for next week the folks at the Weather Channel are hopeful that temperatures will soar into the upper 50s, I even saw a 61 F in there somewhere. This week has been wonderful weather-wise, with a tiny little storm in there and some snowy-looking rain, but New Englanders are hoping that they have finally exhausted Mother Nature and her winter habits.

It has been a week with lots of activity, especially the healthy kind, as an anxious glance at the scale indicated that it is time to get movin' (the scale was supported in its assessment by my "benchmark" jeans, who have requested a bit more air between me and the fabric). My days (and meals) have been filled with salads and vegetables as opposed to the winter-root-carbo-loaded victuals of the months past. The gym has been visited quite often, and thanks to the television sets across from the cardio equipment I am now again up to date on every reality TV show on the planet. Celery combined with celerity is the motto for the upcoming weeks, and with the weather on the mend, I am looking forward to releasing my bicycle from winter prison and get the roller blades going.

The past weekend was most pleasant (except for a little "let's get lost in Brighton episode") - kicked off by a Thai lunch in lovely Brookline with my friends Mona and PJ on Saturday afternoon.
In the evening, I joined my friends Linda (still #1) and Roger first for a beer at Ned Devine's Irish Pub at Quincy hall before heading to Faneuil Hall to hear the Musicians of the Old Post Road. [http://www.oldpostroad.org/] This chamber music ensemble that specializes in period instrument performance of music from the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic periods was founded in 1989 and brings its lovely music to beautiful historic buildings along the original route of the old Boston Post Road, the first passage connecting Boston and NYC in the late 17th century. The first post rider hustled from NY to Boston on January 22nd, 1673 and thus established the first major overland route in the American colonies. It took the poor chap almost three weeks to cover the 250 miles! "Music from Madrid" featured two Italian composers, Gaetano Brunetti (1744-1798), who was a composer for the King Charles IV of Spain, and Luigi Boccherini, who wrote tunes for the King's brother.
I know I have provided you with numerous iterations on how great Faneuil Hall is (you can pronounce it the French way or Boston style, which sounds more like "fennel") - it still never ceases to impress me! http://www.nps.gov/bost/bost_lographics/faneuil.htm Its amazing history and development from marketplace to the "cradle of liberty" is adequately stated in this little poem by Francis Hatch (1958): " Here orators in ages past - Have mounted their attacks - Undaunted by proximity - Of Sausage on the racks." An extra little tidbit about this great building is that the weathervane on top, which prominently features a grasshopper, is the only part of Faneuil Hall that remains totally unmodified from the original 1742 structure and according to the brochure is "a fine example of colonial artistry."

Sunday was entirely devoted to St.Paddy's day celebrations and we started off with (what else) a road race - the Ras na hEireann race in Somerville - 2500 motivated (mostly by the promise of free beer and soda bread afterwards) runners lined up in front of my favorite Irish Pub, "The Burren" and got crackin'. Now, bottom line is, I did well with a time of 9:16 minutes/mile, but I tell you folks, it was not pretty! I was seriously huffing and puffing - thoughts of impending death and immediate collapse were on my mind, and I could see myself sprawled out on some side street in Somerville with 1500 of the remaining runners trampling over my exhausted body. After the race and after receiving a medal (everyone did for finishing), Elaine and I went to The Burren for our free beer (alas, t'was not green), and then I got myself on public transportation and headed over to Southie (aka South Boston) for the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. Considered the heart of Irish Boston (http://boston.about.com/cs/government/a/south_boston.htm), Southie is quite wonderful, and the parade is a very old-fashioned, traditional parade - with lots of firemen, police officers, veterans, marching bands and bagpipe players, and girls twirling batons high up in the air. My favorite group were the Cycling Murrays, Irish flute players on uni-cycles (only in America!!!) and some guy who was running for office who came over personally to shake my hand. Little does he know that I can't vote squat in this country. Main thing I made his day, eh?
I hung out with my friends Barbara and Anita who just recently purchased a condo across from the L Street Bathhouse, just down the street from Fort Independence and Castle Island - one of the Boston Harbor Islands that is really not an island any more (sort of sticks out into the harbor - http://www.nine3.com/MDC/history.html). The two took me on a tour of Southie - and of course, we had to stop at Barbara's brother Michael's house for some tasty corned beef and cabbage.

Aside from the no-nonsense exercise regimen this week, I got a little cultural fix in by volunteering with Boston Cares, this time at the American Repertory Theatre for the play "Dido - Queen of Carthage" (http://www.amrep.org/) - the tragic story of Queen Dido who rules over the very civilized city of Carthage in North Africa. She fatefully (and with the help of some nefarious deities) meets Aeneas, who with his son Ascarius has survived the Trojan war. A very well acted play - full of drama (of course) and humor with some interesting interpretations of some of the characters. Cupid was effeminately gay, Aeneas sounded a bit Irish and Juno, sister of Jupiter was played by a drag queen. That's Cambridge for you!

My friends, with these images in mind, I bid you farewell - may you have a enjoyable weekend!

pet:)

Quote of the Day: "If you cannot convince them, confuse them." (Harry Truman).

#41 - Boston - Bears, Pirates and Chinese Sushi Delivery - Oh My! - March 17, 2005

I don't even know where to start this time, to be honest. In some ways this week was wonderful, exciting, filled with wonderful adventures and events - the past two days however had "catastrophe" written all over them, and made my colleague Renee call me "Mrs Worst Day Ever". That would have been yesterday, and let's just get this awful stuff right out of the way, so that you can immediately send me an email, saying "oooohh, you poor thing" and I can at least bask a little in a sea of pity and sympathy.

The groundwork for this little "day of doom" was laid on Tuesday evening with the arrival of my new techno toy, the Blackberry. All excited about it, I hooked it up to the computer (as per specifications from our IT department) and "wham!" the computer crashed - really crashed. It made that sound that light bulbs make when they blow up, and I though to myself "This cannot be good". Upon restarting it, that dreaded all-blue screen came up with a mile-long error message. I decided to call it a day at this point, and head off to the book group dinner.

Wednesday morning started out somewhat innocent, but then a sequence of unfortunate events ensued. Ella, the caah, was not showing any signs of life. I had left the overhead light on since Sunday and the battery was d-e-a-d. I got someone to jump start her and was driving Ella around when on the way back home a Chinese sushi delivery truck bumped into me. I was standing at a red traffic light with other cars as well - but apparently the guy did not know where his brakes were. On the positive side, nothing happened to me, and Ella has only sustained the tiniest of nicks (one of those that when I tell you where it is you will see it......), so she is now considered a bona fide Boston city caah with her first war injury. When I returned, slightly frazzled to home base at MGH, the computer techs showed up, took one look at my computer and said "You need a new hard drive." In my quest to do my work, I was then relocated to the receptionist desk, which made the day somewhat interesting. After receiving the new hard drive and the tech actually hooked up the Blackberry, most was copasetic, except for the fact that the BB does not synchronize any of my emails..... And the saga continues....

I am happy to report that my jog with fellow running club mate Joanne yesterday evening was uneventful, and I did not get attacked by any trees or so, and today (Happy St. Patrick's Day!!)has been fairly benign aside from a couple of minor food-related incidents that have not contributed to enhancing today's outfit. A pint of green beer at Kinsale might be in order today to forget about all this.

Now to the good stuff - a weekend, chockful of events and memorable experiences. Friday night I attended a slide show at REI, where author Peter Potterfield presented his new book "Classic Hikes of the World" - phenomenal slides reminding me of all those wonderful places I still need to visit: Denali in Alaska (that is where the bears are...), Patagonia, Himalayas, Sweden's Highlands, King George Island (Antarctica)..... Mileage donations are being accepted!

On Saturday morning, I headed for Lynn Woods, about 11 miles north of Boston, and one of the largest municipal forests in the country. It was raining cats and dogs that morning, so instead of doing work on the trails we decided to do some paintwork in the ranger's house/visitor center. Once the rain turned into snow we headed out onto the trails, removed some toppled trees and went for a hike.

Now Lynn Woods, my friends, has a pretty interesting history
(http://www.flw.org/951.htm). A pirate named Thomas Veal housed there sometime in the 17th century, hiding out in a cave guarding a treasure acquired by him and fellow pirates. Legend has it that during an earthquake in 1658 he got crushed by a huge boulder and that was the end of poor Thomas. Subsequently spiritualist Hiram Marble and his son Edward kept digging tunnels near Dungeon Rock (the boulder that crushed unlucky Tom) to find the treasure, but 30 years of digging did not turn up anything. Under the guidance of Ranger Dan and armed with flash lights we did manage to go down into the Marbles' tunnels, 35 feet under ground. Very cool! Once a year Lynn Woods celebrates Dungeon Rock Day, where you can dress as a pirate and hike through the woods and hunt for a treasure or just stop by at the Hog's Breath Inn for grog and cookies. Lynn Woods is a magnificent place to hike - all 2200 acres of it.

Saturday night, I volunteered (yes, again with Boston Cares) at an event in Cambridge, where Musica Sacra (http://www.musicasacra.org/) performed a "Choral Bestiary" at the First Church Congregational at the Cambridge Common. A very nice and interesting program, flimsy and funny; all of the pieces performed related to animals somehow - among my favorites were McCord's Menagerie ("Let us ponder the condor; biggest thing on the wing, like a kit on a string; a subject not cultural, but very vultural" / "Jaculus jaculus (a gerbil) – Nothing miraculous, rat of a sort, front legs too short, hind legs too long, All rather wrong") and El Bestiari de Pere Quart ("Bacillus - Not a good speck, the Microbe").

On Sunday morning, as promised, I went on my second naturalist hike with Boot Boutwell of the AMC. Again, Boot was a trip leader extraordinaire and did not disappoint. It had snowed the day before, so the Mass Audubon Habitat in Belmont was an absolutely postcard-picture-perfect winter wonderland (http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Habitat/index.php). I was able to apply my knowledge from our last hike, but there were many new lessons in botany to absorb (the spice bush and the striped maple were among my favorites) and interesting New England stories to learn. The plant of the day was the Winged Euonymous (http://www.paflora.org/Euonymus%20alatus.pdf) or Japanese Spindle tree, which is quite unmistakable. The best Story of the Day was under the Headline of "Who ate Roger Williams?"
(http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/RIPROtree.html) - as we pondered the local apple trees, Boot related the story of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, who was buried on his family farm, and when the Rhode Island Historical Society wanted to exhume him to give him a proper burial (him being the founder of the state and such) poor dead Roger was gone, poof! Apparently the apple tree got to him, the roots into the coffin exactly depicted his body shape.....
Also got to sample maple syrup right from the tree (tastes not like much as it needs to be boiled down first, but we had to try, right?).

Sunday night, again (I should be volunteer of the month!) I assisted with Boston Cares, this time at the Huntington Theater ushering at a play called "36 Views" - great acting, phenomenal stage work, beautiful theater and a pretty nifty topic - art dealers, fraud, Asian antiques, and a love story as well. http://www.huntingtontheatre.org/season/36views/36views_about_the_company.aspx.

The week (aside from the calamities, which in hindsight are not sooo bad) has been filled with seeing friends and on Tuesday night with the book group, who in connection with reading Khaled Hosseini's book "The Kite Runner" went to "The Helmand", an Afghan restaurant right across the river in Cambridge and enjoyed some pretty spectacular food!

The end of this week and weekend will be filled with St. Paddy's day activities, including a road race on Sunday (The Ras na hEireann Race) and the parade in Southie, as well as some solid couch time, and hanging out with friends, new and old.

Slan go foill,

pet:)

I have to add a little morsel that I have been saving up and it really does not fit with anything in here, but is just a fun thing to know.
There is a lake in Massachusetts - Webster Lake in Webster - its Native American name is: Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagochaubunagungamaug or Lake
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, which translates into "you fish on that side, we'll fish on this side and nobody will fish in the middle".

#40 Boston - The Lump - March 10, 2005

Aaah - yes, that would be me - the lump. Jet lag has turned me into the quintessential sofa spud this week, tired, wrinkled and with the biting temperatures outside the weather has made it easy for me to indulge my body's wish for down time. I have already consumed all my Netlfix movies that awaited me at home, and am now moving on to magazines and books, nothing is safe as long as I don't have to leave the sofa.

I returned to Boston late Sunday where conditions have been muy frio, mis amigos! Tuesday morning I left for work with a balmy 40 degrees, so decided to put on a short skirt, and leave the polar wear at home. When I returned from work at 6 PM, I was welcomed by ... well, what was it? Hard to say, it looked like snow and all was white, but I swear it was raining ice! Cursing and cussing I ran down the street in my little skirt and my little pumps, and was convinced that I would never make the 100-yard dash home without sustaining serious frostbite. Massachusetts weather at its best, yet again (and no, I am not tired of it yet...)! That night, the sky kept dropping rain, sleet, snow, ice and who-knows-what, and combined with crazed gusts of wind, I could observe the most unbelievable display of weather-related turbulences. Needless to say the running group this week has not taken place, and we are hoping that by tomorrow we might be able to make a feeble attempt at jogging outside.

Meanwhile, back in Amsterdam the weather had been equally disconcerting, at least to the Dutch, who had not seen weather like this (8 inches of snow) in 25 years. The city was obviously overwhelmed, side walks were either not cleared at all (which made for some nice icy surfaces to slide around on) or attempted to be cleared with diggers and dredgers that they pulled off the closest construction site. The airport shut down and when my boss arrived a day late, he could not believe that they closed the airport for this imperceptible amount of snow - he was expecting huge snow drifts and blizzard-like conditions New England style.

The conference itself was enjoyable and busy, held at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, a mere 20-minute walk from my hotel. We were all given passes for the trams, but after experiencing one ride, I decided to walk - people were packed in like sardines - scenes reminiscent of the Tokyo subway, where they push people in until they pass out. About 300 people attended, a very small conference by comparison, but it allowed some more in-depth discussions with those who were there.

Friday night, the organizers had come up with a social program - I was a little suspicious at first, since by its name alone I could not - even by stretching my imagination - figure out what it was or supposed to be. "Boom Chicago" (http://www.boomchicago.nl/) is apparently an Amsterdam institution. Most of the conference attendees and yours truly crammed into the 300-seat Leidseplein Theater for dinner and a show. Not only was the dinner top notch, but so was the program! Boom Chicago is an improv troupe - with some scripted skits but most of it improvised - with (in our case) enthusiastic cooperation from the audience. We had a grand old time, folks! Amber Ruffin, Tim Sniffen, Rachel Miller and Rob Andrist entertained us to no end, and even I made it into one of their little parodies ("Where's my little Petra?). A particular crowd favorite was a segment called "Dutch Products We Are not Going to Endorse" which included "Sissy" (soda), "Pipi" (toilet Paper), "Retard" (a cough syrup if I remember correctly) and some other unmentionables.

The Dutch are a friendly, but dangerous kind - as I learned one evening in my hotel, when I headed for the bar for a night cap, and got involved in an interesting discussion with two sailboat sales guys from the Netherlands. I learned that the beer I was drinking was called an "amsterdammetje" and I was educated about a New Year's custom called "Carbidschieten", where it is apparently pretty easy to blow your head off (If you want to experience "Death by Milk", this might be for you - carbide is put into a milk can with some water, which makes explosive acetylene gas and is subsequently set on fire). Apparently people die from getting in the way of these exploding milk cans! These people are insane!

The weekend is coming near, and after vegging out at my house all week, it is time for some action and outdoor activities! I will be attending a slide show at REI on Friday on "Classic Hikes of the World"; will do some trail conservation work with Boston Cares on Saturday up in Lynn Woods (a 2,200-acre municipal forest park north of Boston); and on Sunday, go on a hike with Boot, the AMC naturalist - this time in Belmont at the Habitat Education Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, just six miles northwest of downtown Boston - so look for another botanical lesson coming your way! We are expecting snow again this weekend, so this might be interesting!

I hope this update finds you in good spirits - until then! Goede Avend!

pet:)

#39 Boston - Germany - Amsterdam - March 2nd, 2005

"Wenn einer eine Reise tut, dann kann er was erzaehlen" - "Those who travel, have tales to tell" - that could certainly be the motto of the little trip I took this time, leading me from my chosen residence of Boston to Germany and then to Amsterdam. Getting to Amsterdam was not that easy as it has been snowing here non-stop since last night. Our plane was delayed for a solid hour-and-a-half, circling above the snowy skies. The cabbie this morning had told me that it was announced on the radio that this has been the biggest snow storm in 20 years, and as of now it has yet to stop. The Netherlands generally don't see a lot of snow, and apparently at the sight of even one snowflake all hell breaks lose here.
The Amsterdamers (-damians?) are as giddy as I have ever seen anyone at the sight of the white stuff, grown-ups are engaged in snow ball fights on the streets out there and on the slanted roof of a subway station near the Rijksmuseum (where they have the Rembrandts and such - http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/index.jsp) kids were zooming down the hill on sleds, garbage bags and cardboard boxes (you can tell they are not prepared).
Apparently throwing snowballs at passing cars is a past-time here as well - scared the bejesus out of me. That and the crazy bike riders - no weather can deter them from riding these deadly weapons. They just put a plastic bag over their bike seat and who cares if the snow storm of the century is taking place. When Noah loaded up the Arc, the only people out there most likely were Dutch bicyclists. Scary -at some point paranoia actually starts to set in, every step you take you are convinced that one of them will get you. They would not even flinch, I swear!
Aside from the constant fear of being run over by a bike, Amsterdam is a beautiful, gorgeous city - and even more stunning in the snow. You can walk along its famous canals, the Grachten, or pay a visit to Vinny's place (The Vincent Van Gogh Museum - http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/bisrd/top-1-1.html - don't even think that it is pronounced "van go" - it sounds as if you just had your windpipe removed and could only croak out some strange, raspy sounds). Van Gogh was a disturbed fellow, mostly in and out of his mind - to use a description I read in a book "his eyes glinted with a light not quite sane" - spent some time in Holland, some time in France, some time in the loony bin, went back and forth between being a evangelist preacher or an artist, cut off his ear at some point, and eventually committed suicide. His art is simply stunning, some of it so cheerful that it is hard to imagine it came from such a troubled mind !!
Also paid a visit to the Anne Frank House (http://www.annefrank.org/content.asp?pid=1&lid=2), which is an absolute must if you are in Amsterdam. A very moving place, fitting tribute to a young woman who had such vivid dreams and hopes in the face of such overwhelming tragedy.

Amsterdam is very hip, very international, everyone speaks at least Dutch, German and English, great food as well! On the way back to my hotel I played my favorite game trying to find interesting names of places and so far we have a few winners here: Shampoo Palace, Cafe van Puffelen and a store whose name I forgot, but which featured head-bobbing Jesuses and kids tees with the words "My Mummy is a Yummy Mummy." They also had card board versions of Van Gogh's ear, but I managed to resist the temptation.

During this past week, Europe has definitely shown itself from its chilly side, temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius in Germany, actually minus 40 degrees in some corners of Bavaria. It snowed my first night in Germany as well, I seemed to have brought the Boston weather with me. Arrived in Germany last Saturday, and after a hide-and-seek game with my brother at Basel Airport (the airport has exits to France, Germany and Switzerland - I waited in Switzerland, my brother was in France), headed home for a power lunch and power nap before the first friends arrived. The coffee and cake event turned into a joint performance between my brother's parrot Carlo and my friend Margit's 4-month old son JT - the two of them riled each other up in a cacophony of sounds which was definitely unmatched and should have been recorded.
Sunday the whole family went out for brunch at my friend Helga's Hotel Anika (www.hotel-anika.de) - we ate and ate and ate.... The brunch at her place had definitely a very different style to it. Food was served sequentially and so we sat there eating for three hours straight. Felt just like Thanksgiving, buttons were popping, people were drinking Jaegermeister to help with the digestion, and everyone was ready for a nice long map. And of course, there is no better place to observe rude behavior than at a buffet table. The food items had barely been placed down when said leeches lined up to fill their plate again and again. In addition, there were some unsatisfactory states of personal hygiene, which did not increase their popularity with the rest of the room.
Sunday night the Schoki Club met again for some mediocre Greek food (not that this was our intention), but some cocktails helped to mediate the situation eventually. Monday I met up with my friends Roland and Ulla, who are celebrating their wedding this Saturday (Congratulations!!!), at a most quaint restaurant, the Klemmbachmuehle (Klemm Creek Mill) - located in the foothills of the Blackforest, very rustic, good hearty food and beautifully situated.

Of course, throughout the whole week, I also have been sick - not the big dreaded lurgy, but maybe a mini-lurgy of sorts, turning my nose into a beacon and my mind into mush.

Other travel observations:

*No one seemed to be bothered that there was a bird flying around the terminal at Washington, Dulles airport.
*What better place for smokers than the smoker's lounge at said airport (miracle that the bird is still alive, but then again, he may not have gone near the smoker's lounge) - one room, completely enclosed, surrounded by other smokers and a thick juicy nicotine fog - must be the ultimate thrill and nicotine rush, eh?
*During the flight from Boston to Dulles, I had the pleasure of sitting right next to the "facilities", and apparently I was the only person on the plane capable of opening the door - even the flight attendants needed my help.

My friends, it is time to go - more news from Amsterdam after my return to Boston. A few kudos to some of you who have become quite the wordsmiths in your updates to me - First place goes to Murriah, whose reaction to the Raspberry Honey Ale was that it sounded "gag-able" and second place to my friend Linda for the use of "harpsichordy"!

Varweel,

pet:)

#38 Boston - Just Another Ordinary Week - February 24, 2005

Thursday - February 17th:

Hectic at work.

Attend Mass High Tech (an industry publication) "Women to Watch" award at the Ritz Hotel near the Public Garden. Enjoy event, leave with massive inferiority complex. Exit hotel screaming "What have I done with my life??? Nothing!!). Meet some nice folks though - plans for a slumber party with the "cooltime gang" (don't ask) are being hatched.

Remembered to tell you about Commonwealth Avenue, the stateliest (is that a word?) street in Boston. During the winter season the trees are decorated with lights, and you can walk down the grassy middle part to admire various sculpture gardens including the Boston Women's Memorial (http://www.bwht.org/ladieswalk_stop1.html), which honors Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone and Phillis Wheatley. Also impressive is the Vendome Memorial which honors nine firefighters who lost their lives in June of 1972 at the Hotel Vendome, when the fire-damaged hotel's floor unexpectedly collapsed. (http://www.nabbonline.com/statues.htm).

Wondered about email regarding patient confidentiality and celebrities at work, then learned that New England Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi was at MGH - had suffered a mild stroke. I encounter patients in the hallway pulling their IVs looking for him. Darn Rubberneckers!

Friday - February 18th:

Hectic at work.

Tedy Bruschi leaves hospital.

Meet Josephine at the Tavern near Central Square. Nice pub, everybody and their cousin is in there, horrendously noisy. Good food, excellent beer selection. New favorite:Spanish Peaks Honey Raspberry Ale. Muy bien! Head out in sub-arctic temperatures (0 Fahrenheit or so), return home missing several extremities, frostbite most likely.

Ruth tells me the story of the "smoot" (remember the Harvard Bridge which runs to MIT and is measured in smoots (let's see if you did pay attention!):

He was an MIT undergrad in the 1950s who was a fraternity member at Lambda Chi Alpha on Bay State Road, thus he had to cross the Harvard bridge each day to get to and from campus. Oliver Smoot happened to be the shortest brother in the fraternity at 5' ft 7". One night, his brothers decided to lay him from end-to-end and measure out the bridge in Smoots-lengths. LCA still maintains the Smoot-markings on the bridge, forcing their pledges to re-paint them twice a year....The length of the bridge is officially 364.4 smoots plus one ear.
http://aether.lbl.gov/www/personnel/smoot/smoot-measure.html

Another little tidbit about Harvard Bridge - there is a sign on the Bridge from the Society for American Magicians honoring Harry Houdini, who in late April of 1908 performed one of his famed manacled jumps from Harvard Bridge, followed by an underwater escape in the Charles River. (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vshtml/vshchrn.html)

Success: Found cheap and good hairdresser, in Boston! (Actually in the hospital salon!)

Saturday - February 19th:

No hectic, no work.

Mid-morning jog along the Charles River Esplanade - what was I thinking?? I can't breathe, too cold, lungs are constricting, fear of having a blood vessel burst in my brain. Make it home without any aneurisms, feeling much better.

Leave Boston proper to head for Stony Brook State Reservation for hike with AMC. I am leaving worried, talked to the trip leader the day before who sounded like he was 200 years old. Could not understand a single word of his directions. To get to Stony Brook you get to drive pretty much through every "so-so" and "not-so" neighborhood in Boston. Upon arriving discovered that trip leader is indeed 200 years old. He wimps out on us after 1 1/2 hours of the 3-hour planned hike. On the way home get lost in Uphams Corner.....

Meet Ruth for late night drinks at the Hill Tavern on Cambridge Street. Good times making fun of the diaper bag ladies (aka the quilt bag brigades).

Sunday - February 20th:

No hectic, no work.

Spend the morning knitting a scarf (no, I am not done yet). Yet another hike with the AMC, this time with very competent trip leader (not 200 years old). Hike is near Concord, MA at the Great Meadows - just 20 miles or so outside of Boston. http://greatmeadows.fws.gov/ - phenomenal place - abundant flora and fauna. Large hiking group with some familiar faces. Trails require fancy footwork on account of ice, in addition it is friggin' cold!! Put on face mask to avoid losing more extremities.

Sunday Night - Netflix Night - Recommendation: "Lonestar"

It is starting to snow.


Monday - February 21st:

Presidents Day Holiday - No hectic.

Laundry. Then off to successful retail therapy at Downtown Crossing. Meet Ruth for Mexican hot cocoa. Still snowing.
Stop by at my neighbor Claire's for Chocolate Martini. Forget about laundry.
Walk across the Longfellow Bridge (also known as the Salt and Pepper Bridge, as its towers look like salt and pepper shakers (http://massroads.com/image.php?subject=longfellow_bridge_charles_3_20040519). Meet Linda (#3) at Kendall Theater to see "The Merchant of Venice" with Al Pacino. Absolutely brilliant movie! Made me believe that Al Pacino is Jewish. Now that's acting! A must-see!

Tuesday - February 22nd:

Work. Slightly hectic.
Snow stopped.
Discovered that my name is mentioned in the Improper Bostonian. Picture did not make it. That good, eh?
Dinner at Antonio's on Cambridge Street.
Snow started.

Wednesday - February 23rd:

Work. Alright.
Snow stopped.

Hosting Running Partners, the running group of the hospital. Again, fancy footwork on account of ice. Start packing for trip to Europe.

THE END

***************************************************************************************************************************
FOR MY UPDATES, CHECK OUT MY WEBLOG AT: www.myboston.blogspot.com/

#37 Boston - Bob and Jerry - February 17, 2005

No, it is not a new ice cream flava, but rather another installment of "odd couples you meet on the bus". This one was a rather unusual and to a certain extent, very unpleasant combination, in particular as Bob (who was the main annoyance here) communicated over my head with Jerry, the victim of his palaverous assaults, and thoughts of inflicting pain and torture started forming in my mind. Good thing this happened only on the way back from Sunday River, Maine, and other good thing, we had a movie to play, which put and end to Mr Blabbermouth behind me. Now Jerry, said bus driver, was a nice guy- if we were in the 60s you would have described him as a "cool cat"- and he was not amused either by all that meddling, in particular, because Bob started really getting into it, and threw a few insults into the mix. "Hey Jerry, got White Line Fever?" (Let's have Bob try to steer a bus like that in snowy weather, shall we?)

Aside from this episode of Bob's Bus Lectures, the trip to Sunday River, Maine was simply wonderful and of stunning beauty. Winter as it should be! It snowed there the week prior, and the pine tree state presented itself as the queen of New England, with luscious forests, covered in picture perfect snow and a bright blue sky. Ski enthusiasts were out in force, and Sunday River with its eight peaks certainly had the might to handle them. Ruth and I had signed up for the Boston Ski and Sports Club's "Winterfest", which included a whole array of activities that promised to exhaust us by the late afternoon. The morning was spent to cross country ski (away from the thousands of down hill skiers and crazy snow boarders up on the mountain) - perfectly manicured tracks and almost no one around, trees forming an arch over the trails through which the blue sky and the sun occasionally peaked through. We went along some interesting trails such as the Fire Pit, Stone Wall and Turkey Run, but ended up heading down the Wanigan trail, which led us to one of New England's most famous wooden covered bridges (http://www.maine.gov/mdot-stage/covered-bridges/artists.php). Only nine of Maine's originally 120 covered wooden bridges remain. They were originally built to make traversing rivers safe during the harsh and icy winters in the Northeast.

Lunch happened at White Cap, one of the centers of Sunday River, and after some decent carbo-loading we went on to our next adventure, tubing! Basically you zip down the mountain on your stomach on these giant inflated tires, hold on to two handles, and pray to the high heavens that the speed won't take you up over the walls and into the path of some unsuspecting snow boarders. The first couple of times you really get dinged around quite a bit, and might suffer from a slight bout of nausea, but once you figure out how to steer the damn thing, there is no going back. This is as close as I will ever come to experiencing the luge and I was loving it! My hiking boots have not yet forgiven me for the abuse they suffered, as they were seriously required to slow down on the course, but it is a small sacrifice for so much fun. The rest of the day was spent in front of a cozy fire place in the lodge, and some of my bus mates spent maybe a bit too much quality time up at the "Foggy Goggle", the local bar and hangout.


This past Friday, I again volunteered with Boston Cares, this time at Faneuil Hall (http://www.faneuilhall.com/) for a performance of the Boston Classical Orchestra. Certainly an interesting event - the overture to Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro", followed by "Incidental Music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Mendelssohn, narrated by local WCRB radio host Ray Brown and topped of by a world premiere of Stephen Halloran's "Concerto for New Orleans". In this last piece the BCO joined a jazz sextet called "Made in the Shade" who brought a unique blend of New Orleans jazz, swing, ethnic and folk music to the table. A very enjoyable evening (only slightly interrupted by some fainting patrons who had to be shipped off by ambulance).

The week has been busy as usual, work is dynamic and interesting. The past few days have featured a good amount of social events, including a book club meeting at my new favorite place to go to (and it is only three blocks from my house): Boston Beer Works (http://www.beerworks.net/) on Canal Street. This definitely is a good hangout for me - great food, really great food, and some stellar brews! My choices for the evening were "You Handsome Devil", a Belgian style ale and the "Bunker Hill Blueberry Ale" which had actual blueberries in it. Yumm, Yumm and Yumm! Yesterday was MGH Running Group, and a social with one of my neighbors who just returned from Germany. Tonight I am heading to the Ritz Carlton for a little affair on "Mass High Tech Women to Watch" - hoping to be one of them one day, I will attend and do some serious networking.

It has been a very nice week here, with a couple of teasers where the weather warmed up to a very balmy 50 degrees, but as of today we are back to cold, cold and cold. The holiday weekend is upon us, and boy, do we need it! I will stay in town for some nice local hikes, lots of reading and some initial packing for my trip next Friday to Europe. Because of my upcoming travels, I will miss the opening reception for the art exhibit here at the hospital where my photograph is displayed, so all my Boston friends can come, look at it, and say whatever they want behind my back!

I have not done this in a while, so here are some final tidbits for you:

*The state bird of Maine is the chickadee! (It is also the state bird for Massachusetts.)
*Aside from Stephen King, other famous Mainers (no, it is not Mainees!) are Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the poet) and film director John Ford.

* Some more Boston stuff from my friends at redsoxdiehard.com that you should absolutely know:

*There are two State Houses, two City Halls, two courthouses, two Hancock buildings. There's also a Boston Latin School and a Boston Latin Academy.
* Route 128 is also I-95. It is also I-93.
*The Harvard Bridge goes to MIT. It's measured in 'smoots.'
*Johnson never should have hit for Willoughby.
*The subway doesn't run all night. This isn't Noo Yawk.

pet:)

#36 Boston - "Hemlock Willy and the Bristly Locust" - February 10, 2005

Today, class - we are conducting a lesson in botany - we will discuss New England shrubs and trees until they come out of your ears! "Hemlock Willy" is actually the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, a pest haunting local hemlock trees here (so I don't feel too bad about mutilating its name), and wouldn't you know it, the little sucker has its own website! http://www.fs.fed.us/na/morgantown/fhp/hwa/hwasite.html.

The bristly locust is another one of my new friends that I acquainted with this past weekend. It all started quite innocently with a "local walk" by the Appalachian Mountain Club at the Middlesex Fells, a beautiful nature reserve just a few miles outside of Boston. The weekend weather was picture perfect, snow on the ground and sunshine all around, cross country skiers were out in force. I was a little weary at first, expecting a very touchy-feely new age-y "let's-communicate with-the-plants" kinda walk, which in some ways it was, but I have to tell you - this was one of the best outings I have ever had. A good omen for the walk that our trip leader's first name - I am not making this up - was "Boot"! Following his lead, we trampled into the woods, and it was just amazing to me how often we walk through the woods without noticing much of what is on display there.

We learned the difference between white oaks and red oaks (smooth lobes versus pointy ones) and looked at six million pine trees (did you know that their needles grow in bunches and depending on how many are in a bunch, you can tell what pine tree it is?). Under the motto "If in doubt - smell it" we discovered that you can tell many trees by rubbing off a little bit or bark and take a whiff - black birch for example smells like wintergreen gum! You can distill its leaves and its bark to extract the flavoring. Beer can also be made from black birch, I might have to inquire some more about this. Cherry trees smell like either stale cigars or almond oil, Sassafras smells like lemon verbena - there was no end to it!
All varieties of maple trees were investigated by yours truly, the snake-y looking hickory trees and no marcescent tree was safe from our inquisitive minds. Boot was absolutely phenomenal, he brought goodies with him that were made from some of the plants (Cherry cough drops, Clark's teaberry gum [ttp://home.swipnet.se/roland/teaberry.html], Sassafras candy and he had a story on him for pretty much everything and everyone we saw that day. The group ended up singing the 1959 Lonnie Donegan song "Does the Chewing Gum Lose its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight" (If your mother says don't chew it, do you swallow it in spite? Can you catch it on your tonsils, can you heave it left & right?). Sassafras has also some interesting stories associated with it - apparently it has not only carcinogenic but also hallucinogenic capabilities, but you have to eat enough of it to kill a horse, so don't get too excited yet my friends. When the British discovered that the Native Americans used it for medicinal purposes, they brought it with them to Europe in hope it would cure syphilis and other contemporary ailments, alas, it did not cure anything for that matter. I found one Web site stating that "a teaspoonful of the oil produced vomiting, dilated pupils, stupor and collapse in a young man". In Louisiana, the leaves are used as a condiment in sauces and for thickening soups; while the young shoots are used in Virginia for making a kind of beer. Mixed with milk and sugar, Sassafras Tea, under the name of 'Saloop,' could, until a few years ago, be bought at London streetcorners in the early mornings. The award of the day and my personal favorite though went to catbriar, a shrub with thorns and tendrils, that seemed to have provided inspiration for the invention of barbed wire!

Boot, the naturalist, also red poems to us - fitting to each occasion. My favorite from Ogden Nash quoted in front of a juniper tree (The berries are used for the production a volatile oil which is a prime ingredient in Geneva or Hollands Gin) called "A Drink with Something in it".

"There is something about a Martini, A tingle remarkably pleasant; A yellow, a mellow Martini; I wish I had one at present. There is something about a Martini, Ere the dining and dancing begin, And to tell you the truth, It is not the vermouth -I think that perhaps it's the gin. "

In other events this past week, on Friday night my bad conscience drove me to quickly sign up with Boston Cares and volunteer at the 2nd Annual Helping Hearts Masquerade Ball organized by Bread and Jams, an organization that provides services to the homeless. All decked out in my black ball gown, long opera gloves and a Venetian mask, I headed over to Cambridge to Morss Hall at MIT. The event was rather interesting, and we could actually enjoy it fully, as they had way too many volunteers - we wined, dined, I actually played along with the Silent Auction, acquired a nice lamp and generally had a great time. I even got my picture taken for the Improper Bostonian!

On Sunday it was time for some exercise, some jogging along the Charles River, which has begun to defrost a wee bit, and some ice skating at Frog Pond with my friend Ruth. I had to get out as I knew that I would be sitting in front of a TV all night watching the SuperBowl! There was a superb event held at my neighbor Claire's with several courses of the most exquisite home-cooked food. While the game was not the prettiest, who cares! WE WON, WE WON, WE WON, WE WON, WE WON, WE WON!!!! Can you spell D-Y-N-A-S-T-Y??? Three SuperBowls in 4 years, not too shabby my friends! Tuesday featured a parade here in downtown Boston, where one million folks crammed into our tiny streets (apparently lots of these folks were at home "with the flu" - right?).

The week has gone by in a jiffy, and a gazillion activities are on my list of things to do. Last night I attended another MIT Euroclub dinner, this time in Cambridge at Jasmine, a Thai restaurant at One Kendall Square. Tomorrow night I am volunteering (through Boston Cares) at the Boston Classical Orchestra in Faneuil Hall (http://www.bostonclassicalorchestra.org/index.html) and on Saturday I am heading (for the first time) to the beautiful state of Maine (http://www.visitmaine.com/home.php). The Boston Ski and Sports Club is having a Winterfest, where we can cross country ski, snow shoe, go skating or tubing up at the Sunday River Resort.

For now, this is it (bet you glad it's over after that botanical assault, eh?).

Lots of love to all of you!

pet:)

#35 Boston - Lymphotropic Superparamagnetic Nanoparticles - Feb 3, 2005

Aaaahh, the grant is in, and I can again attend scientific lectures and meetings where I do hear about exciting stuff like the lymphotropic superparamagnetic nanoparticles (they are involved in staging techniques for prostate cancer, you know...). Everyone has been recuperating, decompressing, hiding under the biggest rock in the neighborhood, drinking heavily - who knows. Some people have stopped answering their phones, and still get tremors upon hearing the "G" word. My work responsibilities have definitely taken a more interesting turn as the grant has stopped to dominate my every waking minute, some very exciting projects have come off the back burner and work life is exciting, albeit very busy. At some point I will have to face reality and the fact that the NCI (who hands out the grant money) will come in June for a site visit, and that there are loads to prepare for that, but I will live in grant-free la-la land for a while.

My work will take me to Europe again at the end of this month, where I will be attending a conference in Amsterdam (of course with the obligatory detour to Germany to visit the folks); another trip to Orlando, Florida in May is also planned. I am working with a doctor here who is organizing a conference in San Petersburg, Russia, and while I might not get to go, it is a very interesting program to work on.

After finally calming down a bit from the high the snow-related euphoria evoked, I am sad to see the snow melt away little by little - initially we were promised some more snow, but the forecast is austere, with a "wintery mix" and some flurries promised for tonight and tomorrow. Today was an absolute dogged day - with rain, dirty skies and nothing merry to it. We had some sunny days over the past week, cold, but some day light is good, I was told.

As promised, last weekend turned into the quintessential winter sport weekend, and with the blue-sky-powder-snow conditions all around, it was phenomenal. Saturday morning I headed out of town to Weston, about a 15-minute-drive on the pike, to do some snowshoeing with the Boston Ski and Sports Club. Phenomenal, the snow was exceptional and we waltzed all over the place. I headed home in the early afternoon, and then met up with my friends Josephine (hi Jo!) and Nan (Happy Birthday, Nan) at Frog Pond for some ice skating. We ended the day with some good Thai food at "The King and I" on Charles Street.

Then it was off to bed, as Sunday was a day to get up veeeeeeery early, 4 AM to be exact. Ruth and I joined the BSSC on their day trip to Stowe, Vermont. By many considered the best of the ski resorts here in New England, Stowe lived up to its reputation big time (http://www.stowe.com/). Great snow, azure blue skies with not a single cloud in sight - a magnificent day. Stunning Mountainside, too! We arrived there around 9 AM, which in itself was a small miracle as our bus driver, Calamity Joel, experienced some left-right dyslexia and seemed to have other plans than the 45 folks in the bus.

As I am new to this skiing stuff, I first headed up the bunny slope (also known as the "idiot hill" in certain circles) just to get myself warmed up. Now, friends, the part about skiing that I have the most trouble with are the chair lifts. As a seasoned acrophobic I initially thought that it might be better to have some company going up the lift. I made the discovery though (and I could have certainly figured this one out ahead of time), that on the beginner's slope the people sitting next to you are equally challenged when getting off the lift, and might grab onto you in ways that you did not authorize. From then on it was every woman on her own, and off I went. I did try my skills a bit on a green trail in the Spruce area, but somehow did not do too well, and decided to head for lunch.
Ruth and I had agreed to meet up on top of Mt. Mansfield at the Cliff House, a restaurant only accessible by gondola. A bit of a challenge, but the view up top is spectacular and certainly makes up for it. Despite some encouragement from my gondola mates on the way up (who were all black diamond skiers) to ski down the mountain, I did take the gondola back down. Ruth, who is a much more experienced skier, had promised to do some green trails with me and so we headed up one of the lifts to start at the Toll Road trail. The Toll Road was completed in 1870 to accommodate horses and buggies on the mountain. It is an absolutely beautiful trail with very nice wide turns, and ideal for a beginner like myself. We then crossed over via Chapel Lane to the Lullaby Trail and on to Crossover Lane, according to the Stowe Interactive Trail Map on the web the "mack-daddy" of all crossover trails. I did much better, thanks to Ruth's patience and instruction, and really started to get the hang of it a bit better. I am still going down the hill in wedge formation, but my next ski trip will definitely be more lessons where I can hopefully graduate to parallel skiing. All in all, it was a really fun day. Only one of our skiers, Jack, got injured during a pretty good spill and he dislocated his shoulder, but the rest of us all did well. Our trip back was slightly delayed as the rear tires of the bus were frozen solid, and thanks to the innovative efforts of our trip leader Josh, who climbed into a dumpster to hunt for a 2 by 4, we did make it out at a decent time. There was of course the issue of the directionally challenged bus driver, but we all managed to watch him closely, and warn him of upcoming exits a couple of miles ahead.

I was so bloody tired on Monday that I could hardly see straight. Went to bed at an insanely early time and felt like I could sleep for the next hundred years. The week has been quite busy at work, but I did manage to get to the gym on Tuesday for my first ever Power Yoga class. Kind of a strength-based yoga that gets taught in a heated room (http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/styles-of-yoga/power-yoga.asp). Loved it!

I am looking at a somewhat more low-key weekend (well, you know me, but at least no big bus trips) - Tomorrow night I am volunteering through Boston Cares at an event in Cambridge - the 2nd Annual Helping Hearts Masquerade Ball at MIT's renowned Morss Hall at Walker Memorial (http://www.breadandjams.org/ball2.html), a fundraiser for homeless and people in crisis. I have to somehow come up with a mask by tomorrow, which might provide an interesting challenge. Saturday I have signed on with the Appalachian Mountain Club for a local walk in Winchester and the Middlesex Fells, a 2000 acre natural reserve just miles outside of Boston (http://www.fells.org/fells.html). There might be some ice skating on Sunday at MIT, and of course Sunday evening it is Superbowl time! Not to be repetitive, but Go Pats!

Until next time!

pet:)

#34 Boston - Are you happy now? January 27, 2005

Well, that was the question my friend Linda fired off to me on Monday morning, as apparently Miss Petra Josephine Yee in her ongoing quest for snow single-handedly caused a blizzard that dumped an insane amount of snow on the poor little state of Massachusetts. Let me tell you folks, I am loving it, but have to admit that this was the most impressive weather I have ever seen. We were forewarned, you see, that there would be some heavy snow this weekend - little did I know how this would pan out. My idea of going cross-country skiing on Saturday morning did not crystallize as there was not enough snow at that point. It started snowing more heavily in the afternoon, around 4 PM or so, just as I was taking a stroll along the Charles River Esplanade. The skies started to darken at some point, and I figured that I get my sorry little self home quickly - I did take Ella out first for a quick little trip to the store first, and so that she could have her first experience driving in snow (remember she is a California caah after all.....). There was a certain "let's prepare-for-the-nuclear-accident-that-will-happen-shortly" mentality in the store, which I did not quite understand (still don't) and opted not to participate in. What followed was amazing - I looked out the window at what I thought was a wall of fog, but it was snow, snow and snow. In addition, gale-force winds started blowing -which was an extraordinary sight, in particular along Cape Cod, where they had hurricane wind warnings. The area around Boston got up to three feet of snow - the town of Plymouth, Mass held the record with a whopping 38 inches of snow (about 1 meter), and on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we added up to another 8 inches. It was a storm for the record books, 13,000 homes lost power, and the National Weather Service said that it was one of the largest snowstorms in the past 100 years for Cape Cod and Southeastern Massachusetts. The next snow is predicted to come next Tuesday, so I think I will be snow-happy for a while.

After the "Blizzard of 2005" (so reported by the "Extreme Team" on one of the local news channels) calmed down a bit on Sunday, Ruth and I headed into the city and let me tell you, it was unbelievably beautiful! There were no cars, people were cross country skiing the streets, snowshoeing, and the slopes of Beacon Hill had kids and adults alike zipping down the neighborhood streets and slopes on sleds, plastic saucers, tubes and toboggans (in some cases cafeteria food trays, but hey - whatever works, right?). I took lots of photos with my camera, and hope that I can even remotely capture how beautiful it was. The Boston Common and the Public Garden were beautiful, someone had graciously dug out the duckling statues (http://www.schon.com/public/ducklings-boston.php) as only Momma Duck's head was sticking out of the snow. "Make Way for Ducklings" is a Boston classic - the story of Mrs Mallard and her eight ducklings looking for a home in the big city. In 1941, Robert McCloskey wrote the famous tale which takes place in the Boston Public Garden. In honor of the story every year on Mothers' Day a parade is held where swarms of children dressed in duck outfits waddle or walk around Beacon Hill, and then get a chance to pose for a picture sitting on the mallard statues in the park. (http://www.boston-online.com/cityviews/ducklings_parade.html).

After a brief pick-me-up at Harvard Gardens which involved an undisclosed amount of Frangelico, it was time to head home to watch the AFC Championship game where our most beloved New England Patriots thrashed the Pittsburgh Steelers (sorry Jimmy!) and advanced to the SuperBowl! Yess! February 6 is SuperBowl Sunday, and plans are being made to have a very fine event at my neighbor Claire's!

Monday it was back to work (at least for me, can't say that the weather would keep me from going to work) and the final painful days of the grant application deadline. Staggering out every night as if I had been drugged, I decided to do fun stuff and totally overcompensate. I bumbled over the the main Boston Public Library at Copley Square (http://www.freefoto.com/preview.jsp?id=1211-14-2&k=The+Boston+Public+Library%2C+Boston%2C+Massachusetts) where it was free Monday night movies - this time silent movies with piano accompaniment. The story featured was "The Patchwork Girl of Oz" (http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/bk12des.htm) - written by Frank Baum, who had made a habit out of writing Oz and other fantasy stories. Watching early silent movies is always a little perplexing - everyone moves too fast as if they were doped up on amphetamines and seem to be suffering from some seizures of sort. There is no such thing as special effects, the "woozy" was apparently made from cardboard and there was some gender confusion going on as well. The piano music adds some dramatic notes, but there were few text screens in between and to be honest, I did not quite get everything that went on in this flick. Entertaining though.

Tuesday night it was back to the Museum of Science's IMAX theater for the movie "Extreme", which featured spectacular images of extreme athletes - wind surfing, rock climbing, extreme skiing and snow boarding. Spectacular and very impressive!(http://www.extreme70mmfilm.com/)

So and here we are, ready for another fun-filled weekend - Saturday morning I am heading out to Weston, where the snow shoeing event from the Boston Ski and Sports Club is finally taking place (we do have enough snow I believe). In the late afternoon, I will meet up with some friends at Frog Pond to do some ice skating and on Sunday, I am heading to Stowe, Vermont for some down hill skiing (http://www.stowe.com/). How's that for a winter weekend?

I was supposed to go out jogging tonight - don't ask - actually, yeah, do ask! The Somerville Striders, another one of the crazy running clubs around here, is featuring some event, where we would all jog in this raw weather and then afterward meet up with a famous Ethiopian marathon runner. I have not convinced myself that I will actually do it, and the thought of my gym, which features heat and TVs, is just more appealing. Don't expect much, my friends! Probably no tales of Ethiopia from this end.

With this I bid you farewell for this week. Stay warm and dry!

Love,

Petra

#33 Boston - Or is it Siberia ? January 21, 2005

My eye sockets hurt - what else is there to say! Just like eating too much ice cream and getting brain freeze - try that one on your entire head! Today we reached the absolute low point of this week (in more ways than one), 3 degrees Fahrenheit, with a windchill around minus 20 (still Fahrenheit). [For my German friends minus 20 Fahrenheit is about -28 Celsius]. Friggin' cold! Even the balaclava won't help! I have eaten entire chap sticks and the hot water bottle has come out of retirement! We are promised a load of snow sometime tomorrow, and another 4 degree day - good weather for skiing, eh? I will try to head out to Weston for some cross country skiing or snowshoeing with my friend Ruth. There is a luge event out in Wachusett which might also be interesting to see (no, I am not participating! I don't think I fit the aerodynamic requirements - still working on those cookie bumps....)

This will make up for the fact that last weekend started out snowless. Snowshoeing with the Boston Ski and Sports Club got cancelled, so after a brisk morning jogging experience I headed out to visit my friends Linda and Roger in Shrewsbury. After a little walk around the neighborhood, we headed toward West Boylston to the cinema - saw the sleeper hit "Sideways". Pretty funny actually!
Sunday was the big day - my first downhill skiing experience. I had signed on with the Boston Ski and Sports Club (http://www.bssc.com/index.cfm) for a daytrip to Mount Okemo in Ludlow, Vermont (http://www.okemo.com/winterhome/index.html). Down the hill she goes, our Petra - being the graceful person that I am, I had promised to wow the New England skiing community with a stellar performance. My efforts were definitely commendable, and I was among the top students in my two classes. Toward the end of the day I went down the bunny slope without poles and even attempted one of the green trails - I fell only once, and that was coming of the chair lift. T'was a little slippery there, and the minute I got myself vertical again, one of my class mates decided to run me over. Skiing was a wonderful experience, my shins and calves hurt, a nice hematoma has formed and previously unknown muscles have started to appear. Ironically we had to ski on artificial snow (with some lovely layers of ice underneath that made for some interesting skiing maneuvers on our part) only to drive back to Boston where the real stuff was coming down from the sky! It was a very long day - left Boston at 5:30 AM and returned around 8 PM, but so worth it!! My next skiing trip will most likely lead me to Jay Peak in Northeastern Vermont next weekend (http://www.jaypeakresort.com/).

Monday was a holiday, and my friend Elaine and I headed for a most wonderful walk at the Mount Auburn Cemetery at the intersection of Cambridge and Watertown (http://www.mountauburn.org/). It is a most marvelous spot, a beautiful old place - it was America's first landscaped cemetery. In its winter wonderland coat and display of haunting light reflections it was truly magical. But still friggin' cold, so we headed to the Hi Rise Bakery on Concord Avenue for some sugar-infused nourishment and had a nice winter tea at Elaine's home in Charlestown (http://www.charlestownonline.net/visitors.htm). Hi Rise is a great place to visit, very neighborhoodish, down-to-earth place, with a huge wooden table in the middle, where everyone gathers for coffee, hot cocoa and their phenomenally tasting baked goods.

Tuesday, the book group met at Porter's Bar near North Station - another cold night, where the whole group decided to wimp out and take the cab to the bar from my place (it is less than a ten-minute walk). Yes, yes, we caved in....
Thursday night I attended another dinner of the crazy MIT Euroclub, this time at Tommy Doyle's Irish pub near Kendall Square in Cambridge. The pub, a very cozy retreat for a nippy evening like yesterday, is a popular hangout. The owner's name is Finbar Griffin and he seems to love his regular customers - he treats 80 loyal customers to Red Sox games four times a year. The food at "Doyler's" is actually pretty impressive and the MIT Euroclub gang packed an entire section (I believe there were 25 or 30 of us). Not that I have to say it, the beer was not too shabby either.

Work is still insane, the deadline is coming up quickly and other than the fact that everyone involved is lining up to jump off one of Boston's many bridges, things are going well. Not everyone values deadlines and some folks have decided that ignoring them makes them disappear somehow.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I almost forgot - I have my keys back! If you recollect, during one my more bright and physically well coordinated moments, I had dropped them down the elevator shaft in my building - I finally had them retrieved from the pit and aside from a little corrosion they are looking pretty darn ok.

So my friends in warm places, I am looking forward to the weekend, with some snowshoeing or XC skiing and with our admired New England Patriots facing the Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL championship game (we will cream them, Jimmy!). [http://www.patriots.com/]. Go Pats!

And remember, a duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why!

All my love,

pet:)

#32- Boston - The Week of a Thousand Years - January 13, 2005

My friends,

Greetings from Boston, where it currently rains cats and dogs and whatever else, the temperature is in the mid 60s, but the weather reports says that it could drop to 27 and snow later, so who knows? I have seen people jogging in shorts, and looking down at the Charles River Esplanade I notice a group of small lakes and river systems forming on the soccer field. Just looovely!

It has been a taxing week at work, one that I do not care to repeat, if felt like a thousand years crammed into every day, with some egregious behavior on the part of some folks that I don't even work with directly. I have a tough time dealing with unwarranted arrogance and imperviousness directed at me, and I got plenty of it this week. Relief is on the way - a nice three-day weekend with some fun plans and hopefully ample opportunity to forget about this ugly past few days. Tomorrow I signed up for snow shoeing lessons with the Boston Ski and Sports Club (out at the Weston Ski Track) and on Monday I am joining them heading up to Wildcat in New Hampshire (http://www.skiwildcat.com/) for some downhill skiing. My first lesson, this oughta be interesting. Sunday has been noted down to be a day of leisure and relaxation, and maybe a little walk around town.

Last weekend (when we still had snow), I headed out to the Weston Ski Track (http://www.ski-paddle.com/skitrack/skitrack.shtml) for my crosscountry skiing lesson with Charles River Recreation. It was the ne plus ultra of fun!! Victor, our ski instructor was at least 70 years old but in pretty snazzy shape. We learned first how to balance on our skis without poles and then continued on, eventually learning how to go up and down hills. That was my favorite bit of the day - my new friend Cheryl and I kept literally jogging up the hills with our skis and "oooooiiiiii" down we came again. Additional entertainment was provided by two extremely clumsy and bungling women in our group, who spent more time falling all over the place than actually standing up on skis. The ski track itself is great, literally 15 minutes outside of Boston (in summer it is a golf course) and while we were taking our class, it started snowing! It was just so great, winter wonderland! Eventually though the snow turned into nasty, icy rain and we headed to the little clubhouse, where my friend Arlene was already waiting with a cup of hot cocoa in her hands.

My Sunday plans got canceled, and so I improvised - I got my hands on a book called "Victorian Boston Today" that lists 12 walking tours around Boston highlighting Victorian era buildings, authors, landmarks. I decided to do the Black Heritage Trail in Beacon Hill (http://www.afroammuseum.org/trail.htm) - I never get tired of exploring Beacon Hill, and this was a particularly interesting tour. The walking tour leads you through what used to be called the North Slope of Beacon Hill - the site of the first African-American Neighborhood in Boston. Slaves were hiding in underground railroad alleys, and some very prominent leaders of the abolitionist movement lived in this part of town.
Beacon Hill never seizes to amaze and charm me - just when you think you have explored every nook and cranny, you again discover a new little gem. My new favorite spot is a little courtyard-size "park" on Temple Street across from Suffolk University. A few lovely park benches arranged in a semi-circle in a very charming setting - I can see myself sitting there in summer with a good book (and some ice cream of course!).

My friend Deborah from California was in town to see family, so I headed out toward Taunton, Mass in the late afternoon to hook up with her and her family. The drive there took me past the New England Patriots football stadium (http://www.gillettestadium.com/), which is quite an impressive site! It was a very low key and fun evening where we all crammed into her cousin's living room and watched several DVDs of "Will and Grace".

This week, I again went back to the gym, and I am happy to report that the Christmas cookie damages are slowly reversing. On Wednesday I headed to "Fajitas and Ritas" with Stephanie and her husband Dan to celebrate his new job and yesterday night I attended the Appalachian Mountain Club's Winter Soiree. A fun event, and afterward a whole pack of women who I hooked up with galumphed over to the "21st Amendment" (the pub next to the State House). Apparently our governor Mitt Romney had just given the "State of the State" address, so the place was chockful with young crisp Republicans! What an eldritch sight that was! Needless to say it was fun in there, and I think we might have convinced one young Rep to join the AMC. He probably thought that any organization that has that many women in it, can't be that bad!

Alrighty then, this is it - see my little tidbit at the end for some more Boston humor (courtesy of redsoxdiehard.com) - this time about the pronunciation (if you want to come and visit - practice, people! practice!).

pet:)

Boston English - Pronounciation

"We don't speak English. We speak whatever they brought over here from East Anglia in 1630.

The Bawstin accent is basically the broad A and the dropped R, which we add to words ending in A - pahster, Cuber, soder. For the broad A, just open your mouth and say AHHH like the docta says.

So car is cah, park is pahk. If you want to talk like the mayah, repeat after me: My ahnt takes her bahth at hahpast foah. "

#31 Boston - The Concept of Potholes - January 6, 2005

In this winter wonderland, the city of Boston has re-introduced me to something that I gladly had erased from my memory banks - you drive along and out of nowhere a hole the size of Canada opens up and you swerve around barely avoiding falling into it, car and all! My goodness! I had totally forgotten about potholes! No wonder there is always construction going on here in Boston - these craters are huge and reminiscent of the streets in good old East Germany. This also reminds me of a quote by Bill Bryson from one of my favorite books of his "The Lost Continent -Travels Across Small Town America" - "Boston's freeway system was insane. It was clearly designed by a person who spent his childhood crashing toy trains. Every few hundred yards I would find my lane vanishing beneath me and other lanes merging with it from the right or left or sometimes both. This wasn't a road system. This was mobile hysteria. Everyone looked worried. I had never seen people working so hard to keep from crashing into each other. And this was a Saturday - God knows what it must be like on a weekday."

In addition, we had about a foot of snow coming down the last two days (Petra was very happy), and we are currently in the transition phase to sleet-mush-slush-gunk kinda stuff. Last night a brave contingent of the Running Partners (the hospital's jogging group) braved the icy streets and jogged along the Esplanade narrowly avoiding some nasty spills. Boston looks beautiful with its snowy cover, and I am looking forward to a few snow activities over the course of this month. This Saturday I am taking cross country skiing lessons at the Weston Ski Track, which is just 20 minutes outside of town (http://www.ski paddle.com/skitrack/skitrack.shtml), and Sunday, I might join the AMC for some xcountry skiing in the Blue Hills area around Ponkapoag Pond. The weekend following I already signed up for Snowshoeing 101 with the Boston Ski and Sports Club (also at the Weston Ski Track) and Sunday the 16th I might join the BSCC on a trip to Okemo Ski Resort in Ludlow, Vermont (http://www.okemo.com/winterhome/index.html). There are so many cool activities, I can see myself heading out of town every weekend.

So, let's backtrack a little - as you know I returned from my Christmas vacation in Germany and arrived back here in Boston on the 30th of December. After falsely assuming folks would work on the 31st and being somewhat confused about a pretty much abandoned hospital, I headed home and got ready for the New Year's Eve festivities. As mentioned I bought myself a button for "First Night", which gives you access to six million events that are taking place all at the same time all over Boston. I relied on my friend Linda to create the perfect itinerary and that she did! Linda, Roger, Arlene and I met up early in the evening to join the parade that ambled down Boylston Street. What fun! A real parade! We then headed for the first of our events, at the Berkelee School of Music, where we (definitely) enjoyed "The Revolutionary Snake Ensemble" - their sound is described as "urban funk, mardi gras, bold street brass, with what I would describe as equally bold dress choices by its members (actually Linda and I could not quite figure out the gender of one of the performers for quite some time.... most of them wore dresses from the Dame Edna New Orleans Glitter Collection, and some feathery boas of course). Bloody great band, though! [http://fieldk.home.att.net/rse/] Definitely worth it.
We stayed for the next performance at the Berklee, which featured a group called the Family Jewels (http://jewelsrock.com/) - they describe themselves as a cool new group playing some very hot old music ("honky tonk to doo-wap, blues to jump swing, rockabilly to Chuck Berry, New Orleans Second Line to Rhythm and Blues"). Phenomenal! Very very cool indeed.
We then stomped over to the Hynes Convention Center to check out some Brazilian tunes, with Hector Cuevas and the Boston Latin Band (http://www.thebostonlatinband.com/pages/bio.html) featuring salsa, merengue, danzon, and traditional boleros and there was definitely some hot dancing going on (some also not so hot, but more in the entertaining category - there was something for everyone).
We (our little group and thousands of people we did not invite to go with us) headed toward the waterfront later at night to prepare for the fireworks that were promised to start at Midnight. Compared to last year the temperatures were pretty much tropical, and everyone was out and about. I observed a disturbing trend though - many people of what appeared to be a decent degree of intelligence were armed with plastic trumpets of varying colors that they bought of street vendors as if they were going out of style and maybe they were. I assume that their willingness to purchase these lovely instruments was directly related to the amount of alcohol consumed that night, and I wonder how many of them woke up the next morning and could not figure out why they spend eight dollars for a piece of crap like that. But there you go. The noise created was incessant and not pretty. The fireworks were great, of course, and all in all it was a very nice and enjoyable night.

The weekend following was pretty much low-key, a brunch at my boss' house out in Newton, some walks and lots of lazy time on that great couch of mine. Ella, the caah, is alive and well again, and has a new battery, and is humming along nicely (thanks goodness for warranties). Work is extremely busy for this week and next, then the grant application is in, and we will get a bit of a breather. I have been going to the gym trying to work of all the Christmas cookies I inhaled in Germany, and that's pretty much it.

I hope all of you are well -
until next week.

pet:)

#30 Boston - A Bit Mushy - December 31, 2004

Hello my friends!

I was welcomed back by the lovely city of Boston with heaps of snow (figures, the minute I leave town the snow comes down in piles) and with the warmer weather today those wonderful accumulations of mush and slush that line the streets. Try to manage that in high heels! The celebrations for First Night are well under way - my only worry being the ice sculptures that could possibly melt before I will be able to admire them. Linda and Roger have picked out for a program for tonight and my new friend Arlene might join us as well. I look forward to a nice celebration tonight and a relaxing weekend to follow.
The elevator company still has not retrieved my keys, and in the next segment of this series of somewhat unfortunate events, the caahh, my beloved Ella, is not showing any signs of life. She will have to be resuscitated on Monday and taken to the car doc in Arlington.
On the good news front, my brother has a new computer keyboard and his comma-less life is over!
I returned last night from Germany, after an absolutely exhausting trip, which involved a 9-hour flight from Zurich to Washington, DC, a delay and a serious jogging experience across Dulles Airport in order to catch the connecting flight to Boston. Nine hours in a plane with movies that I either had seen already last week or that were not even worthy of B movie status was arduous and a serious test of patience.
I had a wonderful Christmas holiday in Germany - for some reason I experience the holiday in my hometown community as gentler and softer - not to say that it is not equally commercialized in Germany. It was wonderful to spend time with my brother, his girlfriend and her family. Being back in Neuenburg is always as if I have stepped into a parallel universe - everything is familiar, memories are everywhere despite the changes in our little town, and despite the fact that I live thousands of miles away. En route to my aunt's place I walk by the house where I was born, I see the cobbler's place, an old, bedraggled hovel of a house that is no longer inhabitable. I remember going in there as a kid, walking up the tiny gnarly staircase, shoes everywhere, and picking up shoes (I still don't know how he ever found them in the mess in there) from the cobbler, who rarely spoke more than a few words.
On Monday this week, we had yet another meeting of the Schoki Club - a group of friends of mine that I have known since kindergarten. (For my English-speaking friends, Schoki is hot chocolate - makes a lot of sense doesn't it?). At some point during the evening we decided to head for the restaurant Salmen, which had recently been remodeled and is now a fairly decent place to eat and have a good conversation. That is true, however you still find some of the more serious addiction dipsomaniacs who stagger past you on their way out. One lesson learned this evening is that those business plans that you start hatching after a drink or two with some friends who are in equally good spirits, might be just a tad more unrealistic once daylight hits. Nevertheless we did have a blast of a time, and I still think about our "novel" idea of having bookstore/coffeshop/eatery (Spaghetti once a week!!).
Another activity I enjoy when I visit home is to watch winter sports on TV. German and Swiss television channels constantly feature ski and winter sport events, and you have seen nothing until you have witnessed a stadium full of 52,000 spectators (flags and all) cheering on a biathlon event! Unbelievable! I myself am totally partial to ski jumping which has been my favorite since I was a kid.

Of course, this past week has been overshadowed by the tragic events in Asia, and we were just beyond belief and beyond comprehension of what has taken place. A family who lived across the street from my dad lost their house in Sri Lanka, but fortunately everyone was safe and they have the comfort of being able to return to a home in Germany. Many people did not have that chance.

My friends, I wanted wish you a great start into this new year! May it bring you lots of adventure and fun, laughter, friendship and most of all, lots of love. Think good thoughts, and let's hope that all this suffering will be followed by many acts of kindness and a small miracle here and there.

Wishing you all the best,

pet:)

#29 Boston - Christmas in Germany without Commas - December 25 2004

Froehliche Weihnachten! Merry Christmas!

I am sitting here in my home town in Gemany on my brother's somewhat disfunctional computer - the comma is not working so look forward to some interesting ways for me to structure this week's oration. I also could just pretend to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez and write without any punctuation whatsoever. Some folks consider that great literature. Ha!
I arrived here in a pretty languid state - due to my late booking of my flight I had a very interesting itinerary and the pleasure of a six hour layover in Washington DC. I spent this time sprawled out on a few seats in my boarding area reading through three issues of Newsweek and half a book. After an overnight flight and landing in Zurich my brother and I zipped back to Germany (I forgot how fast you can drive here - always a bit scary at first) and after speed-wrapping six dozen gifts I jumped in a car to get my hair colored and cut (at a fraction of the extortionate Boston rates of course). Then it was off to dinner #1 at my aunt's house (Ham and potato salad) to be followed by festivities at my brother's pad a little later. It was quite the culinary feast - and Marion's sister Andrea (who lived up to her role as the best amateur chef of the region) once again delighted us with a "Gourmet Magazine" worthy creation of lemon ice cream tartlets that were just to die for. A germane amount of lovely gifts were traded to the delight of everyone involved - and a good time was had by all. Once I started seriously fading out and threaten to fall asleep sitting up at the table - I was sent to bed and went downstairs for some serious shut eye. Christmas eve is the important evening tradition in German Christmas celebrations - we all enjoyed a harmonious evening and each other's company.

Today is a nice and relaxing day with a pretty disconsolate sky and the promise of really cold weather tomorrow. I was able to get some jogging in though this morning - and of course some more of that healthy Christmas diet involving loads of cookies and such.

Before I left to come here things got busy as you can imagine. The toil and moil at work did get intense - a deadline and Christmas do not seem to make a great combination. Friday last I headed to Copley Place and the Old South Church where a concert of the Chorus Pro Musica took place (http://www.choruspromusica.org/). Considered one of the premier choruses of New England they performed a magnificent selection of French and American Christmas songs titled "Joyeux Noel". The Old South Church (http://www.oldsouth.org/) was established in 1872 in the style of Northern Italian gothic architecture and "is distinguished by its tall bell tower; brown, pink and grey stonework; walls of Roxbury puddingstone; decorative carvings; a roof striped with tiles of red and black slate; and a cupola or lantern of green and russet-colored copper. " A beautiful place to have a concert indeed.

Saturday I spend the day with my friends Linda and Roger - we started off by heading to Deer Island - one of the Boston Harbor Islands. Not the prettiest of them by any means - in particular as it features the very futuristically designed Sewage Treatment Plant for the city of Boston (as my Roger noted "This is where it all ends!"). However it has one of the best views of the city of Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts Bay and its islands. Of course once you take the walk you are exposed to the risk that once in a while the wind shifts unfavorably in your diretion and you get a whiff of something terribly malodorous. In addition a sign alerts you that the irrigation system might go off at any time - with no previous warning! We eventually headed back to the city and after a dinner at my favorite Italian neighborhood restaurant (Antonio's on Cambridge Street) headed over to the Boston Common and watched folks ice skating (more or less skilled) - and then I gave a tour to Linda and Roger of my highlights of Beacon Hill (had to stop by John Kerry's house as usual).
On Sunday I met my friend Christiaan who was in town from Washington DC and had his first visit to the hub. With two of his colleagues we (again - this is becoming a habit) moseyed over to the Boston Common and Frog Pond and did some ice skating. It was Chris' first experience on the ice and he did pretty good. All this physical activity called for some serious sustenance - so we ambled over to the "21st Amendment" for some good sandwiches and beer. All in all a great weekend (maybe except the part where I threw my keys down the elevator shaft....).

It has been chilly over the past week - with the real low point of the week (literally) the night we had minus 5 Fahrenheit with the wind chill. Unfortunately for me I had to go to the drug store - all bundled up I pretty much looked like the Michelin Man trying to rob a bank. It snowed a bit on Monday - aside from that it was just cold! Boston is amazing with its weather patterns - I am now totally obsessed with weather.com and love the fact that there actually is a weather...... I remember during our first snow in November - jogging along the Charles River Esplanade trying to avoid ice and slush when next to me someone was cross country skiing. At the same time sailboats were on the river - how cool is that!

In a somewhat weather-related event - the fifth annual Santa Speedo Run took place in Boston last weekend with men and women in speedos jogging down Newbury Street (enough said - right?) [http://www.santaspeedorun.com/]. It's December for cryin' out loud!!

That's it for today folks - be merry and happy and kind to your friends and family and strangers!

pet:)

My final quote for the day - "Everything is within walking distance - if you have the time" by Steven Wright.

#28 Boston - Jacob Wirth Rules! - December 17, 2004

Who is this Jacob Wirth you may ask? Well my friends, he is a good man - actually our friend Jacob here, he came from a family of wine growers in Prussia and settled in the good old US of A quite some time ago. In 1868 he opened his restaurant across the street from the current locale. The place consists of a typical old style dining hall, but the highlight are Friday nights at Jake's - Mel Stiller on the piano next to the bar plays his heart out, and guess what, everyone sings along. Every table has song books, and in between the tunes, which most people sing decidedly off key, everyone screams page numbers with their ballad of choice at poor Mel. Mel has the final veto though, and if he thinks it is too early to sing "Obladi Oblada" there ain't nothin' you can do. [http://www.jacobwirth.com/]

My favorite bit of the evening was the MBTA Song, which features the tragic saga of "Charlie", an ill-fated chap who was condemned forever to ride the Boston transit system because he did not have the required exit fare (a nickel). It was performed by the Kingston trio in 1959, but was originally written for the 1948 Boston mayoral race to protest a candidate who wanted to charge an extra nickel to exit the system. [Interestingly enough, the MBTA is currently advocating an automated fare collection system called "The Charlie Card". ]

People, I was singing like you would not believe (really, you would not), and I ended up returning home at 1 AM with almost no voice left! Saturday started out slow, on account of the long night, and it was just great to loll around in my PJ's and read, have a good cupa tea, that kind of stuff.

In the afternoon I headed to volunteer as an usher at the Boston Center for the Arts, which is located in yet another (can you stand it?) quaint part of this wonderful town, the South End [http://www.cityofboston.gov/neighborhoods/neighborhoods.asp?id=18]. Cute brick houses, lanterns, neat stores, lotsa culture..... My "work" assignment took place at the beautiful Calderwood Pavillion (http://www.bcaonline.or) - the performance was "Johnny Guitar" a musical spoof based on the 1954 not-so-spoofy and unamusing movie with Joan Crawford. All I had to do is show a few folks to their seat, make sure they did not fall down the steps or over the railing and I was home free. The performance was fabu, very entertaining, and the audience loved it!

Sunday did not start off so well, my old chronic stomach problem decided to come back to haunt me, and so most of the day was spent on the couch watching movies, reading, and taking a nap here or there. I had signed on for the Jingle Bell Run that evening, and I actually scraped myself off the couch and headed toward Back Bay, where a pretty dappled hoi polloi had congregated - most folks were dressed in Santa Claus outfits, and whatever else inspired them. All runners got little bells for their sneakers, and off we went, jingling and such. Running down Comm Ave with a bunch of Santas was so much fun! I met up with some friends from my running group, who won first price in the costume contest. The Hash House Harriers ("A Drinking Group with a Running Problem") actually pulled a sled!

The week has been pretty busy, and mostly filled with work-related responsibilities. Tuesday night the book group met at my new favorite Japanese place, Ma Soba on Cambridge Street, where we stuffed ourselves with tasty sushi dishes. I then ran home (literally, because it was 15 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course) out there, make that 4 with the wind chill), the homeowners' association in my building had a Christmas feast that I wanted to attend.

Right now I will be heading off to the office Christmas Party, where some chocolate-covered strawberries are waiting for yours truly. Tonight I will be heading over to the Old South Church at Copley Square, where the Chorus Pro Musica will perform a "Joyeux Noel" concert (http://www.choruspromusica.org/) - I believe there is a sing-along component as well, which is right up my alley. Tomorrow I am going for a hike with my friends Linda and Roger, Sunday I will meet up with my friend Christiaan, who is in town from DC, and we are planning on a little ice skating at Frog Pond followed by some good grub in Beacon Hill.

Next week is Christmas, wow, I can't believe it! We had the occasional little dusting with snow here, and it has been freezing this week, temperatures were semi-glacial - those nights, where even when you run out of essentials, you keep thinking of ways to wing it, because you really do not want to go outside. I will be back in town for New Year's where I will be participating in First Night - another great Boston experience - you buy a button for $15 and with this button you can attend events all over town, music, art, comedy, there are also ice sculptures, a parade and fireworks at midnight. I tell you folks, this town is definitely happening!

I want to wish you all a very happy holiday - be safe, and hopefully you will be able to spend some time with family and good friends. I will be in touch next week from Germany.

For a finish today, I am enclosing a little write up from Boston Magazine, under the heading of "Hot Dates" by Andrew Rimas

Merry, merry......

pet:)


Hot Dates:

What is happening this month:

12/1 - The Cheers Pub 35th Birthday. Where nobody knows your name. Because you're a tourist.
12/2-5 - Bay Colony Cluster Dog Show: In the pit bull gallery, Ann Coulter disqualifies herself by foaming at the mouth. Meanwhile governor Mitt Romney edges Barney (Frank) to grab the blue ribbon in the White House lap dog division.
12/5 - Vienna Boy's Choir: Voices of Angels, costumes of Austro-Hungarian sailors
12/7-19 - Tea at Five at the Shubert: Actress Kate Mulgrew portrays Kathryn Hepburn at the beginning and end of her career in this one-woman play. Word is that Imhotep, accursed mummy of the underworlds, was pursued to play Hepburn during her "On Golden Pond" period, but declined, citing conflicts with the filming of "The Mummy 3".
12/21 - Winter begins. Dammit.
12/21-22 - The film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera opens. "The Phaaaantom of the Op-e-ra is theeeere inside your mind." That is, if you left your brain in 1986.
12/31 New Year's Eve. Red Sox Won. World did not end. All in all, things worked out ok.

#27 Boston - Under a Stygian Sky - Dec 10 2004

Made you look up that word, did I?

Well, compadres, it seems like we have not seen the sky all week, and the rain has been merciless most of the time. The weather forecast alternates between rain, haze, partially cloudy and snow showers, once in a while the sun does make a perfunctory appearance. It gets dark at 4:30 PM, everyone forgets how to drive and we're out of produce!! What kind of a place is this? Kidding, I really love it here! Last Saturday was my 6-month anniversary here in the hub - can you believe it? Despite some of the transition pains, and the one or other unexpected snafu, I am happy, I do enjoy getting to know the area and I have met some wonderful and brilliant people here in Boston.

Notwithstanding the cheerless outdoors my social calendar has continued to run at a thousand miles a minute, with some moments of repose and stillness in between. Last Friday I headed to the very romantically and winterily illuminated Boston Common for a little ice-skating at Frog Pond. Initially I was hesitant to go in - at the exact moment of my arrival a horde of school children ambushed the place - but I decided to suck it up and just do it. Friday night might have not been the best choice of time to go, as there was a bunch of bratty teenagers who thought that they absolutely had to show off their skating skills by narrowly zipping in between folks, but I really did have a good time and the Common looked just magical that evening.

My ski trip to Maine did not happen, as you know - so I decided to go for some retail therapy relating to Christmas with my friend Elaine. We did finish our excursion fairly quickly which enabled us to go for a nice meal at my favorite Mexican place, Fajitas and Ritas! Sunday ended up being just a very, very beautiful day - and I decided to head for the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains (http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/index.html). The Arboretum was established in 1872, when James Arnold, a whaling merchant from New Bedford, Mass, willed some of his estate to Harvard College. It occupies 265 acres (107 hectares) of land and features an impressive collection of more than 7000 plant species, and a herbarium collection in excess of 5 million specimens. Most of all, it is a great place for a long and relaxing walk.

Fed up with being outside, I headed for the Museum of Fine Arts (http://www.mfa.org/) to finally see the Art Deco exhibit. I had missed it in San Francisco, so here was my chance. Art Deco was such a fun and witty design style - very sleek. The exhibit featured some of the glam master artists of this time period (1910-1939) like Chanel, Lalique and Cartier. It embraced an amazing array of influences, from Greek mythology, Egyptian and Asian art, and it had its most visible manifestation in the 1930s-era skyscrapers such as New York's Empire State Building and Chrysler Building.

I ended this very nice weekend with an early evening stroll around Beacon Hill to admire the Christmas decorations that were put up that day.

This week has been packed with work and social events galore - work has been relentlessly busy, and I realized today that I had not even seen my emails since yesterday morning. I have been cruising from one meeting to another, most of it back and forth across town. Monday night, I attended a free movie showing at the main Boston Public Library at Copley Plaza, which featured Werner Herzog's "Invincible". A quite well done story about a Jewish blacksmith in Poland who has immense physical prowess and who gets discovered for variety shows in Berlin, where he has to perform in front of a mostly Nazi-friendly audience. Introduced originally as "Iron Man Siegfried" he realizes what it is he really wants to do in life. I enjoyed it very much, in particular as one of the producers/actors was around and was able to answer questions about the movie.
Tuesday night was girls night with my friend Stephanie, and we just had to go to the Red Hat for the "Tuesday Night 10 Cents Buffalo Wings" deal. Yesterday night after class, I met my friends Barbara and Anita for a nice beer and pizza at a converted firehouse at Harvard Square called "Cambridge 1". Excellent chow and great ambiance!

No rest for the weary, my friends! I worked hard this week and I will be rewarded. I am now heading for a quick beer tasting at Charles Street Liquors and then meet up with some friends from the Boston Ski and Sports Club at Jacob Wirth, the German restaurant with Karaoke. Tomorrow afternoon I will volunteer as an usher (through Boston Cares) at the Huntington Theater to see "Johnny Guitar", an award winning musical based on the 1954 movie with Joan Crawford. Sunday evening is the Jingle Bell Run (a road race) and in between I have a few movies to watch courtesy of Netflix.

I will chat with you next week, Christmas is approaching quickly and I will be heading for Germany for a week on December 23rd.

Be safe! Happy Holidays!

pet:)

#26 Boston - Whisky A Go-Go - December 3, 2004

Greetings Fellow Earthlings!

I have returned safe and somewhat sound from my Thanksgiving vacation in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Following the cluster of activities around Turkey Day, the weekend took on a much more relaxed note, however it did not start out that way. On Saturday morning, my friend Ulli introduced me to the wonders of Wall's Bargain Center, which is the ultimate Adrenaline shopping experience! Wall's, my friends, is located in a semi-abandoned shopping mall on the outskirts of Stillwater, and I believe the only open store there. Going to Wall's is a bit like mining, probably 60% of the things they have are what I would label junk, and the other 40% are good, and I mean, gooooood stuff! You would not believe the gems you can find there! A pair of brand-new Bandolino leather boots for $35, Ralph Lauren and Hilfiger Tops, Cashmere sweaters for $20, Art books, you name it. I still get seizures just thinking about it, and my heart skips a beat when I walk past my closets. We made out like Oklahoma bandits and my friend Ulli had to get me out of there quickly before things got really bad. Ulli's daughters have now labeled us as "the crazy shopping ladies", which is probably not too far from the truth. Wall's will do that to you.

Saturday afternoon was spent in the company of a slightly motley crue when Ulli and Gerald hosted an Advent Coffee and Cake event, with German friends, a British opera singer, a cantor from New Jersey (go figure) and an engineer from San Jose. It was quite a lively group and we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of German Christmas specialties, which we had to wash down with some Pizza a tad later. Sunday was the quintessential lazy day, we set up the Christmas tree, my friend Gerald recorded about 50 CDs for me, nothing major! Travel back on Monday to Boston was amazingly smooth, albeit it was a very tough day as we had to get up at 3 AM in Stillwater in order to get the 6 AM flight.

Upon my return I have been dedicating myself to a new vice - yes, my friends, I too have been swallowed by the Netflix wormhole. Movies appear mysteriously in my mailbox to my extreme delight! When I signed on, I just browsed and checked a few movies here and there, and immediately had 50 movies in my queue!
Work has been insane, insane, insane - huge deadline looming, things being put on the back burner that should not be there, and everyone is stressed. My boss has vowed to strangle all of those characters who give me trouble - that helps a bit. He is a saint and surprised Renee and myself this week with specially made Christmas wreaths from Vermont!

On the social front, I attended a whisky tasting this week at the Ritz Hotel. The event was organized through my friends at the Boston Ski and Sports Club. We first piled up in a room where we were served cocktails (Chivas on the rocks, Chivas with Ginger Ale and Chivas Smoked Apple Martinis). After we were sufficiently tanked up, we were moved to a different area where the actual tasting began, hosted by a very entertaining, kilt-wearing Scotsman (www.maninaskirt.com), who was just unbelievable! Side-splittingly funny, keen, quick-witted and we learned something (now if we could only remember it!). I was amazed at the nuances in the taste and I actually favored the peaty malts. We all left with a bottle of Chivas in our hands and in a particularly splendid mood!
I met up at the whisky fest with a group of some BSSC folks that I knew from other events, and we have organized a get-together at a German restaurant here in Boston next Friday (http://www.jacobwirth.com/). Apparently there might be a Karaoke component to the evening, which is not something inherently German, but some of us might be able to carry a tune (it's not gonna be me though, and the minute I start hollering Barry Manilow tunes, I am sure someone will pay for another beer just to shut me up).

Under the headline of "This would not happen in California" I had a rather interesting grocery shopping experience this week. As I made my way into the produce section at Shaws, it looked as if the place had been robbed. A few measly piles of mushrooms, scanty amounts of peppers, nothing - the place was cleaned out. When I asked the clerk on what happened, he said that there was a produce shortage!!! I thought he was pulling my leg, that was a first for me! Enjoy the Berkeley Bowl, people!

The weekend is upon us, and unfortunately my ski trip got canceled, so the ski slopes up in Maine will be safe for now! This leaves me with some time for a hike with my friend Elaine, possibly some tennis with my Swiss friend Sam (if the weather holds up that is) and some Christmas shopping in anticipation of my upcoming trip to Germany later this month. Tonight I will be heading to Frog Pond in the Boston Common for a little ice skating followed by a good dose of sleep.

Happy Weekend everyone, I leave you with another little dollop of Boston humor, this time about the cuisine.

So long.

pet:)



Boston Cuisine

*Boston cream pie is a cake.
*Frappes have ice cream; milk shakes don't.
*Chowdah does not come with tomatoes.
*Soda is club soda. Pop is Dad. If it's fizzy and flavored, it's tonic. When we mean tonic water, we say tonic water.
*Scrod is whatever they tell you it is, usually fish. If you paid more than $6 a pound, you got scrod.
*They're hot dogs. Franks were people who lived in France in the ninth century.

#25 From Boston to Oklahoma and a Thanksgiving with UFOs - November 27, 2004

Howdy Partners!

Greetings from the Sooner State! I have come here to spend Thanksgiving with my friends Ulli and Gerald, and their two lovely daughters Louise and Siri. This is my annual visit here to the state where the wind blows and so on and the state motto is "Oklahoma is OK", which I have to admit is not terribly exciting. But then again not every state motto can be as dramatic as New Hampshire's which says "Live Free or Die" or as poetic as Massachusetts' "The Spirit of America".
[http://www.ok.gov/]

Still in Boston, last weekend, I went for the first time to the IMAX dome theater at the Boston Museum of Science (http://www.mos.org/) and saw a film called "Forces of Nature" featuring such lovely events as tornadoes, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. I left there with a slight bout of nausea, but recuperated fairly well and quickly - next time a little Dramamine might be in order.
Saturday I actually got back into one of my old habits, and did some baking, before heading out to a housewarming party in Sharon, Massachusetts (http://www.townofsharon.net/) where my friend Glenn and his kids Madison and Noah (aka Mamba Boy as featured in a recent short documentary) celebrated their new digs. It took me a while to get there as I was stuck on 93 South (also known as the distressway), which looked more like a parking lot that day. The party was a lot of fun with tons of nice people and about 20 crock-pots.
Sunday I once again headed for the MA countryside, this time to Ashland, Mass. The town's claim to fame is Henry Warren who invented the synchronous self-starting motor and Telechron Clock - hence the town's football team is named "The Clockers", a name not everyone is apparently happy about (maybe they got clocked one or two times too many). Our aim in Ashland was to drive to my friend Renee's house and retrieve an antique trunk that her parents decided to give to me. Driving home with a trunk sticking two thirds out of my car was interesting and a tad nerve-wracking, but we managed alright - and the trunk is wonderful in my studio and doubles as a comfy, cozy window seat.
Monday night I attend the Boston Ski and Sports Club's Monday Night Football event at a bar called "Porters" which is fortunately only three blocks from my house, and a very nice place. The Zagat Guide in 2001 called it "Upscale for a Bar, Sporty for a Grill". (http://www.portersbar.com/) It was definitely a great event, and everyone had fun watching our beloved New England Patriots (once again) drive home a win. I discovered my current new favorite beer, Harpoon's Winterwarmer Ale - fantastic! (Did I mention that I like beer? I have been to scared so far to attend any of the events from the Beeradvocate group here in Boston, however at some point it might be unavoidable!).
Tuesday night, after a couple of tight and stressful days at work, I headed to Cambridge with my friend Linda dell'Olio (aka Linda #3) to the Cambridge Antique Market, which is a wonderful house, five stories full of antiques and wonderful things to look at! (http://www.marketantique.com/cambridg.htm).

Wednesday started horrendously early - heading to the airport to fly to Oklahoma at 6 AM, unfortunately through Chicago, but I have to say it went pretty smooth this time. Only a 20-minute delay, and even though I had to transfer between terminals everything seemed to go like clockwork. It was a long day, and we unfortunately had something very sad happen on the drive back from the airport when a dog ran into our car. Apparently this is a common occurrence and frequent problem here with stray dogs, which roam the countryside. I have had a hard time with this as you can imagine. Hats off though to my friend Gerald, who handled the situation pretty well.

On Thanksgiving, as a pre-emptive strike for the food that we were to ingest later, I went for a walk and jog in the morning with Ulli and the two girls, and look at a new development in the neighborhood called Berry Creek. It is scary to see what took place there, a gated community with houses in sort of a very gaudy faux French Country Style. It's almost like watching a bad accident, just so bad you have to look. The fun part for the kids was the entrance, where someone put detergent in a little pond on a little manicured piece of lawn with an artificial waterfall, and the good Oklahoma wind blew soap clouds all over the place.
On the way home we enjoyed collecting tons of Pecan nuts fresh off the tree!
Another tradition here is to decorate the house with lights for the upcoming Christmas season, and the whole neighborhood is currently rising to the challenge (of course our house here is the prettiest, no contest!).
Thanksgiving itself was celebrated with the UFOs, the Untenured Faculty Organization of Oklahoma State University, which was loads of fun! A very mixed group of bright adults, cheerful kids and a Boston terrier named Kaelyn who was not afraid to perform dog tricks for bits of turkey and cheesecake. I had some Pumpkin Ale with the meal, all in the spirit of the season.
Today we headed to Oklahoma City to the Museum of Art to see an exhibit called "Millet to Matisse: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow" - a very nice exhibit, with some wonderful paintings by Millet, who was one of the greatest painters of peasant scenes, Jules Breton, who depicted the hardship of the Urban Poor and a new discovery for me, Bastien Lepage. There were of course Monets, Renoirs, Van Goghs, and Seurats! The museum is wonderful (http://www.okcmoa.com/); it has the largest most comprehensive collection of Dale Chihuly's glasswork in the world, in particular his glass tower at the main entrance, which is three stories high. Quite a sight and most amazing!
Afterward it was kid's time and we headed for the Oklahoma Zoo, which was actually a lot of fun, in particular the hippos were my favorite! Driving home and enjoying a beautiful vast Oklahoma sky dipped in reds, yellows and purple was a great end to a very nice day.

I have been enjoying my time here very much, we have been reminiscing of course, back to our student days in Freiburg, watching German comedy on television (for my German friends: Loriot "Ja wo laufen sie denn?, Ja wo laufen sie denn?") and we are enjoying each other's company. Playing a lot of games with the girls (kids' version of Cranium and some treasure hunting.) Tomorrow is a party here in the house, early Christmas type of event, and Sunday we are possibly heading up north to the Woolaroc Native American museum in Bartlesville.

Time to go, hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving, see you back in Boston.

Petra

#24 Boston - First Snow - November 19, 2004

Immediately for the good news! (No, not the snow, duh! even though I do consider that good news).

One of my black and white photographs got accepted for an exhibit called "Illuminations", which is a quarterly exhibit at the MGH Cancer Center. The artwork will be displayed throughout our brandspankin' new Yawkey Outpatient Building, and my photograph is one of them! Very proud little photographer I am!

Also (and this is a bit related to snow), I booked my first ski trip (with lessons, helmet included) for December 4th, where I will head up to the Sunday River ski area in Maine!
Following that segue, we did have our first snow here in Boston last week! Yesss! It started on Friday morning and snowed solidly for about a day-and-a-half. I was of course utterly delighted, giddy as a schoolgirl, skipping though the streets with a misty-eyed expression on my face. I was looked at by my Boston colleagues with astonishment, and the certainty that by March I surely would be so sick of the snow, that I was ready to move back to California. I ignored it and continued to be thrilled. Looking out the window and seeing people sweep snow off their caahs gave me the wonderful satisfaction that the exorbitant parking fee I do pay was not for naught, and that Ella was snug and warm in her underground garage. I took Oscar to the window for his first ever viewing of snow, and he seemed completely entranced by the snowflakes - that's my boy!

As if it was planned that way the Boston Ski and Sports Club had its "Blizzard of Oz" party to open the ski season Friday evening. The party itself was nothing to write home about, in particular my new slightly slow "friend" Bob, who I had to tell at some point that it was now really time for me to go wash my hair. In a side room though, there was an exhibit hall where all the ski resorts in New England provided information on trails, ski lessons, vacations, etc. That was definitely worth it, and I am really looking forward to my first lesson. There are some ski areas that are actually fairly close to Boston (Wachussett, Nashoba and the Blue Hills), so that should provide ample opportunities for a novice like me.

Saturday it continued to snow, and that reminded me that it was definitely time for some winter wear shopping so my friend Elizabeth and I headed downtown to do some retail therapy. Successful retail therapy I might add, and I did return home with a good loot. I noted a slightly scary trend though, the quilt bag women now seemed to have morphed into the Ugly Christmas Sweater Brigades. If I loose my mind (completely) when I am 80 and wear one of those things, please shoot me! The weather got nicer by the day and Sunday provided me with the chance to go for a beautiful hike in the snow in the Blue Hills just outside of Boston. It was just wonderful! On Sunday I also had my first experience "slush and snow jogging". Some of the snow had melted already and there were patches of ice along the Charles River Esplanade, which made for some interesting foot maneuvering on my part.

The week so far has been quite busy at work, with some serious deadlines in the works, but full of learning, and some "aha" moments to be proud of. Not enough though to keep me from staying indoors at night. On Tuesday I accompanied my new Russian Friend Tatiana to the swanky Harvard Club, where she just became a member. It was a very pleasant evening, with a tour of the facility (http://www.harvardclub.com/site/content/tour/tour.jsp). Wednesday night our planned book group pretty much disintegrated and my colleague Renee and I ended up on a cocktail binge at Deville Lounge [http://kingsbackbay.com/?], a very stylish, chichi kinda place, with cocktails with pretty pretty names like Dead Apple and Cranker. Needless to say we had to sample one or two or three. Most of you know that I do not drink cocktails too often and too much of it (Fredi - not a word, NOT A WORD!) - let's just say it was an entertaining evening. I just returned from my class at Harvard (hated it, bad teacher, bad bad teacher) and now will retire to my couch with Harry Potter. Weekend plans are forming quickly and next Wednesday I will be getting the hell out of Dodge to go to Stillwater, Oklahoma, and spend Thanksgiving with some very good friends of mine. I will hail with my next update from the Sooner State, where the weather forecast promises sunshine over the holiday.

Fully aware of the New England chill that I will experience this winter, I am adding a little bit of weather frivolity at the end. On that note, bundle up, people and be well!

pet:)

NEW ENGLAND TEMPERATURE CONVERSION CHART

60° F: Southern Californians shiver uncontrollably. People in New England sunbathe.

50° F: New Yorkers try to turn on the heat. People in New England plant gardens.

40° F: Italian & English cars won't start. People in New England drive with the windows down.

32° F: Distilled water freezes. Maine's Moose Head Lake's water gets thicker.

20° F: Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves, wool hats. People in New England throw on a flannel shirt.

15° F: New York landlords finally turn up the heat. People in New England have the last cookout before it gets cold.

0° F: All the people in Miami die. New Englanders close the windows.

-10° F: Californians fly away to Mexico. The Girl Scouts in New England are selling cookies door to door.

-25° F: Hollywood disintegrates. People in New England get out their winter coats.

-40° F: Washington DC runs out of hot air. People in New England let the dogs sleep indoors.

-100° F: Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. New Englanders get frustrated because they can't start their "kahs."

-460° F: All atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale). People in New England start saying, "cold 'nuff for ya?"

-500° F: Hell freezes over. The Red Sox win the World Series.

#23 Boston - Bingo at Symphony Hall - November 11, 2004

Whasssup, people?

Greetings from Boston, where the weather keeps giving us mixed messages, but nevertheless strong signals that winter is indeed here. After a balmy 65 degree weekend, and today's high of 51, we have also experienced some evenings with temps below 30 degrees, very crisp. A first small batch of snow is due to arrive on Saturday and the weather is supposed to settle in the 30-45 degree range for the next week. It has been sunny nevertheless, and that makes up for the loss of daylight. [Is everyone else this tired? My God!]

The lovely weekend allowed for some great activities and for a good mood overall. I sailed into the weekend on Friday by attending a benefit for the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society. The shindig took place at the Institute for Contemporary Art (http://www.icaboston.org/Home) and was called "Chocolate for a Cause" (the title was enough to lure me there). For $25 you got two drinks (chocolate Martini among others, and one of my favorite beers, Magic Hat #9) and all the chocolate you could eat. Excellent chocolatiers from all over the area supplied their truffles, and let me tell you folks, there was some pretty decent sweet stuff there. Boston Restaurant Lumiere absolutely wowed me with their white chocolate ice cream - fab, fab and fab! (http://bostonchefs.com/clients/Lumiere/rest_page/) The ICA featured a photography exhibit by Boris and Vita Mikhailov - his photos document "the height, decline, and fall of the Soviet Union and its disturbing aftermath". According to ICA, Mikhailov became a photographer not by choice, he was an engineer. However the KGB found some nude photos he took of his wife, and that was it for his engineering career. The photography was not something I could relate to much, but it was nevertheless a very enjoyable evening.

Saturday I decided (guilt, guilt and guilt) to finally volunteer again with Boston Cares - this time I helped out at the Boston Living Center, a non-profit that serves people with HIV/AIDS. My job was to help cook and serve lunch, which was a lot of fun. [http://www.bostonlivingcenter.org/aboutus.shtml].

Later that day I went to my first activity with the MIT Euroclub here - what a group! [http://euroclub.mit.edu/] These people are insane - there is something happening constantly! You can join anything from their knitting group to bicycling, badminton, skiing, cultural events.... We all met at a very beautiful Thai restaurant called Bangkok City, had a wonderful and lively dinner with folks from Germany, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Korea (I know, I know it is NOT in Europe, but we do let other people join us) and then all headed for the Boston Symphony Hall, where we attended a concert. The symphony hall is an absolutely stunning place [http://www.bso.org/symphonyHallHome.jhtml?sh=1&_requestid=226031]! We attended a concert by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with famous conductor James Levine - the BSO is a great orchestra, however the night's selection was not necessarily up my alley. Classical music is tricky for me, there is no grey zone, either I feel compassionately about it or I don't. This was a "don't" kind of evening. The best part was "Symphony Bingo", a game I started to play with my new Russian friend Liz. One of the pieces was the final scene from the Opera Salome, a very difficult part to sing, I must admit, but that did not make it any prettier. It is one of those musical pieces, that If you do not really really really like classical music, you will NOT change your mind. At any moment I was expecting all the neighborhood cats to come in the door and join the auditory fracas going on (not to say that the soprano was bad, she did get a standing ovation.... hmmmh....). The opera was sung in German, and despite our best efforts we could not figure out where in the text listed in the program the performer was at any given moment. Whenever we recognized any word that she was singing, one of us said "Bingo!" Fun was had by all!

Sunday invited for a drive, so my friend Linda #3 and I headed up the Northshore to go antiquing - we centered our search around the area of Essex and Manchester-by-the-Sea/ Cape Ann and it was a lovely day to explore new areas. [http://www.cape-ann.com/aboutmanchester.html]. It was definitely relaxing after the Sunday morning I had, which involved some hectic caused by chores and an incident that involved my cell phone and a crockpot. Buster Keaton would have been proud.

Work is very busy these days, we have such a huge deadline coming up and an insurmountable amount of work leading up to it. Lots of late and early meetings, challenges and good learning experiences. We might be expecting some breathing room early next year. Maybe.

Of course I do have to end with a little amusement, so here is a scrap from a website called redsoxdiehard.com:

You might be a Bostonian if...
• You think of Philadelphia as the deep south.
• You think there are only 25 letters in the alphabet (no R).
• You think three straight days of 90+ degrees is a heat wave.
• All your pets are named after Celtics Hall-of-Famers.
• You refer to 6 inches of snow as a dusting.
• Just hearing the words New York puts you in an angry frenzy.
• You know the significance of 1918.
• Your favorite adjective is wicked.
• You think 63 degree ocean water is warm.
• You still can't bear to watch highlights from game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
• You believe using your turn signal is a sign of weakness.
• You don't realize that you talk twice as fast as everyone else.

On that note, cheerio!

pet:)