Lost in Boston

(Second attempt to write this, obviously the spirits of Boston are sneaky and can crash Firefox at will!)


“Unexpected travel plans are dancing lessons from God” – Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cat’s Cradle

Ok so here I am in Boston (Ok Newton, for you purists), down here for the week for training with Veritas, and as fate would have it my friend Adam is both busy, and not feeling well, and Ozz hasn’t gotten back to me yet about getting together, so I guess I’m on my own. After looking around at what’s out in the Theaters now, I find ‘Shaun of the Dead’ a film that appears to be just silly enough to fit my mood, and I find a nearby relatively easy-to-find theater that has it starting at 7:20 so I quickly get directions from Mapquest and rush to my car.

The directions seemed simple enough, get on 95/128S to exit 20A, get on rt 9, turn left on Chestnut Hill and the theater is right there. HAH. Boston, the town where road signs are optional, wins this round. I happen upon another theater though and optimistically park to see whats playing. The only thing starting anytime close to when I arrived there was ‘The First Daughter’, a movie that I think i’d pay NOT to see.

So, defeated, a wander back to my car and decide that I’ll wander off into the streets of Boston. To Rt 20 to Rt 60E to 2A (or something paralell to it) till suddently the fates finally smiled upon me and led me to ..tah dah!…Davis Square, a place I have been to with friends and via the T in the past, and I even found a restaurant I liked, and parking nearby.

I had a yummy quick dinner at Anna’s Taqueria, a restaurant my friend Totally had taken me to years ago. Yum.

I then wandered around Davis Square looking for a payphone since i’m pretty sure Davis Square is relatively close to either Adam or Ozz and, if nothing else, they could tell me how to get out of there without the risk of ending with a ‘bonfire of the vanities’ type but apparently payphones in Boston are few and far between.

I poked my head in the Somervilel Theater but all their movies were not beginning at a convenient time. There was a line of about 20+ ‘Gothy College Kids’ and I couldn’t figure out what they were buying tickets to go see, my only guess is that they were pre-selling tickets to Rocky Horror or something else. As far as I can tell from the website though, this is not the case so that mystery will remain unsolved. What are those crazy kids up to?

I poked my head into Johnny D’s since it was singer songwriter night. However, the room had like 5 people in it and the woman at the door told me it was $7 to hear the performers. The person on stage at the time was playing an electric keyboard and singing a jazzy song, which wasnt my thing anyways, and for $7..er no.. She told me I could sit at the bar and listen, but that interested me about as much as the bad jazz vocals so I left. Had there been a person with a guitar performing, or had the music been a little more up beat I might have forked over the cash. I’m a sucker for a singer songwriter, just ask all the street performers I’ve funded over the years 🙂

So finally I gave up on the payphone quest, hopped in my car and picked a direction to drive in. Eventually I hit 93 and headed north on it until in T’s with 95 and found my way home while listening to part of the debates on the radio.

So while Boston prevented my from finding the theater I wanted, it did arrange for a yummy dinner and a quick return home, so it could have been worse. It’s not so bad being lost in Boston if you don’t have a destination in mind when you set out.

Also – Is it sad that as I was getting lost i was thinking about writing this entry? My title, before I found Anna’s was going to be ‘Boston you fickle bitch’ 🙂

-Matt

An Owen Update

OK here are a few more Owen stories, those these aren’t as humorous as the last batch but they are good glimpse into the Owen of September 2004. (16 months)

Hitting 🙁 – Much to our chagrin, Owen has recently started hitting things with his hands including us, the dogs, the cats, his toys.. just about everything at times. He’s pretty strong and should he get you at the right angle it can hurt, though most of the time it’s just surprising and mildly annoying. We’re doing our best to try to stop him from doing this without getting angry, or worse laughing, but seeing as we cant really communicate with him much yet, it’s difficult to get the point across that this isn’t something we appreciate. Yesterday when he was hitting Emily she tried telling him exactly what we tell him when he starts hitting our cat Goblin; ‘Gentle’. He immediately stopped hitting her and started petting her arm lightly (just like we’ve shown him you’re supposed to do with the cat). Of course 5 seconds later he started trying to hit Emily again, but it’s progress.

Trash Can – Right now our kitchen trash can is just a tall plastic one. We’re realizing the benefits of the type of can that has a more complex release to open it as Owen has taken to throwing lots of objects from around the house into it. This morning I had just changed the garbage bag (luckily) when Owen took several of the pots, pans and lids he had so helpfully emptied from the kitchen cabinets and tossed them in there. Who knows what other items he’s put in recently that we didn’t know about. I know on several occasions we’ve found cables to my computer, books, magazines, his toys etc. in various cans around the house. Of course, he is also very good at removing things from the trash that should be in there, like dog hair, wrappers. Oh and our recycling bins have to be kept glass free, since they are emptied often. Large 1 liter soda bottles are particularly fun to take out, hit things with and then stuff into the garbage. I guess Owen doesn’t believe in recycling, just reduce and reuse.. then toss.

Graham Crackers – Owen LOVES graham crackers. He regularly goes over to the cabinet we keep them in and points at it and grunts, jumps up and down, flails in the direction of the cabinet and does anything else he can think of to get our attention pointed in that direction. He jumps up and down and giggles when we give him one. However, once he gets them he doesn’t eat them right away, he’ll carry it around with him for a while, eating it slowly… savoring the moment I guess. This works fine except when he passes within range of a dog (often one that for all intents and purposes appears fast asleep), at which point he is prompty disarmed by a fast snout and greedy tongue. This of course infuriates him but makes the dogs very happy. Thus we give him another graham cracker, now with the dogs actively sniffing him and do our best to defend him and escort him into his fenced off dog-free play area, affectionately referred to as the ‘O Zone’. I think he’s getting better at keeping the crackers off the dogs radar but still occasionally forgets.

That’s all for now.

-Matt