I flew into Boston Wednesday night, got a shuttle to the T station, jumped on the blue line and after two familiar transfers and a short cab ride, arrived at the Arlington home of my friend Manish, with whom I had worked at Frictionless Commerce. He and his wife have a great apartment just one block off of Mass. Ave. so in the morning, I just walked down the street and within minutes caught a bus straight into Harvard Square. Long live public transportation!
Day 1: Thursday I met a friend who works at Harvard for lunch, then wandered around the area, window-shopping and noticing which stores and restaurants where still around and which had changed hands. I was particularly surprised that the House of Blues was gone, as well as a cute cafe called The Greenhouse which had offered giant black-bottom cupcakes and equally impressive 5-layer cakes in a diner-like setting with paintings of flowers on mirrored walls. I sat at The Coop for a while (the Harvard bookstore oddly pronounced like chicken coop rather than co-op) reading a book almost cover to cover about all of the different cooking cutlery and other kitchen devices, learning the names for some tools I had never heard of before as well as the styles of chopping, slicing, mincing, grinding, grating, etc. I then met up with some other friends for dinner at The Border Cafe- a Cajun/Mexican place with the tenderest little cornmeal crusted catfish bites.
Hua and his girlfriend Kristine, and Nick
Day 2: On Friday, I woke up to a massage appointment with my good friend Amy, who used to work with me at a law firm that no longer exists (my first job out of college), before redirecting her career to massage therapy. We grabbed lunch together afterwards, and then I headed downtown, where I walked from the end of Newbury Street through the Back Bay, Chinatown and “downtown crossing” areas. I warmed up at a Borders book store with Manish’s copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and had to tear myself away from the fascinating eccentricities of the over-industrialization and politically driven over-production of corn. While waiting to meet up with my friend Jason (also from the company formerly known as Testa, Hurwitz & Thibeault), I ducked into a vintage-inspired basement bar for a glass of wine and to observe the hopping happy hour Friday crowd. I had a seafood-filled dinner of fried calamari, raw oysters, raw clams, and seared scallops with Jason and his girlfriend Michele, and then made a brief stop in Davis Square (my old stomping grounds) for a drink at The Burren, an Irish pub that was featured in the very cute independent film “Next Stop Wonderland.”
Boston Common in the winter
Day 3: Saturday morning I took Manish and his wife Christina out to brunch at Sound Bites, what used to be a somewhat cramped little cafe with a line out the door, popular with the Tufts University crowd due to its proximity and pricing. Since I was last in Boston, it acquired the space next door and merged with what had been a Mexican restaurant, taking on many of the attributes of that restaurant’s design, and in my opinion losing much of it’s former “intimate” appeal. One small benefit was that the soup Nazi-like owner seemed to have warmed up to his guests a bit, and no longer made you feel uncomfortable if you weren’t ready to order when he came by the first time. But the mugs at the self-service coffee station were all uniform with the cafe’s logo on them, instead of the random one-of-a-kind assortment of Christmas, cartoon, and floral designs that were a quirky part of its former incarnation. Still, the whole grain crunchy waffles with a heaping serving of fruit on top would be sure to draw me back again and again if I still lived in that city.
Manish, Kristina, and the amazing fruit-topped multi-grain waffle!
Another former THT friend picked me up after brunch and drove us up the north shore to Gloucester, Mass. where she has a weekend gettaway condo used mainly as a base for scuba diving during the warmer half of the year. We stayed overnight there after she gave me a very comprehensive tour around the entire peninsula of Cape Ann, a peaceful place full of historic towns, lobster fishing, and lighthouses. She pointed out all the best dive spots, as well as the local scenes made famous by painter Edward Hopper, and we had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant before settling in for the night with the movie “American Graffiti” which she insisted we watch after I admitted to never having seen it.
Day 4: Sunday I felt like one of those batons that are passed by runners in relay races. Jacki drove me north towards the intersection of two freeways and Amy drove down from Portsmouth to collect me there- the quick hello, goodbye, and shuffling of suitcases from one trunk to the other must have resembled a quick drug deal going down on the side of the road. I spent the rest of the day and overnight with Amy in low-key girl-time mode. We walked around Portsmouth for a while, looking mainly for a birthday gift for her nephew, and after finally deciding which of the many fun games to try, we ripped open a cool puzzle that required the player to line up translucent pieces of fish in water areas and polar bears on land as per the layouts on about 25 different cards which had 5 different rating levels. They were actually very challenging just for us (and kind of addictive) although meant for 8-year-olds! We went for Indian food with her roommate in Dover and then sat around at home drinking wine and watching her make banana bread- boy the kitchen smelled good, even though we were stuffed to the gills at that point!
Day 5: This was the day I had been waiting for! The day I had flown to Boston for in the first place! The day I would get to meet MY new nephew Luca. I could hardly contain myself waiting for my sister to pick me up, pacing back and forth in Amy’s apartment, eager for that first view of the long-awaited 4-month-old ball of love! Boy was I glad I’d made the trip when I laid eyes on him!! Dark blue eyes, the chubbiest cheeks, and just the perfect big round head- I started calling him Buddha baby right away. We clicked immediately, and it’s a good thing, because I basically took care of him for the next 24 hours at St. Paul’s School, where my sister had a full day of interviewing scheduled down to the 5 minute increment. Strolling him around the snow-covered and cobble stone-pathed campus did not work out so well, but we had fun just hanging out at the guest house where we were all put up, and making short forays into town, testing out the car seat to stroller transitions, and one nice tour through campus with Luca hanging cozily in what seemed to me like a very primitive chest sling but worked excellently. He was happy all day except for one very brief episode of tears (both of us) due to what I’m still not sure.
Day 6: Day 6 simply consisted of more babysitting, then later in the day the logistics of getting back to Newburyport, where we rendezvoused with Thomas (almost 5) at Julia’s in-laws and spent the night before our flight to Ft. Lauderdale. My parents are spending a month at a friend’s condo in Pompano Beach, so after my own relay race from Anchorage to Seattle to Boston, we next headed south for the impromptu family reunion. We were picked up from the stressfully hectic airport in a big grey minivan, pappa Rivellino at the wheel (what a funny sight!) and the six of us were together for the first time ever! The five of us were together last for Christmas in Germany over two years ago, so this sort of gathering is very unusual! Next year my sister and her family hope to be living in the U.S. again, and with my parents retired, they also spend more time stateside, so hopefully we’ll be able to do this more often from now on. At any rate, we spent the week playing at the pool, playing at various nearby beaches, having 3 leisurely meals (plus at least a few more snacks) each day out on Nicki’s porch overlooking the Palm Aire golf course, and taking just a couple of longer field trips to the Everglades and a nearby nature center.
Video of Thomas running circles at the Charlotte airport on our layover.
Dancing with Luca.
Pillow fight with Opa!
Highlights? Chicken fighting in the pool with Thomas on my shoulders (and winning!); making Luca produce his adorable baby giggle and big gummy smile by singing and dancing around the room with him in my arms; sitting around the dinner table in perfectly comfortable nighttime temps drinking wine and chatting with the adult members of the family; Thomas getting stung multiple times by the dismembered blue tentacles of a Portuguese Man O’War jellyfish-like creature (not that part) and getting to brag about it later (that part)- plus the incident spurring the lifeguard to put up the purple flag, which signifies that there is potentially dangerous sea life in the water- now there’s some exciting action for his pain! Seeing my sister with her TWO SONS was totally amazing, though she is totally gender outnumbered! And seeing my parents, just back from a two week trip to Egypt and off to Vietnam as soon as the Florida vacation is over, retired yet seemingly more active than ever, was inspiring. Hopefully I’ll be able to hold up my end of the nucleus by creating a restaurant that they all can be very proud of! Even if they’re not proud of my dangling preposition. Ha ha.
Tabblo of family time in Florida here.
