Good Morning

This is what mornings look like around here lately...sometimes reversed, with Champ in the window and Barley on the chair, and occasionally with both of them sharing the window.

In A Box (Again)

Even after 6ish years, this guy never ceases to make us laugh every day.

Boldfacers

I was at an event tonight at the Boldfacers studio, home to this awesome display hanging from the ceiling. I have more to say about the event itself, but as it revolved around a book that I haven't read yet, I'm going to wait and say more about it once I've at least started, if not finished, the book!

Keep Cup

I've been wanting a Keep Cup for at least a year now, but they're made by an Aussie company and for a long time the shipping to the US was pretty expensive. A few weeks ago Leyre pointed out to me that they were on Fab, a flash sale site, and I immediately went and bought one. I love that they have smaller sizes (Eight ounces is a tall at Starbucks, and is very hard to find in travel mugs! Keep Cup even has FOUR ounce mugs!), I love that you can personalize it to mark your drink, I love that you can mix and match colors. As small part of me loves that it's an Aussie company, so I get a little reminder of my Aussie friends when I look at it and see "flat white" as one of the drink options you can choose to mark.

It turns out, I love my Keep Cup even more than I thought I would, which was already a lot! Even better, all the baristas at my most frequently visited Starbucks also love my Keep Cup, and I'm pretty sure I'm working my way quickly up the ladder to become their favorite customer. :) They love that the cup is already marked with my drink, and on the inside is a mark showing where to fill to 8oz, so they know exactly what size drink they need to make. Every time a new barista sees it they get all excited and talk about how cool it is and ask me where I got it, and I won't lie, it gets me all giddy that I found this awesome product that people haven't seen before.

And so now I'm making it my mission to spread the word. Buy a Keep Cup! Buy two! I don't need a travel mug at home, but I'm totally buying one that is all white with an orange band and plug on top. Then tell everyone else you know to buy one, because you'll love it as much as I do.

Overdue Number 1: Eat at Cafe Polonia

This is overdue, but I'm so glad that we made sure to do it! Number one on this past winter's To Do List was to eat at Cafe Polonia, a well renowned Polish restaurant located in Andrew Square in Dorchester - the heart of the Polish Triangle. This kept getting delayed over the winter, and the one Saturday we did make it there we were turned away because they were fully booked. I knew that the place was small and popular, but I certainly didn't expect to be told to "make a reservation and come back another weekend". I think that in the end, that actually made me even more determined to get there!

I should note that usually when I have a notion to try a new restaurant or to some type of ethnic cuisine, I have to do a certain amount of convincing to get Pete to go with me. This time around it was much easier - Pete only had to look at the menu once and he readily agreed to go with me. This time he even pulled a me and was scoping out the menu in the afternoon, planning what he would order! He may have done that with the intention of scoping out their beer list, which they don't have online, but it still made me think that maybe he was as excited for this as I was - and when it comes to food, that's just about never the case.

I got the Polish Plate, which is a sampler of pierogi (three different fillings - the potato and cheese were by far my favorite), kielbasa (tasty!), stuffed cabbage (I thought it was bland, we weren't fans), and bigos (lots of sauerkraut - not my thing). Pete got the Gypsy Pancake, which is two potato pancakes with goulash sandwiched between. It was INSANELY delicious. Pete also got the only dark beer they serve - a porter (seen above) that he absolutely loved. He basically wouldn't shut up about how good it was, and if you know Pete you know that "he wouldn't shut up" is not something people say about him, so it must really mean something!

We've already got our return trip planned - one order potato and cheese pierogis, one order kielbasa, and one order gypsy pancakes to share, leaving some leftovers to take home. Pete, I'm sure, will have at least one of those porters, and I'll be making sure to leave room for the chocolate babka cake for dessert!

Protective Custody

I can't keep my hands off my camera now that it has that new lens on it, and it was a slow morning at work, so here's a picture of one of the plants that I took custody of. It's a Christmas Cactus that was left behind by someone that now works from home, and some of the girls in staffing told me they would be happy to take care of it. They lied, and I got tired of walking to other side of the floor to water it (when I would remember), so I finally brought it back to my desk to add to my little jungle and (hopefully) bring back to good health.

Fiddy

I took my camera to Bromfield Camera (best photo shop in Boston!) the other day to have the sensor cleaned - for one because I was tired of having to photoshop a million little flecks of dirt and dust off every picture I took, and for another because I was pretty sure that the dirty sensor was causing a lot of problems with my focusing. I figured I'd get it cleaned to see if that would fix my focusing problem before I looked into a new lens.

Well, I have no idea if it did/would have fixed my focusing problem, because I asked the guys what it would cost to upgrade my lens (a manual focus 50mm) to one that would auto focus with my camera body, and it was a lot less than I expected. And they would take another $40 off for my lens (almost 40% of what I paid for it). So I left the store with a clean sensor and a new lens.

AND I LOVE IT.

AND THE CATS (AND PETE) HATE IT.

Music & Memories: Guster

Guster is, hands down, my favorite band. I loved them the second I first heard them, and I haven't stopped in the fifteen years since. As a result of listening to them constantly for so long and having seen them live a number of times, I have about a million vivid memories that come flashing back to me when I hear a lot of their music. Some of them are really awesome memories - like hearing Parachute, when all I can see in my mind's eye is the three of them standing on stage at The Bayou in Georgetown on an October night in 1997, my friend Christina standing next to me, and the crowd mesmerized while the dude running the lights (a fellow Catholic student!) put on a hell of a show -  and some of them are totally random and uninteresting – like hearing Architects & Engineers and picturing the barren parking lot at the Wollaston T stop, which I was walking across the first time I heard it. I added new memories this time around, thanks to Pete’s resolution to see more live music this year. J The picture above? Where they were standing at the edge of the stage ten feet from my face (did I forget to mention that we had awesome seats)? Yeah, that’s going to be in my head every time I hear Jesus on the Radio.

I was skeptical when I bought these concert tickets, because the tour was billed a “night of acoustic music and comedy” I was totally on board with the acoustic music, but I was not excited about the comedy. I am NOT a standup comedy fan, although I think that may have made Pete a bit more willing to go to this show with me so I should probably have been happy about it. It turns out that I had nothing to worry about – the opening act was a very green comedian from LA who was okay. Then Jeff Garlin (who you may know from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Or Daddy Day Care.) came out. And he was HILARIOUS. I loved him, I laughed the whole time, and I was happy to see him come back later in the show.

After my fears of hating the opening act were not realized, I was even more psyched when Guster  came out…with a violinist and a cellist, who were ridiculously amazing. The idea was that it’s a very chill, intimate show. They played a set with the strings, then the ladies left and Garlin came back out to emcee the “weird part of the show”, as Ryan called it – requests submitted online prior to the show, requests from the audience, requests from twitter. It was hilarious when someone requested a song off one of their early albums and they couldn’t guarantee that they remembered it. After finally remembering how it started, they promised to play as much of it as they could until they couldn’t anymore. I’m pretty sure I won’t listen to Love For Me again without picturing Adam and Ryan laughing at each other as they tried to play that song. After the “weird” (and also hilarious) part of the show, we traded Garlin for the strings once more, and they played another set that was equally awesome.

Am I the only one that has such vivid memories attached to music? It’s almost overwhelming sometimes to hear certain songs!

Snack

Some of the girls at work put together an eight week Healthy Living Challenge, and we're in week two. This has become one of my favorite snacks - an apple with almond butter. It doesn't always help me stay under my calorie goal, but it does get my points for eating my fruits!

Root, root, root for the RED SOX!

...If they don't win it's a shame.

And it was a shame. But we had fun anyway! Pete picked up a few tickets from a co-worker, and I snuck out of the office for a few hours to join he and Jamie for the game. The seats were awesome - immediately against the fence of the Tampa Bay bullpen, where there was a ton of hilarious interaction between their pitchers and the crowd.

The seats were also hot! It was 90° out (poor marathoners!) and we were in full sun for the entire game. I sweat my face off and managed to get sunburn on a small, crazy shaped patch on my back. There's always that one sunburn every spring just to remind you exactly how thoroughly you need to apply sun block, isn't there?

Being in the sun at Fenway, though...I'm not sure there's anything else that feels more like summer in Boston.

Nerd Fest 2012: Part 2

Earlier this week I came across information about a screening of Morgan Spurlock's latest doco, Comicon Episode IV: A Fan's Hope (watch the trailer), followed by Q&A with Spurlock himself. The Coolidge may not be local to us, but it's a great theater and we were more than happy to make the trek out there for this one! After all, our first date was a (super romantic!) Spurlock doco. And this one is about NERDS. It was like we had no choice but to go.

Castle Island

Remember when I put "buy a bike and ride it" on a zillion of my seasonal to do lists before I actually did it? I've been making up for lost time and riding the heck out of that bike lately...even though the front gear doesn't shift properly so going uphill is significantly less than enjoyable.

I knew I wanted to go on a longer bike ride today, and I prefer to ride on some kind of scenic bike path whenever possible, so I mapped out a few options before I left the house. Because I'm crazy, I chose the longest loop. Eighteen miles, from Quincy along Dorchester Bay and then Boston Harbor to Castle Island, and then home again. I brought my T Pass with me because if it all proved to be too much, I could bail around mile 11 and hop on the T to get home.

And yet I knew when I left the house that I wouldn't do that, that I would be too happy riding my bike to "cheat" and take the T part of the way home, no matter how tired I was. And I was tired! I stopped halfway to wait in the looooooong line at Sullivan's and get a frozen yogurt (you need to fuel for a ride that long!) and I climbed up the hill and found a patch of sunny grass and enjoyed the view while I finished my yogurt. I had plenty of water with me, and even with a headwind all along the beach in South Boston, I wasn't ready to stop riding when I got to the peninsula with the JFK Library and UMass Boston...so I just kept riding. My quads were killing me, my butt was sore, and there was no way I was getting off my bike yet. I took another short break around 15.5 miles, once I got back to our old stomping grounds at JPII Park, then made my way home.

And collapsed from exhaustion.

Number 4: Attend a live taping of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

I have more laugh out loud moments while listening to Wait Wait than I do watching any show on TV (possible exception: Big Bang Theory), so I've been thinking that it would be fun to visit Chicago sometime when we're already in that neck of the woods visiting Pete's family. Because we're planning a trip out there in June, I went to the Wait Wait ticket site and it turned out that they were going to be in Boston...and tickets were going on sale a few days later. I put it on my calendar, recruited friends to go with me, and then stalked the ticketing page for days until I was able to snag four seats. And then I waited approximately forever for April 12th to get here.

You guys! This was so fun that it makes me want to move to Chicago so I can go every week. You should make it a point to a) listen to the show as often as possible, and b) attend a live taping. There is so much that is edited out of the show that is equally hilarious. After two hours of watching them tape, my cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much. It was so awesome.

For all my DC Metro family and friends, they'll be taping in Bethesda on Thursday, June 7th. Go here and read about tickets, and then be sure to buy some and go!

Nerd Fest 2012

I know a lot of gamer-geeks, so when Penny Arcade Expo comes to Boston I hear a lot about it. I'm fascinated by nerd culture, am friends with a handful of folks that work in the industry, and know more than the average non-nerd about things like live action role playing, 8 bit music, and nerdcore. This means that I'm super interested in going to PAX to observe, but not super interested in paying to do it. I emailed Norm (above) earlier in the week to let him know that if someone had a three day pass but didn't want to go all three days, or was going to leave early one day and I could borrow their pass for the afternoon, I would love to do so. I woke up this morning to a text from Norm asking if I really wanted to go and if I was willing to check out the board games with him, and of course I said yes, and then got overly excited.

I picked the wrong day to go (well,  I didn't really pick. There was a problem with my approach) because it turns out that there were at least five different panels on Friday and Saturday that I would have loved to see. I would have loved to see the concert on Saturday night, and there were a few other events going on Friday and Saturday that I thought looked really cool...and on Sunday there was next to nothing on the schedule that excited me - just a panel that I was only half-interested in, but a friend was speaking on. Also: not nearly as many folks in costume show up on Sunday. Bummer!

Norm and I walked the expo floor and checked the lines for a few things he hadn't seen yet (they were all longer than he wanted to wait in), entered a raffle to try to win him fancy computery things, and filled out a few surveys to get free t-shirts (I gave mine to Pete - except the one I got that says "may contain awesome" on the front, that one I kept). We checked out the board game demos and taught ourselves how to play one game, which Norm ended up buying (and I even liked, despite the intimidating and über-nerdy character cards involved).

In the end, I realized that next year I really should cough up the money for the three day pass and then spend most of my time at the panels and events, while making sure to work my way through the expo floor at least once in order to update Pete's collection of free t-shirts.

Number 3: Visit the Harvard Museum of Natural History

This has long been on my list of things to do, especially as I hear over and over again about the glass flowers exhibit (see below). Perhaps the most appealing part of this "To Do" was that I knew I would be able to do it for a discount, if not free, since I wasn't 100% sure I was going to love it but was starting to feel like I had to go already.

FYI: the HMNH participates in the Bank of America Museums on Us program - which means free admission to the museum during the first full weekend of the month when you show them your Bank of America debit or credit card - and also gives a small discount on admission if you show them your plastic Charlie Card. They have free admission for Massachusetts residents on Sundays between 9am and noon, as well as Wednesdays from 3-5pm between September and May. See what I'm saying? You should never pay full price to get into this museum.

Now that I've filled you in on my miserly ways, let's talk about the actual museum! I went straight to the glass flowers....partly because they were the main objective of my visit, and partly because they're immediately in front of you when you walk up the stairs to the floor the exhibits are on. The room is darkened in order to help preserve the flowers, and there were at least two docents walking around and answering questions. They offered up a magnifying glass that had a little built in flashlight to some visitors, as well. I'm pretty sure this exhibit is better if you get your hands on one of those magnifying glasses. I was immediately struck by the realization that while I knew this was a museum about nature and not art, I was totally expecting something very artistic, and that is NOT what this is (duh). It's very cool - it's amazing workmanship and I'm pretty sure that if you are interested in gardening or flowers you could easily spend a lot of time in this exhibit. I, however, am interested in neither gardening or flowers, and so I wandered the aisles amazed that these things I was looking at weren't real, but rather were made of glass. It's honestly unbelievable, you look in the display cases and think you're looking at a somehow perfectly preserved live specimen. I really wish they had more information on the actual making of the glass flowers, but I get how that's not really the point so I should just shut up and move on. ;) The flowers are organized alphabetically by their Latin names (pretty sure there's a scientific term for that and I don't know what it is) and I would have loved to see them organized in a way that's more approachable to the general public - by native region maybe? I think that would be much cooler.

I moved from the glass flowers into the mineral hall, which was a mistake. Minerals are pretty and cool to look at, but I felt like there wasn't really much in the way of education going on in there. I found plenty of pretty and/or cool things to look at, I just had no idea what they were most of the time. After the mineral hall is an exhibit on climate change, and then you turn a corner to the Peabody Museum...which is separate but not? It is all archeology/anthropology I believe, and I decided to skip it this time around.

Here's what I should have done from the start: turn left at the top of the stairs. This is where all the stuff you expect from the museum of nature-y things are: fossils, specimen in jars, taxidermy animals, skeletons! And it's the best part, in my opinion (also sometimes the freakiest part, as there were at least three occasions where I turned around from something interesting and innocent and was faced with live snakes, taxidermy snakes, or snakes in a jar...and of course I freaked out and walked away as quickly as I could without looking like a freak). I thought the exhibit on color in nature was super interesting (see natural variations within a species exemplified by the shells in the big photo above). 

The whole time I was at the museum I was thinking about if I would go back, or under what circumstances I would go back. In the end, I realized that I was mostly disappointed in the flowers and the minerals because they had little in the way of actual education worked in with the exhibit - they were there to look at, almost more of a "look at us! We're Harvard and we have the most extensive collection or meteorites/minerals/glass flowers in the world!" and geared towards people who will walk into those exhibits and know exactly what they're looking at. The rest of the museum seemed to be a much better mix of education/straight up display, and those were the parts I liked - the climate change exhibit, the evolution exhibit, the color exhibit. The rooms of taxidermy animals and skeletons were also cool, even though they were also missing the addition of any significant educational tools.

Do I just expect too much? Should I just be going to museums and looking without expecting much in the way of education? Maybe I just don't get how museums are supposed to work.

Number 8: Get a burger at Mr. Bartley's

...and be disappointed.

Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage in Harvard Square is widely known as "the best burger in Boston", probably due to the abundance of acclaim in both local (Boston Globe, Improper Bostonian, etc...) and national (Esquire, New York Times, Gourmet) press. I made the mistake of reading a number of reviews on Yelp, where Bartley's has only a 3.5 star rating, and I may have been biased from reading them before I visited.

The place is packed, all of the time. They are also closed on Sundays (and often on holidays as well) and for a few weeks at a time for vacations, which used to be posted on their website but don't appear to be anymore. These two things are the sole reason that I haven't had a burger here before - it wasn't for lack of trying. In the past I've either rocked up on President's/Columbus/some holiday Day and learned that they were closed, or the line has been halfway down the block and I was too hungry to wait. This time I learned the key to avoiding the line: eat alone (or in my case, in the company of the very funny Mindy Kalig, via Kindle). Eating alone (and possibly in a pair) means you can sit at the four person bar, and the seats there turnover much faster than the tables. They are just as crowded as the tables, though, so don't think that this approach will earn you any more personal space while you eat.

It turns out that the appeal of this place is the variety on the menu, not the quality of the food. There are dozens of topping combinations available, with amusing names and tag lines for each, although who knows why those toppings earned that name. I got the Joe Kennedy III - topped with grilled mushroom and cheddar cheese. The grilled mushrooms were charred, which pretty much ruined the entire burger (which was a true medium, but tasted charred because of the mushrooms). The fries are reminiscent of the fries that BK put out in the lat 90's - remember when they were all "our new crispier fries!" and it wasn't really that the fries were fried crispier, they just had some weird coating on them that made the exterior crispy while the inside of the fry was just as mushy? That's what these fries were like. The bun was nothing special.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's not worth it to stand in line here. You're better off walking the two and a half blocks to Flat Patties if you find yourself in Harvard Square and wanting a burger...even if there isn't a line at Mr. Bartley's.

Is it weird that I was sad to have been so disappointed?

Challenge

While I was at Club MGH last month, my hematologist wasn't convinced that I really am responsive to DDAVP - the drug used to help control my bleeding when I have "a bleeding incident" due to my von Willebrands. The result is that I got to spend six hours this morning back at Club MGH (again with a great view!) doing a DDAVP Challenge. This is how it works:

8am: show up at Pediatric Infusion Office, confused about why I'm being sent to Pediatrics. (I may act five years old, but I'm not.) Realize that the scheduler in my hemo's office sent me to the wrong place, go down the hall to the Big People Infusion Office and check in.
9am: Nurse shows me to my chair, home for the next half day, and comments on what a great view I have.
9:15am: Lots and lots of blood is drawn. Some to establish baselines for the DDAVP challenge, some to test (for the second time) that I really do have Type 2B vWD, because when they ran the test the first time my proteins were doing crazy things that could mean I don't have vWD but instead have some other very very rare blood disorder.
9:25(ish)am: Nurse starts the drip of DDAVP, then leaves to hand deliver all the blood she stole from me to the lab.
9:30am: Face is on fire. I can feel my pulse pounding as if it's out of control. My lips and mouth are super tingly. I'm seeing lots of stars. This is 100% normal for a DDAVP drip, but knowing that and having been through it before doesn't make it feel any less bizarre.
9:46am: DDAVP drip is complete. T-minus one hour until next blood draw!
10:46am: Time for the next blood draw to see if the DDAVP is doing anything. Much reading has been done, as has much lamenting of the fact that I didn't know I would have a personal TV and DVD player, so I should have gone to Red Box. The lamenting is exaggerated by the fact that the woman across from me has a friend with her, who was smart and brought The Hangover II, so I have to listen to them breaking into hysterics every two minutes.
11:45(ish)am: The super sweet and awesome volunteers come around with lunch. Turkey sandwich, fruit cup, and water. Not the tastiest lunch ever, but I didn't even expect to be fed, so I was pretty happy. Reading is getting old, so it's time to take advantage of this personal TV.
12:00pm: You know what stinks? Day time TV. Even when you have cable channels available to you.
1:46pm: Final blood draw! Woohooo! This one tells them if the DDAVP has moved out of my system too quickly, I think. Lucky for me, all of my blood draws today were through the extra fancy IV, so I get to leave with only one hole and not a single "Oops! I missed the vein!" bruise.
2:00pm: Adios, Club MGH! Time for a (chilly, but sunny) walk down Charles Street on my way home.

My nurse was awesome! She knew more about vWD than some medical professionals I've dealt with in the past (*cough*DrEricfromtheERinBaltimore*cough*), and had administered DDAVP challenges before so was super sweet, making sure I knew about and felt okay when I started feeling flush and tingly. The volunteers that came around with snacks and lunch were also awesome, as was the random gentleman that was there with his wife while she was getting an infusion, who would check with me to see if I wanted anything every time he passed by to get his wife a snack or drink. (I know he has no affiliation with the hospital, but he made me smile so I thought I should mention him, too.)

I can't say enough how great everyone I've dealt with at MGH in the last few months has been. I feel like you go into any kind of hospital visit or extended dealing with the hospital and expect it to be a complete mess, but even with the few hiccups I've had since I was admitted in February, it's been super easy and almost pleasant to go to all of the appointments I've had!

Number 1: Celebrate Random/Awesome Holidays

I had to make an early morning trip to the grocery store to buy waffle mix (and whipped cream - not essential, but essential, you know?) to make it happen, but we rang in International Waffle Day with a tasty waffle breakfast!

A List: Things To Do This Spring

Here's what's going to happen this spring!

1. Celebrate random (/awesome) holidays often - i.e. National Cheese Fondue Day, Scrabble Day, Hug an Australian Day, National Limerick Day, etc... DONE! And again! And a few other times I didn't post about, too!
2. Restart my running habit - one race per month from May to October! DONE!
3. Visit the Harvard Museum of Natural History ($1 discount with Charlie Card - free Sundays before noon - free the first weekend of the month with Bank of America credit or debit card)   DONE!
4. Attend a live taping of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! DONE!
5. Rearrange and decorate the bedroom
6. Look into (and start?) volunteering at the Quincy Animal Shelter
7. Ride my bike to Nut Island on a beautiful day  DONE!
   
8. Get a burger at Mr. Bartley's  DONE!

It's getting harder and harder to make these lists! Is it possible that I'm running out of things to do in and around Boston? Yikes. I need to find a sponsor so that I can add more out of town things to my lists. Who's got some money for me?! ;)

What's on your to do list this spring?


Need some inspiration for your own Seasonal To Do List? Check out some of my past lists!
Winter 2012
Fall 2011
Summer 2011
Spring 2011

(Almost) Seventy

What do you do for someone who is turning seventy and has everything he wants? You tell him that one sister-in-law, one brother-in-law, one daughter, one son-in-law, two granddaughters, and one grandson are coming to visit. And then when you show up, there are actually three daughters, three granddaughters, two son-in-laws (sons-in-law?), one sister-in-law, one brother-in-law, one son, and one grandson. Plus some fancy Scotch, a delicious homemade olive oil and grapefruit cake, and tasty Italian pastries.

Thanks for being born, Dad, and thanks for being an amazing person and a great father!