October 2005 Archives

Ah, the joys of Sunday roast and company. Yesterday we entertained a family (with three rambunctious children) from our church and one Cole Hamilton with a late lunch. I must say, we really McGwired that one, especially Tami with the roast and Linnea with the apple pies.

Afterwards, in true Great Hall fashion, we drank hot cocoa and played Squabble. Our church elder friend, Derek, is quite good, and he manhandled us on the five-letter minimum round. However, Keri and I held our own. At one point, I changed "dine" into "iodine", and at another, I sustained the words nun, zit, volt, and bloody all at once. The combination was too strange not to notice. Keri, like a good wine, improved with time. We decided to challenge our intelligent downstairs neighbor some time soon.

It's snowing. And it's sticking. Yikes.

But I made it a pleasant day. I love pretending to be a student at the Boston Conservatory when I practice for voice lessons every Saturday. I don't feel legitimate around all these hardcore music aficianados, but I try. And I can at least pretend.

Today, instead of going home right after practice, I trekked down Huntington Ave to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. What an exquisite collection. Isabella wanted her fellow Americans to enjoy the beauty of European art, and she did a dern good job. The four-story square building centers around a lovely courtyard with a glass roof and a collection of ferns and statues. I marveled at a 16th century French fireplace that could have roasted a whole elephant, it was so large. The most striking parts of the museum, though, were the empty frames where some Rembrandts, Vermeers, and Degas used to live. They were stolen in March of 1990 during the biggest art heist in American history, and a $5 million reward is still offered for their recovery. Priceless treasures, they are.

Transit police filled the station when I stepped off the train at Park Street, several of them lined up in front of the turnstiles as though playing Red Rover. I still don't know what that's about.

George Banks: A man has dreams of walking with giants,
To carve his name in the edifice of time.
Before the mortar of his zeal has a chance to congeal
The cup is dashed from his lips
The flame is snuffed a-borning
He's brought to rack and ruin in his prime.

My world was calm, well ordered, exemplary.
Then came this person with chaos in her wake.
And now my life's ambitions go with one fell blow.
It's quite a bitter pill to take.

It's that Poppins woman, she did it!
She tricked me into taking Jane and Michael to the bank
That's how all the trouble started.

Bert: Tricked you into taking the children on an outing?
Outrageous!
A man with all the important things you have to do
Shameful!

You're a man of high position, esteemed by your peers,
And when your little tykes are crying you haven't time to dry their tears
And see their grateful little faces smiling up at you
Because their dad, he always knows just what to do

You've got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone
Though childhood slips like sand through a sieve
And all too soon they've up and grown, and then they've flown
And it's too late for you to give.

What is it about me that makes me look
a) like a local
b) friendly?

There must be something, because several folks have stopped, sometimes mid-driving down a four lane highway, to ask me where things are. On Saturday, while I waited in Harvard Square for Keri to walk with me to the regatta, a young couple strolling by inquired about how to get to the Charles River. They seemed embarrassed, as they should have been, because all they had to do was follow the hordes of brightly-colored crew teams. But I was pleased to oblige and thrust my hand in the right direction. Sidenote: it was a fun regatta, ordering coffee with the Georgia Tech team at Peet's and canoodling on the bridge with an attractive Dutch team from Amsterdam. Such diversity, except we decided that the only requirement for joining a crew team must be attractiveness.

Others have asked what you would expect in this town: where is this or that school? I've been asked where both Northeastern and Tufts are, and sadly, I couldn't answer either. And then there are those who ask where "Boston" is. That happened yesterday when a mini-van pulled up to where all five of us were waiting to picked up by the bus to go to church. We exchanged understanding glances when we saw the license plate reading "South Carolina." Distraught that they didn't give us a friendly lift, though, as we waited half an hour in the unfriendly cold.

Then there are the satisfying ones, the questions you know only a true local can answer. That happened this morning. "Where's Kimball Road?" they asked, yelling at me from their car. "Four blocks that way," I responded, pointing west. They thanked me and sped on their way. So glad that's a bus stop on my route home.

I renewed Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem at our two-blocks-away library today. It's such a dense book and I'm inspired to finish it. In some ways I like it better than The Lexus and the Olive Tree because it flows more like a story (or a series of stories) and is not so repetitive. The narrator, Friedman, develops as a character in his own narrative, provides insight and analysis of his experience in Beirut and Jerusalem, and constructs it around a historical perspective that is still relevant. The book is compelling because it's enlightening, and I've found myself better equipped to sympathize with and understand the reasons for the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

at the swing of a bat.

Watch the video and experience the beauty. I only wish I'd had the gumption to stay up myself. There is rarely a thing more beautiful and devastating than a game-winning, top o' the ninth, two-out homer. Particularly when the best hitter hits it off one of the best pitchers. Particularly when it keeps a team who's never seen the light of the World Series from seeing it yet again...for now. Beautiful.

Each day at 7:15AM I pass our local Dunkin' Donuts (featuring Keri's favorite hot chocolate). Each day I see the same groups of elderly men, gathered around small tables and enjoying what has come to be known as a legitimate cup of coffee. I haven't tried it, so I don't know. It's an odd reality, though, Armenians of similar age who've created a local-flavored enclave out of a chain store. I still expect to see them at the Deluxe Town Diner and not at the Dunkin' Donuts, but such an image acts as a microcosm of American culture.

Kinda reminds me of this article in the New York Times. Although not directly related to what I was talking about, it still smells of globalization.

I just found out that my boss was/is a roadie for the band Yes. Yes!

Changes of season bring about changes in mood. A typical person will get more reflective when she hears leaves crunching under her feet. I guess I'm that typical person. But I'm feisty, too, awash in October playoff fever and hard to resurrect until November rolls around. At least I'm not a BoSox fan right now.

Yesterday I jogged to the Charles River. At 4:30 it was already early evening, and the muted light splashed off the morphing leaves in a delicate display of color. Female crew teams were out practicing for the Head of the Charles Regatta, while coaches barked orders and encouragement from their small motorboats. The symmetry of human movements against the silk top of the water will be a beautiful thing to watch, I think.