It has been A WEEK, not just because my social calendar has exploded. I think Mercury was in retrograde or some other kind of weird celestial misalignment was in place, and that combined with the hot/humid/yucky weather we so cherish here in Massachusetts, made everyone insane. On Thursday one of my "favorite" members of our secretarial pool at work, who I believe should be taking mood-leveling drugs in the first place, pulled a stint on me that was quite disconcerting, and I think this coming Monday a clarifying conversation may be in order. I promise I won't start the conversation with "Are you insane"? - even though that might be pretty close to the truth. Oh well. It's all good, as they say.
The social calendar - just to give you an idea - Monday night, Community Running track workout: I had planned to restrain myself on account of that right heel of mine, which keeps giving me trouble, but armed with increased leg stamina on account of the spinning classes I have been attending (some of them at 6:30 AM), I just threw caution to the wind, and zipped. I felt strong, and powered through our exercises, but then of course the next day started limping around my house. I do have an appointment with my sports medicine clinic, so rest assured, I will take care of this little issue. After practice, my friend Diane and I headed to Asgard (http://www.classicirish.com/asgard_about.html) - an Irish pub and restaurant on Mass Ave. Reason for going there was the fact that they have 3 TV screens and we talked them into allocating one of them to the 15th stage of the Tour de France, which was won by our favorite Kazakhstan friend Alexandre Vinokourov.
Tuesday night - heading to Salem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem%2C_Massachusetts ) for the Cooper-Loesch book club evening - which included a little grill fest on the back patio of Casa Cooper, and a stroll to downtown Salem in search of ice cream. I must have had a serious sleep deficit from the weekend, because after returning home, I just laid down on the guest bed and drifted off into the sleep of the century. Steph had to actually turn the lights off for me (Thanks Steph - I felt so taken care of..... JJJ ).
Wednesday night I joined the German ExPats group for a get-together at Jacob Wirth's, the German restaurant in Boston's theater district (http://www.jacobwirth.com/ ) - which was tons of fun. All things German - beer, food, language - and a motley crew of Germans, Swiss, Austrians, German wannabes, supplemented by an assortment of folks who just happened to be there. My new friend Ingrid, who sat next to me, turns out to have lived in Oakland, CA - less than 2 blocks from where I lived. Small world!!
Thursday night I rode my bike, aka The Red Rocket, to Somerville to attend an evening with one of my favorite community theaters of choice - Theatre @ First, a troupe of which my friend and colleague Renee has been a member for quite some time now (http://www.theatreatfirst.org/ ). The program for the evening "C'est Levine" featured a series of one-act plays by California playwright Mark Harvey Levine and was in my opinion one of the best this group has put on. 7 different plays with 7 directors - great variety, tons of fun, and congrats to Renee for her innovative direction of "Passed Hordes". I had a grand time!!
Friday - heading out to Lexington, a most quaint town just outside of Boston, who claims fame as one of the first sites where all the hoopla in the American Revolution took place (John Hancock was born there, but so was Mia Hamm, US soccer playing babe). The dinner group crowd had decided to assemble there to join the Lexingtonians for a dose of 80's music provided by some cover band on the lawn in front of the visitor center, adjacent to the Minuteman Bike Path - pretty decent tunes, even though no one ever should pretend they are Prince if they are not.
Briefly to round out the report from last weekend in New Hampshire - on Sunday for the first time ever did yours truly get on a mountain bike (http://www.waterville.com/info/summer/biking.asp ). This was totally cool - you take a defunct ski lift up Snow Mountain (this two-seater lift is only used in the summer for mountain bikers, it does not run in the winter), and then bike down. The first part of the trail was intermediate, which made those of us who were new to this, test our balancing skills and, in my case, wish I had a different bike, since it was squeaking so loud as if a flock of angry birds was accompanying us the whole way. I enjoyed this tremendously (the biking, not the squeaking), in particular when the trail got easier and we could fly down the mountain; it almost looked as if I knew what I was doing.....
Well, it is Saturday, we had a little event this morning from Community Running - the group ran (almost) the entire length of the Freedom Trail, and Hilary and I provided the water/Gatorade stop at the USS Constitution in Charlestown. Breakfast followed at TeaLuxe on fancy schmancy Newbury Street in Boston (http://www.tealuxe.com/) and I am not going to tell you whatever else I got planned (except for that little date I got with a guy named Harry, last name Potter). You'll just have to wait until next week. But I am letting you know that I will be heading to Wales for three days in early August to do a bone marrow courier trip, so stay tuned. I will be looking at green grass, sheep and daffodils.
A couple of morsels to close with - I have officially won the "Ice Cream for Life" award from the Franconia Hiking Group as I exactly (to the foot) guessed the height of Mt Cannon during one of last weekend's bets. Secondly, a nicely worded review I read on Netflix about a movie that I thought was actually pretty good ("Winter Passing" with Ed Harris, Will Ferrell and Zoey Deschanel), but I guess not everyone liked it: "Severely disappointing trip on the Depression Highway as we pull into Suicide City. "
My friends, it is time to go. The skies are getting darker outside, and I think a little downpour is heading our way.
Stay dry!
PetJ
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