I seem to have a knack for picking flight itineraries that either turn into mini disasters or at least some kind of irksome adventure – this time demonstrated by my flight to Washington, DC on Thursday evening. My fellow travelers and I bound for our nation’s capital had expected an on-time departure as promised, but at some point when a not very official looking, uniform-less flight mechanic sort came to the microphone and announced that we had no plane, but there was one in a hanger somewhere they could dig out, we raised our eye brows just a wee bit in concern. “There is time”, we thought, and settled back into those comfortable airport seats of ours. As the departure time approached, we did get a wee bit more worried, and this increasing discomfort was not alleviated when another guy (this one was wearing a uniform, even though he could have been anybody and stolen the darn thing) informed us that our plane-to-be had left the hangar about 15 minutes ago and should be at our gate shortly. They were not quite sure where the jet was at the present time, and as far as we knew, the bird either got lost somewhere driving around the Logan runway or had planned to drive down to DC and was currently heading down Interstate 93 in search of the Mass Turnpike.
A little after 7 PM, which was our originally scheduled departure time (or maybe it was much later, I certainly had no idea), the wayward plane did show up, and to be honest, the look of it did not inspire a lot of confidence. It resembled a car that had been driving around Boston for too long with all the scrapes and dents that come along with trying to drive in that car-friendly Commonwealth of ours. Nevertheless we got in, settled down and eagerly anticipated our flight to DC. We started coasting toward the runway, but then stopped fairly soon and at this point the pilot informed us that there was a “systems” issue, nothing to worry about of course, but they better run some checks before we head up 33,000 feet. I can safely say that all the passengers agreed with him at this point, and we went back to our respective books, magazines, newspapers, I-Pods, cell phones, and whatever else we were playing with.
15 Minutes later the captain confidently and with a certain contagious enthusiasm announced that “our little problem” was fixed and we were ready to go. Joy spread across the plane like wild fire – we were off!! Wrrongggggg!!! Half-a-mile down the runway, we stopped again, and while we had hoped that this was simply because we were in the take-off queue, quite the opposite was true. In what can only be described as a deja vu-groundhog-day-ish weirdness that followed, our friend, the captain gave yet another speech, telling us that the “little problem” had re-emerged and that we wound now head back to the gate to get us a new plane, which apparently was waiting for us already at gate B-16. Our expectations that this would actually happen was not a confident one, but miracles of miracles, it was!! I have never been moved from one plane to another that quickly. All systems seemed to be working in the new plane and from that moment on everything moved at warp speed. We finally made it to Bethesda, Maryland, our final destination, a bit after 11 PM, dead tired, only to have to get up again at 6:30 to start attending the conference and listen to scientific presentations (preferably with my eyes open).
Not that the few days before where any more restful or devoid of hectic. Wednesday night, at 9 PM, I not only had to pack but also zip down to Braintree, a city south of Boston to meet up with my tax accountant, who is a tad on the unconventional side, but very affordable and brilliantly fast, and within one hour (no kidding), she was done, the forms were all sent to the IRS electronically and I was spared the nervous breakdown I would have suffered had I attempted to do this myself. I (and my bank account) were very pleased with the outcome of the returns and it looks like the trip to New Zealand in the fall is definitely going to happen.
Thursday before I left, I hosted a pharma company, and was on my feet all day long, shuttling from one end of town to the other, and finally to the airport, and honestly it does not help if the cab driver, who seemed to have acquired his license by finding it in a cereal box, is an expert at jerking the car back and forth every few seconds and the chance of my discharging my lunch in his car (which I am sure he would have not appreciated) increased with every second. Come to think of it, there should be classes for cab drivers, “Anti-Nausea Driving 101”, “How to say Hello”, just to name a couple, which would definitely help to sway my opinion of these insane vehicle operators toward the positive.
Other evenings this week were spent with tax preparations, and a most memorable visit to the gym, where yet again, I got sucked in big time by the mesmerizing selection of TV programming on my exercise bike. God knows I need it (the exercise, not the TV programming), but after 2 hours of watching “Project Runway” I thought the gym staff had to get me off the bike with a pry bar. This is so pathetic.
Speaking of mesmerizing, the conference itself was not quite as dazzling as I had hoped, but it was good and professionally important, so there you go. Of note was the fact, that quite a few presenters used the word “whammy” in their scientific lectures, even on occasion with its favorite prefix “double”. In one of my favorite moments during the conference, one of my fellow attendees, previously located a row ahead of me, with a terrified and repulsed look on her face, suddenly sought refuge on the seat next to me. Apparently the at-first-glance distinguished looking gentleman in front of her emitted some kind of odors, definitely on the unpleasant side, not the slightest bit distinguished, and according to my new friend Meena, he “smelled as if he had been constipated for years” and that “a whole whammy of bamboo shoots would do him a lot of good.” We kept ourselves amused during the entire session by seeing conference participants aiming for the spare seat next to Mister Smelly, sitting down and after a few seconds looking around with that same terrified look on their faces, grab their backpacks and quickly aim for a section with better sensory stimuli and decent air quality.
Another highlight, less on the anecdotal side, was that the wonderfully kind organizers of the conference (with a little friendly nudging of my colleague and friend Michel) invited me to the “President’s Dinner” Friday night, which took place at the most magnificent Georgian mansion, the Strathmore in North Bethesda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Strathmore_mansion2.jpg). Originally, the turn-of-the century (19th to 20th) historic building started out as a music center and over the course of its history, performances by small chamber ensembles, formal tea parties and gallery exhibits brought this spectacular building to life. Nestled just a little below the mansion, the 190,000 square foot, 1976-seating Music Center was established in 2005, and assumed the role of the premiere concert hall and musical education center in the area. It hosts more than 150 concerts per year and 75 arts and education classes. (http://www.strathmore.org/)
It was a charming evening, with a stroll through the gallery, a most delectable meal and several “speeches from the heart”. My section at the table was quite international, actually mostly European, and featured representation from Greece, Germany and France. The nice Chateau-Neuf du Pape wine must have had quite an impact on the dinner guests, as we saw a few of them scribbling ideas for clinical trials on the back of some of the menu cards. Life seemed good. Of course, many of us have had good ideas at one point or another during a wine-infused evening, only to later discover that whatever we wrote on the dinner napkin made no sense at all.
So - I actually wore this update earlier this afternoon with a bit of time to spare at Ronald Reagan Airport in DC, which is actually quite a nice airport except for the fact that you cannot understand a single announcement on the overhead system. You have to listen very carefully, and should you by mere chance or miracle decipher your destination name in the midst of a whole lot of gibberish you better get to your gate and check. Else you could be sitting there for days.
Tomorrow I will be helping out my friends Ruth and Georges, whose fabulous apartment in Brookline got seriously smoke damaged when a house next door to theirs burned down last weekend. So a whole gang of us are having a packaging and recovery fest with plastic containers, latex gloves and some nice high calorie breakfast foods.
Happy Easter to all of you bunnies!
Pet:)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
#41 Boston - The Melting Continues - March 16, 2008
This time the appliance in question was not an oven, but a microwave, and even though I had strict instructions not to go anywhere near the Simmons’ family microwave up in Franconia, I happened to be in charge of dinner. So I just had to use the opportunity when no one was looking and melt something (some of you may rememb once made smoke coming out of the microwave and on another occasion exploded egg whites all over the poor little machine and thus was permanently prohibited from using any major appliances in the TImberlane home). The object to be melted this time was a Tupperware, and not one of those flimsy ones that would melt by you just looking at them; it did seem quite solid, and I swear Tupperware of this kind has been successfully heated up in microwaves around the world before. I cannot tell you for the life of me what was different about this one, possibly some inherent weakness not visible even to the trained eye, who knows. After a mere three minutes of trying to heat up a most delicious cauliflower-walnut soup I had made earlier, the plastic container in question looked as if a truck had hit it head on, and it took quite some finesse and skill to pry it open and rescue the soup. Despite some efforts of trying to push out the dent just as a car mechanic would to with a distorted fender, there was no help for the poor little repository and its only chance to escape death by recycling may be some use as a paint pail. A sad end to a promising career I must say, from culinary receptacle to turpentine hopper – and all of it is my fault, of course.
What made it even worse was that it was not even my Tupperware I melted (what else did you expect?), but one belonging to a friend of mine – and I am not naming names here – but this friend will receive a brand-spanking new plastic container soon. I am sure all of you are quite excited by now, and have a hard time containing yourselves. Could it be me?
Despite this second melting incident in a row, I seem to have escaped unharmed, no cut-up fingertips, no bleeding all over the place, that sort of thing. I have been reasonably healthy and quite content, and what is even more important, so has my heel. I can now report four weeks of being pain-free from my plantar fasciitis. I have snow-shoed twice in the past three weeks, have hiked along Crane Beach, and topped it off today with downhill skiing at Waterville Valley.
My good friend and time-honored hiking buddy Rick and I, accompanied by the best hiking dog of them all (Phoebe), headed up north Saturday afternoon in search of snow and fun. We did have Tenney Mountain in mind originally, either for tubing or to watch the cardboard derby, alas, due to a busy week and supported by liberal doses of Valium prescribed by my doctor, I hard a pretty hard time peeling myself out of bed, and by the time we got on the road, we simply decided on a snow shoe hike. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the weekend (maybe second only to the melting incident) – we stopped at The Basin at Franconia Notch (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=The+Basin+Franconia+Notch&gbv=2 – ignore the picture with the skein of wool, no idea what that has to do with anything) and snow shoed it up the Cascade Trail up to the Kinsman Waterfall (http://www.northeastwaterfalls.com/waterfall.php?num=196&p=0) . It was a pretty swell hike to say the least – water, snow and ice delighted in the most amazing formations, and the waterfall which was frozen solid, was just simply stunning.
The evening was spent in Franconia in very low key fashion, after a dinner that could have fed a platoon of soldiers, Rick and I both fell into a diabetic coma and while trying to watch an episode of the fabulous British series “Inspector Morse” both of us nodded off on our respective sofas, and neither of us could remember anything about the show. As a matter of fact, Sunday morning I was still so narcoleptic that I did not grasp the fact that the digital clock in my bedroom had not yet assumed daylight savings time. I thought it was 6 AM and kept wondering why Rick and Phoebe were rummaging around downstairs. We had originally planned to get up at seven to get to the ski slopes early, but thinking it was 6:30 AM when I peeled myself out of bed, I strolled comfortably in my pajamas downstairs, made a cup of tea, and did not know what do to with Rick’s slightly worried face, until I finally realized that I was just a wee bit behind the times (one hour to be exact) and better get myself in gear.
I stepped it up a bit and we hoofed it down to Waterville Valley, where a day of downhill skiing was on the agenda. Now due to my foot problems over the past eight months, I had not been able to go skiing as much as I wanted (despite all the fabulous snow up north), but I was so glad I went. I started off a little wimpy, Jell-O legs and all, and due to the valium felt a just a bit lightheaded, but after a solid warm up period on the easy slopes, I was good to go. I have to say a big thank you to Rick today, who taught me a lot, and at the end of the day I went home a proud little skier (of course it may be a little depressing that Rick’s niece Caroline who is 4 and just about reaches up to my knees, told me that she was doing black diamond runs…….).
It has been a busy week, full of culinary events (which is not really supportive of those plans of mine to get back in fighting shape, but I am working on it, and went to the gym twice at least). Wednesday night, my friend Ruth and I had a girl’s night out and headed to Ole Mexican Grill (http://www.olegrill.com/) near Inman Square, and I could kick myself for having lived near this neighborhood and never been there. It’s a crime I say!! The place is fantastic – the interior dipped in warm and inviting colors, the dishes heavenly delish – we are talking upscale Mexican cuisine – what a wonderful experience! The guacamole is made fresh for you on the table in one of those stone pots and absolutely divine; Ruth had duck with mole sauce, and I had some spicy pork dish with cilantro rice. Bottom Line: I must go back there, soon.
Thursday night, dinner group number two, “The Lab Rats”, consisting of the charming trio of Susan, Georgiana and Hannah livened up my home – the motto for the night was Italian food. Hannah delighted with an artichoke dip, Georgiana dazzled with a spinach-fennel-blood-orange, pecorinso cheese and roasted pine nuts salad, yours truly made “Pasta Con Salsa did Zucchini con Ricotta” and Susan, who is half Italian, delighted with some Italian lemon cookies whose name I forgot, but they were absolutely wonderful.
My friends, it is bed time, got to go get some zzzzzs. A busy week looms ahead, big pipeline presentation this Thursday and the same evening I am hopping on a plane to Washington, DC. I will be spending a couple of days in Bethesda, Maryland for a conference on targeted anticancer therapies and upon my return Saturday afternoon, I plan on sleeping at least 16 hours.
Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.
PetJ
What made it even worse was that it was not even my Tupperware I melted (what else did you expect?), but one belonging to a friend of mine – and I am not naming names here – but this friend will receive a brand-spanking new plastic container soon. I am sure all of you are quite excited by now, and have a hard time containing yourselves. Could it be me?
Despite this second melting incident in a row, I seem to have escaped unharmed, no cut-up fingertips, no bleeding all over the place, that sort of thing. I have been reasonably healthy and quite content, and what is even more important, so has my heel. I can now report four weeks of being pain-free from my plantar fasciitis. I have snow-shoed twice in the past three weeks, have hiked along Crane Beach, and topped it off today with downhill skiing at Waterville Valley.
My good friend and time-honored hiking buddy Rick and I, accompanied by the best hiking dog of them all (Phoebe), headed up north Saturday afternoon in search of snow and fun. We did have Tenney Mountain in mind originally, either for tubing or to watch the cardboard derby, alas, due to a busy week and supported by liberal doses of Valium prescribed by my doctor, I hard a pretty hard time peeling myself out of bed, and by the time we got on the road, we simply decided on a snow shoe hike. This turned out to be one of the highlights of the weekend (maybe second only to the melting incident) – we stopped at The Basin at Franconia Notch (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=The+Basin+Franconia+Notch&gbv=2 – ignore the picture with the skein of wool, no idea what that has to do with anything) and snow shoed it up the Cascade Trail up to the Kinsman Waterfall (http://www.northeastwaterfalls.com/waterfall.php?num=196&p=0) . It was a pretty swell hike to say the least – water, snow and ice delighted in the most amazing formations, and the waterfall which was frozen solid, was just simply stunning.
The evening was spent in Franconia in very low key fashion, after a dinner that could have fed a platoon of soldiers, Rick and I both fell into a diabetic coma and while trying to watch an episode of the fabulous British series “Inspector Morse” both of us nodded off on our respective sofas, and neither of us could remember anything about the show. As a matter of fact, Sunday morning I was still so narcoleptic that I did not grasp the fact that the digital clock in my bedroom had not yet assumed daylight savings time. I thought it was 6 AM and kept wondering why Rick and Phoebe were rummaging around downstairs. We had originally planned to get up at seven to get to the ski slopes early, but thinking it was 6:30 AM when I peeled myself out of bed, I strolled comfortably in my pajamas downstairs, made a cup of tea, and did not know what do to with Rick’s slightly worried face, until I finally realized that I was just a wee bit behind the times (one hour to be exact) and better get myself in gear.
I stepped it up a bit and we hoofed it down to Waterville Valley, where a day of downhill skiing was on the agenda. Now due to my foot problems over the past eight months, I had not been able to go skiing as much as I wanted (despite all the fabulous snow up north), but I was so glad I went. I started off a little wimpy, Jell-O legs and all, and due to the valium felt a just a bit lightheaded, but after a solid warm up period on the easy slopes, I was good to go. I have to say a big thank you to Rick today, who taught me a lot, and at the end of the day I went home a proud little skier (of course it may be a little depressing that Rick’s niece Caroline who is 4 and just about reaches up to my knees, told me that she was doing black diamond runs…….).
It has been a busy week, full of culinary events (which is not really supportive of those plans of mine to get back in fighting shape, but I am working on it, and went to the gym twice at least). Wednesday night, my friend Ruth and I had a girl’s night out and headed to Ole Mexican Grill (http://www.olegrill.com/) near Inman Square, and I could kick myself for having lived near this neighborhood and never been there. It’s a crime I say!! The place is fantastic – the interior dipped in warm and inviting colors, the dishes heavenly delish – we are talking upscale Mexican cuisine – what a wonderful experience! The guacamole is made fresh for you on the table in one of those stone pots and absolutely divine; Ruth had duck with mole sauce, and I had some spicy pork dish with cilantro rice. Bottom Line: I must go back there, soon.
Thursday night, dinner group number two, “The Lab Rats”, consisting of the charming trio of Susan, Georgiana and Hannah livened up my home – the motto for the night was Italian food. Hannah delighted with an artichoke dip, Georgiana dazzled with a spinach-fennel-blood-orange, pecorinso cheese and roasted pine nuts salad, yours truly made “Pasta Con Salsa did Zucchini con Ricotta” and Susan, who is half Italian, delighted with some Italian lemon cookies whose name I forgot, but they were absolutely wonderful.
My friends, it is bed time, got to go get some zzzzzs. A busy week looms ahead, big pipeline presentation this Thursday and the same evening I am hopping on a plane to Washington, DC. I will be spending a couple of days in Bethesda, Maryland for a conference on targeted anticancer therapies and upon my return Saturday afternoon, I plan on sleeping at least 16 hours.
Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.
PetJ
#40 Boston - Meltdown - March 10, 2008
Well, here I was on Thursday afternoon working from home, plugging away, and feeling good about life in general. I was expecting the book group for that evening and during my lunch break had started the prep work for the quiche that I planned to bake later in the day. Once work was complete, I heated up that little oven of mine, only to notice a slightly odd smell a wee bit later. For the next few minutes a struggle ensued in my brain trying to either ignore the smell or really figuring out what it was. Eventually I did remember that along with my muffin trays, baking sheets and other implements designed to be in an oven and withstand high temperatures, I also had stored a white plastic serving tray in there, simply because it did not fit anywhere else. I shot over to the oven like a bat out of hell, grabbed some oven mitts, and then pulled the newly-melted-together plastic-tray-construct, and chucked it out of the house, quickly.
Hmmmh, I thought what now? First, investigate the damage. Check on Oscar to see if the toxic fumes did not kill him. Oscar alive and well, good. At this point I had about an hour and a half left for dinner club preparation. I needed at least one rack to make a quiche so grabbed some small razor blades and started scraping off the plastic which had now hardened. I should have just left it at that. But did I? Noooooo. Determined to also clean up rack number 2 which contained a majority of the melted plastic, I grabbed a hammer and went outside to bang the bejesus out of the rack. So far, so good, seemed to actually work, But then that darn German fastidiousness kicked in and I was determined to get all of the plastic of the rack. This could have easily being accomplished by putting the rack flat on the ground and applying some more hammering action, however I decided to use he razor blades again, which proved no match whatsoever for the plastic that had now the consistency of concrete. You know what comes now, right? I cut myself very skillfully on at least three fingertips, ran around the house like a chicken with its head cut off bleeding all over the place, and trying to put on band aids. Let me tell you, that is not an easy feat when three of your digits bleed at the same time. Eventually, and just as I did manage to get myself bandaged up, it hit me that the next day I had an appointment at the US Immigration Service for fingerprinting. Good thing I am taking valium (I am not kidding here; the doctor prescribed it to get rid of my lower abdominal spasms). Actually the valium was probably what made me forget the darn plastic tray in the oven in the first place.
By the time the book group arrived, I at least had made salad and the quiche was ready to go into the oven, but I was a wee bit out of sorts and ordered my charming book group members around to help with whatever else needed to be done, and I am sure they gladly did so (no fun when the book club host is bleeding from her hands and close to a nervous breakdown). The book group evening ended up being a big success after all; we had some vary spirited discussions, some of which actually had to do with the book, so life was good.
Of course I spend all day Friday fretting about the appointment at the immigration services, but turns out the cuts were not that bad and a bit out of the way. I slapped antibiotic ointment on them just about every 30 minutes, and come early afternoon you would have had to look really hard to find them. In addition they had some pretty sophisticated equipment there, laser scanners and all (very CSI), and it all worked out well. Again, I have to say praises for the Boston-based application service center, and maybe there was a little good karma in there for me as well, but the place was practically deserted and I was in and out in 10 minutes, no kidding. So now I have to simply wait for the next step in the process, which will be the interview. Exciting indeed!
Last weekend I wrote to you from New Hampshire where we experienced winter at its most beautiful. (As opposed to this weekend, where it rained bucket after bucket, and of course a little flood appeared in my basement yet again). Saturday night our friends Susan and Brian stopped by and all of us congregated for a vicious game of Parcheesi. Now this was my first time playing this game, and I think the instructions on the inside of the cover were written in Hindi, since Rick’s translations did not all make sense, and the rules seem to change constantly, generally not in my favor. I did not trust any of my opponents who actually once let me move past my goal line, and probably made me do the whole loop twice. No wonder I never win at these games. Tssss!
Sunday morning, Rick and Denise headed off for some more cross-country skiing near the lovely Franconia Inn (http://www.franconiainn.com/) while Phoebe and I took a snow shoe walk around the neighborhood, stomping through some nice deep snow and having a nice and relaxing time. In the afternoon, the four of us headed off to Crawford Notch to do a little more snowshoeing, this time up to Ripley Falls. Heralded as one of New Hampshire’s tallest waterfalls (http://www.northeastwaterfalls.com/waterfall.php?num=336&p=0 ), it has been a destination of our little hiking group many a times, but never before had we gone there in winter. We almost missed the approach route, as it was completely blocked by a wall of snow, and only a few brave souls before us had attempted to go up there. It was such a wonderful snow shoe adventure – we did have some trail blazing to do, but eventually got to the partially frozen falls, and enjoyed this little slice of winter beauty. We did spent Sunday evening up in Franconia and sadly had to leave Monday morning to return to our respective work responsibilities.
I have made some attempts to make it to the gym more often this week, and ended up succeeding twice. In particular I would like to highlight Wednesday night where I did my first spinning class in 8 months and let me tell you I did walk a little funny heading out of the gym, sort of like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Good reminder that I definitely need to do this more often.
This weekend, on account of the crappy weather which did not allow for a lot of outdoor time, we did make it out for a wonderful hike to Crane Beach, which is a dynamite place. I love beaches in winter, with the waves crashing down, and the wind blowing the sand up in little mini-tornadoes. Crane Beach, located near Ipswich, Mass(http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/294_crane_beach.cfm) is part of the Trustees of the Reservations, whose mission it is to preserve beautiful spots of land such as this one. There is a five mile hike through the dunes near the beach, which is stunningly wonderful with its sandy-color dunes and sparse vegetation. Aside from the fact that we got caught in the pouring rain during the second half of the excursion (of course I was wearing jeans and looked like a wet poodle afterward), it was a lovely hike. A very delicious lunch was consumed at the Gloucester House (http://www.thegloucesterhouse.com/aboutme.htm) at the historic Seven Seas Wharf in, you guessed right, Gloucester.
Since the weather showed no signs of improvement, it was time to retreat to the couch afterward, and embark on the lofty goal of watching the entire seventh season of CSI (which I did manage to do successfully, even though I did have to watch a couple of episodes twice, since I kept nodding off (the valium is doing its job, apparently) and I could for the life of me not remember if I had seen them or not. Of course the darn last episode ends with one of the “To Be Continued” cliffhangers, which means, I have to figure out quickly if Season 8 is available on DVD. This stuff is like crack; I may have become a serious CSI junkie….
I needed to get out of the house a bit, so I joined Hannah, Holly and visiting New York-ite Meg for brunch at the oh-so-noisy, but oh-so-tasty East Coast Grill and Raw Bar (not to confuse with the East Side Bar and Grille, which is located a short walk from my house) for some very delectable brunch (NY Steak, with scrambled eggs, some kind of spicy peppers and hominy for yours truly) - http://eastcoastgrill.net/ , followed by a quick visit to Christina’s Spice and Specialty Shop – a fabulous place for a cookaholic like myself. I bought green bamboo rice from China, red quinoa, a brown rice from some obscure region of the Philippines, Vietnamese cinnamon, dried chives and curry leaves. Wonderful place this is, I could spend all my money on spices from distant countries, no matter if I would know what do with it.
Oh my goodness, it is horrendously late. I am blaming daylight savings time and the fact that I was sorting out paper work all day today to prepare for my taxes.
Gotta go to sleep now. Tomorrow night is another spinning class, and I do not want be caught slouched over the front of the bike drooling.
Hope this finds you all well.
PetJ
Oh,oh, and I must mention that my neighborhood finally has a decent Chinese place. Called Wisteria House, it actually relocated from Boston’s fancy Newbury Street, and has completely transformed the retail space that was previously inhabited by the worst Chinese restaurants known to mankind.
Hmmmh, I thought what now? First, investigate the damage. Check on Oscar to see if the toxic fumes did not kill him. Oscar alive and well, good. At this point I had about an hour and a half left for dinner club preparation. I needed at least one rack to make a quiche so grabbed some small razor blades and started scraping off the plastic which had now hardened. I should have just left it at that. But did I? Noooooo. Determined to also clean up rack number 2 which contained a majority of the melted plastic, I grabbed a hammer and went outside to bang the bejesus out of the rack. So far, so good, seemed to actually work, But then that darn German fastidiousness kicked in and I was determined to get all of the plastic of the rack. This could have easily being accomplished by putting the rack flat on the ground and applying some more hammering action, however I decided to use he razor blades again, which proved no match whatsoever for the plastic that had now the consistency of concrete. You know what comes now, right? I cut myself very skillfully on at least three fingertips, ran around the house like a chicken with its head cut off bleeding all over the place, and trying to put on band aids. Let me tell you, that is not an easy feat when three of your digits bleed at the same time. Eventually, and just as I did manage to get myself bandaged up, it hit me that the next day I had an appointment at the US Immigration Service for fingerprinting. Good thing I am taking valium (I am not kidding here; the doctor prescribed it to get rid of my lower abdominal spasms). Actually the valium was probably what made me forget the darn plastic tray in the oven in the first place.
By the time the book group arrived, I at least had made salad and the quiche was ready to go into the oven, but I was a wee bit out of sorts and ordered my charming book group members around to help with whatever else needed to be done, and I am sure they gladly did so (no fun when the book club host is bleeding from her hands and close to a nervous breakdown). The book group evening ended up being a big success after all; we had some vary spirited discussions, some of which actually had to do with the book, so life was good.
Of course I spend all day Friday fretting about the appointment at the immigration services, but turns out the cuts were not that bad and a bit out of the way. I slapped antibiotic ointment on them just about every 30 minutes, and come early afternoon you would have had to look really hard to find them. In addition they had some pretty sophisticated equipment there, laser scanners and all (very CSI), and it all worked out well. Again, I have to say praises for the Boston-based application service center, and maybe there was a little good karma in there for me as well, but the place was practically deserted and I was in and out in 10 minutes, no kidding. So now I have to simply wait for the next step in the process, which will be the interview. Exciting indeed!
Last weekend I wrote to you from New Hampshire where we experienced winter at its most beautiful. (As opposed to this weekend, where it rained bucket after bucket, and of course a little flood appeared in my basement yet again). Saturday night our friends Susan and Brian stopped by and all of us congregated for a vicious game of Parcheesi. Now this was my first time playing this game, and I think the instructions on the inside of the cover were written in Hindi, since Rick’s translations did not all make sense, and the rules seem to change constantly, generally not in my favor. I did not trust any of my opponents who actually once let me move past my goal line, and probably made me do the whole loop twice. No wonder I never win at these games. Tssss!
Sunday morning, Rick and Denise headed off for some more cross-country skiing near the lovely Franconia Inn (http://www.franconiainn.com/) while Phoebe and I took a snow shoe walk around the neighborhood, stomping through some nice deep snow and having a nice and relaxing time. In the afternoon, the four of us headed off to Crawford Notch to do a little more snowshoeing, this time up to Ripley Falls. Heralded as one of New Hampshire’s tallest waterfalls (http://www.northeastwaterfalls.com/waterfall.php?num=336&p=0 ), it has been a destination of our little hiking group many a times, but never before had we gone there in winter. We almost missed the approach route, as it was completely blocked by a wall of snow, and only a few brave souls before us had attempted to go up there. It was such a wonderful snow shoe adventure – we did have some trail blazing to do, but eventually got to the partially frozen falls, and enjoyed this little slice of winter beauty. We did spent Sunday evening up in Franconia and sadly had to leave Monday morning to return to our respective work responsibilities.
I have made some attempts to make it to the gym more often this week, and ended up succeeding twice. In particular I would like to highlight Wednesday night where I did my first spinning class in 8 months and let me tell you I did walk a little funny heading out of the gym, sort of like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Good reminder that I definitely need to do this more often.
This weekend, on account of the crappy weather which did not allow for a lot of outdoor time, we did make it out for a wonderful hike to Crane Beach, which is a dynamite place. I love beaches in winter, with the waves crashing down, and the wind blowing the sand up in little mini-tornadoes. Crane Beach, located near Ipswich, Mass(http://www.thetrustees.org/pages/294_crane_beach.cfm) is part of the Trustees of the Reservations, whose mission it is to preserve beautiful spots of land such as this one. There is a five mile hike through the dunes near the beach, which is stunningly wonderful with its sandy-color dunes and sparse vegetation. Aside from the fact that we got caught in the pouring rain during the second half of the excursion (of course I was wearing jeans and looked like a wet poodle afterward), it was a lovely hike. A very delicious lunch was consumed at the Gloucester House (http://www.thegloucesterhouse.com/aboutme.htm) at the historic Seven Seas Wharf in, you guessed right, Gloucester.
Since the weather showed no signs of improvement, it was time to retreat to the couch afterward, and embark on the lofty goal of watching the entire seventh season of CSI (which I did manage to do successfully, even though I did have to watch a couple of episodes twice, since I kept nodding off (the valium is doing its job, apparently) and I could for the life of me not remember if I had seen them or not. Of course the darn last episode ends with one of the “To Be Continued” cliffhangers, which means, I have to figure out quickly if Season 8 is available on DVD. This stuff is like crack; I may have become a serious CSI junkie….
I needed to get out of the house a bit, so I joined Hannah, Holly and visiting New York-ite Meg for brunch at the oh-so-noisy, but oh-so-tasty East Coast Grill and Raw Bar (not to confuse with the East Side Bar and Grille, which is located a short walk from my house) for some very delectable brunch (NY Steak, with scrambled eggs, some kind of spicy peppers and hominy for yours truly) - http://eastcoastgrill.net/ , followed by a quick visit to Christina’s Spice and Specialty Shop – a fabulous place for a cookaholic like myself. I bought green bamboo rice from China, red quinoa, a brown rice from some obscure region of the Philippines, Vietnamese cinnamon, dried chives and curry leaves. Wonderful place this is, I could spend all my money on spices from distant countries, no matter if I would know what do with it.
Oh my goodness, it is horrendously late. I am blaming daylight savings time and the fact that I was sorting out paper work all day today to prepare for my taxes.
Gotta go to sleep now. Tomorrow night is another spinning class, and I do not want be caught slouched over the front of the bike drooling.
Hope this finds you all well.
PetJ
Oh,oh, and I must mention that my neighborhood finally has a decent Chinese place. Called Wisteria House, it actually relocated from Boston’s fancy Newbury Street, and has completely transformed the retail space that was previously inhabited by the worst Chinese restaurants known to mankind.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
#39 Boston - Mush, Mush! March 1, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen and Friends of the Winter Sports! The New Hampshire Iditarod took place this morning in Franconia Woods, on Glide Path, Skid Row and Ham Branch Trail of the Franconia Cross Country Ski Center (http://www.franconiainn.com/). In genuine sled dog fashion I pulled my friend Denise up the hill by her ski poles while she yelled "mush, mush". We did pretty well, Denise's X-Country skis were slick and fast, and after a couple of nice downhill she definitely started to appreciate the "hunker-down-and-yell-woohooo" approach that I love so much. Poor Rick on the other hand had some very sticky skis who were getting him nowhere, and he might has well not had any skis at all. I slugged along on my snow shoes for about three miles careful not to aggravate that sore heel of mine.
It is phenomenal up here at present, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful - tons and tons of snow to begin with and since early this morning it has kept on snowing. Cannon Mountain and the Lincoln, Lafayette and Little Haystack range cannot be seen at all from the house, all there is, is tons of the white stuff coming down. Winter Wonderland at its best! Rick and Denise at present are out and snow shoeing and taking Phoebe for some well-deserved snow experience, while I rest my slightly weary feet. I did get some exercise earlier when I was trying to free up a path to the front stairs, but underneath all the snow was a solid block of ice which took some serious bicep-y action on my part. I actually do love shoveling snow if you can believe it (please - no offers to come to your homes and get your lazy selves out of it... I meant I love shoveling my own snow...) .
We drove up to New Hampshire last night before the weather kicked in, and again, the minute I leave Boston, my brain and my ability to remember basic vocabulary and utter complete sentences seems to be going down the tubes quickly. Wild Oats, the health food store, was labeled "live oats" and the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead quickly changed to Buckwheat. Petraisms were just flying out of my mouth at record speed sand are continuing to do so. Today I actually mixed up McDonalds and Whole Foods - oy vey! I am going to be so much fun when I am old!
So, let's recap the week, shall we? Last Sunday I hosted my dinner group (actually make that one of them, because I just started a second one) for brunch. The spread was phenomenal - white wine risotto (a bottle and a half of wine for two cups of Arborio Rice - niiiiiiice), a spinach-mushroom-kale medley with garlic, scrambled eggs, buckwheat waffles with hot raspberry sauce and whipped cream (the canned kind, of course), bagels, home-made raspberry butter, cheeses, roasted potatoes with herbs, two kinds of coffee cake - we ate and ate and ate. It was a lovely affair with some very spirited conversation that included several stories centering around Keith Richards - falling off a coconut tree, snorting his father's ashes, that sort of thing..... Life was good.
Once the guests and the dishes were taken care of, and I had rested for a wee bit on the couch, it was time to zip up north to the town of Peabody to visit my friend Jen Searl and to waste five hours of our life watching the Oscars. I have to say that Jen's two yorkies Bella and Rocco provided much more entertainment than the awards show, which consisted mostly of recaps of the past 80 years (how exciting is that?). We had a fabulous time though, and credits to Jen for hanging in there to the bitter end.
Wednesday night, as you may recall was the opening for Illuminations, the MGH Cancer Center's art exhibit, which featured five of my photographs (one of them was the cover photo for the invitation and the program - so proud I am....). A pile of my friends and colleagues came to visit and celebrate with me - Susan, Brian, Georgiana, Darrell, Sara, Christine, Norma, Pauline, Ulandt, Glenn and Hannah - thanks so much for being there. Hannah, Glenn went out for a little celebratin' and topped off the evening with a nice glass of wine at the Alibi Lounge at the Liberty Hotel (http://www.alibiboston.com/) and life was good, again.
In other exciting news, I did receive my first appointment in the citizenship application process - next Friday I am required to show up at the USCIS for fingerprinting. This is so exciting!! Stay tuned for more news on that. Also, I am starting a book group also this coming week (my third attempt to get one going here in Boston, but I am getting a good vibe about this one). Again, stay tuned.
So, time to go and prepare dinner. I am making my first ever "Shake N' Bake" Chicken (can't be an American if you have never done that, right?) and there are also tons of potatoes to be peeled.
Enjoy the weekend wherever you are. I hope it is just as beautiful as it is here (come to think of it, I may never want to leave and just hang out here for a while. That may lead to some discussions with Rick's parents, who actually do live here, and may just have something to say about that).
Talk to you soon.
Petra:)
It is phenomenal up here at present, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful - tons and tons of snow to begin with and since early this morning it has kept on snowing. Cannon Mountain and the Lincoln, Lafayette and Little Haystack range cannot be seen at all from the house, all there is, is tons of the white stuff coming down. Winter Wonderland at its best! Rick and Denise at present are out and snow shoeing and taking Phoebe for some well-deserved snow experience, while I rest my slightly weary feet. I did get some exercise earlier when I was trying to free up a path to the front stairs, but underneath all the snow was a solid block of ice which took some serious bicep-y action on my part. I actually do love shoveling snow if you can believe it (please - no offers to come to your homes and get your lazy selves out of it... I meant I love shoveling my own snow...) .
We drove up to New Hampshire last night before the weather kicked in, and again, the minute I leave Boston, my brain and my ability to remember basic vocabulary and utter complete sentences seems to be going down the tubes quickly. Wild Oats, the health food store, was labeled "live oats" and the Atlanta suburb of Buckhead quickly changed to Buckwheat. Petraisms were just flying out of my mouth at record speed sand are continuing to do so. Today I actually mixed up McDonalds and Whole Foods - oy vey! I am going to be so much fun when I am old!
So, let's recap the week, shall we? Last Sunday I hosted my dinner group (actually make that one of them, because I just started a second one) for brunch. The spread was phenomenal - white wine risotto (a bottle and a half of wine for two cups of Arborio Rice - niiiiiiice), a spinach-mushroom-kale medley with garlic, scrambled eggs, buckwheat waffles with hot raspberry sauce and whipped cream (the canned kind, of course), bagels, home-made raspberry butter, cheeses, roasted potatoes with herbs, two kinds of coffee cake - we ate and ate and ate. It was a lovely affair with some very spirited conversation that included several stories centering around Keith Richards - falling off a coconut tree, snorting his father's ashes, that sort of thing..... Life was good.
Once the guests and the dishes were taken care of, and I had rested for a wee bit on the couch, it was time to zip up north to the town of Peabody to visit my friend Jen Searl and to waste five hours of our life watching the Oscars. I have to say that Jen's two yorkies Bella and Rocco provided much more entertainment than the awards show, which consisted mostly of recaps of the past 80 years (how exciting is that?). We had a fabulous time though, and credits to Jen for hanging in there to the bitter end.
Wednesday night, as you may recall was the opening for Illuminations, the MGH Cancer Center's art exhibit, which featured five of my photographs (one of them was the cover photo for the invitation and the program - so proud I am....). A pile of my friends and colleagues came to visit and celebrate with me - Susan, Brian, Georgiana, Darrell, Sara, Christine, Norma, Pauline, Ulandt, Glenn and Hannah - thanks so much for being there. Hannah, Glenn went out for a little celebratin' and topped off the evening with a nice glass of wine at the Alibi Lounge at the Liberty Hotel (http://www.alibiboston.com/) and life was good, again.
In other exciting news, I did receive my first appointment in the citizenship application process - next Friday I am required to show up at the USCIS for fingerprinting. This is so exciting!! Stay tuned for more news on that. Also, I am starting a book group also this coming week (my third attempt to get one going here in Boston, but I am getting a good vibe about this one). Again, stay tuned.
So, time to go and prepare dinner. I am making my first ever "Shake N' Bake" Chicken (can't be an American if you have never done that, right?) and there are also tons of potatoes to be peeled.
Enjoy the weekend wherever you are. I hope it is just as beautiful as it is here (come to think of it, I may never want to leave and just hang out here for a while. That may lead to some discussions with Rick's parents, who actually do live here, and may just have something to say about that).
Talk to you soon.
Petra:)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)