STIX is a wonderful place BTW, dipped in warm and Friday-evening appropriate colors and aptly named after their “kebabs”, which feature chicken, beef or shrimp skewered on flat, broad sticks. The food was delish (try the chicken stix when you go, they are superb!!!) and the wonderful bartender whipped up a non-alcoholic cocktail for me, a pomegranate Cosmo, which was so delightful, I had two of them. Don’t worry, I took a cab home.
Believe it or not, I worked on Saturday for a few hours (but not before laying on the couch earlier on for two hours straight to finish my book group book (Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand, excellent read), and then headed over to start help with the setup for Community Running’s 10th anniversary party/ shindig http://communityrunning.org/) that took part at Crossroads, an Irish pub on Beacon Street on the edge of the Back Bay (http://crossroadspubboston.com/ ). As this is one of our favorite post-run hang-outs, we decided it was a great place to celebrate at, and we convinced the managers to give us the entire upstairs. Aside from a couple of old ladies looking for margaritas and a group of frat guys looking for their letters on the wall no one bothered us up there, and it was an enjoyable evening, with speeches, raffles, and a trivia quiz that was just evil. Did you know that Steve Prefontaine’s middle name was Roland, and that the fastest time one mile has been run backwards is 6 Minutes and 9 seconds? Well neither did I and so it came as no surprise that I did not win, not even close. 7 out of 10 of my answers were “no idea”, and for some of them I just made something up. Since I have not been running with the group since last July on account of my injury and only see people for our volunteer work (I am the coordinator of these efforts), it felt really good to see lots of familiar faces. However, it was pretty hot up there, and I left reasonably early; I was tired and completely knackered, as they say in the UK>
Speaking of the UK, today I watched a couple of movies – both play in the UK - (“Hot Fuzz” – a Must Watch and “Children of Men” – very gripping), made use of the couch and in the late afternoon went for a 22-mile bike ride on the Minuteman Bikeway (http://www.minutemanbikeway.org/Pages/intro.html). Contrary to the weather forecast we had a decent weekend, and today, just in time for Mother’s Day, the sun came out and provided me with no excuse to stick around the house. I had done a couple of 11-mile rides this week in the evenings, but the Minuteman is much less populated than the Charles River Esplanade and if you want to catch up (as my friend John and I wanted to do) and ride next to each other, this is the place. It was a nice ride, and only an episode with some troublesome youths who I believe attempted to grab my purse put a bit of a damper on the day. Thankfully there were some riders right behind us who also stepped in, and we escaped unharmed and my purse and all its contents is still with me.
The week pretty much went by quickly, work was all-consuming – Tuesday Lab Day, Wednesday I hosted a company all day, and Friday I was so absorbed in a project that only at about 2:30 PM when an email came out that there was food leftover from a luncheon, I ran screaming out of my office “Lunch, where is the lunch? I have not eaten - everyone out of my way!!” At that point I was ready to tackle anyone for a slice of cheese or a spoonful of pasta salad. Some rewards this week came in form of two long bike rides along the Esplanade, a massage at MGH and a nice luncheon with my friend Chris at Ma Soba (http://masobaboston.com/).
Next weekend will find us again up in Franconia, New Hampshire for a couple of days of hiking and a little celebration, but more on that once it has happened. I am still horrendously overdue with sending you photographs, but promise to do so soon. I am halfway through the San Diego pictures, and hoping that I may be able to finish them some time this week.
Today was Mother’s Day, so Happy M Day to all of you moms, moms-to-be-, those of you who have moms, and those of you whose moms have passed on and who you miss so much. I know you think of them often, and there are days when time does not seem to soften the blow and you miss them even more. I certainly do. I have to send a quick thank-you-for-your-kindness shout-out you to my local branch of Citizens Bank, whose staff are not only all really nice people but also gave me a flower just for being a “mom” of a 12-year old gnarly budgie named Oscar.
Hope this email finds you and your families well –
Pet:)
No comments:
Post a Comment