Exploring around the North End was quite the adventure. We walked ever expanding, random circles, doubling back accidentally, following the Freedom Trail, then wandering off again.
Jenny and I met up at 11 Sunday morning at the Park Street stop on the Redline. we then took the Green Line to Government Center, and walked towards Hayward. I’m getting to know this area decently well because it is all nearish to the Aquarium.
Among the touristy things we saw are the Old North Church, where the people of Boston were warned of the British, Paul Revere Mall, the oldest Catholic church in Boston (founded by Italian immigrants), and a cemetery that was long the Freedom Trail. We also caught a glimpse of the U.S.S. Constitution.
We headed towards Faneuil Hall, there were some amazing street performers so we stopped and watched for about half an hour or so, before we continued our wanderings.
We visited Urban Outfitters and both of us picked up copies of Pledged, the Secret Life of Sororities (both of us went to Prin, both of us missed out on that). We plan to form our own book group and discuss random books that interest us (we’ll see how it goes).
From Faneuil Hall we went into the Financial District, near the Downtown Crossing stop on the Red Line. At around three we headed our seperate ways and went home. It was quite the day.
There are a few pictures (taken with my phone, I really need to take Gavin’s camera with me!) in the Around Boston Album on my Yahoo Photos.
The impressively oppressive sweltering heat inspired us to invest in two air-conditioning units. Not expecting miracles, just a few degrees lower and a little less humidity, we picked up the lowest-costing Energy Start rated units we could find.
I looked over the EnergyGuide that came with the unit. It explained that an 8.0 rating was the least efficient and 10.0 was the most efficient, then it proclaimed This Model’s Efficiency 10.8 EER.*
So if 10.0 is the most efficient rating, how did our unit score a 10.8? Gavin thinks its a typo, I’m hoping it’s hyper-efficient. Then again, this is based on standard U.S. government tests.
The units won’t be installed until this coming Monday, when Gavin and the landlord will put them in together. Gavin isn’t quite sure they’ll fit with out some extra help, and neither of us wants the thing to fall three stories before we’ve had a chance to enjoy it.
Until Monday, today’s high was predicted around 94, Sunday’s high is placed around 85, Monday is supposed to be in the 90s again, and this trend will continue for the rest of the week.
*EER being the Energy Efficiency Ratio, the measure of energy efficiency for room air conditioners, only models between 0 and 5.999 BTUs with the above features are used in this scale. (I also learned that from the yellow sheet).
All afternoon the weather soothsayers of doom predicted a nasty storm for the entire state: wind, rain, hail, thunder and lightning. Storm warnings for the entire state, except the cape, were predicted until 9 pm. I looked at the weather radar, yeah, there was a storm coming, but it was in the western part of the state, it wouldn’t effect us.
The rain came into the apartment from the west in a horizontal sheet, misting us with through the open windows of the kitchen. It caused a mad run on towels to sop up the water that poured in the open bedroom window. Flecks of water dotted the sheets of our bed, not two yards away, the rug was wet, water ran freely along the floor.
The rain brings the deceptive notion of cooler weather: tomorrow’s high is set to be 94 degrees. Like so many others with out air-conditioning, we are going to make a pilgrimage to the Galleria to enjoy the cool air and a much needed break from the heat and humidity.
The rain has passed now, the temperature has dropped slightly, but the humidity remains impressively oppressive. The wind has died down so there is very little, almost no breeze, except what we artificially produce with the fans. They don’t do much, just move the muggy air around.
In search of something cool to drink, I head to the kitchen. I wouldn’t mind an ice maker right now, the ice trays are being uncooperative, but that is nothing unusual. Standing at the kitchen window you can feel slight traces of cooler evening air as the sun sets over St. Anthony’s. Maybe I’ll bring Gavin some ice water too.
I’m not sure if the fact I could not finish Reduced Shakespeare the Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired [abridged] says more about me or the book.
I saw a the The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare (abridged) in Vienna. It was quite something, if only the book could live up to the play.
The book started out promising, amusing, and then turned slightly tedious. I don’t think it was designed to be read in one sitting, or even a series of sittings.
I could see turing to the book to quickly skim over a plot synopsis before heading to the theater, or reading one of the movie reviews, or looking up trivia so I have an idea of what someone is talking about, but I really can’t ever see reading it cover-to-cover.
Some of the synopsis are quite nice to have, for example: Much Ado About Nothing
Plot: Beatrice and Benedick are made about each other but can’t admit it, so they spar verbally. The other characters trick these two into believing that the other has declared a deep love for them. Meanwhile, Claudio and Hero are in love, but Don John and his friends conspire to break them up by convincing Claudio that Hero has been unfaithful. The plot works. At the alter, Claudio refuses to marry Hero, and she faints. Claudio thinks she’s died. But the truth comes out, Don John and his accomplices are arrested, and the two happy couples get married.
One-Sentence Plot Encapsulation: People in love act like idiots.
Moral: Don’t believe everything you hear.
(from page 92-93 of Reduced Shakespeare)
It would’ve been nice to read over that before watching the movie with Emma Thompson and Keanu Reeves.
The book also rates plays in “bards” (little images of shakespear’s head), so I shall rate this book in “bards” as well… I’ll give it two and a half… only one is going to show up… they didn’t want to line up nicely.
News & Excitement in Boston Today! For more you can check out Boston.com
For those of you that pay no attention to the news outside your area, Boston has this thing called the Big Dig. My best interpretation of what the Big Dig is, is that a bunch of politicians got together and decided to pour billions of dollars into making giant holes in Boston and the surrounding area. Their official website has a slightly different explanation, something about traffic.
A week or two ago, some of the ceiling panels fell crushing and killing a woman, and the headlines and defects started pouring in.
Questions like Do you feel safe? have been blasted across local nightly news. I am more likely to be run over by a shopping cart at Market Basket than I am to have a ceiling panel fall on me.
The latest in this ongoing saga is:
“Under fire Mass. highways chief resigns”
By Denise Lavoie, Associated Press Writer | July 27, 2006
BOSTON –Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Chairman Matthew Amorello, under fire since part of a Big Dig tunnel collapsed and killed a passing motorist, agreed Thursday to resign after weeks of pressure on him to step aside.
I’d resign too, then I’d go live in exile somewhere with air-conditioning, less traffic, and mild winters.
One of the many shows on PBS is For Your Home, today on FYH was the issue of the master bedroom. Clearly the master bedroom in question was not in our little apartment, the bedroom they were redecorating had a TV, and room for a “sitting area” complete with “over stuffed chairs and a little table where the couple can enjoy their coffee.”
They also suggested doing the bedroom in aqua (“the new neutral color”), and planned to design the room around “this great vase” they they had found. The more I watched, the more amused I became. The room they were creating was full of aquas and taupes and was turning into a generic bedroom like the ones in the catalogues/magazines.
Oh yes, lets add a “beautiful basket of seashells” you can buy those anywhere, how boring, and do you need a basket of seashells in the BEDROOM? I could see your collection of seashells under a glass coffee table or something fun, but just a basket of them in the bedroom?
I’m sorry, it’s not a bedroom, it’s a MASTER SUITE, and they have two rooms to tie together, a sitting room and a bedroom, no wonder they can fit some over stuffed chairs in there! Oh yes! We must have an entertainment center in the bedroom! (is your spouse not entertaining enough?)
Let’s also stuff our night stands with little dainty picture frames that’ll get smashed when you go blindly thwacking after your alarm clock. Do people actually live and sleep in the end results of these rooms?
I never found out what the end results of the room, Gavin came home and we went out for lunch (going out to lunch means we can sit in the AC for an hour or so, it is rather a nice break).
In celebration of Tuesday, but mostly just because I could, this evening’s dinner was a festive affair. Using our wooden salad bowls and the bowls from the place setting we registered for, accompanied by the oh-so-elegant goblets filled with lignonberry juice, it made for quite the meal.
Dinner was simple enough, cheese tortellini in a red sauce accompanied by garlic bread and a simple caesar salad. Dessert will be strawberries and cream later this eveing when we watch Marple.
Today after church we had Roger over for a charming waffle bruncheon. The weather was over cast and breezy so the apartment was quite a comfortable for entertaining.
We had two kinds of waffles, sour cream and corn meal, OJ, strawberries, New Hampshire Maple Syrup, raspberries, and whipping cream. Gavin used the Kitchen Aid mixer (he’s used it more than I have now) to make the waffles, and I used my six-speed hand mixer for the whipping cream (great fun)!
Quite a lovely time was had, after lunch we talked about the wedding, and looked at the best of the wedding pictures. We had a pleasant conversation about life in and around Boston.
I wonder who we shall have next weekend for waffle bruncheon.
Exciting news! We finally got the pictures of the trip to the New England Aquarium off of my cell phone! They can be seen on my Yahoo Photo Site in the “Around Boston” album.
Unfortunately the Fish that looked like Gorby didn’t sit still enough for a picture… plenty of this companions did.
This evening, while Gavin played WoW, I made garlic bread. It did not take very long to make, so I looked around the kitchen for other things to do with my evening.
Gavin claims I was looking for an excuse to use our new mixer, I claim there’s not much to do in this apartment if you don’t feel like reading. Either way, I ended up making Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, from the recipie on the back of the bag.
The mixer worked quite well, until it came across the not-quite-so-softened-as-it-should-have-been butter. So I stopped and mashed it around some and it worked brilliantly.
Everything went quite well until it came time to bake the cookies. The oven and I got off to a bad start in the first week of marriage with my failed pineapple upside down cake, and we have never managed to be friends.
I turned the oven on to 375*F… unlike the oven I’m accustomed to in Clear Lake, it does not have any preheating light, or timer, or clock, or much else, just a knob with some temperatures on it. It also does NOT have a little light to tell you that it is turned on.
From the first tray of cookies, four crumbled so badly they had to be discarded. They were in for 10 minutes (cook 9-11 at 375*F) and had adequately cooled (a good 3 minutes, one minute longer than suggested), but they still refused to maintain any structural integrity.
The second batch of cookies –also for 10 minutes at 375*F, turned out quite brown, and came up with no problem whatsoever… although they did seem a little brittle.
Admittadly, I did use two types of baking sheet, and while that may have effected the outcome of the cookies, I am almost certian the oven is conspiring against me.
Among the touristy things we saw are the Old North Church, where the people of Boston were warned of the British, Paul Revere Mall, the oldest Catholic church in Boston (founded by Italian immigrants), and a cemetery that was long the Freedom Trail. We also caught a glimpse of the U.S.S. Constitution.
