random thoughts – Day 2,363 (Thursday) – lunch out

It was a “Ladies who Lunch” day with Mom and Sis. Well, except for the part where the phrase refers to “well-off, non-working women who meet during the week for upscale daytime meals.” None of us are “well-off.” My sister still works. And instead of an “upscale” restaurant with fine dining and wait staff, we were at a downtown pizza joint where we had to order at the counter and seat ourselves. But is was daytime and lunchtime and we can dream.

The company was good. An extra in the scene was questionable. While driving to our destination, I saw a guy with his tee shirt hiked up over his belly as he stood in the middle of the sidewalk and buckled his belt on his shorts, which appeared to be unzipped at the fly. Of course, I shrieked “ewww” and told Mom and Sis what I had seen.

We parked the car on the main street downtown. That was a challenge, as the open spot on the street was next to a parking meter, lamppost, and giant planter filled with flowers. When in the designated spot, the front passenger door could be opened a little, and the back passenger door couldn’t be opened at all without smashing into the impediments, meaning, Mom couldn’t exit the car safely. Sis backed up to clear the sidewalk décor, Mom and I got out and began exploring the parking meter, and Sis parked.

Lunch out.

As we headed to the preselected pizza place, for which we had reviewed a menu at Mom’s, Mr. Open Fly walked around the corner. His shirt hem was now covering his belly, the fastened belt buckle peeked out from the hem of the shirt, and the fly on his shorts was still open. Mr. Open Fly puffed on a cigarette as he strode down the street with his duffle bag. We walked slowly trying to not breathe in the cloud of smoke trailing behind him. He went into the coin and card shop a couple doors beyond the pizza place and we ducked into said pizza place.

The total for two steak and cheese subs, two bottles of Coke, and a bag of chips ($39) felt pricey, so that part fit the “ladies who lunch” vibe. We couldn’t read the crowded menu high on the wall behind the counter but we knew we wanted steak and cheese. At the table we wondered about the age of the menu with the $12 sub price. The receipt wasn’t itemized, so we may never solve the mystery of what any of it cost. I don’t eat out much and today was another reminder why.

After ordering, we had our choice of tables, being the only diners in the shop. A couple customers came in to pick up orders.  A delivery guy headed out with an order. Two delivery guys with dollies loaded with bags of flour and other ingredients rumbled across the wood floor and shook the table and our chairs. It reminded us of being on the old wooden roller coaster at Whalom Park. A plastic pallet of sub rolls sat on the floor on the other side of the room.

The surrounding spectacle was more interesting than the food. The subs were just okay. We each had half of a sub with one half left over. The cheese was a couple slices of cold American cheese slapped onto the sub roll instead of melted over the barely adequate amount of meat. Market Basket steak and cheese has a lot more for less, but the closest MB is 30 minutes away. We may try the pizza at today’s place someday, but I don’t see us rushing back for more steak and cheese.

random thoughts – Day 2,362 (Wednesday) – shopping day

More dance costume material.

It was gray again, but drier than Tuesday. Grownup things were accomplished. Like, leaving the house. The bar is pretty low here.

A stop at Salvation Army led to a $10 score of a couple more lightweight sweaters, a purse, and a girls dress with an amazing green embroidered overlay.  In the checkout line, the lady behind me said she was flipped off by some dude in the parking lot. Half-off day prices are glorious, but some of the people are another story.

The plan is to use the mesh embroidered overlay from the dress for a belly dance costume top but is possible it’s too pretty to take apart and there isn't much fabric for mistakes. This will need a carefully crafted design plan.

Grocery shopping took place. I had a big Hannaford reward coupon ($10 off $25), and was determined to use it. I missed the expiration date on the last one and wanted to avoid it happening again.

Grocery store sushi.

The deli drawer is now stuffed with blocks of sharp cheddar cheese and shredded parmesan. The fridge has coffee creamer and several flavors of Icelandic yogurt. The freezer is restocked with Gardein pretend meat scrambles and as a bonus, frozen falafel, which I hadn't noticed before. 

The ice cream cooler was avoided. In the quick walk past it, I noticed signs that Ben & Jerry was on sale and I resisted the urge. The discipline didn't carry very far past the ice cream. The bakery cooler had packs of two cannoli for $3.99 and I caved. The little brown window box was so cute.

While browsing the perimeter of the store in an attempt to avoid the temptation of the inner aisles of cookies and potato chips, a cooler with several varieties of $5 grocery store sushi was found. It was all very pretty. Just like that, a no muss, no fuss, no cooking late lunch / early supper was decided.

random thoughts – Day 2,361 (Tuesday) – minimal effort day

It was gray and rainy and the perfect day for minimal effort. And minimal effort it was. The basics were covered – a shower, coffee, food. The official “staying in the house” brown lounge pants and hoodie were donned in the morning with the intent of changing later. The bed was stripped and sheets washed. 

Kiki lounging and waiting for a treat.

Kiki did her usual lounging about on the bed until I pulled the sheets off, and then she looked mildly offended and disappeared for a while. Once the bed was remade, she and her magnificent whiskers were back on the bed, alternately napping, surveying her kingdom (my bedroom) and telepathically requesting treats when I passed through the room.

Beyond the big “accomplishments,” the rest of the day was spent on word games, reading (Perfume, by Patrick Suskind), and binging Netflix shows. The new season of Leanne is out and it’s pretty funny. The entire second season was watched this afternoon, which I did instead of changing out of the slug outfit and going to the weekly dance class I love and didn’t attend today.

The sporadic rain showers stopped long enough for the street to dry, but I still skipped the almost daily walk to the mailboxes. The USPS notifications didn’t show anything urgent being delivered. Maybe tomorrow the switch will flip from “off” back to “on” and the activity level will ramp up again. Or not. We’ll see.

random thoughts – Day 2,360 (Monday) – green and golden

Two weeks had passed since the last time I mowed and the yard was shaggy. It needed to be done. I meant to mow on Sunday and then I forgot, so it had to happen today. The back yard is small, quick, and straightforward. The extension cord is long enough to get the furthest corners of the rectangular space done efficiently and without incident.

Goldenrod!

The goldenrod out back along the edge of the woods is getting tall and has been flowering for a couple weeks. It has been left deliberately for the pollinators. I read something recently that said the first autumn frost can be expected about six weeks after the goldenrod begins to bloom. That seems awfully soon, but is also helpful information for the planting instructions of "before the first frost."

The other day, many bees were making the rounds of the goldenrod and I watched them from the windows. Today, I got to see them up close up during the yardwork. One little buzzer was covered in a sweater of golden pollen.

The larger front yard is different story. The mower power cord (75-feet) is just long enough to reach most of the yard, but the tiniest tug or extra tall blade of grass causes the plug to edge itself out of the outlet the fraction of an inch that will shut the mower off. The mowing process requires a lot of flinging of the cord to get it out of the way of the next pass and I often think that rodeo school and rope work would come in handy. In general, much swearing occurs in the front yard stretch of the project.

Preserving the little flowers.

Lately, random little clusters of weeds with tiny white or yellow flowers have been springing up and I have been mowing around them. My general lawn rule is, if it’s green or has some sort of flower, it can stay. Once I figure out a way to minimize the front lawn and maximize the area with flowers and shrubs, the transformation will begin. Lawns are so silly. So much effort for an expanse of green that is encouraged to grow and then cut down when it does what we want it to do. At least I get some walking in with the mowing.

random thoughts – Day 2,359 (Sunday) – finishing and starting

Sewing finished.

After a fermentation period of several weeks, Operation Finish Mom’s Sewing Projects began today. The first project, chosen weeks ago, was based on the criteria of quick and easy. It was a cotton vee neck top which needed one sleeve stitched in and a hem on the bottom edge. It had been in a box with fabric for an unknown number of years and has the lightly dusty “been in storage” scent to it.

The sleeve was pinned in earlier in the week. Finishing it wasn’t specifically on today’s list (nothing was on the list), but suddenly, I was off the couch and in the spare room fetching the sewing machine and setting it up on the dining table. The sleeve was stitched. The narrow hem was sewn. The top was tossed into the laundry. I didn’t try it on so I don’t even know if it fits me, but it fit the sewing mannequin. 

Propelled by the satisfaction of completion, the next project was retrieved. After rummaging through a bin and a bag, the purple and gold brocade skirt, bought at Salvation Army several months ago was found. The intention for this one is to remake it into a belly dance belt and it was brought to the sofa along with the seam ripper and thread clippers.

The zipper and waistband were removed and the pleats unstitched, and then the project was set aside for the day. The basic prep work was accomplished and the next steps require a pattern, which depends on the specific design chosen.

There is currently no design chosen from several options available. The shape could be pointed or curved. There could be multiple sections connected with D Rings.  The belt could fasten in one or more places with ties, snaps, hooks, or even buckles. There are also embellishments to consider, because beaded edging is often sewn on in the first steps, before the lining. And I was becoming preoccupied elsewhere.

Ellison Barber on Allegedly.

The TV had been turned on during the skirt disassembly step, mostly for the noise company. I was thinking of stand-up comedy, but an interesting show popped up in the Netflix home page lineup. It was Allegedly, a true crime series podcast with Ellison Barber and various guests. The case in the first episode is one I started watching a documentary series about last night (The Death of the Pastor's Wife). 

I’ve heard of many of the cases covered in the episodes and the series is fascinating. The dance belt design can wait until morning. I’m sucked into this show right now.

random thoughts – Day 2,358 (Saturday) – once upon a time in boston

Spending Friday in Boston has me feeling nostalgic for the city and what was and might have been. When I was in college in my early twenties, my limited thoughts of the future didn’t extend very far. 

The furthest my “vision” extended was to age 27, which, for some reason, was going to the magical year that launched the rest of my life. I pictured myself at 27, working in a posh Boston ad agency and living in an apartment in Boston with brick walls and wood beams. I saw it as the point in time where I would be making headway in a great career and had a busy and fulfilling social life. Basically, I would have my sh*t together.

Janet, Monica, and Me on the dorm roof.

The image was reinforced when I spent a semester at Chamberlayne Junior College in Boston. I just really needed to get out of Fitchburg and applied to a school with a fashion design program that was advertised in the fashion magazines I read. I was starting during the winter semester and the design program started only in the fall, so I studied advertising and retail because I couldn't wait any longer for an escape.

Our classrooms and dormitories were in amazing historic buildings on Commonwealth Avenue. The dorms were between Fairfield and Gloucester and two blocks from The Prudential Center. The female dorm was once a hotel and had a marble staircase in the lobby, tall windows, and fireplaces in some of the rooms (not functional). Bathrooms had a small shower and were shared by two or three rooms.

My room overlooked Public Alley 434 with a view of the back door of the laundromat. It had a sink (very odd feature, but probably a big deal when the place was new). Once, my roommate and I had our illegal hot plate turned on and one of us used the blow dryer and blew out the electricity in the building. Sometimes a few of us went up onto the roof to hang out.

Classmates Heidi and Debi lived on the same floor that I did and because we were all of legal drinking age, we spent time having white wine spritzers and Tanqueray and tonics at Daisy Buchanon’s on Newbury and Fairfield (closed in 2014) and Friday’s on Newbury and Exeter (closed in 2005). Debi worked at Bloomingdale’s. I worked at Casual Corner. 

At the end of the semester, after the fashion show and the ceremony where some of my friends graduated, goodbyes were said and I went back home to Fitchburg and eventually returned to Fitchburg State. A few semesters later, armed with a freshly minted marketing degree, I couldn’t find a job in Boston, panicked, and took a minimum wage bank teller job in Fitchburg. And that was the beginning of the end of the Boston dream.

Every time I have been on Comm Ave in the decades since, (including Friday), I look for the old classroom and dorm buildings of the now defunct Chamberlayne Junior College. The Boston trips have been fewer and farther between and it is harder to remember the buildings each time. Internet searches informed me that my old dorm became part of Berklee College of Music after Chamberlayne’s demise and is now an apartment building.

The pace, traffic, and buzz of the city were a topic of conversation yesterday. Neither my friend nor I think we could live in Boston now. We both live in the same quiet little city 1.5 hours to the west, and Boston now feels a little overwhelming. It’s a wonderful place to visit, but there is no place quite like a home on a quiet street with turkeys in the yard. At least I have the memories of that minute of being young and vibrant in Boston, living on Comm Ave, working in retail on Boylston Street, and visiting the cool spots in between.

random thoughts – Day 2,357 (Friday) – elephants in boston

Elephants on Comm Ave.

Today, on the final Friday of the free Friday MBTA commuter train program, I finally made it to Boston. A friend and I boarded at Wachusett Station, which is a stone’s throw from my house and only a bit further from hers. We chatted the entire 1.5 hour ride to North Station.

Our plan was to see The Great Elephant Migration, an exhibit of 100 life sized elephant sculptures on the Commonwealth Mall (Commonwealth Ave). Options for getting to the exhibit from the train station (1.2 miles) included the Green Line of the subway or walking. We walked. It was 80-plus degrees. There were a few raindrops early into the walking, but not enough to make an impact.

The exhibit is really cool. According to the exhibit sign, each elephant is a replica of a named and known wild elephant of the Nilgiri Hills of southern India. It extends for a couple blocks in the shady stretch of the park that runs up the middle of Comm Ave. There were quite a lot of people, but everyone was cordial and it wasn’t overwhelming.

Bridal party and swan boats.

After seeing the elephants, we popped over a couple streets to the Prudential Center to enjoy some air conditioning and a falafel lunch break. Then we walked over to Newbury Street before heading into The Public Garden and back towards North Station. At 4:00, the Public Garden was busy with people, swan boats on the water, geese on the grass, and two wedding parties having photos done within sight of the bench upon which we rested for a few minutes. It was a beautiful afternoon with lots of sunshine.

On the way back to North Station and in no rush, we saw a lot of stuff. We popped into a store with a store closing sale of Chinese figurines, dishes, jewelry display racks, satin embroidered cushions, and tons of other stuff we liked but didn’t want to have to carry to the train. We passed the Financial District, saw the Old State House, passed Faneuil Hall, and walked through the produce market outside Boston Public Market. It was a large market (and crowded). Every vendor had fruit packaged by the same producer/distributor, which seemed weird. I might have bought some veggies, but just like the stuff in the store closing sale, I didn’t feel like schlepping stuff to the train. 

Outside Boston Public Market.

Without scheduling our time, we still managed to arrive a North Station at 5:15, which was just in time for my friend to get an iced coffee before we boarded the 5:30 train for home. While she got coffee, I noticed a sign posted on the very high corrugated metal ceiling and nearly fell over backward trying (and failing) to get a clear photo of it. It read "Danger - do not walk on ceiling." Ok, no worries. 

At home, I turned on a movie called The Drama with Zendaya and Robert Pattison (HBO). Immediately, the scenery looked familiar. The movie was filmed in Boston and the streets of Back Bay and the Financial District leapt out, as I had just been there a few hours earlier. 

It was so much fun. Even with train fare, it will be less expensive and less stressful than getting into the city by driving and parking. I need to get to Boston more often.