bear

I think I am pretty much doomed to never catch up.

( a few days in Boston )

And then I get back Sunday afternoon and hyounpark greets me with "I said yes to performing at the Opera House this week, but I don't know if you've been checking your email, but I think they're assuming you're performing too because that's what happens when a married couple joins a choir?" Me: "A who in the what are we doing now?"

I'd thought our season was over. But our choral director got a last-minute call for us to close out a symposium on gun violence prevention and the role the arts can play in community healing, being done in conjunction with one of the operas San Francisco Opera is doing this season (Innocence) about the aftermath of a school shooting. So I went to Boston to recover from tech week and then came back into a surprise tech week, heh. Still very glad I did it, though. Afterwards, us singing in the stairwell of the Opera House, even more ethereal and better acoustics.

In the middle of that tech week, though, we had tickets for Sarah McLachlan at the Greek, and damn, I hope I still have those kind of pipes when I'm her age. I'd been expecting she was just going to do the songs off Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, but she began with a full set before that.

( Feist opened: )

( Sarah McLachlan setlist )

Somehow, this has become the month of shows - on top of our long-extant plans for SML, we saw The Lehman Trilogy last Saturday with CJ and Elana; for our part in singing in the symposium, we have tickets to go see Innocence next week; I have tickets for Iron and Wine at the Fox at the end of the month. And then my freshman year roommate messaged me a few days ago and was like, "Do you like Vampire Weekend? I've got an extra ticket for their show at the Greek." So definitely keeping busy!

What belongs on a Boston bucket list? Like, despite having lived here for nearly two decades, I have still never walked the Freedom Trail, even though living in Boston is what’s turned me into a walker, and a biker. But I’ve walked out to Castle Island, around Jamaica Pond, through the Middlesex Fells and the Blue Hills, down Comm Ave and up the Greenway, Mass Ave nearly end to end, through the Harvard campus more times than I can count (though I can still get lost at MIT), from downtown to Fenway Park on multiple game nights where I didn't feel like cramming myself into the sardine can known as the Green Line. I’ve navigated Somerville by specific Bathtub Marys, and greater Boston by specific Dunks. I've biked on Storrow Drive and out to Bedford on the Minuteman and pretty much most places in between; kayaked along the Charles, and swum in Walden Pond and the Mystic Lakes and the Res; ice skated on Frog Pond and under the lights of Kendall Square. And, well, fallen on my ass multiple times because black ice and long New England winters. Heh.

( a love letter to Boston because I'm a creature of nostalgia )

I've made my home in triple-decker Victorians, Federalist brick and brownstone, the top floor of a Queen Anne where H and I learned to dub birds "those CHIRP CHIRP MOTHERFUCKERS" because they would wake us up at 3 am in the summer, a duplex close enough to the Minuteman I could constantly watch our neighbors stream by on bikes, even on the couch of the Cambridgeport Commune for a couple of months. And now, after two decades in Boston, two dozen years in New England, and too many cubic yards of snow shoveled, our time here is drawing to a close; in August, we are moving to the Bay Area.



We'll still be (long) walking distance to the train; I'll still bike to local farmers' markets. I'll add more swimming to the mix; H will add more hills to his half-marathon training, but still be able to run on a bike path near our new place. I already have a spreadsheet entitled "Bay Area Farmers Markets and Independent Bookstores," and we have a plan to identify the best pizza places nearby so we can find our go-to as quickly as possible. We will miss all you locals dearly, but we will be back. Just not in, say, January. ;)

Bay Area friends, I'm sure I'll have questions for you about the practicalities of this new life we're trying out. For now, I'm looking forward to seeing more of you all starting in August!

And yep, we're driving across. 90 most of the way, then detouring a bit to avoid the worst heat of Nevada in summer the best we can. (Neither of us are Burning Man candidates, I'm afraid. :) ) Highlights we hope to hit: Cedar Point, the Dane County Farmers' Market, Yellowstone; other things TBD, hopefully many of them kitschy, delicious, and/or beautiful. Any recs from those of you who've done this before? We'll have most of two weeks to do this.

Update: one of my fireworks photos was featured by Flickr! *hearteyes* Fourth one down at the link.

Spent my 4th hanging down at the river with jenleigh and david_grana, taking pictures of the fireworks.



(More on my Flickr.)

On my way home tonight, I joined an impromptu bike caravan going up Hampshire Street into Somerville. Moments like these are exactly what I want my life to be like.

1. My strawberry plant is sprouting! Tiny whitish berries the size of my thumb, but it is sprouting! And the purple pansies are exploding. And one of my tomato plants is bullying the other one for water. And the farmers' markets actually opened last week but I haven't had a chance to go yet.

2. My sitbones are sore from the last three days of bike-riding and trying-out and such. But! I have finally made the commitment chosen! Skinny tires, matching helmet and all. Plus a crazy lock I haven't figured out how to work yet. I need to go back later in the week to get a rack and panniers installed, and pick out appropriate lighting, and a pump! But I have a bike! And I rode past melissaagray and danamae's places on my way home (and then around my neighborhood a bunch after I dropped off my purse at home :) ). Almost four miles! But this feels like it opens up a lot of getting-around-Camberville possibilities for me, and I saw so many people out biking today that I actually felt a part of that community - an extreme newbie, yes, but!

3. Tonight: barbecue! Tomorrow: more barbecue!

it's a month until my birthday and it's warm out, sunny and slightly breezy and i walked to work this morning in mere shirtsleeves. haven't seen weather the likes of this in november since ... wait for it ... i lived in california. heh.

and i followed my nose for breakfast and renee was making mango blueberry scones today, so that's what i've got for breakfast. :)

i am sooooooo taking a long lunch today.