summer in (seattle) boston

Yeah, not even going to apologize again for the slow rate of posting. And, in my defense, it's been so cold and dark and rainy here in Boston of late that it still kind of *feels* like February or March. Or at least April. So in that regard, I'm not lagging too far behind.

Anyway. Today is the official start of summer, not that you'd know it from looking out the window. It's really hard to be an intrepid sightseeing blogger when the weather won't cooperate. But we've done our best (although I've done my worst to blog about it) and have even entered the world of DSLR photography (a long overdue and much heralded event) to better chronicle the world around us.

Ironically, what we have managed to do and see during the past couple of months took place in some pretty nice weather, since April and May were far nicer than June has been. CP finished school in May, when the weather was lovely and the magnolia trees were in full bloom. With weekends now blissfully free from paper writing and Powerpoint preparation, we took the time to get out and enjoy the less urban areas of Boston. We had a lovely day trip to the Arnold Arboretum, a place so tranquil and lush that I truly forgot I was within a major city's limits. We walked through the lilacs, helped tourists from Japan and Canada take photographs of their extended families, and enjoyed some sunshine and the illusion that the sky was actually a little bluer than in the rest of the city.
We even enjoyed a relatively annoyance- (and urine!) free trip on the Orange Line, which as any Boston commuter knows is quite a feat.

By the end of May the weather was less cooperative and we took our travels indoors. After I grew tired of waiting for never available admission passes from the public library, we finally broke down and paid a hefty sum to visit the New England Aquarium on a rainy Saturday morning. For some reason, I thought that arriving promptly at 9am would somehow insulate us from the chance of being trampled by hordes of tourists (they sleep in, right?) Yep, totally wrong about that one. The place was mobbed. In my mind, a visit to the aquarium is an appropriate school trip for students in about 2nd-5th grade, and 5th grade is pushing it. On this particular Saturday we were greeted by dozens of charter buses carrying swarms of middle school-aged children. The boys were, for the most part, the quiet and geeky sort that doesn't draw much attention; one might even say that some of the boys were vaguely interested in actually seeing some fish and other marine life. The teenage girls, however, were a different (and far more horrifying!) story.

What did I learn from this experience? Adolescent girls REALLY don't like the smell of fish ("EEEEEWWWW! HOW CAN THE PENGUINS EAT THAT SHIT!!!@#%@"); adolescent girls REALLY don't like to touch fish in the "get up close and personal with nature" exhibits; adolescent girls can roll their eyes more frequently and with more force than any other age group I have ever encountered. A fascinating anthropological lesson for us, and it leads me to offer an apology to any family member who might be reading this: I'm sorry for my adolescence. It couldn't have been fun.

On the upside, we actually did see some marine life. I'm pretty much a huge sucker for all animals (I find skunks cute. And most rats. Oppossums are questionable, but not totally out of the running), and I did enjoy stalking the sharks who lived in the giant circular tank in the middle of the aquarium:

Have to say, totally glad there was a vast expanse of plexiglass between me and this guy.

On the whole, however, I was pretty disappointed by our aquarium trip. For the admission price I felt there wasn't a whole lot to see; reportedly there are new outdoor exhibits opening later this summer, and that might help make for a more fulfilling experience. The aquarium itself is also housed in a building whose interior, at least, is so ugly I could swear it was designed by the same architects who brought us the UMass Amherst library, campus center, and Herter Hall, leaving something to be desired in our aesthetic experience of the place. But like I said I am a sucker, so seeing penguins, otters, and tropical fish makes me a pretty happy camper.

On the occasion of having now been officially moved away from the Pioneer Valley for a year (and also on the occasion of having a dentist appointment in the Pioneer Valley), we dropped by the Smith campus to see how it was holding up after two straight weekends of commencement and alumnae reunion partying. As much as I loved my four years at Smith, there is something really wonderful about the peace and quiet of a campus without students. We wandered the grounds, admired the gardens, and took a stroll up to the empty Quad, a place still foreign and unfamiliar to me. In my years at Smith I only ever really visited the Quad at night, sometimes a bit (!) inebriated, so is it any surprise that I still can't get the names of the houses right? Afterward we wandered downtown and sat outside drinking beer and eating some tasty pizza, enjoying the slower pace that Northampton offers during the quiet summer months. NB: Some Smith nostalgia feels fairly inevitable right now, having just completed J. Courtney Sullivan's (Smith '03, same as me) debut novel, Commencement. Although I have a lot to say about the book (and will probably do so in a subsequent update once I've thought about it a bit more) that could be construed negatively, Sullivan is quite gifted at capturing - for better or for worse - the very real details of my Smith experience with such painful, painful accuracy that I really felt like I was reliving my years there all over again. More on that to come.

This is my kind of graffiti. Found on one of those Quad houses,
but don't ask me which one!

Lastly, I have come to the end of the internet. In a manner of speaking, at least. It's probably more accurate to say that I have come to the end of Boston, or that I have now been in Boston long enough that I don't feel like I'm living in an altogether unfamiliar place. Familiarity hasn't exactly bred content, although it is something of a relief to wander around and never feel completely - or even at all - lost.

To that end, and to break in the new DSLR, CP and I took advantage of the one nice sunny weekend day this month to wander around Boston and see what we could see. We wandered around the North End, the Waterfront, Quincy Market (a place I haven't been since I was a bit tipsy at an ungodly hour of the morning last summer on a very scary day), and parts of the new Greenway, amusing ourselves with the camraderie and the lost tourists and the monuments and memorials I'd somehow never stopped to look at:

It's strange, having been here over a year now. I don't feel like a tourist, but I don't feel like I really live or belong here, either. On its best days Boston is an impressively beautiful and stately city in which to live and work; on most others, however, I occasionally stare with envy at the tourists on their duck boats and trolley rides and wish I was like them, visiting for a day or three and then heading back to another city, another state, another country. What can you do? You really can't go home again.

Up next: Things get more exciting, I promise. Upcoming trips for weddings and graduations; a possible run in with Aerosmith (strange but true); and I'm bound to find someplace to make trouble sometime soon.