Starbucks - The Surrogate Office

Today I went to Starbucks.

I will confess that I am more of a Dunkins girl, but my Evil Twin had called me urgently telling me that something crazy was going on at the Starbucks over on Storrow Drive.

A little corporate craziness was afoot and I had to check it out for myself.

I usually associate Starbucks with oversized couchy chairs, big mugs, Missed Connections, and Macs. Not at all so at this particular Starbucks!

This is the Starbucks where people who've been downsized go to "work" when they can't tell their spouse that they are technically no longer actually employed.

I couldn't stop staring. There were deals being made on the sidewalk out front, folks with complicated looking blueteeth contraptions clapped to their ears, job interviews being conducted in comfy chairs, lots of keyboard keys being poked at urgently....

It was weird - it was like being in an office. An office with a really comprehensive cafeteria!

PS: The Starboobies are a gift. Who doesn't love a little subtle ta-ta graffti?

It appeals to my sense of adventure.

There is a hole in the ground over by Copley Place would appear to drop you straight into New York City.


If only it were that easy.
I would definitely go more often.

Parking with the Spirit

Last week my Evil Twin and I were in her car and she was about to park on Comm Ave.

Blinker is on, car is in reverse so presumably the little white lights in the rear are on, and there's no traffic so she begins to reverse into the space. I will also put it out there that both my sister and I are city girls and KNOW how to parallel park without hesitation, yo!

Suddenly a bonehead from Connecticut come bombing up the road and comes to a screeching halt behind her - well maybe not screeching because Connecticut cars don't screech, they politely come to a stop and offer you a Bremner Wafer before asking you to move.

Anyway this knucklehead rolls down the passenger side window and screams:

"WHAT IN THE CHRIST ARE YOU DOING??!?!?!"

Huh?

Reverse lights on, blinker on, backing up, angling the car toward the curb...... hmmmm......

"HAIL MARY WE ARE PARKING THE F*CKING CAR!!!!"

Brockton ROX!

Ok I will be the first to admit that until about two weeks ago I was like "Brockton? Blegh!"

Brockton has this kind of grody reputation that is only half deserved. Parts of it are sort of grody, but other parts are actually pretty cool and funky.

And I am irrationally biased against the word "Brockton" which is often pronounced "Brawk-tin". Ugh. "Brawk-tin Rawks" Gah.

My Evil Twin's friend Andy manages the Brockton Rox.

A few weeks back he invited us to a Patriots Charity Softball match hosted by Kevin Faulk and not only did we get to shake hands with the likes of Laurence Maroney (friendly!), Rosevelt Colvin (charming), Ben Watson (shy!), and Ellis Hobbs (party boy!) but we also got to meet the militia who fire the muskets for the home game touchdowns - very exciting!

Since we had a great time at that event, saw that Campanelli Stadium was an actual stadium and not some dusty concrete sun trap, and were basically treated really well by staff that actually seems to enjoy what they do, we figured why the heck not go to the Brockton Rox home opener.

Well for one thing the game was on a Friday night at 7pm.

Ok, it's the Friday night of Memorial Day weekend and for one thing traffic was AWFUL and matters were not helped when Evil Twin said "this traffic's not so bad" just before we came around the bend into bumper to bumper traffic about 3 miles up from the Braintree split. If yer from heah, you know exactly what I am talking about. If not, well there are no words to adequately express that kind of frustration.

So instead of trying to get down to Brockton via 93 to 95 to 24 to 123, we cut through Weymouth and took 18 to 123. Sounded simple enough huh.

And we were making ok time until an unfortunate left turn was further compounded by a erroneous right and we ended up in the sh*ttiest part of Brockton.

So we stopped at a crappy little gas station, which smelled alarmingly overpoweringly like gasoline, and where the attendant gave my boobs directions and where PeanutButterJellAmy bought a banana to further confound the attendant.

Then just as we thought we were on the right road, the road was suddenly closed by the fire department because suddenly something was on fire...

Just when we were deciding to head back to Boston, or to anywhere else but Brockton, we magically stumbled across Campanelli Stadium.

Why press on you ask? Just to give you an idea of why this is worth it:

Parking - $5
Tickets behind homeplate - $12
Concessions - ~$15 per person, we were hungry.

And the game was actually exciting - there was a heckler behind me who kept me in stitches, bases were just barely stolen, a couple of thrilling slides into home, a sequined Neil Diamond impersonator to lead the crowd through Sweet Caroline at the seventh inning and fireworks after the game.

I would definitely go again.

And if you get a chance you should too. At the most you are going to be out like $20. And if you don't drive, there is public transportation down from Boston and back.

Go Rox!

The OTHER dimension

Sometimes when I am looking for something that I could have sworn was right there one minute ago, I am convinced it's been sucked into that OTHER dimension.


Turns out it's been getting sucked in to a GIANT RING OF MATTER.





Yeah, sometimes thinking about the universe and how big it is and how big two clusters have to be to crush together to create a GIANT RING OF MATTER blows my frickin' pea-brain.

Something is wrong in the universe.

Today the westbound lanes of the Mass Turnpike were jammers while the people in the eastbound lanes just sailed by. Basically is was busier heading OUT of the city instead of IN.

What the f*ck is THAT all about???? On a Monday morning???

This trend is also occurring in traffic heading north into Boston on 93 at 5pm.

It used to be that traffic coming IN to the city during the morning rush hour was the b*tch, as was the traffice heading OUT. Now it's all reversed.

I blame global warming.

Wait a minute! Where's me jumpah?

There is a nightclub a few block from where I live that has been closed for a little while now.

The owner is currently trying to sell it and transfer the liquor license. There was meeting to talk to the neighbors about this plan and some neighbors are for it, others against it - almost everyone though thought the new owner was a bit shifty.

I know that there are many reasons for and against having a night club in a primarily residential neighborhood - everyone has an opinion.

Personally, I don't care but last night a female patron from the other neighborhood nightclub (we've got two plus a "gentleman's" club) squatted and peed on the sidewalk.

Two things about that: GROSS! and GREAT! that she managed sh*tfaced to pee on the ground. I can't do that - stone cold sober and I would STILL piss on my ankle.

Seasonal Disorder

Ok so realistically it's only May 11th.

But the recent spell of fine weather means that everything has bloomed and gone green. Well mostly everything - somethings are still branchy, which then makes them look dead.

And they really aren't dead, it is just still kind of early in the season, and they are just taking their sweet time.

Which reminds me that spring and fall aren't so much seasons as kerfuffles that winter and summer go through to get here.

Seriously.

Stuff you never remember in time....

So after some yoohoo banged up the Shampagne Super Nova I had to rent a car. Because quite frankly I am not going to take two buses for over an hour just to get to work in the morning.

I went to the local Enterprise car rental agency and got the cheapest car they had. But because I don't carry collision on my own car, I had to make sure I had it for the rental.

So I bought it the extra insurance. Boy am I stupid.

Turns out I already have it with the credit card I used to pay for the freakin' car.

And of course the woman at Enterprise was like "well that's not our problem and there is NOTHING we can do about it now".

Ugh.

Next time it's anyone BUT Enterprise.

Lost and Found

This is the first season that I have actually followed the show Lost on a regular basis.

And I have to say that I kind of find it addictively maddening.

People can't seem to figure out if these characters are in purgatory, in heaven, in another dimesion, or on Fantasy island (I can just see Ricardo Montalban stepping out of the jungle cooing about the fabulousness of real Corinthian leather....)

And really I cannot see where this story line is going - I have this mental image of a bunch of flipped out writers, typing away madly in some Hollywood office, hoping to figure it out themselves before the network cancels the show and forces them to end the series by claiming it was all a dream, or in the imagination of an autistic boy....

Anyway, everyone has a theory, including me. I think that the series is based on the song Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash.

See if you can follow:

"I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality"

The survivors all thought they were escaping Australia - "special offer". Then they were all hiding or masking who they really are until the crash made their true personality come out "a guaranteed personality".

"I wasn't born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see"

They fell out of the sky, rescuers can't find them ("notice them") and the "hedge" is a well guarded perimeter.

"I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That's how it's been all around me"

The people on the ceiling are those weird invisible people chewing monsters that they first had to deal with that made some freaky noise.

"The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Make me noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely"

The pipes in the walls would be the hatch and the long distance caller making a long distance call is your one Naomi (I think that's her name) who parachuted in with a satellite phone.

Are you with me so far? Makes sense sort of huh.

AND there is no resolution to the song really either.

Hmmmmm....... I think I am onto something here.

Yogurt is ALIVE

My two favorite writers are Ellen Gilchrist and Laurie Colwin.

I picked up "In the Land of Dreamy Dreams" at the Goodwill this weekend, and of course read it through in one sitting instead of doing laundry as planned.

And then because it was late and I needed something quick, I turned to my favorite food writer Laurie Colwin for a little inspiration. Sadly Laurie died at the age of 48 about 10 years ago, but her writing easy and earthy and her recipes always work out for me.

Especially her yogurt recipe.

Basically it calls for bringing milk to the boil, letting it simmer for two minutes, letting it cool for about 20 minutes (or until 110 degrees), whisking in some plain yogurt (1 tablespoon yogurt to two and a half cups milk), putting it all into a glass jar, wrapping the jar in a towel or scarf (it's a yogurt babushka!), and letting it sit over the pilot light all night. In the morning stick it in the fridge and in the afternoon - TA DA - yogurt!

It's delicious stuff.

Although I will confess that first taste was the hardest. I wasn't positive that I wasn't going to be stricken with some savage yogurt food poisoning ailment that would send me to the crapper for a few days...

But I've made it twice now, and so far so good.

Thanks Evil Twin

I just have to say that I am so very fortunate that I have an Evil Twin who gets it when I say I kicked someone's puppy.

Who will drive me to work even if it means going to work an hour early herself.

Who will make fun of my unfortunate taste in men, but ease the pain with pitchers of Bloody Mary's.

Who has the same breakfast-for-dinner schedule as me.

Who introduces me to all the cool things I know about - especially to Friendly Toast. FRIENDLY TOAST!!! FRIEEEEEENNNNNDLY TOOOOOAST!!!!!!!!!!! And to great mascara.

Who is the only person in the world who can jolly me into good humor with coffee, a donut, and a coupla puppy kicks.

Really, life is all about winning the sibling lottery.
Makes everything, especially Mondays, SO much better.

Why I like C-Span.

My first exposure to C-Span was not a great one. Quite frankly I thought it was about as boring as watching paint dry.

But now that I have a less vague understanding that what happens on C-Span will eventually trickle down into my everyday life, I am a little bit more interested.

The other week (month maybe) I was watching testimony of bee keepers in regard to the dying off of millions of bees.

Sounds so ordinary huh - but go figure that bees are generally responsible for pollination. So if there are no bees, who is going to pollinate all those crops and stuff.

All these bee keepers gave this bewildered testimony on how they couldn't figure out how all their bees were leaving the colonies and not coming back.

Read about it here: Science Daily

It's actually pretty scary, the failure of this one little insect has serious global ramifications. I guess I won't be swatting at them this summer!

Like the swallows in Capistrano, the "birds" are back at BU

Along Storrow Drive there is this sort of bi-level grassy green embankment right at Boston University.

As soon as it is spring and the thermometer registers anything over 65 degrees, all the college girls and boys swarm the grassy banks to sunbathe within feet of this major roadway.

Let me tell you, this has the same effect on cars as that big pothole I mentioned earlier.

Drivers get distracted by all the skin glare and start swerving all over the place and into each other and slow down to about 25 miles an hour. This creates an inbound traffic mess that is often compounded by afternoon Red Sox games and then made even worse in late May/early June when the moving trucks begin jamming themselves under the BU bridge.

Hubcaps a-flying, horns a-honking - it's definitely springtime here in Beantown.

Crash, bang, allakazaam!!

The next time you want to have a demolition derby, rent a U-Haul van.

Turns out that if you crash into a parked car, you will get off scott-free.

That was my experience anyway - some dingaling went crash!bang!allakazaam! into the back The Shampagne Super Nova, taking the rear bumper and the tail light assembly all off.

And then took off.

The police don't do anything except take a report which seemingly goes nowhere and U-Haul was like "eh, we'll look into it and get back to you".

And the two kids driving the van were like "so long suckah!"

And I am left holding the bag, facing a car repair bill that will likely cost more than the car is worth.

Which has me thinking that glueing the bumper back on with a tube of liquid nails is not the worst idea ever.

Hub(caps) of the Universe

I was driving west on Storrow Drive today, and just before the train/BU bridge I noticed about a million hubcaps in a heap on the side of the road.

Well maybe not a million.

But enough to notice. And to maybe make a couple of bucks on Ebay for sure.

I was wondering why there was a cluster of caps, and then when I came around the bend just after the bridge I saw about 3 or 4 cars pulled over. Each one had a flat front drivers side tire.

Weird.

Then I remembered that there is a pothole that borders the median divider and the left side of the left lane.

I guess it is more of a pot-holy-hell-what-the-f*ck-was that!?!?! than an actual pothole.

Be careful out there people. And make sure you have AAA.

Running a marathon

Running a marathon is something I have no plans to ever try.

Running from point A to point B over a distance of 26.6 miles sounds like the opposite of fun to me, but clearly it is fun times for over 25,000 other people.

Let me tell you - I was once at the starting area for the Marine Corps marathon down in DC, and I saw people pissing just out in the open. Women, men, everyone - just pulling their running shorts to the side and peeing on the grass.

Gross.

And who can ever forget Uta Pippig running along with poop and blood running down her leg back in 1996. Ew.

This is not a sport for normal people.

But for those running the Boston Marathon today, I hope you all make times that make you happy.

It's never WHAT you know, it's WHO you know.

The BRA sold a piece of land worth $2,000,000 to the Islamic Society for $175,000.

That smells like vieux fromage to me.

And now a Jewish advocacy group is suing. As they should.

The BRA is the Boston Redevelopment Agency. They manage city owned property. Their transactions, especially with religious groups, should be public record.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against building a mosque.

But not when you need keep your deals with the city a secret to get the job done. It makes you look like you are trying to hide something.

I am kicking myself in the a**

This is a true story from once when the Evil Twin, a bunch of other people, and myself went camping.

We were standing in the parking lot waiting for the group to gather and Evil Twin had her hiking boots dangling off the back of her knapsack and she was swaying back and forth getting the boots to bounce off her butt.

I don't know why she was doing this and I didn't ask, the family has a don't ask/just keep watching policy which is pretty effective.

So she is bouncing the boots off her bum and she is sing-song saying "I am kicking myself in de ass. Kicking myself in de ass!" Over and over again.

And as she is doing this, there is this family piling out of a mini van beside us, with a couple of ankle-biters among them.

One of the frumpy mums comes over to Evil Twin and says: "Please don't say ass in front of my kids"

We all kind of look at this woman like she's just crapped in the punch bowl - first off we were there first, and secondly it's not like she was saying "you mutherf*ckers I am going to break your asses with my bloody boots! Gaarrrr!!!!"

Then we look at Evil Twin because this is her rumble and one nod from her and we'd gladly throw the woman a Dorchester Sneakah Pahty.

But the Evil Twin is still bouncing the boots off her bum, only now she is saying: "I am kicking myself in de anus! Kicking myself in de rectum! La la la la laaa lah la"

Which, from the looks of Frumpy Mum, is not what she had in mind!

I know how Keith feels

Turns out that Keith Richards was playing an April Fools prank when he said that he inhaled his pappy with a toot of coke.

But no one got it. He had to tell everyone it was a joke.

That is the funny part - the fact that Keith snorted his dad's ashes was more believable than the fact that he was joking.

Dude, I know how you feel. No one at work gets my jokes either.