Boston Holidays

March 17th is a big day for the city of Boston. As most people know, it’s St Patrick’s Day and Boston does love to get its Irish on for a day. For me personally, I am of Irish descent (with the red hair to show for it… for now). My father’s mother’s family came to the US from Ireland. My mother’s parents were from New Foundland (before it became part of Canada) but prior to that we believe the family was in Ireland as well. My father’s father’s family was from Nova Scotia (I think) and before that the family was from England. I guess no one is perfect.

While St Patrick’s Day is the big deal for most of us around here, people in Suffolk County also have another holiday today. Evacuation Day. George Washington placed the cannons stolen from Fort Ticonderoga onto Dorchester Heights, where they could threaten the English warships in the harbor, thus breaking the Siege of Boston. When I was a kid I was insanely jealous of the kids in Boston because they had the day off from school on March 17th and those of us in Middlesex County did not. They didn’t have to go to school on St Patrick’s Day and we did. What a rip off! There were people from the Merrimack Valley fighting with the Continental Army during the siege, why don’t we get the day off to honor them too?

It wasn’t until I was 21 or 22 years old and going to school at Northeast Broadcasting School in Boston that I got to have Evacuation Day off. Better late than never, I guess. As for today, happy St Patrick’s Day. Most of Boston drank themselves into the annual stupor over the weekend, so there isn’t a lot of actual celebration today. We used to have Corned Beef for dinner on St Patrick’s Day, but I think tonight we’re just going to have chicken. Maybe we’ll do something next weekend to celebrate. I am wearing a green shirt today though. Not because I chose to wear green today, but because a green shirt just happened to be on the top of my laundry pile. Call it the luck of the Irish.

About to Go Home

It is silly. I love to travel. I enjoy staying in hotels. I love the city of Boston. Why then did spending three nights in a hotel in Boston start to bum me out? It was nice. It was fun. It was a goofy little excursion away from the norm.

Why then, with all the things that I enjoyed about the entire situation, does the idea of being able to go home after work tonight fill me up with happiness? My wife and I will be home together. We’ll eat dinner together at home. We’ll sack out on the couch after dinner and watch TV in our living room at home. We’ll sleep in our own bed tonight. We’ll wake up at home tomorrow and be back on our regular, normal daily routine.

I love to travel. I love staying in hotels. I love being in the city of Boston. I guess I just love being at home with Jen more. When you look at it that way, it’s not even a little bit surprising.

Also, there are cats at home when there were no cats in the hotel. That’s gotta count for something too, right?

Heading Back

This morning I posted a couple of pictures of the Zakim Bridge in Boston from the Northbound side of route 93. Now here are two from the Southbound side. Why? Because the universe is a circle, or some bullshit like that.

You can see the TD Garden in these pictures (better in the first one). That’s where the Boston Bruins are currently losing 1-0 to their captain’s new team. Stupid Florida Panthers. Stupid Don Sweeney trading Brad Marchand. Stupid, stupid Bruins. Ugh.

Crazy Day Coming

Last night Jen and I stayed at the hotel that is hosting her company’s function. I got up at 5:30, took a shower, and drove home. It’s a little wacky, but I am working from home on a day when we aren’t actually home. Does that make sense? No? So what, it’s how it is. Heh.

192/365

Tomorrow I will work in the office, so I’ll be driving there from the hotel instead of from home. That’s going to be weird too. I was thinking that I would bring my camera with me and wander around the city after work tonight, but if I am going straight to work in the morning I will have my work laptop with me… so I think I will be going to the hotel after work, and it will be late enough that the sun will be down by the time I get there and put my stuff away. So maybe I won’t be wandering around the city after all. Maybe I’ll just stay in the room and watch Daredevil while I wait for Jen to come back from her post-work, work-events.

We’ll see. I did tell Jen that if I happen on a music store in my wandering and said music store had a Gibson guitar for sale for under $1,000, then I am totally buying it. I should see if I can make that promise come true. Heh heh.

Anyway, time to get ready for work. There is a contractor coming this afternoon as well as a delivery that I have to open the door for. All of that on top of having a crazy busy schedule. It’s going to be a weird one today. Big time.

Almost Time to Go

I haven’t been to every city on Earth. Not even close. I love San Diego, CA. I love New York, NY (except for the fucking Yankees). I love a whole bunch of other cities as well, but if I had to pick just one as my favorite… just one city to spend the rest of my days… it would be Boston, MA. My home. Sort of. I grew up about 20 minutes north of Boston and today I live about 30 minutes north of Boston. Close enough. Boston is home. Boston is my favorite city.

For the next few nights we are going to be staying in Boston for my wife’s company event thing. She’s going to be there for the whole time while I am still going to go to work as usual. I’ll just be hanging out waiting for her work events to end each day. I could stay at home while she stays at the hotel, sure, but that would mean we would be separated for a few days and frankly I’d rather stick a railroad spike through my eye than chose to spend a few days apart from my love. Call me sentimental.

Anyway, she’s wrapping up her work day. We both have a bag packed. Yeah, I’ll be home for the work day tomorrow, but I am still bringing cameras. I expect to do some wandering around while she’s at after-hours events. I don’t know if I will have time to shoot any film, but night shooting digital is definitely a possibility. Hopefully I’ll have enough sunlight to FINALLY run a test roll through my new, ebay, Lubitel. Once that is done I can send off a whole pile of film for developing. Disney World and New York photos will be included. It’s a must, really.

Here’s hoping it’s a nice hotel room. If we’re going to be stuck there for a few days it would be helpful if it were comfy with a nice view. It’s close to Boston Common, but not close enough to see it. At least I don’t think so. I’ll probably post a few thousand pictures over the next few days. You know, like I do.

No Kings

There were presidents day protests in Boston today. I would have joined them if I could, but I had to work. Today is a holiday that I don’t have off. Sucks. Not that I recognize the sitting president at all. The fascist states of america can have him, just keep his nazi ass out of my Massachusetts, please.

No Kings on presidents Day. Except maybe for the Los Angeles Kings, but that’s something completely different.