Lunchtime post: Weekend recap
Monday, July 9th, 2012 12:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanaleh
Whew. Another whirlwind Boston weekend.
Oh, before I forget (since it already feels like weeks ago): I posted my July 4th notes (link to LJ version) on the date more appropriate, so as to try and get back in the habit of posting things more promptly instead of huge catch-up entries every several weeks.
So, Friday: work all day, 6:30pm bus, which ACTUALLY got in precisely on time (in fact 2 minutes early). Stayed chez![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ablock and M and little A, though we saw more of Zoe the dog than of the latter two!
Saturday morning, woke up and realized that although I had duly booked a Zipcar all day for my various travels, I had not brought the ZIPCARD with the RFID transponder that would get me into my car! (Not something I normally keep in my wallet, but I'd failed to make the leap of "must bring to Boston".) Luckily, though, where Zipcar fails, there is Pupcar :-) and the minute I came out to the kitchen to announce I was trying to sort this crisis, they said "just take ours!" which was wonderful of them and much appreciated.
The primary reason I went up this weekend was to run a baby naming for the brand-new daughter ofmearah and edashevs, in their house in Bedford. Now, as readers may know, Judaism offers no fixed ceremony for naming/welcoming a girl baby, at least in terms of at-home ritual; the "standard" thing is to do it publicly in the synagogue as part of the regular Torah reading ceremonies, where a few special extra blessings get read which include announcing the new daughter's name, and that's that. But so I pulled something together for them (based on an hour or two of poring over Internet resources, largely Kveller and ritualwell.org), showed up and ran it, and it went over well. I'm planning to edit it into a publishable form to put on my website, so stay tuned if you're interested in that.
Also, got to seefanw and big_jewfro and THEIR adorable daughter, who slept the whole time, which was good 'cause I got to hold her peacefully. :-) I really only know fanw peripherally, so I tend to forget until reminded that she went to undergrad with edashevs. Small world. But it was great to see them and catch up.
From there, I went tomuffyjo's and hung out with her and hilaritea, and then to Carberry's Jam'n Java for food and more conversation with hilaritea, before proceeding to the Superhero Wedding Reception down the road in Arlington. This was a pretty mellow affair in the end (largely due to the heat I think), but the decor was tremendously fun. :-) Since theme costumes were specifically encouraged, I had decided to go all the way and trot out my spandex-and-tights Aishet Chayil costume, which probably deserves its own separate explanatory post (so feel free to send/link pix if you took some). It has the advantage of packing down incredibly small, and it was very well received in its effect, and not as temperature-unfriendly as I feared it might be (strangely, wearing the mask was much more unbearably warm than just hanging out in the long-sleeved black spandex bodysuit). So I got to give my good wishes in person, and exchange hugs and chat with a wonderful lot of folks, and shoot flying monkeys across the room, and dance with gravitrue... and flirt with Tony Stark in the person of trowa_barton. Wish fulfillment all around. ;-)
Quick trip from there back into Cambridge to joinjustom at the post-run Royal East dinner mob, and then we went back to Electric Avenue and hung out with ablock until I fell asleep on the couch.
Sundayablock and M had planned/offered to have people over for brunch to see me, and invited a bunch of the shul gang (despite it being a minor fast day, 17 Tammuz, over which I felt only minimally guilty). At first it was "oh, we're not going to fuss, let's just have bagels" but then of course it turned into an extravaganza of breakfast tacos and homemade waffles and yummy coffee and mimosas. And baby time and wedding-album reminiscing (theirs, obvs) and discussion of upcoming ketubahs. And then I ran off to the bus.
ETA: The bus! Which took SEVEN HOURS to get from South Station to Penn Station! Ifawhyzip hadn't packed me that fruit salad for the bus, I would have been a lot sadder by the time we landed. As it was, within a few minutes after I got home, I was standing over the stove literally eating sausages (okay kosher Moroccan lamb kebabs om nom) right out of the frying pan because OMG STARVING. I think justom is right that in the summertime it's just not worth trying to leave in either direction before 6:30pm, because you can't get there before 10:30pm no matter what you do.
... So.
In some ways I saw a lot more people than I normally might, but conversely, not necessarily in a very focused way. I had several people say "When are you coming BACK so I/we can SEE you??" -- and the answer is, definitely not for a few more weeks, no matter how many social activities I will be missing next weekend! We're coming for sure Labor Day weekend for a wedding, but that's likely to mean time is pretty booked up. But it's possible there will be another visit in the interim. Will advise.
Oh, before I forget (since it already feels like weeks ago): I posted my July 4th notes (link to LJ version) on the date more appropriate, so as to try and get back in the habit of posting things more promptly instead of huge catch-up entries every several weeks.
So, Friday: work all day, 6:30pm bus, which ACTUALLY got in precisely on time (in fact 2 minutes early). Stayed chez
ablock and M and little A, though we saw more of Zoe the dog than of the latter two!Saturday morning, woke up and realized that although I had duly booked a Zipcar all day for my various travels, I had not brought the ZIPCARD with the RFID transponder that would get me into my car! (Not something I normally keep in my wallet, but I'd failed to make the leap of "must bring to Boston".) Luckily, though, where Zipcar fails, there is Pupcar :-) and the minute I came out to the kitchen to announce I was trying to sort this crisis, they said "just take ours!" which was wonderful of them and much appreciated.
The primary reason I went up this weekend was to run a baby naming for the brand-new daughter of
mearah and edashevs, in their house in Bedford. Now, as readers may know, Judaism offers no fixed ceremony for naming/welcoming a girl baby, at least in terms of at-home ritual; the "standard" thing is to do it publicly in the synagogue as part of the regular Torah reading ceremonies, where a few special extra blessings get read which include announcing the new daughter's name, and that's that. But so I pulled something together for them (based on an hour or two of poring over Internet resources, largely Kveller and ritualwell.org), showed up and ran it, and it went over well. I'm planning to edit it into a publishable form to put on my website, so stay tuned if you're interested in that.Also, got to see
fanw and big_jewfro and THEIR adorable daughter, who slept the whole time, which was good 'cause I got to hold her peacefully. :-) I really only know fanw peripherally, so I tend to forget until reminded that she went to undergrad with edashevs. Small world. But it was great to see them and catch up.From there, I went to
muffyjo's and hung out with her and hilaritea, and then to hilaritea, before proceeding to the Superhero Wedding Reception down the road in Arlington. This was a pretty mellow affair in the end (largely due to the heat I think), but the decor was tremendously fun. :-) Since theme costumes were specifically encouraged, I had decided to go all the way and trot out my spandex-and-tights Aishet Chayil costume, which probably deserves its own separate explanatory post (so feel free to send/link pix if you took some). It has the advantage of packing down incredibly small, and it was very well received in its effect, and not as temperature-unfriendly as I feared it might be (strangely, wearing the mask was much more unbearably warm than just hanging out in the long-sleeved black spandex bodysuit). So I got to give my good wishes in person, and exchange hugs and chat with a wonderful lot of folks, and shoot flying monkeys across the room, and dance with gravitrue... and flirt with Tony Stark in the person of trowa_barton. Wish fulfillment all around. ;-)Quick trip from there back into Cambridge to join
justom at the post-run Royal East dinner mob, and then we went back to Electric Avenue and hung out with ablock until I fell asleep on the couch.Sunday
ablock and M had planned/offered to have people over for brunch to see me, and invited a bunch of the shul gang (despite it being a minor fast day, 17 Tammuz, over which I felt only minimally guilty). At first it was "oh, we're not going to fuss, let's just have bagels" but then of course it turned into an extravaganza of breakfast tacos and homemade waffles and yummy coffee and mimosas. And baby time and wedding-album reminiscing (theirs, obvs) and discussion of upcoming ketubahs. And then I ran off to the bus.ETA: The bus! Which took SEVEN HOURS to get from South Station to Penn Station! If
awhyzip hadn't packed me that fruit salad for the bus, I would have been a lot sadder by the time we landed. As it was, within a few minutes after I got home, I was standing over the stove literally eating sausages (okay kosher Moroccan lamb kebabs om nom) right out of the frying pan because OMG STARVING. I think justom is right that in the summertime it's just not worth trying to leave in either direction before 6:30pm, because you can't get there before 10:30pm no matter what you do.... So.
In some ways I saw a lot more people than I normally might, but conversely, not necessarily in a very focused way. I had several people say "When are you coming BACK so I/we can SEE you??" -- and the answer is, definitely not for a few more weeks, no matter how many social activities I will be missing next weekend! We're coming for sure Labor Day weekend for a wedding, but that's likely to mean time is pretty booked up. But it's possible there will be another visit in the interim. Will advise.