3rd House Journal

Dive

[Diver, Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, Boston; 8/25/12]

Last Saturday we took the T over to the waterfront once again, this time to watch some of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, which had divers executing perfect acrobatics between the cantilevered roof of the Instititute of Contemporary Art (ICA) 80 feet down into Boston Harbor. The area was packed with people, so we couldn't get very close, but from two different vantage points we were able to see the divers launch themselves from the roof, twist, tuck, pike and then vanish just before entry into the water. A helpful big screen TV provided scenes of actual splash downs. D and spent much of the time trying to capture the dives with our digital cameras. My "burst" setting captured a number of fun stop-action sequences that are a bit grainy with speed and distance, but at some point I'll try to stitch together.

[View from Commonwealth Pier to the ICA]

[Braving the platform to sing the national anthem]

It was actually a beautiful day, sunnier than it appears in the above photos, with a heat-sparing light cloud cover.

[View from Fan Pier]

It was a bit of an upsetting week as I was blindsided by a call from a rather difficult client on Wednesday. But the fault was all mine, a rather egregious, embarrassing mistake on some copy I'd provided to them awhile back, a result of sloppy thinking and trying to do things too quickly. I spent the evening diligently rechecking all my work and sent back fixes that night. I've not heard one word back from them, which is not unusual for this client. I have to assume that remedied the immediate issue. But it shook me up, imagining my reputation and career taking a dive, and not a nicely executed one at all but rather an ungainly flop ending in a painful, conspicuous splat. I did realize that this attitude wasn't going to help and I did my best to focus for the next couple of days on careful work for my main client these days, who are far looser in their needs, in no small part I'm sure because their audience is internal. Nevertheless, I know that a large measure of my service to them has been to wrestle their content into order and save them from their own disorganization. So I've tried to remind myself of all the good work I've done, to try to pile it up on the scale against the small but weighty glaring error on the other side. And know that while I'll never be perfect I can at least avoid making a similar mistake in the future.

[Tightrope walkers over Fort Point Channel, near the Boston Children's Museum]

North End Fisherman's Feast

[Fisherman float in Boston's North End; 8/19/12]

Luh-la luh-la luh-la luh-la-la! When I was in my 20's, a housemate I rented from used to sing this bit of cheery Italian schmaltz (by way of an old spaghetti commercial) whenever she'd make spaghetti sauce. She was such a joy to live with! I'd just come from living with a housemate who was so controlling she pretty much confined anything belonging to me  to my bedroom. The song still occasionally pops into my head when I make spaghetti sauce at home, and it did again when D and I wandered into the Fisherman's Feast (in honor of the Madonna Del Soccorso Di Sciacca) in Boston's North End on Sunday. The smell of garlic and Italian sausage filled the air around stalls of Sicillian food and kitschy Italian good luck charms. The North End, Boston's Little Italy, has saint's feasts all summer but was the first one we'd been to this year, and thankfully it was mercifully cool out -- we'd been in past years on stifling hot days while jostling through the crowds. But hot or cool, there's always something a little Moonstruck joyfully over the top about the whole thing.

[Happy lemons at the lemonade stands, Fisherman's Feast]

[Italian-American street food, with glimpse of marching band]

Although there was plenty of Italian street food to be had, we'd just eaten in an Italian restaurant the night before. So I let my camera do all the eating, then we went to the nearby waterfront for some basic New England fish dinners.

More photos from the Fisherman's Feast here. Divertiti!

Island Time

[Free concert at ICA-Boston; 8/16/12]

Last night I went with a friend to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston -- mainly for the free concert outside at their harborfront performance space. There was a young band made up of musicians from the Berklee School of Music playing, with quite a large fan following who danced to their "psychedelic indie reggae" beat. After having dinner on the patio, we sat for awhile on the amphitheter steps and watched the group's fans dancing, boats passing, and museum patrons of all ages enjoying the perfect summer night.

Then we went inside to see the exhibits, which included the colorful and lively graffiti art of the Brazilian twin artists Os Gemeos and the cool and cerebral cosmic art of Josiah McElheny. While the Os Gemeos work was immediately accessible and played well with the party atmosphere outside (albeit upscale compared with Brazilian street art), I found most of the McElheny exhibit too much work for my tired eyes and brain. Except for his Island Universe installation, which was thoroughly fun.

[Island Universe by Josiah McElheny at ICA Boston]

[Galaxies]

Our own little island universe will be quiet this weekend as D is recovering from oral surgery yesterday. He sounded pretty good today, but tired. So we'll pretend we're on island time and just relax. While the weather is expected to be rainy tomorrow, Sunday should be comfortable so I expect we'll get out and about a bit.

Hope it's a great weekend in your end of the galaxy.

Waves

[North Beach, Hampton NH; 8/11/12]

The oppressive city air was far behind us, replaced by the cool briny breath of the ocean. The tide slipped forward wave by wave, greeting advancing layers of blue-gray clouds until finally they met and crossed, leaving for a long while a bright band at the horizon. Later, light rain washed the port of excess tourists, leaving locals to slide into worn grooves, cozying into familiar chairs and menus. I let it all spill over me, softening edges honed by the work week.

[Towards Boar's Head]

Extracurricular Activities

[Meadow at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge; 8/7/12]

Part of the transition back to working from home is adjusting to solitary life during the week. When I worked from home for many years prior to working full time, I had housemates, dogs for company (my own or my housemate's), and I made time to get out and have a social life - getting in my car to go see friends or meeting locals for happy hours. (I also wasn't working nearly enough.) I wasn't in a relationship and I lived in a rural town so getting out of isolation once in awhile was necessary for my sanity. Then I got a full-time, exhausting job. I moved closer to the big city. And I met D, who came to fulfill a lot of my social needs, though I made time when I could to see my friends. I worked hard all week and was usually too exhausted to do much socializing between weekends. I did have work colleagues and, though we mostly all had our noses to the grindstone all day, we did have some social interaction. Now I'm still with D on weekends, but weekdays I'm home alone all week. And it's so-o nice to be home! I used to rarely see my apartment while awake. I love being home. But there are times when I miss people.

[Great blue heron, Great Meadows in Concord MA]

All of which is to say that I finally got out on Tuesday to meet up with an evening walking group I've been following online for a long time but hadn't managed to hook up with for various reasons. We met at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge's Concord unit, about 12 miles from my house. It was a lovely spot, and people were nice, so I'm hoping to do more with them. Of course right now it's still light in the evening but that won't last long into the fall. I'm not sure what they do in winter - will have to see.

I had coffee with a former colleague on Monday morning, and tonight I met up with a friend to walk for an hour before dinner. Tomorrow is Friday and I'll see D in the evening and for the weekend. Then back to work a busy workload starting Monday.

[Sundown, Great Meadows]

Sunset Cruise

[Sunset at Castle Island, South Boston; 8/04/12]

With a hot, humid day ahead on Saturday, we decided to book ourselves on a little 90-minute boat ride around Boston Harbor for evening. It was chancey booking for Saturday night, given how crowded it was likely to be. But it turned out okay. We got in line reasonably early for the boat, which was nothing fancy but not expensive either, and were alert enough to secure a couple of plastic patio chairs to sit on on the upper deck. The deck quickly filled with people, many eyeing our chairs like the music had stopped in Musical Chairs, but other chairs were soon dragged from below decks and most people were eventually seated by the time we shoved off into the harbor. Then most of us ended up standing for much of the trip in order to get the best views starboard and port. Dark clouds threatened and then backed off, leaving us with lovely views of they city and the harbor as the sun set behind them.

[Sunset behind Boston from the harbor]

I'm not sure if we've yet run out of Harbor touring experiences yet this summer. There are plenty more Harbor Islands should be want to explore those further. And more stretches of the Harborwalk, although we've probably walked all of those bits closest to the city. There are whale watches and there are ferries to Salem north of the city and Hingham to the south. There's the shipyard in Eastie yet to explore. And, as always, the Italian feasts in the North End, not far from Boston Harbor. There are only a few weeks left in the summer, alas. We'll see where we end up.

[Pre-sunset cruise, at Long Wharf]

And of course there are more photos here!

Spectators on Spectacle Island

[Into Boston Harbor; 7/30/12]

After circling much of Boston Harbor on foot this summer, following various pieces of the Harborwalk, we finally got on a ferry on Monday and headed out to the Harbor Islands. I had a day free, which was perfect timing given Monday's forecasted fair skies after an intermittently cloudy/rainy weekend. We decided not to try to fit in more than one island visit in the day and picked Spectacle Island, which boasts a cafe, a visitor's center, a beach, 5 miles of hiking trails and panoramic views of the harbor and the city from the highest point. It also has a pretty interesting history -- from its origins as two small drumlins connected by a spit of land (hence the name "Spectacle" for its shape like spectacles, though the spit was later filled in), its earliest use by Native Americans for fishing and camping, use by early Europeans as a smallpox quarantine, a site for hotels (later shut down for gambling), then site of a horse rendering plant followed by a trash incinerator and eventually, forgoing incineration, a place to dump trash (until it reportedly swallowed a bulldozer). It was finally cleaned up, capped off with clay from Boston's Big Dig project, and opened as a recreational area in 2006. It's come a long way.

[Spectacle Island Visitor's Center, beach and pier]

The ferry only took about 20 minutes to get out to the island, then we had almost 3 hours until our scheduled ride back (ferries leave on the hour). We grabbed a sandwich in the cafe, then trekked to the top of the North Drumlin to take in the views, which included Boston, Castle Island and Fort Independence in South Boston, Logan airport, and the nearby islands Thompson Island, Long Island and its bridge from Moon Island. The summit seemed to be inhabited primarily by red-winged black birds (I didn't even try to get a shot of them, but D got a remarkably sharp one - his efforts well paid off).

[Boston Harbor from North Drumlin on Spectacle Island]

We walked back to port by way of the west side of island, which has a seawall in place of the beach on the eastern side. It was all lovely, although we were wishing we'd worn hats to protect us from the sun. It was comfortably breezy and dry, but apart from a couple of shade shelters and an occasional pine tree, there wasn't much protection from the sun.

[Queen Anne's Lace at the seawall, with view towards Long Island]

When we got back to the Visitor Center, we had time to rest in the Adirondack chairs on the porch a bit before our ferry arrived to take us back to the city. We stopped for a nice bowl of chowder and a cool beer/wine at Legal Seafood on Long Wharf to top off the day.

Here's the photo set from the ferry ride and the island.

August

[Race Point, Provincetown; 8/17/2009]

This is the August photo in my Provincetown calendar this year. Taken during our first vacation together -- three days in Ptown in August 2009 -- I can still feel the heat and that long climb back up from Race Point beach in hot, deep sand. (More photos from that trip here).