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It has been a busy week/weekend.
Last Thursday I was at a friend's helping them unpack from a recent move, when Brian called to tell me that he won a trip to St. Thomas at work. They chose 6 employees to reward with this all expenses paid weekend trip, as a thank you for exemplary behavior. We'll be going in the last weekend of May. This is a month after our vacation to San Francisco for Wondercon/sightseeing. This is very exciting, but I'll be happy to stick around the house for a while come mid-May. :)
On Friday we finally checked out the http://www.deluxestationdiner.com/ in Newton Centre. It's owned by the same folks who own the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, and had the same menu. It was so good, and the decorations in there are fantastic (never mind the building being an old HH Richardson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hobson_Richardson Train Station building - he also designed the house that Brian and I had our wedding reception at). The last time I sat in that building it was a Coffee Connection, pre the Starbucks days (I think I was a freshman at Simmons and it was 93 or 94). We watched an excellent Bollywood Sci Fi movie that Brian downloaded from somewhere, http://robotthefilm.com/. I hope we are able to get this on DVD at some point in a version that will play in the US.
After ballet we tried to go to a huge market/fair at http://www.russellsgardencenter.com/, but it was so crazy crowded that when I had trouble just finding somewhere to put the car we headed home. It was nice to get some things done around the house for our family party and to read a bit more of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I am so in love with this book! We had dinner with Tember and friends for her birthday at http://www.royaleast.com/. The regular diners were crammed into a small room, since the restaurant was feeding the entire engineering department from MIT in the main dining area, crazy! Still, we got our things quickly and everything was great. It was nice chilling at their house afterward.
On Sunday Brian and I hosted the family party to celebrate Gram. I only have a few pictures, here http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/sets/72157626086082049/with/5509285000/ . Also in that directory is a scan of a 2-page document that my Dad created with a story about his father. Papa was a machinist and his main customer was Raytheon, where he created tiny metal pieces he called "spiders" that went up into much equipment in national space and defense programs. Dad shared some stories and photos from "the shop" as it was called, that used to be over on Lexington Street (now the space is a parking lot behind a building that is sandwiched between the large city lot/garage and Watertown Savings Bank). I knew about Papa's spiders and Raytheon and NASA, but I never had heard the story that my aunt shared about the Challenger Explosion. I guess he watched the launch and when it exploded, he broke out into terrible hives that lasted the day until he was able to confirm that it indeed was not his metal spiders that caused the issue. I remember going to Papa's shop when I was very young just vaguely: coils of junk copper 'threads' in piles on the floor, old and dirty walls, his first dollar taped up on the wall and that creepy bathroom with the tank up overhead and a pull chain (Dad actually included that in the photos with his story). Brian and I still have some of Papa's old tools from the shop in our garage - they are hulking behemoth things that will last forever and ever. The band saw almost decapitated a friend of ours when it sent it's huge blade flying across the room (who used safety enclosures back then?), so that went out to the curb for some other poor soul to mess around with.
I met up with a long-time livejournal friend for the first time in real life last night, http://dawntreader90.livejournal.com/profile . For the life of us we can't remember when it was we "met" online, but it has been forever. Year's later we'd discover that we both knew http://electricsoup.livejournal.com/profile in real life (M had moved away, but I 'found' her again via Dawntreader's LJ, living in Virginia). Either way, we had a good time. Since she only had a few hours and had never seen Boston before, I met her at Logan, we went to see the Sea Lions outside the http://www.neaq.org/index.php, ate at Legal Seafood across the street, wandered a bit in the windy cold, made our way to http://www.faneuilhallmarketplace.com/ and the North End (for pastry at http://www.modernpastry.com/) before I took her to her hotel out in Natick (she's here for 2 days for training). I grabbed a black and white for myself and a black velvet cupcake for Brian - ooh heavenly! I'm not sure if I like the cake and frosting version of the Boston black and whites more or less than the cookie and glaze NYC counterparts. Generally, I don't discriminate against sweets. :)
Dance class and Glee tonight!
Last Thursday I was at a friend's helping them unpack from a recent move, when Brian called to tell me that he won a trip to St. Thomas at work. They chose 6 employees to reward with this all expenses paid weekend trip, as a thank you for exemplary behavior. We'll be going in the last weekend of May. This is a month after our vacation to San Francisco for Wondercon/sightseeing. This is very exciting, but I'll be happy to stick around the house for a while come mid-May. :)
On Friday we finally checked out the http://www.deluxestationdiner.com/ in Newton Centre. It's owned by the same folks who own the Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, and had the same menu. It was so good, and the decorations in there are fantastic (never mind the building being an old HH Richardson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hobson_Richardson Train Station building - he also designed the house that Brian and I had our wedding reception at). The last time I sat in that building it was a Coffee Connection, pre the Starbucks days (I think I was a freshman at Simmons and it was 93 or 94). We watched an excellent Bollywood Sci Fi movie that Brian downloaded from somewhere, http://robotthefilm.com/. I hope we are able to get this on DVD at some point in a version that will play in the US.
After ballet we tried to go to a huge market/fair at http://www.russellsgardencenter.com/, but it was so crazy crowded that when I had trouble just finding somewhere to put the car we headed home. It was nice to get some things done around the house for our family party and to read a bit more of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I am so in love with this book! We had dinner with Tember and friends for her birthday at http://www.royaleast.com/. The regular diners were crammed into a small room, since the restaurant was feeding the entire engineering department from MIT in the main dining area, crazy! Still, we got our things quickly and everything was great. It was nice chilling at their house afterward.
On Sunday Brian and I hosted the family party to celebrate Gram. I only have a few pictures, here http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/sets/72157626086082049/with/5509285000/ . Also in that directory is a scan of a 2-page document that my Dad created with a story about his father. Papa was a machinist and his main customer was Raytheon, where he created tiny metal pieces he called "spiders" that went up into much equipment in national space and defense programs. Dad shared some stories and photos from "the shop" as it was called, that used to be over on Lexington Street (now the space is a parking lot behind a building that is sandwiched between the large city lot/garage and Watertown Savings Bank). I knew about Papa's spiders and Raytheon and NASA, but I never had heard the story that my aunt shared about the Challenger Explosion. I guess he watched the launch and when it exploded, he broke out into terrible hives that lasted the day until he was able to confirm that it indeed was not his metal spiders that caused the issue. I remember going to Papa's shop when I was very young just vaguely: coils of junk copper 'threads' in piles on the floor, old and dirty walls, his first dollar taped up on the wall and that creepy bathroom with the tank up overhead and a pull chain (Dad actually included that in the photos with his story). Brian and I still have some of Papa's old tools from the shop in our garage - they are hulking behemoth things that will last forever and ever. The band saw almost decapitated a friend of ours when it sent it's huge blade flying across the room (who used safety enclosures back then?), so that went out to the curb for some other poor soul to mess around with.
I met up with a long-time livejournal friend for the first time in real life last night, http://dawntreader90.livejournal.com/profile . For the life of us we can't remember when it was we "met" online, but it has been forever. Year's later we'd discover that we both knew http://electricsoup.livejournal.com/profile in real life (M had moved away, but I 'found' her again via Dawntreader's LJ, living in Virginia). Either way, we had a good time. Since she only had a few hours and had never seen Boston before, I met her at Logan, we went to see the Sea Lions outside the http://www.neaq.org/index.php, ate at Legal Seafood across the street, wandered a bit in the windy cold, made our way to http://www.faneuilhallmarketplace.com/ and the North End (for pastry at http://www.modernpastry.com/) before I took her to her hotel out in Natick (she's here for 2 days for training). I grabbed a black and white for myself and a black velvet cupcake for Brian - ooh heavenly! I'm not sure if I like the cake and frosting version of the Boston black and whites more or less than the cookie and glaze NYC counterparts. Generally, I don't discriminate against sweets. :)
Dance class and Glee tonight!
