I haven't griped about parking in Southie for a pretty long time....

(since November 2009, actually)

.....which makes it OK to point out today the existence of this sign taped to all markers running on both sides of the length of the street that runs past my apartment:

And, point out the existence of this sign on the closest cross street next to my apartment.

(And I'm not even getting into these signs being posted starting the very week that street cleaning rules go into effect.  I'm not showing you the signs that abut the (not 1 or 2 or 3 but) 4 multi-unit condominium construction projects in a 3-block radius around me that also have "no parking" signs taking up 5-6 parking spots per site, with indefinite end-dates in 2013.)

Let's sum up:  for 6 weeks I cannot park my car on the street during the day on any street within reasonable vicinity of my apartment.  This also means the 40 or so other cars that might park on those streets also need to find other places for these 6 weeks.  And they can't park in front of any condo construction sites until 2013, just like me.

So (score) last week I came across a spot just in front of this sign and put down stakes.  Woo-hoo!

So, naturally on Friday morning I head out to find this slid under my windshield wiper.

Which tells me I'm parked in a "No Parking 3/17 to 4/15" spot.  Which clearly tells me the City of Boston wants me to pay $55 for their failure to correctly update a sign.

Damn straight this one is getting appealed.  Damn straight.

Maybe because it's Monday...

.... and maybe it's because I only manage to never find a seat on the days I think it is safe to wear my black lace-up heels during my commute (rather than the saner, safer running shoes),

But I still do not understand how the 6 men seated in the back of the #9 bus this morning were content to watch me stand in their midst and hold onto a pole (while acknowledging that my choice of shoes is my own), ignoring my struggle to stay upright for a 25-minute ride that included stopping once a block while on a downhill while additionally braking for 10 or so unpredictable Southie double-parkers and a half-dozen more errant pedestrians, followed by a 6-series of 110-degree turns to wind around the Broadway T.

All were about 30 or younger.  Five of six were head-down on handheld electronics.  The sixth was sitting right in front of me....about 6' 4" and wearing workout clothes. Not sure how he didn't notice my passive-aggressive evil stare for the majority of the ride, to catch his eye and plead for mercy and see if he noticed my tottering and swaying and attempts to shake the numbness out of my necessarily-elevated left arm without pitching over.

I refuse to beg for chivalry from strangers.  But the lack of it sometimes still disappoints me.

Kodachrome Project (2011): The Grinch Who Keeps Stealing My Sky

Oh, fair patio.

With lovely view of the waterfront since September of last year.

Occasional summer yoga studio.  

Reliable summer party spot, among the impatiens and basil.

Frequent summer chill spot (and often insomnia hangout).

Only place I can say I've listened to both Jethro Tull live and a chorus of partygoers down the street wailing on Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know" at some early morning hour.

It is now the place where I watch construction workers hoist joists, tape wall panels together, add floors for future back-door neighbors; there has been another added in the week since this photo was taken. 

 

I'm kind of praying there isn't a fourth floor.

I want the chance to keep at least a couple inches of sky.

Thanks-Essay 1: Friends Who Run

Saturday was being one of those days.

Yes, even a Saturday can start out being one of those days, when it involves a mid-morning landlord visit requiring finding and eliminating every kernel of stray cat litter (and hair) from premises, followed by an impromptu 3-hour nap (3-hours! as if a sick toddler!) complete with sweaty nightmares that not only left me more tired than before I started but sucked up 3 of the 4.5 hours of available afternoon sunlight. (And 4:30 p.m. sunsets suck, people. Even if they're pretty.) Followed by a trip to Family Dollar Store confirming that because there are now 15 aisles of stupid, cheap Christmas decorations, there is no longer room for 30-cent cans of cat food.

It was in this moment, while rounding the corner of Dorchester Street and Broadway and muttering about stupid, cheap Christmas decorations and overgeneralized holiday commericalization, I was blindsided by the blaze-orange sprinting shoes and the figure of my dear friend Chris. Indeed sprinting by. A friend who runs like the wind, but lives in Roxbury and wouldn't generally be in this hood this hour. 

As he quickly explained:

"I just stopped by your place. I was headed out and realized today I wanted to run to Southie, but didn't think to call you until I was on my way.  Wanted to see if you wanted to go for a run."

It was 3:30 p.m. and I was still in my pajamas, drowsy and bed-headed. But had I been in Family Dollar Store for 30 seconds longer or shorter than I had, Chris and I would have missed each other. The day was crying out for a divine kick-in-the-pants ... and it appeared.

By 3:45 I was in shorts, tech top and Asics and he and I were jogging west towards the other side of town. Chris is a much (taller and long-legged and) faster runner than me .... even with him cutting 2-minutes-a-mile off his pace, I chugged hard to keep up and not feel the guilt of boring him.  But I kept up. We conversed in that necessary way friends who get too busy need to converse, passing the 4 miles to Roxbury in no time.

By the time we reached his home and I set out for the return trip (in the end, 8.75 total), the sun setting behind me in the cool afternoon, I was glad and grateful.  To have shifted my day's attitude so thoroughly.  To have run faster and longer than I would have ever done by myself.  To have the privilege of such an awesome, selfless friend in my life ...

....especially one who runs.

Dateline: Carson Beach 10/08/11

Never really expected to be 

working on a tan, 

in my bikini, 

in 80 degrees, 

in Boston,

in the late afternoon

on the 17th day of autumn.

But, so be it.

4:51:   This dude wanted my apple core.  Badly.

4:56:  Apple finished.  Seagull banished.  Nap commenced.

5:44:  Sunset over Southie

Pros & Cons

Last night starting at 9:45 p.m., I spent 2 hours getting my life in order via visits to Home Depot, Target and Stop & Shop at the South Bay Center in Dorchester.  I could do this at this hour because I live in a large city and there are retail stores open until 11 and all-night supermarkets.

Last night starting at 11:45 p.m., I spent 30 minutes trying to find the One Available Parking Spot In All Southie.  There were evidently Zero.   In my 5 years here I have never not been able to park on a Monday night.  In this perfect storm, it seems, the combination of massive utility work on W 1st Street and the Tuesday 5-7 am street-cleaning signs on Broadway meant all vehicles on these 2 major thoroughfares were vomited onto side streets. 

While waiting at a stoplight, I texted Man from San Francisco:

K (12:06 am): For 20 minutes now i have been crusing for a parking space .... This f#*$ing neighborhood ...
MSF (12:07):  ::Grraar!::
K (12:12): There are so many other things i'd rather be doing ...
MSF (12:14):  I can think of one or two ....
K (12:22, after finally scoring):  6 blocks away.  Down a hill. I see a large glass of wine in my near future.

Sleeping was among the other things i'd rather have been doing at that hour. Not buying cat litter. Not cruising. Not swearing. Not walking up Broadway in the dark by myself. Not, again, considering the truth of living in a large city: that the accessibility and public services that make it great also make it an insomniac-driven pain.

Midnight rain

Just walked home from the Broadway T station in the rain.  Totally not dressed for the occasion, free of umbrella or jacket or even a shirt with sleeves, but it was only that wispy rain that lands rather quietly on hair and skin and clothes and creates a layer so fine that the wetness doesn't really register until I'm standing at home in the entryway, making a puddle on the rug while sorting through mail. Walked with glasses pushed up on my head because it was easier to walk blind than to walk uphill without windshield wipers. Only certain nights feel this kind of necessary, getting wet and cold and weary at an hour later than it should be. It was part the bourbon, mint and ginger beer mash-up (on the rocks) drank over salmon and duck confit and conversation in Davis Square. Part the quiet that is a summer Tuesday at midnight, and the minor awe felt when it actually IS quiet in this city, when the Southie teenagers are either at home or on some other street, and patio windows of bars are closed, and the squeak of sandals can't be heard over the hum of water as it lands rather quietly, not only on hair and skin and clothes, but on the sidewalks and the street lamps and the parked cars and the other people walking towards me, heads down, hoods up, and respecting their choice to go about it that way, even as I couldn't help but walk with head up, bare arms out, glasses off, water in the eyes, breathing.

Progress

The Wednesday-night class I'm taking this summer at the MGH Benson-Henry Institute is called the "Relaxation Response Resilency Program."  As I've mentioned in the past, a main component has been learning to use meditation and patterned breathing techniques in coping with stress, anxiety, insomnia and general lack of focus.

So far, so beneficial. Stopping to breathe and relax when I'd rather tell someone to f#$% off has been surprisingly revelatory; after a couple of weeks of forcing myself to think about doing it, like any learned behavior it now comes almost naturally. Indecisive driver in front of me? No middle finger extension .... if I were new to Boston, I wouldn't know where to go either. Piano Man pushing me away after inviting me to his room?  Well, of course, he's just eccentric and he can't help that and he's still a nice guy and, truth be told, I know it was best for me not to stay long anway.  Twenty-year-old OKC'r misspelling dirty chat requests? Ha, ha, ha, ha ... good for him, reaching out to others in such bold fashion!

As our facilitator Peg likes to say, "appreciate the role of positive thoughts and beliefs in support of mind body healing." A negative thought can easily be turned around with a deep breath and some forced empathy.

This way of thinking came in handy over the weekend when, coming out to my car for a Target run, I discovered one of my Southie neighbors had nothing better to do but destroy my driver-side side mirror with what appears to be a couple swift kicks.

I seriously did stop, breathe deeply, take a photo, collect the shattered glass off the street, and didn't at all even think the word F#$*. Honest.

A couple-hundred dollars in unanticipated expenses thanks to some lowest-common-denominators of the human race? 

Well, they could have smashed a windshield or slashed the tires, which would have been markedly more expensive. And even lowest-common-denominators have mothers who love them.

Good help is easy to find

It isn't every day in a girl's life that the rear wheel of her bicycle pops off-chain in mid-pedal at a random Southie corner when she's already 20 minutes late for work.

It isn't every day, either, at that random corner, that a contractor (about her age) will be sitting in his van waiting for a job to start when he sees the girl's bike malfunction and, by the time she has flipped the frame on its end to investigate the chain disaster, come over to offer help, saying, "I was wondering how you were going to fix that without getting totally dirty." And then take over and completely fix it, blackening his hands.

And who knew that while the girl watched random contractor at random corner fixing her bike not a minute after it malfunctioned, a second man (about her age) would walk down the cross street and stop to say, "You got that under control? Do you need any help?" Followed by another random contractor (about her age) in black pick-up pulling over to ask the same question. Who would, upon hearing assurances that all was well, yell out his window "Do you need anything to wipe your hands with? I have this whole stack of napkins here...."

Followed, then, by a fourth man (about her age), walking a nervous Chihuahua, who stopped as the girl reassembled herself for the bike ride to work and said, "Hey! How's it going?"

Seems like my key to meeting folks in the hood is to have something go wrong.

Thanks, gentlemen of Southie.

Dateline: Cafe Arpeggio 398 W Broadway 5/21/11

Sun.  Trees.   Coffee.  Newspaper.  Saturday at noon.

Ahh. Another kind of rapture altogether.

Chivalry

I was all prepared to make a post about how old I felt because someone reminded me this morning that it's  been 25 years since the space shuttle blew up.

(FYI, when something formative happens when you're  in 7th grade, you don't refer to it as the "The Challenger Disaster."   You remember walking through the halls between classes asking any other kid you saw if she had heard that the space shuttle blew up and how awful and sad it was but how cool it looked when .... )

Then I went to the intersection of Dorchester Street and Broadway to stand inside a bus shelter with one slender dug-out lane through the boulevard snowpile to get to the street and, ostensibly, the #9 bus when it arrived.

Then when the bus pulled around the corner, I climbed up and into that icy lane with trepidation due to my irresponsible black leather knee boots.

At that moment, a young man in wool coat swiftly appeared on the street below, offering his leather-gloved hand to assist my descent.  Which I took.  After which he stepped back and allowed me to get on the bus first.

I know unforced chivalry isn't (quite) as monumental in the grand scheme of things.

But it was equally unexpected.

Day 27 of 31: 3.25 miles

January Total: 42.36

Guilt

This not being able to sleep when tired thing. Again.

This burning desire to take the margarine tub from the fridge, mix cinnamon and sugar in a bowl, and liberally use a spoon to dip into both.

This dry chill outside producing the cough that lingers. And lingers.

Something in all this blechiness makes me want to confess that tonight I've been (trying) sleeping in this Wes Welker jersey.

I'm confessing because I did not buy it.  I confess I didn't know who Patriots WR Wes Welker was until 6 weeks ago, when walking to Shaw's at JFK late one Sunday night.  I confess that this jersey lay mid-sidewalk outside The Stadium on Old Colony Ave and upon seeing it, I did not leave it for its owner to find or drop it inside the bar for safekeeping.  I instead picked it up and stuffed it in my backpack.  I took it home and washed it.  And now I wear it to bed pretty regularly.

So.  I'm sorry, you, whoever dropped Wes Welker's number on the ground never to see it again.  I'm sorry that I like this jersey very, very much.

(There.  Feel better now.  Maybe the guilt was keeping me awake?  Maybe now there Might. Just. Be. Sleep?)

Sunday night beer

Sunday night was my first date in more than a month:  that in and of itself was noteworthy.

But when my date suggested a Southie dive bar and we ended up at Croke Park/Whitey's, I learned there is a place in my neighborhood where you can buy 2 pints of beer, together, for 5 bucks.

Yes.  This perfectly-poured Guinness cost 3 dollars. 

(My date is drinking a pint of Rolling Rock.  Which, as you guessed, was $2 a pint.)

The second, poured by a second bartender, was equally masterful.  For this round, we bought a handful of mixed nuts out of a vending machine for 50 cents.  There were no napkins nearby, so we improvised.

Maybe it is THIS place I should stop into on my way to work every morning, instead of Dunkin' Donuts.  It's certainly less expensive.

Witchy woman

Here is what I look like on my bike:

Some of my neighbors in Southie think I look like this:

Last night

Ms Gulch's distinct tune

was being sung

by the occupants of a car at the corner of
West 3rd and Dorchester

as I cruised by.

Way to stay classy, Southie!
(as always)

Long Run #12: Not really a long run

It was a cloudless, cool day along the Arborway, the Jamaicaway, the Riverway and the long, rolling hills of Franklin Park.

Chalk up a fourth B.A.A. half marathon (aptly the 10th anniversary of the event on 10-10-10) .... and note it as 20 seconds faster than last year.

One of the more satisfying things about reaching this point in the marathon training:  13.1 miles no longer sounds like a long run.

(It still feels like one.  Especially when I want to run fast and don't feel like I can, legs weary from mileage-building.  Double especially when I forget how the tension, adrenaline and effort of road-racing for 2 hours saps even plentiful energy stores. Despite a mid-afternoon nap, I'm twice as exhausted tonight as I was last week after nearly 3 hours of the pressure-free same.)

One of the more satisfying (and most often forgotten) benefits of Southie is its proximity to Boston Harbor.  It's on the drive home and in October, the beach is empty.

 Sugar Bowl looking toward Castle Island

Which makes possible a third satisfying thing:  enlisting the waves to leech the ache out of some wicked sore running feet.

Aaaahhhh.

No place like home

You might recall back in April that I decided to give up buying coffee in public this year.

Um ....right. My dozen or more Starbucks Black Eyes in August alone officially make this ploy for self-control, while not quite an epic FAIL, a noble idea perhaps ungrounded (ha!) in reality.

I'll give this though: I definitely do not buy coffee out as much as I did before April. The grinder in my kitchen is currently stocked with 365 Everyday Value beans from Whole Foods and 5 out of 7 mornings I brew a pot and drink from it.

This, though, was not one of those mornings. Short sleep night. Awoken (much later than planned) to condo construction (in the backhoe-scraping-on-concrete phase) through the patio window and hot, humid wind blowing through the front.  Not wanting or willing to bike to and from work through an approaching tropical storm, subjected myself to the equal joys (a.k.a. slow torture) of the #9. 

This kind of morning calls for Dunkin' Donuts Turbo Ice with an extra shot.  On my way to the bus stop I hit up the nearest location at the corner of Dot and Broadway. And as I stood in line, glazed and dazed, the woman behind the cash register saw me and yelled out (because in Southie you must yell):

"Where have you been? We never see you in here anymore!"

Ah, beautiful.  Even if I once again broke my fiscal pledge, being missed by my neighborhood coffee counter more than makes up for the guilt.

Close call

My candidate did not win yesterday.  Furthermore, the candidate who prevailed was, in the eyes of my fellow campaigners and me, the least desirable choice of the 3 remaining.

(Think:  George W. Bush of the Southie Democrats. On multiple intellectual levels.   And that's not meant as a compliment.)

I hit up the post-election gathering about 10:15, having had a church meeting to attend first.  I was glad I hadn't been there the whole time:  the mood was bleak.  Most folks had been drinking, hugging and commiserating since 7:30, and the stereo blasted heavy metal power ballads. 

After hugging and commiserating with Mike, I grabbed a Sam and a slice of congealed pepperoni pizza and sat down with a group of ladies.   Conversation had turned to the cuteness factor of someone's pet dog.  Soon, I got into a more involved chat with my immediate neighbor -- a woman my age, who I've known for a couple years but have never really known much about. 

Talk turned to our respective careers. 

She said:  she works in Copley Square. 
I said:  I did the same. 

She said: she works in educational publishing. 
I said:  I once went on several dates with a man in educational publishing who also worked in Copley Square. 

She asked: what his name was.
(Before I could answer)
She asked: if my date's name was (the real name of) The Editor. 

I hesitated.
(Because it, indeed, was.)
(Man of the loaner scarf.)

I asked:  if he were short, bald and Jewish.
She said: no.  Tall, blond.  Made New Jersey jokes.

I remembered: The Editor moved here from New Jersey.

(But said nothing more.)
(Wanting to take no more chances.)

No hands

I just got home,
via bike,
from Cambridge,
and for
3 blocks on Broadway
in Southie,
(starting on A Street
and ending when I had to swerve around
a semi
double-parking in front of McDonalds
at the corner of D),
I rode with no hands.

I have great memories of biking no-handed.

Most of them
in Cando, North Dakota,
age 7,
hot-pink single gear with flowered basket,
heading to the swimming pool.

In college
between junior and senior year,
the July evening Alan and I
rode no-handed
the wrong way down the one-way
(racing, more precisely)
from downtown Moorhead to downtown Fargo,
NP Avenue,
for what seemed like miles,
even though memory likely romanticizes this distance.

On the Danube,
not long ago,
Balint and I laboring
off-road on the tops of grassy levees,
mosquito swarms dense as gum,
when we unexpectedly hung a right onto a
stretch of blacktop
with no seeming end
and no seeming traffic.
I couldn't help but
let go of the handles
and cruise.
I looked over
as if to say
"see! look!"
but he was already doing the same and
(again it seemed)
this went on
for miles.

Tonight was perhaps
the first time in Boston
I've dared let go.

Could be due to the potholed terrain.
The hundred opening car doors.
The general need to be steering
around jaywalkers.
Stop signs every block.
Semis that double-park
on the street in front of McDonalds
when there's a parking lot out back
just because it's Southie
and everyone double-parks.

I think that's why
when I crossed over A Street
and felt I could go for it,
the freedom caught me off-guard enough
that just thinking about it
now
still makes
my throat catch.

Even though it was
only 3 blocks.

Nice to know,
some nights,
that little things
still have power.

Finding grace

Sandra Bullock, the actress, executed one grand emotional swan dive in recent days:   profession's highest honor on March 7th .... gratuitous, ongoing, public humiliation starting on the 17th. 

Has anyone thought about Sandra Bullock's Oscar in the past 3 weeks? I don't like thinking about what she is, herself, thinking or feeling. This (bad pun) blind side seems particularly cruel.

So.  I had an experience of this sort yesterday.

Thanks to the largesse of a co-worker, I was gifted 2 free tickets to the 2010 opener at Fenway Park. Bleacher seats on the first-base line. Versus the Yankees. A rabid Red-Sox friend (C-2) to enjoy it with.  A 65-degree, breezeless evening. Pedro throwing the first pitch.  Youkilis and Pedroia propelling the home team from behind, twice.  Steve Tyler surprise in the 7th-inning stretch. Neil Diamond surprise in the 8th. Papelbon's "Shipping Up to Boston" keeping the full house on their feet for 5 minutes.  The victory. 

(And all this on Easter, no less.  Glorious singing and worship in the morning.  A gloriously rich party of Austrian wine and Hungarian feasting in the afternoon with 50 friends. Followed by 5 hours with Red Sox nation followed by more Guinness and conversation with C-2. Very nice.)

Just after 2 a.m. I rolled back into Southie, parked the car, and got out to discover both the front door of my apartment building and the front door of my apartment ajar.  And not left that way by me.

I retreated to the street to dial 911. The cops appeared (5 of them, striding manfully!) to lead the way in ... and as the doors had predicted, my apartment had been rightly sacked.

Laptop computer (also predictably) gone. Wine rack (curiously) pilfered of its 3 cheap bottles.  Non-plentiful jewelry cache (also curiously) pilfered, including Cobber ring.  Blue cloth napkins from last week's birthday dinner scattered over the bedroom floor. Stock of square-cut pillar candles removed.  Every drawer open.  Every purse and bag from the closet on the bed, one with lining sliced through. Window open. Patio door open.

Serious downer.

(Not of Sandra-Bullock proportions.  But in my world?  Slightly precipitous.  Those clean, unironed napkins, a stray left in the building foyer, caught on his/her shoe? Somehow scooped up with the candles? Someone scooped up my candles? What the hell?)

Something about those f#$%ing dinner napkins seemed the greatest violation.

The cops stayed for 15 minutes. When they left, it felt not right to start righting things. The only thing to do was sit on the sofa, still in Red Sox t-shirt and cap, overhead lights glaring, staring at the open liquor cabinet with its knocked-over bottle of Peppermint Schnapps, searching for some sort of grace.

With relief, I soon identified some. The fast response of the BPD.  The cats who, rather than wandering out into the night, soon emerged from under the bed.  The (again, curiously) neglected stereo unit and brand-new bicycle.  The good-night's sleep I soon eked out, even if it didn't start until 3:45 a.m.

And, it goes without saying, the very good day that preceded it -- that, even while making the bad stand in stark relief, also proved to be the barrier against panic, against further fear, against irrational anger:

Jesus arose. The Sox beat the Yankees.  The cats emerged.  Guinness still rocks.

Screw the laptop.

Dateline 03/14/10: South Boston

12:58 pm, corner of Broadway and Dot Ave, with the well-prepared musket man and his compatriots (and yes, he did indeed make a bad joke about the capabilities of his musket, as you might expect), before the parade, before I could have possibly realized that 2 hours later I would be standing in my bathtub wringing 2 full gallons of water out of all of those layers of "waterproof" clothes (including the "waterproof" boots).

Some stinkin' storm.

Update - 6:52 pm:  So I was just chatting with my father about my weekend. He thought my colonial drum-and-fife buddy above was the candidate I was marching in the parade for.  Which means I should be a good campaign volunteer and clarify that Mike McGee (below) is the man running for Fourth Suffolk District State Rep. That he sprinted flat out for 3 hours shaking hands in his garbage-bag-over-wool coat outfit through a serious Nor'easter (see the waves blowing through the puddles behind us) means he deserves a bit more love from me -- even if it means you have to see 2 photos of  that awful poncho.