Boston, Briefly

A few interesting notes from Boston:

We decided not to use the city's bus since you wouldn't even see it if it showed up:

Refrained from sitting on park benches:

Walked the freedom trail:

despite the trail running cold:

Studied the blank walls at the art museum in case there was a deeper meaning (budget cuts?):

Learned a new way to save your parking spot:

(apparently if you dig the snow out of a parking space and then have to leave it, you just put a lawn chair or stool there and both the space and chair will be there on your return.  Hmmmm.)

Mark gave the British Chap thing a go (love the burns baby)...

AND...took Mark's photo at the Boston Marathon finish line just in case he fails at his attempt this summer to qualify for it:

Boston, albeit briefly.

The Taming of a Turbo Tourist

I'm a sucker for a road trip, especially the impetuous last minute kind.  I'm also infamous for inviting myself along on any adventure that comes up on my radar, which is why many of my friends are tight-lipped about their travel plans.  They know I'll invite myself along.  Just ask my friends Keith and Kathy who ended up having me as a self-invited crew member for an entire month on their sailboat. I'd like to think that they didn't suffer that bad having me along since I swabbed a lot of decks and stood watch at crazy hours of the night. But the thing is, this world is so dang fascinating to me that I just want to see it all. And I'm willing to awkwardly invite myself along on someone else's adventure just to see it. [Be forewarned.]

Mark was my most recent victim of self-inviting when I learned he had a business meeting in Boston. I didn't hesitate to tell him to book TWO tickets. I have no problem wandering streets, trains, or subways all by myself in a strange city while my poor husband is stuck in meetings all day--all in the name of adventure.

Here's what I've recently learned about Boston:

There are no crowds in January.  

This photo might offer some speculative reasons as to why I had this incredible town all to myself...15 degrees of  Brrrrr!

Notice an extreme lack of city traffic in the background. I happened to arrive right in the middle of a giant Atlantic snowstorm. But I bundled up in layers of hats, scarves, gloves, sweaters, coats, and boots (things we Oregonians like to call "accessories"-but they are definitely necessities here) and I made Boston my oyster. Albeit my frozen oyster.

"Turbo Tourism" is a rare breed of traveller whose methods usually drive leave-no-stone-unturned-read-every-sign-and-plaque-at-a-leisurely-pace sight-seers bonkers, and sadly I would be guilty of the former not the latter. I'm a Turbo Tourist who likes to come and conquer--mostly because I have a terribly long bucket list of places to see that will take several lifetimes to accomplish.

But after getting started on my Boston quest, I found it to be too rich to take at such a fast pace.  Like wolfing down gelato.  Some things just need to be basked in.  I found myself lingering in the King's Chapel inside incredible box pews which were owned by wealthy families of the time and wandering the grave yards where history's revolutionaries were buried as well as the gravesite of Elizabeth Pain who was believed to be the real life Hester Prynne from The Scarlett Letter. I even spent half a day loitering in the splendor of Boston's public library enamored by it's rare book collections, including sermon books, family bibles, witchcraft books, and even a room completely filled with a cache of over 6,000 books on Joan of Arc. I was in history-geek heaven, a turbo tourist reformed.

I spent a very snowy part of the week wandering the town, chatting up Haitian cabbies, and learning Boston's subway system "The T", almost by heart.  And when the weekend finally came, the snow began to thin on the sidewalks and, at long last, both Mark and the warming sun made their first appearance.

Once Mark was in tow I resumed my usual stealth travel mode-we only had two days left and our Boston clock was ticking. We commenced by walking the length and breadth of the Freedom Trail at a pace that would have qualified us for Boston's famous Marathon; we toured "Old Ironsides" from top to bottom, walked to Paul Revere's house, and stormed up Bunker Hill like a bunch of Red Coats prepared to do battle.  Then we finished off the day by skimming Boston's Museum of Art for pieces mostly from Colonial America while museum curators stood perplexed watching Mark and I whiz past the vast array of Egyptian artifacts in the Ancient World exhibit and snub our noses at the Modernest Photography displays without even so much as a glance.  We were hellbent to spend our last days taking in Colonial Boston and leave the rest to the summer tourists.

By the time our Boston Blitz was over and we arrived at the airport for our 6 hour flight back to the west coast, we were in love with Boston...snow and all.  There's got to be something magical about a place that can temporarily tame a turbo tourist like me.

Cat Tails are Flammable

Here's some handy advise to any of you who may have been gifted a lovely scented candle for Christmas:

Please be advised that it is not a good idea to light your new candle and set it on your bathroom counter while applying your make-up.  Especially if you happen to own a cat who likes to lounge on said counter and watch you with its back toward your lovely new burning candle and proceeds to swish its tail back and forth across the flame.  It is quite possible that while you are otherwise preoccupied at your mirror trying not to pinch you eyelids with your eyelash curler and ignoring the stupid cat, that the melodious smell of "Hawaiian Breeze" you anticipated wafting throughout your bathroom will unexpectedly smell more like "Seared Cat Tail".

...Which, in turn, will make your already estrogen-imbalanced cat get even moodier...and your bathroom stink.

Love Notes

The two younger kids have been writing more love notes. They've got quite a History of Love Notes and you'd think by now they'd run out of creative ways to jot down an affectionate "I love you mom" but there seems to be no shortage of these little twilight tokens waiting for me on my pillow each night.

Chloe continues to pen more and more, shall I say, quite unique declarations of love.  She has apparently abandoned the hum-drum savoir-faire of a classic Shakespearian love expression and developed her own unconventional style.

Of late, Chloe's notes fall under six very unique love categories:

Bizarre:

(This one was written around Halloween, and now I wonder if we may have watched a few too many thriller movies with the kids.)

Random Bizarre Lists:

...and Koala Bears?

Subtle Complaints:

Subtle Requests:

Not so subtle Complant AND Request:

Luckily this complaint was aimed at the school for planning a field trip the day after school got back in from winter break.  

Apparently Miss Chloe would have scheduled it at a better time.

Funny:

And now it's clear that Chloe's loyalties for the Beavers

ended when they lost the playoffs.

And from time to time

Good Old-Fashioned True Love:

Connor, in stark contrast, sticks to the tried and true declarations, the kind that make you feel warm and fuzzy instead of confused and perplexed (but highly amused)--like Chloe's notes tend to do.

(one of Connor's favorite baseball pitchers)

The U.K.?  

That's real love right there, don't you think?

Awkward OR agreeable, you gotta love a love note.

Washer Wars: A Magnetic Mystery

Over the last couple of weeks I've spent a fair amount of time INSIDE of my washing machine.  The interesting news is that I've discovered I can fit inside a washing machine, the futile news is, really, when would that little absurdity ever come up naturally in a conversation?  "Hey did you know I fit inside a washing machine?" Of course IF somehow I did manage to figure out how to wedge that bit of hooey into a conversation I'd leave out the part that it's a huge front loading washer in order to give off a deceitful impression that I'm super skinny and possess serious flexibility skills.

But the reason I've been spending quality time inside my washer is the real scuttlebutt.  Over the last two weeks something major has been banging around in my washing machine every time I run a load.  I toss in a bunch of clothes into an empty machine, turn it on, and sometime during the washing or spinning cycles the most ferocious banging sound thunders from my laundry room.  This is no ordinary clink of a few playground pocket rocks mind you, it's an earth shattering

Bang! Bang! Bang!

I'd know the sound of playground rocks when I hear them.  I'm an expert in playground rocks and what they sound like in ANY household appliance--including blenders (which is the very reason I firmly believe boys of any age should not watch infomercials).  I've got a jar full of playground rocks in my laundry room.
One curious month several years ago, I decided to collect and put into a jar every single rock that came out of my washer or dryer for 30 days, just to see if it was really that bad.  It was.

This "30-days-of-rocks-in-my-laundry" jar still sits on a shelf in my laundry room.  It reminds me of the exact reasons why motherhood has driven me occasionally insane and what a fabulous mother I am for having not killed any of my children...yet.

So the recent unidentifiable ear-splitting clash inside my washing machine for two weeks strait had me declaring war on whatever it was.  After each load and accompanying thrashing, I'd throw myself into the thing and give it a thorough groping as if I was working airport security.  And what did I find?  Nothing.  When I'd run another load, guess what I hear again?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

And as soon as I heard it, I'd be there waiting for the end-of-cycle buzzer and throw the door open expecting to find a toaster or a hub cap or something inside the tub.
But what did I find?  Absolutely Nothing. 

Again I run another load.  Bang! Bang! Bang!  Wait for the buzzer, throw open the door, pull out all the clothes, just sure I was about to find a set of fireplace tools or perhaps a skateboard but nope, I always found nothing. Just me inside a washing machine and the echos of a thousand curse words.

I was officially more agitated than the appliance.

Look for yourself...do you see ANYTHING on the bottom of the tub here?

Nothing. 
For two weeks I was driven insane.  I was officially at war with an unknown enemy.  I needed a battle plan.

I decided to run yet another load but this time I was determined not to wait for the buzzer.  I just stood there staring down that machine like I had challenged it to some sort of high-noon western quickdraw. With hands at my side ready to rip the door open at the slightest sound.

It took ten full minutes, but there it was Bang! Bang! Bang!
Out flew my pointed index finger and in heated frenzy I put the thing on "pause" and clawed all the wet stuff out, and dove head first inside the danged thing once again.  This time I decided I wasn't coming out until I solved the mystery. Water was seeping onto the floor but I didn't care, a casualty of war.

Now you'd think that living on Planet Earth with all that gravity business that a simple check of the lower half of the tub like I had been doing would have been adequate.  Alas it was not.  However reasonable it thought it was to assume that whatever it is banging around in there would surely be found resting at the bottom of the tub...underestimated one important force of nature...

The Boy-Factor.  Rock loving, magnet loving boys.  MAGNETS! Like an idiot, I never bothered looking anti-gravity UP.  Why would anything be stuck to the top of the drum?  Unless of course it was a giant magnet.

AH HA! See it now??

Yep, there it was all the time...somewhere on the TOP of the drum each time I checked.

The mother of all magnets.

A huge, heavy, bang-inducing magnet.  For two weeks this thing drove me mad.  

So what did I do with the thing?  I looked up at my jar of aggravating playground rocks and just shook my head.  I thought my machines and I had seen it all. Then I went in and stuck it back in Connor's room on his metal wall. I figured if he ever left it in his pocket again and tossed his pants into the wash, it would only be fair to use it to magnetize him to the wall for a lengthy Time Out.

Next time something bangs in the dryer, I'll be looking down for playground rocks (or toasters and hubcaps) and UP for gargantuan magnets.  Until then, I'm pleased to know I can fit inside a washer.

Washer Wars, another domestic triumph.  

Temptation