A Green Christmas

It's been seven years since I lived in the Pacific Northwest during the winter, and I have to say, as much as I hate the snow it's a little weird to be coming into December without it. 

Not a Sunday Appropriate Post

But a totally weather appropriate one.


Here are two songs to accompany your baby hurricane day. (You know, baby earthquake Tuesday, baby hurricane Sunday. No big deal, Boston.)








See you after the storm, dears.

Wicked Awesome

Work is ridiculously boring. Really. Invoices, that's it. No ads for anyone.

But you know what isn't boring?

The poster I saw on the way in to work. Also,

Pomegranate Izze for lunch (I haven't done that in years). Also,

Holy crazy rain. We had a half hour of hardcore, monsoon-like storming. Now it's just coming down steady, but man those thirty minutes were wicked awesome.


Happy weekend, darlings.

I woke up to the sound of rain

I'm learning an odd phenomenon about Boston: it precipitates quite frequently in the summer.



Unlike my beloved Oregon, Boston is still rather muggy. Though, the rain does break the humidity to a certain extent. But as I walked to the T with my umbrella this morning, I was forcefully reminded of a conversation I once had with Malone. We were sitting in Room 155 in what must have been June, and a few newspaper staffers started complaining that it looked like rain. Malone turned to me and said, "You know how there are people who get depressed when they don't see the sun for long periods of time? I get grouchy if it stays sunny too long. I need the rain." And sure enough, when it started to pour an hour or so later, he had a huge grin on his face.


As I walked to the T with my umbrella this morning, I couldn't stop grinning at the rain.



Image from CC Secretly Ironic on Flickr.

Birds are freaking noisy at 5a.m., did you know?

Sleeping with the window open tonight. Can't decide if my room is hot (yay spring) or if I am (boo fever).


Also, while Thursday is the day I'll be officially finished with my first year of grad school, today is the day that I really am finished. Turned in sixteen pages of Salman Rushdie last night at 11:54p.m. Five minutes to spare. Take that, Roy.



Bed at 10:30 is glorious. 'Night chickies.

Happy as a Clam

So March has begun. Every time we get to March I think of the phrase "April showers bring May flowers." That's not the right one.

It's actually "In like a lion, out like a lamb."

But I don't think those two make sense together. March does start like a lion, but if it were to end like a lamb would April be so rainy? I'm thinking no. Besides, if you live in Oregon it should be "Winter showers bring May flowers," not just April.

So can we change one? I'm not particular about which changes, as long as one of them does. They really ought to mesh well. Plus, this March has not come in like a lion. The last two days were pretty mild, and tomorrow the high is 54, mostly cloudy. Whatever.

In other news, I am totally loving my job. I spent eight hours yesterday playing with ads in InDesign while listening to JM's unrequited love songs playlist on grooveshark before I made a Weepies playlist too. So good. Weepies song of the day:



I tried to put my entire music collection on shuffle while writing this post. I don't know why I even bother; I skipped twenty songs in a row.

Snow Day

 

Oh wait, what was that?

Bahahahaha.

Spending yet another day in sweats is awesome. Especially when it includes sleeping in and breakfast with the girls upstairs. Don't worry, I'm being productive too. But seriously. What's better than reading Snow on a snow day?

A Few Thoughts on February

me:  man, I'm super antsy. I hate February

Melissa:  how are those correlated?

me:  I am always tired of winter and want something interesting to happen

it's the worst month

Melissa:  It's true. It's kind of a black month for me as well.

As it is for everyone.


Okay, maybe not everyone. But don't you feel, by the time you hit February, that winter has gone on long enough and you want it to be spring?? But you know it can't be spring because the groundhog says so, plus February is not the name of a spring month. So then you hope for a great holiday. But the only upcoming holidays are Valentines Day and Presidents Day. Valentines Day is great, chocolate and whatever, blah, blah, but you don't get the day off. While you do get Presidents Day off, that's all that happens. But it's so wintery that you can't even enjoy it. Plus, the third week in February I get sick. Every year.

EVERY YEAR.

Except last year, so maybe I've broken the curse.


To not-so-complainy topics, as today was the first day of the fourth blizzard, I stayed home all day in pajamas. My rescheduled class was canceled, and as the blizzard is supposed to get worse tomorrow I'm suspecting the literature one will be as well. So I won't be able to discuss Snow because of snow. The hilarity is not lost on me. (19 inches on the porch at 5:00 p.m. by the way. We'll check at the same time tomorrow to see how much has come down.)

I found this article particularly interesting. I was unaware that there was unrest in Jordan. Preemptive reformation? Sneaky. And smart. Also, I've been wanting to know what Jehan Sadat's opinion on Egypt is, and I've been a little surprised that I couldn't find any mention of people attempting to ask her on the Internet. Then I discovered she's currently in Cairo. Interesting. I wish I could contact the University of Maryland and ask why, but I don't think they'd appreciate that much. Or answer me at all.

Rats.

Hola, Juan?

So after our third blizzard, I saw this message:

What good is delayed start for evening classes? At least last night we got out early because of the blizzard. But really, this one was weak compared to the last two.


Even without class being canceled (I can never remember it's only one L), today is a very special day. The specialist (not an adjective) day of all days in January. Bigger than MLK Day, bigger than New Years Day. Today marks the fourteenth anniversary of the Hunnybunny's birth.

Fourteen! Good grief.

Happy birthday, Jessie.



Boom, boom, boom . . . muffins!

Forecast

Boston, MA according to AccuWeather.com

Boo, hiss.

They really are accurate, too.

Sheesh

The day after I got back to Boston I walked around the loop that is my neighborhood with my (rather old and tired) camera. I just had to document what had happened the two days before.

My house.

People save their parking spaces. So funny.

It started up again a couple hours ago, although it's stopped for a while. I've never seen this much snow. Utah had snow, but nothing like this. Although Boston will never have my favorite part of Utah snow:

hehehe.

Not Completely Unexpected

So I've done a lot of things since my previous post and haven't documented any of them. Whoops.

But good (or at least interesting) news, this post is brought to you from . . . Provo!

Specifically, BYU. Sixth row of computers in the NOSH (that's said "Nosh," not "no shh"). Because apparently Boston looks like this:

Photo from NPR

And I got this text from a friend just 30 minutes ago:

I'm sorry to hear you are stuck! The city is shut down. No one went to work. The streets in brighton aren't even plowed!

So even if I HAD gotten on my flight instead of changing it last night I wouldn't have been able to reach my house. Thank goodness for the foresight to change the flight again. Although I'm still skeptical that they won't cancel the Chicago leg. So this is my second unplanned day in Utah. Good thing I over pack. 

So good luck to you Northeasterners. I'll take Utah's sunny cold over the blizzard, although I am a little bummed I don't get to spend the day watching movies and drinking hot chocolate.

I've Never Kissed a Chickmump

I am dead tired.

I wonder why we say that? I know why, but I wonder how it started?


Anyway. I woke up earlier than I have in weeks, went to an interview, voted, forgot my locker combination, was reminded of my locker combination, scheduled an interview for tomorrow, wandered through the Boston Common, took the Red Line to Kendall, walked passed MIT out to the Charles River, walked back to MIT, wandered to our church building to take a picture of a sign, walked back to Kendall, bought (and ate) a bagel and lemonade, checked out the MIT Coop, took the Red Line to Harvard Square, wandered through the Harvard Coop, purchased a cupcake, walked to the bus stop, read Harry Potter on the bus, crashed on my bed, watched one episode of Gilmore Girls, caught up on my NYTimes reading, read essays edited by Gerald Gross, posted my responses to said NYTimes and Gross readings, and am now (finally) done with the day at 7:50 p.m. Although I have not yet eaten dinner. Or the cupcake (pumpkin!).

That may have been the longest sentence I've ever written. But it was all grammatically correct.

It was a great day with a high of 72 (so sorry to all you in Utah with the snow . . . haha) and tomorrow is supposed to be 70. I'm loving this whole autumn thing. It's beautiful too, want to see it?

Boston Common

Boston Common

Boats on the Charles

View of Boston from Cambridge

View of Boston from Cambridge

Fall foliage on a path along the Charles and Memorial Drive

More foliage near the church building on Binney Street

We pass this sign on the way to church...

...and apparently this is why

I think Boston's fall is my new favorite season.

I looked out the window, and what did I see?

Not popcorn, for two reasons. 1) It isn't spring. 2) We don't have an apricot tree.

But I did see this...

Fall!

It's coming late this year, and no one is quite sure why. But it's really here. Tomorrow after my 10:00 interview (Send good vibes my way at 10:00, okay? That's 8:00 a.m. Mountain and 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time. I've already got a commitment from Thomas, but now I want YOU!) I'm going to take the Red Line to probably Kendall (maybe Charles/MGH) and then walk along the Charles. We drive past it on our way to church each week, it's a beautiful view, but yesterday was gorgeous. The trees are amazing. So were the rowers. And then I'll post some pictures of what Boston really looks like in the fall.

On a totally unrelated note, check out this new addition to my room. The colors matched perfectly, and I love birds. (This is a recent love, and is somehow connected to Audge. I'm not sure exactly why it started.)