Beantown Excitement!

We're still in Boston, and excitement doesn't even sum up the half of it!

On the job front, my position hasn't picked up much at all, but after talking with the artistic director he promised to help solve that problem and jokingly asked me not to quit yet. I like him - he's French but has the sense of humor of a comedian and he's incredibly level-headed which is an amazing quality in a boss! I will, however, have to invest in Rosetta Stone French as half of my office of four people natively speaks it. Shouldn't be too hard as I seem to have little to nothing to do for a while. Case in point, today is the day of the week where there are a whopping two of us on the lot. JOY. Jeremy's job is going well. He had the privilege of working and event for the Theatre Offensive which is a GLBT theatre group. He was excited about the performances until he realized everyone there would be dressed in drag! I would've loved to have seen his face when one of the drag queens asked him to help him down the stairs...haHA! He did meet some cool people that night and scored us two free tickets to the Second City show featuring the Boston improv troupe Improv Asylum and met a sound guy from Huntington Theatre who offered him a tour of their space and equipment. I guess having to watch the gentleman with police lights for pasties for a night was worth it ;-)

Last I left you, we were planning on doing some fun things in the city and have actually accomplished some things on that list! This past Sunday night we went to a bar called Lucky's with a couple that works at the circus and had a blast! The guy is one of the Frenchmen who works at the desk next to me and his wife is actually a voiceover actor in NY. Not only was the company great, but the bar was amazing. It reminded me of a speak easy in decor and had some great specialty drinks, like the cucumber jalapeno margarita. We went on a Frank Sinatra Sunday, which meant there was a live band that did nothing but Sinatra covers. They were incredible! Even though the singer looked like my cousin Larry, he sounded like a reincarnated Sinatra. If you're in Boston, look up Lucky's!
Last Monday, we went on a tour of the Necco Candy Factory. Now, I've never really been a fan of Necco wafers and Mary Janes, but it was incredibly cool considering they don't give tour to the public...ever! After arriving and being briefed on the safety and Willy Wonka-ish "don't tell our secrets" policy, we all donned lab coats and hair nets (some of us had to wear beard nets...) and made our way though the factory. We watched taffy pulling, peanut roasting, malted milk ball coating, and smelled so much chocolate that I don't care to eat any in the near future. Seeing the making of conversation hearts and the packing of Necco Wafers was really interesting, and rest assured all of the white stuff floating in the air was indeed part of the candy and not the staff's personal supply of cocaine. We also left with clark bars, "New Moon" bars, chocolate Necco wafers, caramel suckers, and thin mints to boot! I feel sorry for the parents of the children who went on the tour and came home with the same amount of sugar...Unfortunately, there are no pictures of this because of factory rules, but I do have a few melty clark bars left to remember the place by.

It has been raining on and off all week so the plans to do laundry haven't worked out so well, and the parking in Boston is atrocious, so going to the Laudromat was also a failed adventure. (Lindsay + truck + busy streets + parallel parking = not gonna happen) One night when it wasn't raining I was able to get some accomplished...and while the load was drying, I congratulated myself with getting the leftover elephant out from under my nails at a local nail salon.

(I just ran outside and was followed back by the circus lot calico cat, Ginger...she's adorable. I want one!)

On Saturday night we used our free tickets to Second City which ended up being really fun. The show was based on Boston history and pop culture, which made me glad we've been here a while so I actually had personal experience with things they were talking about like not being able to use a GPS in the city because there are four street named the same thing that all intersect each other. The improv portion was good, but after watching it I realized that the quality of the improv we did in NY was just as good and the students I taught can actually play some of the games better than he professionals on tour! It was definitely reassuring and made me feel good about myself :) I think the best part of the evening was that two of the performers acted exactly like two of my friends from college (for those of you who know Tim Dunn and Warwick you know what I'm talking about). It made me feel like i was watching J*M7 all over again which made me all happy!

---Side note: the IWU seniors graduated two days ago. These are the people that were freshmen when I was a senior. A. Not having student ties to IWU is a horribly eerie feeling B. I feel old C. I miss college. A lot!

In national news...there was an oil spill, which I'm sure everyone's heard of by now. But on top of that, a water main near Boston broke, contaminating the city's water supply on Saturday night. This means that we are now all either using bottled water that the company provided but had to go to Rhode Island and Connecticut to procure to do things like brush teeth, wash dishes, and eat. We're under a boil order so we can opt out of buying water but we don't really have the time or space to put the water once it's boiled. It's a bit difficult but doable. The worst of the situation came on Sunday morning when I arrived at work. Not only did the cookhouse not have coffee, but Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks didn't either. Not a good way to start the morning. Thank God for CVS and bottled Frappuncino!

And finally we get to yesterday....
We started the day by taking the truck to get checked out at the nearest Carmax, which happened to be two hours away in Hartford, CT. After a nearly 6 hour adventure, we went to the mall. About five wrong turns later, Jeremy came out with two pairs of badly needed shoes, a new phone upgrade, a thumb drive, and most importantly, a GPS. (Let me just take a moment to reiterate how impossible it is to drive in this city. Not only were the roads built for horses, but I'm not sure "urban planning" was big with the British as navigating the streets here is I'm sure akin to navigating your way through Pan's labyrinth.) We hooked up the GPS and made our way across town to Fenway Park! We arrived, payed a ridiculous amount for parking and walked into what is one of the coolest ballparks I've ever been in. It's incredibly old and small, but it's been well kept and the lack of seats in the park leads to a manageable crowd size. We had grandstand tickets which I really didn't know much about when I bought them online. Come to find out we were sitting behind home plate about 50 rows off the ground! The only drawback was that the seats were original-style so there were no cup holders. We got our hot dogs, beer, and pretzels and sat down to eat only to see DUFF from Ace of Cakes, in his Food Network Bruins jersey walk down the aisle next to us and plop down about 10 seats away from us! **Short history: I love Ace of Cakes. I want to hang out with the people that work there. Jeremy has mixed for Duff's band in Baltimore because that's where they're both from. We aren't even IN Balitmore at this point. I may or may not have freaked out** Instead of doing what I wanted to do which was run up to him and ask him if I could get a picture because there is no way I'd ever be able to afford one of his cakes, I took a picture from a distance and left it at that. The game was great for the Sox - I don't quite remember but at one point I think they were beating the Angels 250 to -37. We took this as a sign that they'd win and bought some souvenirs, and left during the end of the 7th. Did I mention we got lost looking for a gas station on the way home?

I was hoping to update this every week, but given the size of this entry, I may need to write more often...