You know that you've got Boston blood when you walk past the former site of Filene's Basement for the first time and literally feel the knife going through your heart. Ughhh. I know they're not taking any more residents, but I think F.B. should get its own gravestone in the nearby old-as-dirt Granary Cemetary with the beautiful crooked headstones from the 1600's. Here lies the final shopping bag of Filene's Basement (sniffle) (sob).

You also know you've done time in Boston when you have trouble to adjusting to friendliness. Last month when my mom was here, she practically took a picture of it when someone "waved her in" during high traffic. She could _not_ get over it. "People now wave here?? That doesn't seem right."

I took a long walk along the downtown parts of Boston yesterday and couldn't get over the changes that resulted from the Big Dig's decades-long work. I always thought it was mainly designed to dig a tunnel and get people to the airport, but in fact, the waterfront/ seaport/ wharf areas of Boston which used to be under the highway are now on the same level with one road, and the highway is acutally under that.

The buildings didn't move, obviously. The highway did. But it's surreal to see it for the first time, when your brain has a different memory of the same things in another context. Especially because for so many years it was partially done with temporary roads and sidewalks with orange cones and scaffolding; you couldn't quite imagine the end result.

Now they've added a gorgeous string of parks through on the road divider named The Rose Kennedy Greenway (above left). Kind of like the Fenway, but pretty and safe. The area around South Station especially is almost unrecognizable. I had to rub my eyes when I saw that there was a small little Farmers Market at the top of the South Station T entrance. And with fresher looking vegetables than I've seen at any Colorado Farmers Market.

In many ways, it's just exquisite and the perfect combination of parks and city -- but the inner stubborn Bostonian in me has to hesitate for a second. Wait, is that really a freggin' merry-go-round between lanes of rush hour traffic?

'sall Good

Last weekend I went to a super duper fun kids & adults rock fest outside Boston that was put together by the Life is good (® !) folks who, besides making cute t-shirts that hippies of all ages love (you know the Life is good stick figure guy... Jake...he's even in airports now), also raise a lot of money for children recovering from trauma, and specialize in programs teaching these kids how to play 'cause they figure play is a fundamental part of life and good health.

So needless to say, they know how to throw a fun festival. They Might Be Giants brought the house down in the kids' tent while 6 year-olds rocked out on giant beanbags and rubber rocking horses while waving gigantic TMBG foam fingers (for which I was jealous).

The festival was also really well-thought-out as far as practical things, like there was a Tag-Your-Tot booth at check-in for putting a wristband on your kids with your cell phone number, there was a Musical Instrument Petting Zoo, there was a zillion complimentary Wet Wipes at the information booth (duh!) and the food and beverages were affordable ($2 tacos), often organic, mostly local, plus most of the booths were donating 100% of the food proceeds to the cause.

The highlight for me, besides meeting Finn, the Goldfish cracker, was a fairly new artist named Eli "Paperboy" Reed who's from Boston, and if you didn't know better, you'd swear this guy's record came out back in the heyday of James Brown. He is phenomenal -- and I'm still confused about the fact that he's white, but I'm trying to get over it. I hope he'll be at Jazz Fest in the future.

And yet, during Eli's performance, I have to give credit... the entire audience was completely mesmorized by the hearing impaired interpreter who had serious moves. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it.

Then and Now

This is an amusing "then and now" of Chris and I at his parents' house on the Cape, both times taken with the camera on auto-timer propped up on the car because there was no one around to take a picture. Top photo is Winter 1998, bottom is Summer 2010... I think the house probably changed the most.