Category Archives: Boston
Back to Boston
This image is modified from a Charity Tee by Gildan for sale online. LINK
Yesterday my husband and I drove to the Anderson-Woburn MA commuter rail station, parked, and took the train into Boston to attend a rescheduled BSO concert. I was struck by the quiet demeanor of everyone. I am rural person through and through so I normally find entering the land of mass transit to be noisy, dirty, and I go into a mild state of alertness even though I love many assets that can only found in an urban environment. None of those feelings yesterday. OK there may have been one or two discarded newspapers on the floor of an Orange Line car but really the young people (tweens, teens, college students, 20 somethings) were all displaying a respectful reserve along with their elders. The security checks of bags when entering Symphony Hall was professional, but did not feel intrusive. After the concert we ended up walking quickly past the area where the Patriot’s Day bombing took place. We were trying to make it to North Station in time for a train (which we missed by 2 minutes) so we were not really gawking. Everything looked quite normal, the way it would at the end of April any year except as I have already noted quieter and cleaner. My husband commented when we got home how the streets showed no evidence of the recent dramatic tragedy. We did not walk directly passed the stretch of fence where memorial displays had been relocated but could see a moderate crowd of people viewing those items as we turned the corner to head in the opposite direction. Again my ears were struck by the relative quiet. There was plenty of traffic but I only heard one or two car horns. People might be carrying on conversations but there was no yelling or screaming to friends in the distance.
We will be back in Boston this coming weekend and spending a couple of nights in one of the chain hotels in that central area. I am going to be interested in observing if things are still somber, and comfortable for the simple country kid I will never out age, or whether the noise, grit, grim, and activity of the Boston I remember from years past is starting to return.
For those people and families who will never regain their pre Patriot’s Day 2013 normal please consider donating to The One Fund – Boston.
Six Word Fridays: Home
Spent today at home watching CNN.
A concert in Boston was cancelled.
Looking forward to the reschedule performance.
Weekly Photo Challenge: My 2012 in Pictures (from The Daily Post, 12/28/12)
In 2012 we said goodbye to our 22 & 1/2 year old rescue cat Zoe.
After a short time of mourning we welcomed two new cats to our home.
Thunder, who is mainly my cat, and Lightning, who is mainly my husband’s cat. These sisters, now 9 years old, like their own separate spaces.
We did not travel very much in 2012 but there were a few day trips to Boston, plus a long weekend or two also.
.
Six Word Friday – Escape
A three-day escape next weekend -
to Boston for food, art, and music.
Bravo Restaurant at the Museum of Fine Arts – Boston
Wacky Wednesday # 21 – World Turtle Day
World Turtle Day is observed on May 23rd each year. It was started in 2000 by American Tortoise Rescue. American Tortoise Rescue has been designation the Groupon Grassroots Charity of the Week. If 45 People Donate $10, Then American Tortoise Rescue can build a raised vegetable garden to feed rescued turtles. When I checked there had been over 280 donations made so I’d say the garden will be build and even more will be done for the turtles.
My favorite turtles are the sea turtles in the giant ocean tank at the New England Aquarium in Boston. Here are some images from their website:
I seem to have misplaced the photos I took during my October 2011 visit. Right now the Aquarium is raising funds for a new and improved ocean tank to be installed in 2013 where Myrtle the turtle will be the queen of the exhibit.
Travel Tuesday – Return to Summer Shack
As I mentioned yesterday, my husband and I made a day trip to Boston on Sunday. We returned to Summer Shack for a second time and were very pleased with the experience. My appetizer was an item off the specials board, corn fritters with maple syrup. The fitters were on the spicy side but the a deep dunk of each bite into the saucer of mid grade syrup helped balance that fact. The rest of our meal was off the standard menu — with the exception that I was able to sub a side for my grilled shrimp: I opted out of french fries and enjoy a sticky almond coconut rice that was part of an entrée special.
Music Monday #18 – Recycling
I had an outing to Boston yesterday for another Handel & Haydn concert, the last of this season. The program featured a number of pieces with ‘regal’ connections. Thoroughly enjoyable. A soprano soloist booked for the concert had to withdraw which allowed a member of the chorus to take the soprano solo slot. In the first half of the program Teresa Wkim sang the popular Mozart Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165 and then it the second half she again soloed in the Mozart Coronation Mass in C, K. 317. Now somewhere in that Mass, I am going to venture to say in the Gloria, despite the distance between the Köchel catalog numbers I found myself thinking ‘sounds an awful lot like something I already heard today’. Now a quick and simple Google search doesn’t turn up anything about a melodic/harmonic/rhythmic relation but I still believe I heard it. However my search did lead to a note stating that Mozart reused materials from his Mass in C minor (1783) in a 1785 oratorio “Davidde penitente”. So perhaps my ears did indeed catch a bit of “recycling”.
This clip is in no way similar to the concert performance I heard yesterday. I selected it because I have had the pleasure of hearing services & performances in Salisbury Cathedral where this rendition took place. And there is just something endearing about English choristers carrying on their long tradition.
Travel Tuesday # 14 – Fish and Seafood in Boston
As the only landlocked state in New England there are not many (any) Vermont restaurants that focus on serving fresh fish and seafood. So when we make a trip to Boston we want what we can not find at home. Usually that means a meal at one of the Legal Seafood Restaurants. They are good, moderately price for city eating, but also pretty predictable. Now my husband loves predictable but me, I like something different now and then. We had planned on trying Jasper White’s Summer Shack on Sunday. It did not disappoint and the prices were right in line with what we normally shell out to eat at a Legal location.
I started my meal with one of the blackboard special appetizers, a trio of mini seafood salad rolls, one each lobster, crab, & shrimp. Very tasty, although I would note that the bread part of the roll was cute but not special - served cold & dry. My husband enjoyed his crab cake appetizer from the regular menu that was accompanied by a corn & bean salad. I ordered the “lazy man” lobster casserole entry which featured the meat of a one pound lobster in a Newburg sauce (?- different from the Newburg sauces of my past), topped with garlic crumbs and cheese. My reasoning was I wanted lobster but did not want to fuss with the shell but I would not order the lazy lobster again. There was nothing wrong with it except that it was quite rich (caloric) and the lobster did not need it (OK, me either). Eating it without splashing sauce, given that the tail & claws were whole was not that simple either. My husband also select a regular menu item for his main, crisp fried Ipswich whole belly clams with fries and coleslaw. Now one little oddity occurred with making this order. The online menu said you could sub sides for $2. One husband did not want his coleslaw but would have been happy to pay the $2 for broccoli. Our waiter said he could not sub the coleslaw. So I piped up that my husband could have the broccoli side I had ordered, and I would take my husband’s coleslaw. All and all Summer Shack was a nice change. The decor and atmosphere are casual. The waiters wear some clever T-shirts: one said Lobster, oysters, and clams, Oh my” while another said “We don’t gamble with our clams”. I am sure we will go back to Summer Shack, but that we will also continue to patronize Legal Seafood too.
Music Monday # 14 – Boston Handel and Haydn Society
Yesterday my husband and I made a day trip to Boston for a performance of Bach’s St. Mathew Passion a Symphony Hall by the Handel and Haydn Society. It was a lot of time sitting in the car, plus nearly 3 hours of sitting in the original leather seats of the hall, which date back to 1900. But it was a great performance. If you want a more in-dept review I will refer you to The Boston Globe.
(personal photo taken prior to part 2 of the concert removed per request of the Handel and Haydn Society — they do not allow photography of any kind within the concert hall.)
Harry Christophers conducting the St. Matthew Passion -photo: Kyle T. Hemingway, courtesy of Handel and Haydn Society.
The major female soloists were Soprano Gillian Keith and Alto (mezzo-soprano?) Monica Groop. Before attending the concert my husband had listened to a John Eliot Gardiner recording of the work. He made mention of the “Sind Blitze, sind Donner in Wolken vershwunden? ” chorus, and that, in case your German is a little rusty, translates to something like ” Have Lightening and Thunder vanished in the clouds?” Now the lead up to this chorus is a duet by the Soprano and Alto soloists. So while I might have been having intellectual thoughts what was really was going through my mind was
- our cat Lightning
- as the Soprano soloist
and
- our Thunder
- as the Alto soloist.
