baltisox roadtrip 07

so last weekend j.mo, j2 and myself packed up senor pablo with hummus, chips, nuttah buttahs, diet pepsi and clean undies


and joined the red sox convoy headed south to baltimore to catch saturday night's game.

friday night we stopped in ct to dine with the parentals and enjoy a little late summer campfirebliss as well...


firesafetyjohnny keeping his distance from the inferno


big g in the middle of his fireside touch-hole monologue (yes, you had to be there. no i can't explain) with jon coping fabulously well with the residents of the schwartz family compound)


saturday morning we set sail:


baltimore's a little rough around the edges, but the inner harbor is nice...




that odd maryland state flag


thanks to mistah shatner's kungfu priceline price slashing, we had a lovely hotel room with a decent view of the harbor:




and despite the fact the sox had their asses handed to them, camden yards was a great park- there were so many red sox fans there it nearly could have passed for a home game:







ahhhh- nothing says scenic americana quite like the glorious smokestacks of the jersey turnpike. i wish i still had the two pages of papisbigbook that managed to get stuck to the front license plate of the car. no joke- we stopped to pee and get spray-on buttered auntie annie's pretzels and there were two pages of the bible in spanish stuck to our license plate. how very jersey!


shhhhhh! pollo consado


definitely a good weekend- to be repeated next year... biggah and bettah!

say it ain't so...

i'm so not ready for the week to start tomorrow... wonder what the chances are of canceling tuesday due to lack of interest?

after sleeping in i went jogging, hoping i might be able to out-run the remnants of the previous two days. but at the 5-mile mark i more or less gave up and instead sat in the shade, watching the world go by at castle island.

about two weeks ago my grandma got sick and ended up in a nursing home after a brief stay at the hospital. things started to settle down a bit and she began adjusting to her new home and eagerly started exercising, eating well, etc all with the motivation of getting better enough to move back to her apartment. so after we went and visited her and saw how high her spirits were and how determined she was to get back to her own home and her routine, i was feeling pretty optimistic that things would work out the way she wanted.

until she got sick again (this time with pneumonia) and wound up back in the hospital. j.mo and i went to see her on saturday and sunday- i'm so grateful that we got to spend some time together, because it's becoming quite clear that she won't be here much longer. on saturday it was so hard not to cry when she said she wanted to see grandpa and her sisters and that she was just ready to go.

for her sake i do hope things peacefully wind-down and she drifts off in the middle of a real good dream. we were there yesterday as she was moved back to the nursing home and made all her wishes known re: just being kept comfortable with no heroic measures or return trips to the hospital. she looked so small and tired in that big bed, but certainly didn't let on if she was feeling less than stellar.

since i was little i've always been close to my grandma- we've spent a lot of time together. she's always made it a point to know what i'm up to, where i'm going, and how i'm doing. even when i was away in australia, she never failed to send at least a letter every month... and we talked on the phone nearly as often so she could fill me in on all the important stuff like what was happening on ER. i've always loved her no-nonsense approach to everything, these days becoming her last chapter included. she's lived on her own for a long time and did everything exactly the way she wanted. when she met john the first time she understood it all and never asked a single question- he was instantly added to her big 'ol list of grandkids.

so i guess i've just been a little sad today. remembering the things i love about her so much and not being able to imagine what must be on her mind right now. i'm going to miss her, both as my grandma and as one of my closest friends. i hope the rest of her time here is as good to her as she has been to all of us.

new ben on tuesday makes me happy...

huffin'n'puffin

this weekend i registered, so there's no turning back now- saturday, october 13th i'll be running a half-marathon in hartford.

i won't be collecting $ for charity, but i will be accepting donations for my ride home:

a post in honor of my favorite latvian spy

i knew if i searched around long enough i'd find proof that special agent natasha did indeed wait in the breadline:



now what do you have to say about that? i know all your secrets ;)

c'est fini

finally, i can put the summer semester to bed.... i just finished my 15 page case study for immigration law. good thing you're not trying to haul these bags across the border!


needless to say, tomorrow is a sick day for me, because it's nearing 1am and i'm still awake. that *never* happens on a work night unless it's some kind of school-related torture.

speaking of work, i've been wanting to do a post about this since last week- first the visual (what i see when i look out one of my two windows at work):


then the email my boss sent:
_____________________________________________
From: H, Linda
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2007 8:44 AM
To: F, Stephen; M, Richard
Cc: L, Linda
Subject: Vestibule

Something needs to be done with the vestibule between Gary's office and mine. I've told you about all the drug dealing that have been going on there. Yesterday, early afternoon a very drunk man walks up and urinates on the window in Gary's office while he's sitting at his desk. After that he passed out in the vestibule and Gary had to get Mario to remove him. With the coming rain today our department will smell like one of the walkways in the Downtown Crossing station.

We really need some help back here.

Linda


mmmmmhmmmm- sitting at my desk on thursday last week, minding my own business when a drunk guy decides to pee on my window. at the very least it could have been some young college beef to drool over... oh no, instead i got a sun-dried andy rooney that just downed a gallon of cheaperthancheapnailpolishremovervodka.

bet you don't get that in the burbs, now do ya?

survey says...?

summerschool is almost done and i'm starting to enjoy this thing called 'free time' again :)

so i thought it was time to shake my blog's case of that-not-so-fresh feeling and update it's tired look- maybe this will encourage me to get back to posting on a more regular basis... so vote on the new digs (survey over on the right)- if everyone's happy it stays.

hope everyone had a good weekend!

-g

ps- in case you're curious... we took that pic in koh samui, thailand...

the opening clip for our group project in immigration law

minisox and a half-marathon

j.mo and i joined his sis and brother-in-law (and approximately 300 south shore moomoosuburbanmommas and their pot-bellied bigboyhusbands) for an afternoon of little league. it was so much fun to watch william- god he's getting to be so grown up:




after that it was a few hours of immigration law while it poured outside. as soon as the sun came back out around 6.30p i headed out for my first ever 13mile run. i definitely think i'll be ready for the half marathon this fall.



i was a little behind (ok- a bit more than a little behind... 38 miles to be exact!) in our challenge with the good dr- starting to catch up:


tomorrow am we're off to CT to see the fam. i'm sure there will be pics at some point. in the meantime, time to replace those 1400 calories i just ran off :P

hope y'all are having a good weekend.

-g

yay for pics

bigthanks to the butter queen for posting pics from the road race :)

go see it

and after you've seen it let me know when you're ready to buy your tickets to france- we may not be coming home when we land there in october...

i-heart-stewie

this is perhaps my favorite family guy moment....

all sorts of excitement...

this is my very first blog post from my supaflash new 'puter, thanks to my rather generous and thoughtful papi. my old laptop had just about lived out the last of its days, with my most recent paper writing experience featuring me needing to plug in a spare keyboard since none of the punctuation or symbols would work... it's going to take a little while to get used to all things mac, but i'm already in love.

yesterday i ran my first roadrace evuh- 5 miles, 42mins13secs... i came in 361st out of a bit more than 1000 peeps, so i was happy :) mags was there as our official cheerleader, so hopefully i'll have some pics soon. we're already talking about a half marathon this fall. stay tuned! in the meantime, last weekend j.mo and i went to see a sox game on saturday night. we had awesome seats and the weather could not have been more perfect....







how adorable is my green monstah?


alrighty- it's friday night and it's time to turn off the computer, stuff myself full of leftovers and then crash on the couch, pinned under the weight of my own gut until i pass out (probably before 10p). i'm so ready for retirement.

have a good weekend...
g

send new legs

cheerleaders, please

so my mistah came up with the idea of taking our new nanos and fancy sneaks and turning jogging into a new form of torture... j.mo, myself and our good friend j2 (aka the good dr) have a little competition going. the challenge is to see who can run the most miles in 60 days- and i need all of the encouragement i can get. because tonight i feel like i'm 80 years old from the the knees down thanks to yesterday's 12 mile run.

i'll post updates often, so get those pompoms up in the air ;)

fire it up...

the only thing that can top the community togethaness of trash night in dorchester is the 4th of ju-ly. it doesn't matter if you're vietnamese, cape verdian, b-grade irish from southie or something in between- fireworks in the hood (and a whole shitload of them at that) seem to be a universal.

this was pretty much it, from 8p until whatever time i finally managed to pass out:

not off in the distance, blocks away or over the harbor- more like bouncing off the windows and melting the siding. for hours. we couldn't help but laugh as we were inventing dialogue for the tv show we couldn't hear over the curbsidepyrotechnicdin. when i woke up this morning i had to count my fingers to make sure i hadn't lost any in last night's shananagans. just another reason i-heart-dot.

lady t

let's face it, no one offers up a close encounter with humanity's more colorful quite like the T. they really should work that angle in their advertising. 'ride the T & see some messed up shit'

this 'little' gem happend to be dancing up and down the aisle of the redline train i was on wednesday after class, stopping every so often to thrust and gyrate in a way that made me reach for my purell hand sanitizer just in case an unfortunate lurch in the T led to an unexpected lap dance. she was decked out in a 4sizestoosmallflashdancenumbah gone way wrong circa '82, complete with giant potbelly featuring a large horizontal scar. i'm sure she would have also had on matching legwarmers if they made them in size elephantankle.



you can understand why i wasn't bold enough to attempt a frontal photo. no need to take a chance on catching this one's attention.

(i think the guy on the left says it all.)

leg transplant, please

so i left the house this morning hoping to top my 7-mile longest distance for running... i tried the other day, but couldn't bring myself to do another lap past sullivan's snack shack where 300lb americana grazes on soft-serve and fries. there's a reason i don't bring my wallet with me when i run ;) today i thought maybe, just maybe i could hit ten miles without falling apart somewhere between here and castle island.

well, champagne flavored gatorade for everyone :) 10 miles it was.

sanity day

so after 10 straight days of work, or school, or on extra special days both work and school i finally started to crack yesterday. so i decided to treat myself to a mental health day before things got ugly and for the first time in forevuh did basically whatever i wanted. well, i did still get up in the am with j.mo and made a pot of coffee and as soon as i had a pulse cleaned the house. thank you caffeine. and after that was done i wrote a paper. again, thank you caffeine. so i got a lot done in addition to it being a day of whatever. after lunch i had a lovely walk in the sunshine on my way to the T so i could hit up the o.b.g.y.m and then feeling extra motivated when i was done with the gym i went for a seven mile run.

we've both been little running machines since we bought these:


and these:


i've run 23.8 miles in the past 11 days. according to the little man that lives inside my nano i'm on track to hit my goal of 60 mile in 4 weeks. here i am crawling across the finish line after my seven mile leg-punishing trek today:


i think before the weekend is over i might be able to do a ten mile run- we'll see what happens. i say that now, but i probably won't be able to walk to the train in the morning. whatever- it's been good motivation and there's something very zen about running. and running. and running some more. so as long as i have this crap job and crazy schedule with school i've got to try and stick with it.

it's amazing what a difference a day makes.

tickled pink (alternate title: signs of life)

tomorrow would have marked two entire months since my last post... i wonder if anyone even checks in for updates anymore?!?

i'm on vacation from work right now (which means waking up at o'dark hundred every morning to answer my bottomless emails and shovel around passengers as if i care) so i can take 3 summer courses to make up for time lost last summer- immigration law (handy, though noitceably unthrilling), intercultural management (pretty good overall) and another on racism. the racism course was the last one i picked for this summer, and admittedly, it was ultimately chosen because it required the least number of days off from work. i would have never imagined it would turn into the experience it was. everything i thought i knew about the topic got spattered around the microwave like a certain ex-roomate's penchant for annihilating sticks of margarine in the name of baking. every once in a while you run into someone that's a true teacher- someone inspired and passionate... someone that teaches from lived experience and doesn't insist on an all you can eat buffet of half-cooked wordymumbojumbotheorypie. i feel incredibly grateful for all of this and have had so much to think about and question. at the risk of taking us all down hallmark boulevard, i'll stop crapping on and just say it was a moving experience on every level imaginable... one that is gonna be with me for the long-haul.

speaking of long-hauls... j.mo and i are about to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary on monday. it sounds kinda funny to say it's our first wedding anniversary since we've been together for seven years now, but it will soon indeed be one year ago that we were sticking two plastic grooms in a cake and getting all teary-eyed.

and what a lovely way to celebrate:

'A proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage was swiftly defeated today by a joint session of the Legislature by a vote of 45 to 151, eliminating any chance of getting it on the ballot in November 2008. The measure needed at least 50 votes to advance.... "We’re proud of our state today, and we applaud the legislature for showing that Massachusetts is strongly behind fairness," said Lee Swislow, executive director Advocates & Defenders. "The vote today was the triumph of time, experience, and understanding over fear and prejudice."

I too am proud of my state today. After a difficult and uncomfortable week of questioning so much about what I thought I knew about racism, identity and living in the US... And seriously wondering what (if any) impact I can have after all this time and energy spent learning about intercultural relations, I'm feeling a little bit better that maybe things can change. That maybe we really will have a chance to be parents and raise kids in a place that respects our family.

As I heard all week long-

learn, unlearn, relearn

one down, one to go

someday i'll blog again. promise.

i finished a 24 page paper for one class on saturday. and have another one of the same proportions due soon.

may 7th is a-comin'

a fabulous little getaway...

j.mo and i just got back from a couple of days of sunshine, sleeping in late and tons of good food. we flew down to florida to for some much needed R&R on the cheap. my good friend mojo's parents recently bought a place right on the water and my oh my, it sure was lovely...

here are a few of my pics:


me&mojo






















mojo's friend claudia was also there- she's a professional photographer and her pics are amazing!

hope all is well-

biglove,
g

5 weeks since i last touched my e-gspot...?

wow- has it really been five weeks since the last time i posted anything?

i'm afraid so.

but tonight the stuffed shells are already in the oven baking away and school stuff is more or less done for the week... and the oscars are on. so the window of bloggingpossibility has briefly opened and like a doomed shuttle landing, i'm going for it. now i know you're probably scratching your head in bewilderment... the oscars are a required highholygayholiday, man-sandwiched between cher's never ending farewell tour and thursday's eyebrow waxing. but somehow, someway i missed out on that fruitysprinkle doublehelix twist with a kiss... and the gayhollywoodgene skipped right on over me. i don't know my helen hunts from my diane keatons. come to think of it, i'm damn lucky i'm not sitting here in a flannel bathrobe listening to k.d lang while my s/he motormomma cooks me up some dead cow.

so yeah-- the oscars are one of many annual phenomena that send me to bed early. once they wheel out joan rivers and top her up on anti-freeze i'm nowhere to be found:

she is looking a bit extra crisp this year, wouldn't you agree?

so what's happened the past few weeks? nothing too noteworthy. work is working me over. i just started a research project for school that lasts for two semesters and ends with a 60 page paper a la thesis in disguise. and i also turned 29 a few weeks ago. a couple of random pics from that night's pahty:





i'm now on a mission to matchmake william with my friend ny's daughter...


blimpers is still lahge and in charge in case anyone was concerened:


and this weekend i was more american than i have ever been- i went TV shopping. the TV j.mo and i had was a good ol' fashioned 19 inches of no-name kmart brand that my sister gave me when i graduated college (the first time). so for the past 8 years i've carted around this old tele:


but this weekend we went all out and got this (don't mind the gypsy home furnishings on wheels... we're going to west elm on friday to take care of that situation...)


42 inches of plasma goodness. next you know i'll be driving a hummer and tossing big mac wrappers out the window...

hope all is well with everyone.

biglove,
g

the cheese flavored gods are smiling down on me today....

j.mo and i happened to notice a sign at the much dreaded big e's vermont building a few months ago professing aged cheddar was lactose free. we were both so desperate to get the hell outta there we didn't pause to investigate.

well what do you know....?- from the cheesemasters themselves:

Cabot Products and your Diet
Can those with lactose intolerance (ie me) enjoy Cabot cheeses?All Cabot cheeses contain zero (0) grams of lactose. (0 grams bitches!) Eating any aged cheese should not affect those with lactose intolerance (i'm getting moist), regardless of how much is eaten (!), because lactose - the major carbohydrate of cheese - totally disappears within 3 to 4 weeks after the cheese is made.



this is major news folks. i-heart-cheese.


i can totally relate to john's twin sister when she was a little kid, dancing around the kitchen with a slice of american cheese, doing the ancient cheesedance and topping her pasta with an entire can of so much 'stinky cheese' that the sauce disappeared. me too! but unfortunately anything with lactose started making me disgustingly ill around the time i started college (j.mo too). so i've been coping with soy cheese for 10 years now. in light of this recent groundbreaking news the block of sharp vermont cheddar i bought at the supermarket today doesn't stand a chance.

if i don't make it to morning, i guess this is my last blogpost. at least i went out with a cheeseblissbang :)

mira! three weeks without a new post...

howdy...

somehow three weeks have passed since the last time i posted anything here. that means i've got three weeks-worth of randomness to ramble on about. lucky you.

so this is month number 2 of the new job and the dust is finally starting to settle. my last job was very comfie- it didn't pay all that great, but there were lots of opportunities to travel and it was insanely quiet most of the year. so there was ample time to do homework, take 2 hour gym breaks and i rarely had to stay late... my new job is the complete polar opposite- from the moment i arrive in the am until i finally give up at the end of the day it's a whirlwind of triage, training, and general airline-related craziness. but anytime i start to question my decision all i have to do is remind myself that it was a raise of sabado gigante proportions and it's a profitable company that isn't about to go under/be bought out/have the electricity cut off for non payment. so i guess fair is fair.

this past week we had a quarterly corporate meeting- since there are about 180 employees, there's no space big enough for all of us to get together in our own building. so we all headed over to a swank-y function room at one of the nearby buildings in the financial district. seeing the early am sun coming up over the city was gorgeous:

i had a choke-hold on my stahbies the rest of the morning. not exactly riveting stuff whe you're knee-deep in fresh squeezed corpricana in the early am.

having the past month off from school has been bliss. i've been able to enjoy the holidays and real weekends again and not be exhasuted 24-7. but that's all about to end again on monday- it's back.....

one of this semester's classes will be lovely: international education exchange. the other, however, isn't going to do much to raise the pulse: dimensions and methods of cultural exploration 1. yup, that's right- this is part 1. next fall will be part 2. i'm already yawning. oh well- not much you can do about required courses.

this coming week kristin hersh has a new cd coming out and i couldn't be more excited- she's been my favorite for quite some time now and never fails to disappoint. froggie, this is for you:


so that's about all i suppose... my parents are on their way up to boston to spend the day and celebrate my birthday. it's not actually until next weekend, but they like to do things early ;) i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about turning 29. 3-0 is getting close. real close.

hope everyone is having a good weekend. i'll try to drop by more often.

biglove,
g

football wives

after i crawled out from under our paralytically excessive brunch i managed to get up off the couch and shower myself. today was one of the last football sundays of the soon ending season, so i decided to join all the other bored wives and go grocery shopping.

super88 seemed to be having some sort of flood control issue today. there was a team of men in rubber boots with hoses everywhere pumping water out of one of the freezers (no doubt all of the once frozen food is presently being re-frozen for re-sale). there was also a large puddle that stretched across 5 aisles of the store. so you could get halfway down an aisle and then had to put it in reverse and loop around to get to the other end. i had to put my floaties on to nab two cans of baby corn.



this week's sale:


and nothing says refreshment quite like a nice cold can of wax gourd juice:


still, it's my favorite place for foodshopping. 4 huge shopping bags full of fresh produce for $18- there's no beating it. tonight we're having a little thaifoodfest. oh my, the bliss that is being off from school for a few more weeks.

hope y'all had a good weekend...