Day 245: September 6, 2009

So it looks like the stenciled phrase “Not Art” was not just a one-off Hyannis phenomenon; I got this shot in Cambridge. And there are more out there. But Googling yields no explanation…

If you say so

Day 231: August 23, 2009

The theater in Kendall Sq., where the movies are higher quality and the bratty teenagers are scarce.

Cinema-tastic!

Day 223: August 15, 2009

Even the weeds are pretty in Cambridge.

Roadside flowers

Day 216: August 8, 2009

“What was this man-angel’s goal?” wondered the crowd that slowly began to gather around him, Saturday night in Harvard Square. Would he intone prophecies for our time? Our promise salvation to the lowly sinners? No, he would merely stand there for awhile, constantly adjusting his pants. Apparently the vestments of heaven aren’t all they are cracked up to be.

Make me an angel

Day 133: May 17, 2009

I got my first ten-speed bike for my tenth birthday. Though my birthday is in August, I got it earlier, because the perfect bike was on sale at Bradlee’s. It was light blue and had those curled under handlebars that, in the late 80s, were the signifier of a grown-up bicycle. This is not that bike.

No one could have foreseen the Tour de France

Day 62: March 7, 2009

Today, I enjoyed Harvard Square in a fashion that some of my Reading friends would probably agree was decidedly old school: Coffee at Algiers and then vintage shopping. My grad school friend Neil is in town this weekend and was on a search for the best coffee in Boston; Algiers, I said, may or may not have outstanding coffee, but certainly is one of the coolest places to drink it.

As usually happens when I spend time in the city, I fell under some sort of urban spell and was captivated with my desire to live in the city (Boston or, ideally, Cambridge), with its buildings and people and energy and things to do and public transportation and proliferation of movie theaters.

So about that giving-up-coffee thing...

Then, on the way home, I called Pat, who informed me that he was about to take dinner out of the oven. Casserole, he had made. And, in my city-thrall, the very word “casserole” seemed to fly in the face of all of the urbane sophistication to which my Boston trip had encouraged me to aspire. But as I drove home, I couldn’t help but appreciate the dark open skies and the long road on which I could drive faster than today’s top city speed of 30 miles per hour. And when I got home, there was the earthy wet smell of the snow melting into the soil on the first warm day at the end of winter. And the casserole was delicious.

Day 14: January 18, 2009

The snow today was not really too severe, but when I arrived in Cambridge at about 9:15 this morning, the municipal plows and driveway-clearing homeowners had not yet had time to do their thing on the side roads and walkways of the neighborhood in which I was tutoring. In front of one house, this dog and his twin flanked the path in front of a staid and beautiful Cambridge home.

Vigilant watchdog