Boston, Massachusetts

Aug 17 - 18, 2012

Friday morning, Fred, Elaine and I went into Boston to set up their booth to sell the Tico Arts wooden products.  I got to sell for a while and it was fun! 

My longtime friend, Jasmine, came into town to get me.  First, we walked around parts of the city that I hadn't seen for a long time.  We went to the Sheraton Boston Hotel, where I worked in the mid-70s in an in-house management training program.  The concierge let us into the exclusive Towers Club on the 29th floor (I had been the Towers Manager), and we saw a breathtaking view of Boston and Cambridge.

For lunch we stopped at a unique restaurant called Fire and Ice.  We each took a bowl and filled it with food to be cooked.  I had fresh tuna with vegetables and an Asian sauce, all for just $10.

Jasmine lives in a suburb of Boston called West Roxbury.  She has a huge Victorian house that she has decorated beautifully.  We thought the train ran into Boston on Saturdays, but surprise!, it didn't.  So on Saturday she dropped me at a subway stop and I made my way in on my own, while Jasmine went to her grandsons' birthday party in western Massachusetts.

When I worked in Boston's financial district (Fidelity Investments, Brown Brothers Harriman, Blue Cross/Blue Shield), I used to walk on Washington Street during my lunch hour.  I befriended a guy in a wheelchair named Charlie, who used to live off the money people put in his can.  Charlie is severely incapacitated physically (I don't remember what he has, but it may be muscular dystrophy) but there is nothing wrong with his mind or his wit.  We used to have stimulating conversations, and he had a wicked sense of humor.  This Saturday morning as I walked along Washington Street, I wondered if Charlie would still be there.  He was!  He recognized me (it must have been 18 years since we last saw each other), and we had a good ol' reunion.  I bought him an iced coffee and a muffin from Dunkin' Donuts, fed it to him, and we caught up as though we had just seen each other the week before.

At Faneuil Hall, I met my two cousins on my mother's side, Ina and Stacy.  It was so great to see them, and it was the first time that the three of us got together as a group.  We walked over to the North End and had lunch at one of the Italian restaurants.  Stacy ordered a bottle of Prosecco for the table.  It was my first drink of Prosecco, and now that's something else that I like.  I had been on a quest to have delicious eggplant parmigiana with a yummy red sauce, and Carolina's did not disappoint.  Then we went to a different restaurant for cappuccino and gelato.  It was so great to catch up with my cousins.