Homeward Bound Day 1 : Cambridge, MA - Gettysburg, PA

Well, this trip has had a bit of a rough start. On Sunday, the day before our departure, Keith's phone fell into a sewer at 5:30PM. The phone couldn't be retrieved and the stores closed at 6, so Keith rushed to a store, convinced them to stay open for him and quickly purchased a replacement.

Monday started off with a six hour delay leaving Cambridge. We were cleaning up the apartment right up to the last minute. I suppose it was good that it was so hectic as it gave us little time to dwell on sad feelings about leaving the friends and places we've come to love.

Part of the route included the lovely Saw Mill River Parkway in Westchester County.

Arrived in Gettysburg close to 1AM. One of my favorite parts about driving cross-country is the different signs you encounter. My favorite recurring Pennsylvania sign had to be the orange "BEWARE OF AGGRESSIVE DRIVERS" signs. Does anyone need to be told to be wary of aggressive drivers? Sadly, I was never able to get a picture of one.

Leaving Cambridge

Wow! Talk about send-offs, Miles has had one after another. He's made some really great friends here and is very sad about leaving them. There was the custom ugly doll that Elliott designed for Miles (incorporating of Miles' favorite uglydoll features), the cool uglies that Miles, Aidan & Ean designed and that Ann sewed up for Miles, a creature created by Charlotte, a party at school and cake (courtesy of Elliott's mom Margy), a Baldwin Elementary t-shirt and handmade card, both signed by all the kids in his class, and endless playdates and sleepovers up to the last hour. I think he was really moved by all the kindness and love showered on him. He couldn't bring himself to say goodbye. So instead he said, "I'll see you soon...even if it's just on Skype."

Our final chapter of the mother/son book group

Sorry about that horrid pun...couldn't resist. We feel really lucky that Joan Epstein invited us to join this great group. For our last book we read about the life of Albert Einstein and met at the MIT museum, followed by discussion at Toscanini, an ice cream institution here. The newest member of the book group, who I just met today, is from Federal Way of all places (though she hasn't lived there for many years).

When I have a little more time, I'll post some video of the fantastic kinetic sculpture we saw by Arthur Ganson.

Yikes...only 11 days left!!

This pic of Keith and Miles was taken in front of the Veritas banners on the Harvard campus, just around the corner from where J.K. Rowling will be giving her commencement address.

These days, all our time is spent planning our cross country trip, trying to sell/give away stuff and getting in those last visits and sights we've been meaning to see.

Looks like we'll be going to see a Red Sox game next week (that's when Miles' school is going) and guess who they'll be playing? Yep...the Seattle Mariners. Complete coincidence, but a fitting way to end our year here.

Pooh's House at Harvard

On our walk home from school today, we took a slightly different route and stumbled upon this little treat. It was at the foot of a tree just outside the Science Center on the Harvard campus. I think THE Winnie-the-Pooh's house had a sign that said Mr. Sanders, so this is clearly some other Pooh.

I've tried to find out more about who constructed this and what the history is, but have come up empty-handed. It does seem that this Pooh's house has appeared here on and off since around 1996 at least (that's the earliest reference to it I can find).

Spring has arrrived

Keith has a few more weeks of classes, but I'm done (sadly). On my last day of class the weather was lovely and the trees seemed to have finally awakened from their winter hibernation. On one street in particular the trees are so laden with blossoms that they bend over the sidewalks and create a lovely canopy under which to walk.

BTW: tonight Miles is on a sleepover at his friends' house, so Keith and I caught Persepolis at the Somerville theater. It's a sparely animated film about a young girl coming of age during the Iranian revolution. It's definitely worth catching if you have a chance.

Back to business

Last week was Miles' spring break and my parents were in town. We capitalized on the fantastic weather and did mega-sightseeing. It was a great week! The weather was sunny and hot until just after my parents' flight took off. Then it was back to the rain and cold.

ROFL.con was on the MIT campus this weekend. So, while I was giving my parents a tour of MIT we caught a glimpse of Tron Guy.

Master Procastinator

If you had asked me a few days ago to identify the master procrastinator, I would have pointed to myself. But yesterday that changed. As I was walking to class, I found that a true master lives right here on our block. After all, only the most accomplished procrastinator sets their Christmas tree out for garbage collection in the middle of April!

En Garde!

Snapped this pic of Miles in fencing class today. He's in the middle of his second session and he's starting to look good out there. He's interested enough that he wants to like to go to a fencing summer camp when we get back to Seattle. At least that's what he says this week.

Miles meets Ann Downer (author of Hatching Magic)

Miles and I have been lucky to participate in a wonderful Mother/Son book group since September. Our last book was a fantasy book set in Cambridge called "Hatching Magic".

Ann Downer, the author, very graciously came to our book club meeting and answered everyone's questions about the book. She showed us her thick, marked up manuscripts and walked us through the writing and editing process. It was so interesting (and it should quiet any whining about editing drafts at school). Then, she read from her new book and gave everyone a free copy...and she signed them too.

Miles thoroughly enjoyed "Hatching Magic", so Ann's visit will be quite a memory for some time.

Here's Ann personalizing and signing the books.


The boys making dragons and dragon eggs out of fimo clay.

Meet our guitar teacher Sam

Miles and I just started taking guitar lessons with Sam, in his wild apartment featured in the video. When we bought Miles' guitar before our first lesson and mentioned our teacher's name in the shop, everyone smiled and said, "Moooo". Now we understand. His apartment has even more features now and HGTV did a little piece on it.

I knew we had found the right guy when during the lesson Miles was trying to be a bit too clever...and Sam looked at me and said, "Don't worry, I can 'out-Miles' Miles."

Inconvenient Beauty

Heavy snowfall blanketed the area Sunday and Monday with more headed our way tomorrow and on Friday.


Yesterday, the we couldn't get the car out, so we had to hoof it across town to observe a violin lesson (Miles wants to learn how to play). Snapped some pics of the lovely scenery we encountered. From a distance, the trees look like they are all abloom with white blossoms.

Snow, snow, snow

This car is parked in front of our apartment. Turns out there's been more snow this month than all of last season. The Massachusetts highway department has already spent its entire winter $24 million sand and salt budget.

You know the old "walked a mile to school in the snow" bit?

Guess what Miles and I did today? Actually I walked a mile in the snow to get him and then we walked a mile in the snow to get back home. We almost always walk home, there's just been much more snow lately!

BTW: Happy Birthday, Mom! Hope you got the flowers.

Eeeek!!!

I must be reading the Indexed blog too much, because this is the first thing that ran through my head after an unpleasant encounter on the way home from my class the other night.

Well, it was the first thing after the shrieking and scurrying away into darkness.

Autumn Leaves

Friday after school we had found impressive stash of leaves just outside the MIT MediaLab. We had a fun time piling 'em up and running/jumping around in 'em.

Head of the Charles & Heads at City Hall

Spent much of the day hanging out with a 3/4 of a really nice family we've met here. Hmmm...didn't mean for that to sound as though only 3/4 of the family is nice...all of them are nice, but only three of them were with us today.

Anyway, we watched a bit of the Head of the Charles regatta...


...and then went over to the Boston City Hall where thousands of jack o'lanterns lined a tall scaffold and the steps outside the City Hall.

That's the number of times this month that I've been hit by a bicyclist while walking. Month as in October...not the past 30 days.

Oktoberfest in Harvard Square

Been meaning to post these for awhile. A couple weekends ago, we went to Oktoberfest in Harvard Square. There was a raucous honkband parade. I guess the real honkband action was the previous night in Davis Square. Anyway, it was quite fun. Camera ran out of memory, so there was much more that we couldn't photograph.





More of our pictures here. More Honk!band images here.
Here's a video that shows a lot of the stuff we couldn't capture


I had no idea it was a movement before this. Here's more about some of the Honkbands we saw and the roots of Honk!

RiverSing 2007

On Sunday night, Keith Miles and I walked down to the Charles River to welcome fall with RiverSing. RiverSing is an annual event that marks the Autumnal Equinox with th ecommunity gathering on the shores of the Charles River near the Weeks bridge and singing along with the musicians, singers and puppets performing on the bridge. Miles took all the photos of the event and happened only to capture jet contrails in the sunset (he's not a fan of vocal music). So please take a look at the FLickr photos that others took of RiverSing 2007.