And Other Bad Words
The tree is up, and it’s gorgeous!
This may actually be one of the best-shaped trees we’ve ever had. The guys at the tree farm said this is a concolor fir. It smells nice!
We generally go to cut-your-own tree farms; this year we went to Rollie’s Farm in Lowell.
Beta is more intrepid than her older sister, so the two of us go on adventures when Megh is busy and Alpha just wants to stay home. On Sunday afternoon we headed into Boston’s North End to explore.
I actually found legal, on-street parking (oh joy!) and only had to reverse down a one-way street to get it.
We ate gelato at the Gelateria, around the block from where we parked. I had chocolate (very chocolate, very smooth) and Beta had mint chocolate chip.
The trip was cut short because she decided that she wanted to home home — it was late, she was tired (it was her idea to come, I wasn’t dragging her anywhere). I have to admit her timing was pretty good, though. So we grabbed a few cannoli for after dinner before we headed out the door, two chocolate chip and one nutella. I’m not a fan but Megh said they were delicious.
With Meghan working at the Lego store for the afternoon, Alpha, Beta, and I decided to go roller skating. I haven’t been since before I got married, Beta has only been once, and Alpha has never been.
We went to Roller World in Saugus, since Beta had been there once with friends and liked it. It’s also not too far and had good reviews on Google. They offer a choice of roller skates or -blades (for a few dollars more). We elected to rent roller blades instead of skates, to make backwards tipping a little less likely.
Beta took off after a moment of getting used to the skates again, while Alpha spent a few minutes just trying to stand. I had my own troubles but got going soon enough.
After a little while, the most amazing thing happened: the sisters started helping each other out. Alpha was still a little unsteady on her skates, so Beta stepped up and tried to help her out. They did a few laps around the floor together as Alpha slowly worked away from the wall. I’ve seen the “sisters-against-the-world-thing” in other people, but I’ve had my doubts that these two would ever bond like that. I’m glad to see that I was wrong.
After a couple of big spills (but no injuries) we decided to head out. We were all surprised to find that we had been there for a couple of hours – even I could have sworn it had only been an hour. Time flies when you’re having fun! The girls spent the ride home talking about going back and buying roller blades for themselves.
On one of the last warm days in September this year, Beta asked me ever-so-sweetly to take her swimming. Silver Lake smells terrible at the end of summer (and that day was no exception), and, though Beta insisted that she didn’t mind the smell, I refused to take her there. The ocean was the only option! Meghan had to work on a book and Alpha didn’t feel like swimming, so Beta and I piled into the convertible and headed out.
One the closest spots we can go to see the ocean is Lynch Park in Beverly, MA. I picked it by browsing on Google Maps. We’d never been there, and didn’t know what to expect.
The water was cold and a little dirty (natural dirt, not pollution) so I elected to stay out, but Beta (and some paddle-boarders) braved the water. The park itself is gorgeous, with a spectacular view of Salem. There’s an amphitheatre, a short walkway along the ocean, and a broad expanse of grass for people to plan on.
We spent a couple of hours there until the air started to turn chilly, and then took the long way home to avoid the traffic snarls on I-95.
To thank me for doing a great job on a gruelling project at work, I was offered tickets to see the Red Sox play at Fenway. I don’t normally watch sports but hey, game on! We live so close I should watch at least one game. The game was played back on September 23.
I took my mother-in-law Joan, because she’s a fan-in-the-literal-fanatic-sense of the Sox. It was also a way to thank her for all the times she’s helped us out. She thought it was a hoot.
I had an ‘oh-thats-so-quaint’ moment when I realized that the score board along the back of the field is updated by hand. There’s a jumbotron too, but in between innings some dude goes out and hangs little panels on the scoreboard to provide scores for other games being played nationally. The current score is updated by hand, too, but they stay inside to do that.
The Sox lost, in the end, but Joan and I had a great time! I’m planning to take the girls next year for an afternoon game.
Quinn used to work at Margarita’s in Mystic. (Its a great place for pretty standard Mexican food. The stories that came out of that place are legendary.) He loves cooking Mexican food. I’m … okay at it. Tonight, we came up with something epic.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Mystic, CT has an annual Pirate Invasion, where people dress up as pirates, the shops give away swag to the kids, and the Argia sails into the local dock and “invades” Mystic River Park.
My niece, whom I recently set up with email through jonesling.us, invited us down to enjoy the event. She’s been so very excited about email, about chatting with me, and about the invasion, that we couldn’t say “no,” even though Megh had a ton of work to do by Monday.
Sadly, I didn’t get any photos of the event – I was watching all four Joneslings (ours, plus our nephew and the aforementioned niece) and Butter.
At my brother’s request, I recently set up an email address for my niece through jonesling.us, just like our own kids do.
She’s so excited about email. She checks it multiple times per day and sends me emails as fast as I can reply. We’ve been having a very slow conversation for a couple of weeks now, which is really pretty cool because I didn’t get a chance to talk with her much before.
Now, if I could just get my own kids interested in email again. They mostly ignore it, probably because the used to sign up for everything under the sun and they now experience the scourge of the internet: spam.
I don’t wanna go to the store! I wanna go shopping!
— Beta child, who didn’t want to go to the grocery store
