Thoreau-ly spring time

On March 31st (yes, I have a lot of catching up to do) my boy and I were supposed to be heading to New Haven to visit and old friend of mine and his brother. Instead because I was still recovering from being ill we went out with my roommate (who was recovering from a hang over :)) for a heavy diner breakfast. It was terribly filling (seven hours later we were still quite full but I am getting ahead of myself) and such a pleasant walk to the local diner that when we returned home we were looking for an outdoor activity we could engage in that wasn't too high impact/too structured. We all agreed a trip to Walden was perfect so we rented a zipcar and headed out deliberately (sorry I couldn't come up with a better play on words). The zipcar was in Harvard Square and so we stopped for rations for the trip (I got Gatorade afraid of dehydration, and chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels -- my favorite treat from CVS and something I wanted to get in before really trying again at the diet-- my roomie got regular pretzels and my boy got water) and then headed off to find the car. I took us to entirely the wrong spot. So my boy took over -- but he has an annoying habit of only telling you things on a need to know basis, probably something good for me since I tend to worry/imagine worst case scenarios, the problem being he has a terrible filter for knowing when other people NEED to know. . . . eventually after much discussion/griping we found the car and headed out on the highway. We had a lovely time walking around the pond, we started out looking at the replica of the house that Thoreau lived in and then we went down to the beach and around stopping every so often to explore the nature skip rocks etc. and finding the foundation for Thoreau's actual house (I say find, really we followed giant signs that were pointing there).

We ended our tour back at the beach and watched a mother push a child dressed in a rabbit costume past us. A long way off she set the child up with an Easter basket and some plastic eggs under a tree and started flashing pictures. It was disturbing on so many levels. I think the child thought so too because he started crying -- my roomie pointed out that he didn't start crying until he fell over but whatever, I think that the kid thought this was a terrible way to celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ.

We decided to head into Concord and explore the town. I LOVED it. First we headed to an incredible cheese, wine and delicacy store, The Concord Cheese Shop. It was overwhelming and having had the filling diner breakfast we couldn't eat but I so desperately wanted to, everything looked so good. In addition to an incredible selection of cheeses, they had meat, prepared foods, lots of wine and a great selection of cadbury chocolates. They also had specialty teas and salt collections and other hard to find items. It was so fun just exploring -- next time I am coming back when I can eat though :).

Next we found a fun kitchen store called The Famous Concord Shop. It had unique kitchen tools AND a dog eager for attention (I don't know how they go together but I like both so I was cool with it). We ended up buying two cookie cutters while there but left some of the more obscure items for another time.

We explored the Toy Shop of Concord Next (I love how all of the stores have so much town pride!!). I had a hard time resisting these gorgeous blue marbles we found and so many fun puppets. I also found a perfect puzzle for my roommie and co-worker on one side it was a french bull dog (my roomies favorite breed) and on the other it was a daschund (my co-workers favorite). I figured they'd fight though so I left it there with the beautiful marbles. In the end my roomie convinced my boy to buy a wiffle ball set and I bought her two plastic fish that looked the same as the latest two she had that died (I am hoping we can stop the fish rampage this way and just stick to plastic pets from now on). My roomie did insist on a picture here though (much to my boy's dismay-- much to mine I can't figure out how to post it).

We headed to Friendly's for a late lunch/early dinner. I got the "cheese" fries and a sandwich. My boy got a salad (which is really saying something since he refuses to eat any meal that doesn't include meat) and we shared his happy ending sundae when he finished.

At this point it was time to meet my boy's friends for pool. In the end the three of us pretty much played pool in our own corner. I still suck at pool but I think in the course of the evening I did manage to improve. I stopped scraping the felt, for example, and actually would hit the balls, not the ones I wanted or into the pockets, but I hit them nonetheless!

We went to a concert briefly at Ryles and then had to return the zipcar.

A good long day.