Boring is in the Eye of the Beholder

My friend who travels A LOT for business was visiting this weekend. It was a lot of fun! She and SuziB were talking at one point though and she described herself as the boring friend. She told SuziB she wasn't blogworthy. SuziB insisted she must have blogged about her at one point. She looked up the last time world traveler had been here though, and not so much.

I told my well traveled friend not to worry, my boy says I never blog about him either. So it's not a sign of being unloved or boring. My traveling friend (and he) didn't seem to buy it though. . . . (though talking to my sister last night she asked if I was even still dating the boy, last night was our 6 monthiversary -- so yes, we're still dating and perhaps my well traveled friend and boy have a point)


To prove them wrong, I am blogging about this weekend (briefly) even though I have other posts started and neglected.


This weekend was so fun, mostly because it was so laid back. My well traveled friend has been to Boston enough times that I don't feel the need to cart her to every tourist event there is. She's also an incredibly good sport and she is pretty much game for anything.


Friday night we ran a couple of errands (in the complete opposite direction of our final destination) and then headed to Jacob Wirth's for some good old fashioned sing along fun (and some hearty German food). Sadly, we were greatly disappointed in both. While last time my friend visited we had a great time singing along, this time there was one table of very loud very drunk girls ruining the fun (and at one point dumping beer down an innocent bystander's shoe). My dinner was also comically late and, as a result insanely dried out. The waitress (who we had last year and I swear hated us) was really, really kind and took it off the check completely. The sweet potato fries were well worth the trip (in my opinion) :). We went home very early though and rather bitter. We stopped for ice cream (coffee oreo) at JP Licks but went home and fell asleep before eating any.


Sat. I got my friend up at the crack of dawn and we went to the soup kitchen. I forgot some garlic at home though, so halfway to the train we turned around and got it then got on the train. I made some mistakes on the trains that resulted in us running up and down some extra flights of stairs and then catching the correct train. Finally we met my boy about 30 min late and I announced we were grabbing breakfast. We got some dunkin donuts and then took the bus the rest of the way to Chelsea, where my friend was a huge hit. When we walked into the kitchen, I turned to my friend and said ooh, it looks like frozen chicken for lunch. There were bricks of frozen thighs floating in cold water. The chef said, "yes, it's frozen, but we also have some lovely corn too. Reg said to me wouldn't it be wonderful if we could give the guests some corn on the cob?!' and I said 'yes, that would be wonderful', why don't you go get it?" So we did, it was three foot high bag of corn that needed husking. Oddly enough it was slightly frozen too. We told the chef we didn't know you could freeze corn in the husk and he said, yeah, you usually don't. The chef thought it would take us ages, 30 some minutes later we were back on schedule.

My friend stayed busy, she washed spices, shucked corn, and pulled frozen pieces of chicken apart like a pro (professional frozen chicken pullers know you always wear gloves and you stick your fingers into the crevices and let the warmth of your fingers help you melt apart the individual pieces, sometimes this means taking breaks and washing your hands in warm water to get the blood flowing again -- the best professional frozen chicken separaters have really, really good circulation). My boy left early and my friend and I caught the bus back to Boston alone. We went to Lulu's Bakeshop in the north end and got some great cupcakes (s'more, peanut butter cream, marshmallow filled, red velvet and raspberry mocha -- the last one was just a weird flavor combination) then wandered through Haymarket where we got some blueberries, Rainier cherries and a lovely assortment of tomatoes (including a little purple one) to add to those from my garden for a tomato salad.

We went home via the esplanade (for those of you from Boston, you know that that's a rather long detour). We were planning on going to the Beach Boy's concert that night and we wanted to scope it out. Our recon tour told us enough, there's no way we'd have a decent seat in the already 2/3 full concert area (the concert was still 5 hours away mind you) when we still had to go all the way home and come all the way back. We walked back to the train passing loads more people bowing under the weight of multiple camp chairs and coolers.

It was time for plan b. I called the friend we were supposed to be going to the concert with (a sort of late birthday celebration for her except she doesn't really accept birthday celebrations) and told her that the outlook wasn't good. Instead, we decided to have our picnic at our house. It was a very chill evening involving curried chicken salad sandwiches (suzib made the chicken salad even though she couldn't attend) on 7 grain bread I'd scored from the soup kitchen that day (When I suggested using the bread for something else -- I forget what, perhaps toast?-- my boy burst out, sure, it's not like it could be any harder -- which made me laugh and also ask why he hadn't said something at the time about the bread being too hard, we could have used different bread!!). We also had the fruit, and a lovely tomato salad consisting of halved cherry tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes (from my garden and the supplement from haymarket), salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and oil -- I forgot to add in the basil I'd just picked from my garden, and 100 calorie pack chips. For dessert, obviously, we had the cupcakes. After some struggle we even managed to put on some Beach Boys. It was a lovely evening full of fun conversation (my birthday friend's mother was in town so she came along too and livened up the evening).

Sunday, my well traveled friend packed her stuff and we took it to the church. We then rushed to Filene's Basement (which is slightly a misnomer at this point as their currently on the first floor of the former Filene's as well) for a quick shopping spree and then we were off to dim sum. I love dim sum. It was a flurry of activity, women rushing at us etc. We were kind of in a corner though, so this dim sum trip also involved sending various cart women off on quests to help us find exactly what we'd been waiting for. The conversation was fun and we left with very full stomachs. Sadly, this also meant it was time for my well traveled friend to return home.

My Boy and I took her to the airport and then we returned home where I laid down suffering as I was from a cold and he made dinner which I ate in bed.

So that was last weekend (not the one we just had). I will do my best to blog again, but I don't know when. This week is shaping up to be crazed and then this weekend we're going camping at Sebago Lake in Maine.