Boston, Part 4

The final chapter of our trip: GOBFest, the annual Gathering of Bogers. The first such that our family was able to attend (at least, since family reunions acquired their name). It was great! Here's to many more, with the rest of the cousins in attendance, too.

Note: Half the photos below were taken by my semi-professional photographer aunt, Robin Boger. I've included photo credits, but they're hardly necessary: If it's a great portrait or action shot, it's hers. Note, too, that Blogger captioning and photo positioning foiled me this time around--apologies if something looks off. After several hours, I give up.

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First an outing to Sudbury, where they Wayside Inn was a favorite of Longfellow's, and an old grist mill has been restored.

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 Did you know that a real little lamb followed a real Mary to a real school once upon a time? Neither did I. I assumed that it was yet more of our inherited English pastoral nursery tradition. But it's a fully American rhyme and supposedly, historically accurate, too. We visited Mary's school.

Alice and Grandpa, being schooled in the story of Mary and her lamb by a doughty New England schoolmarm:

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In the evening, we gathered for the feast, a sixteen-course tapas extravaganza prepared by Uncle Ken (corporate lawyer turned gourmet chef in retirement), with the unflagging assistance of son-in-law Brad, who may not have realized what he was signing on for when he married into this clan.

 

Alice waits for the meal to begin, while...

...chef and sous chef discuss a detail of the evening's feast...

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...and others get busy with some hoola hoop action...   

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Once we started eating, everyone was too busy to take pictures. But at the end of the night, all were happy campers.  

Boston, Part 3

When I met Tom, he was working as a legislative aide to State Representative Peter Koutoujian at the Massachusetts statehouse. He loved his work, primarily because he liked and respected his boss--enough to invite him to be a groomsman in our wedding, in fact. 

As Tom had long hoped, Peter is now running for Congress. In a trickle-down effect, John Kerry was appointed Secretary of State, former representative Ed Markey won Kerry's former Senate seat, and the Massachusetts 5th Congressional District is open. Peter has declared and launched his campaign; the special primary election will occur in October. Peter had a solid progressive voting record in the Massachusetts legislature, with a particular focus on violence against women and other issues affecting vulnerable constituents. Now serving as Sheriff of Middlesex County, he has received positive press for his efforts to create viable re-entry programs for those who have been incarcerated.

Although he was in the middle of launching a campaign, while managing a full load and a staff of 800 at the sheriff's office, Peter and his wife, Elizabeth, and four-year-old daughter, Isabelle, made a couple of hours to spend catching up with us. Anyone living in or near the Massachusetts 5th (a newly sprawling district stretching from Framingham northeast to the New Hampshire border), talk up his candidacy!

 

P.S. Yes, Peter is tall.

Having enjoyed their company at the baseball game, Edith and Alice were happy to spend a night at Toby and Gabe's house, playing Battleship, riding bikes, splashing at a great neighborhood swimming hole, and dressing as pirates and burying treasure in the front yard. Is it typical for four year olds to come into the kitchen and ask their parents to write down an ancient alphabet, so they can make their treasure map properly antique? Whether usual or no, the kind of independent imaginative play that the kids initiated and enjoyed throughout our stay is just what I dream of for Edith and Alice on a regular basis. How do we find a Philly neighborhood with Toby and Gabe counterparts?

 Battleship. Don't they look like they've been friends forever?

My high school friend, Miriam, and her two boys, Sammy and Jonah, hosted us at their lovely home in Porter Square on a rainy Friday. In the time since I lived there, Porter Square has added a great toy store and independent bookstore, both big boons to the 'hood. Miriam was reader extraordinaire when we visited the bookstore.

We also visited with my friend (and frequent blog commentor) Andrea, and her fantastic kiddos, Sam and Frida, but somehow we didn't manage to get any pictures. It was a great visit, in which we were reminded of the joy of friends with whom one can discuss both family and parenting and books and ideas...including what promises to be a fascinating book by Andrea's husband, coming out this fall. How many of us can boast rave pre-publication reviews by Steven Pinker and Peter Singer? I don't know if Andrea wants her personal life linked online to her husband's professional life, but do email if you want the title. Tom and I will definitely be reading it.

I will also remain grateful to Andrea for handing me a helpful new way to frame turning 40, which I will embrace with deep appreciation in a few years. To be unveiled then, but it's already helping me come to terms with where we find ourselves now.

Final installment of Boston pictures will follow, from the third annual GOB*Fest (*Gathering of Bogers).

Boston, Part 2

 Next stop was with former Boston roommate, Rebecca, and her husband, Eric, and adorable dog, Miles. We spent two days with our ever-game host traipsing around downtown Boston, the first day tracing all the key landmarks in Make Way for Ducklings and the next, baffling the girls by visiting the site of the infamous Big Dig, trying to convey to them our astonishment at the green parkland where the interstate used to be, parts of the city now connected that we had never known were near each other. It rained most of the day, and the girls were good sports, so we rewarded them with a Duck Tour. Neither of us had ever gone on one of these classic Boston tours, which make use of WWII amphibious vehicles to move from road to river and back again. Except for the tour guide's reference to a degree in American history as a degree in Useless Information, and her suggestion that Edith would go to Harvard some day, we enjoyed her banter about a city we already knew pretty well but hadn't seen from the tourist angle.

In the Frog Pond on Boston Commons

At a great new playground on the Esplanade

I think that's Jack she's riding

Checking out a fountain on the new, post-Big-Dig Greenway

Awaiting a Duck Tour outside the revamped aquarium

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The city as seen from a boat on the Charles

A fellow amphibious Duck Tour vehicle there on the right

Getting this memorial to the Armenian genocide built on the Greenway was one of Tom's first major projects at the Statehouse; he was happy to see the completed installation.

The Lowell, Mass. mills are a set-piece in U.S. history classes, and I enjoyed seeing them in person, even in passing. I'd  like to return to explore further.

With Boston friends at a Lowell Spinners minor league baseball game. L to R: Eric, Emily, Rebecca, Andrew, Toby, Gregg, baby Henry (in Gregg's lap), Gabe, Jenn, Tom, Alice

We'd been hoping for awhile to get Edith and Alice together with Toby (7) and Gabe (4). They hit it off!

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At 9 weeks, Henry was attending his first professional baseball game, much like Edith did in Durham in the summer of 2005

I'm not sure she watched much more of the game at age 8 than she did at 7 weeks.