There are some fun stories to tell of my last day in Boston and the trip back. But those will have to wait. Me tired now.

Tune in later for a new take on BMW, stories of travel karma, frustration at South Station, how Nabokov ties into it all — and more!

Another thing to check off my list of firsts: going out to dinner at a restaurant by myself. And it was good. I almost wimped out and headed back to my hotel to order room service… I actually walked past the restaurant I was considering, and then thought better of it and turned around.

I went to Tapeo, a tapas bar on Newbury Street in Boston. I guess they’re used to seeing solo diners since the hostess didn’t bat an eyelash or ask me anything presumptuous - e.g. “will you be dining alone?” or “party of one?” or “are you waiting for anyone else?” Nope. She just asked me to follow her and seated me. I noticed that the next three people she seated were also single diners, so that made me feel pretty chill.

I got myself a glass of sangria… a mixed greens salad with hearts of palm, beets, orange slices and vinaigrette… medallions of warm goat cheese with honey and sweet onions… saffron batter fried shrimp with spicy mojo sauce… and pork sausage with figs.

Since the rain here wasn’t too bad at that point, I took a long walk around the neighborhood to get back to my hotel. That was nice. I managed to get back to my hotel without pulling out a map–just using my (fairly decent) sense of direction. All in all, it was a nicely confidence boosting evening.

But I’m wiped, man. I want nothing more than to curl up in bed with a cup of mint tea and a book.

Today was glacial. If you really want to develop an appreciation for your daily grind, regardless of how much it may wear you down (I’m thinking of my retail days), work a convention. Preferably a very specific one like the (making this up now) American Association of Chess Board Manufacturers. Standing in the same place for eight hours a day for three or four days repeating the same speech to people over and over again makes you long for something mentally stimulating. Really.

It’s not the worst thing in the world - far from it - but I am well aware that I don’t have the temperament for this sort of thing. I can fake it for a while, but it wears me down eventually.

Anyway - after this long day, there was more fantastic dinner in the North End of Boston (the Italian section) at an Italian restaurant called Mamma Maria. The venue itself was adorable; it’s in a town house looking out over Paul Revere House. We had some chianti, a Bibb salad (Boston lettuce with lemon pistachio vinaigrette) and the chef’s special for the night which was lobster ravioli with trumpet mushrooms, asparagus spears and arugula in a crazy delicious sauce that I couldn’t sort of parse out, but it was such a wonderful combination of flavors. There were huge chunks of lobster in the ravioli; the asparagus was perfectly cooked with a citrusy sauce of some sort; the mushrooms just have a beautiful delicate flavor that wasn’t too earthy; taken all together, it was just amazing. I ended up wiping my plate clean with the last bits of bread. Sure - that might have been gauche, but the sauce was soooo good. And I was demure about it.

Since we were pretty stuffed, we walked around the North End a bit and went to Mike’s Pastry to get some dessert. Tiramisu, ahoy! And I bought a cannoli to keep in the little mini fridge in my hotel room so I have dessert for tomorrow night. Nomnomnom.

We continued to walk and saw the New England Holocaust Memorial. It consists of six glass and metal towers; the plates of glass on each tower are etched with the prisoner numbers of people killed in the concentration camps. Each tower is named for a concentration camp and has a brief first person account or quote from a survivor etched on the interior of the tower base. You walk along the path– you can walk through the towers. They are open four-sided structures with a doorway through each; the foot of each is a metal grid through which you can see lights that mimic a starry sky, and steam comes up through the metal grids - perhaps to call to mind the gas chambers. There are lines of text carved into the marble that makes up the path; some of it is factual and some of it is more inspirational in nature. At the very end of the memorial, there is a large block of marble containing a quote from a Lutheran minister named Martin Niemoller.

Nearby was Faneuil Hall (Quincy Market) so we walked through that a bit and saw all the horrible tourist trinkets for sale… then caught a cab back to our hotels and called it a night. This was but an hour ago, and I have to be up tomorrow morning to do the glacial part all over again. Who knows? Tomorrow might fly by in a flurry of activity and excitement. I somehow doubt it, but hope springs eternal.

Also, it’s extremely cold here. They were forecasting snow, but it hasn’t fallen yet. It would look incredible from my hotel window if it did happen… a girl can dream.

Today was an adventure - in a good way, overall.

The driver from the car service picked me up promptly (even a few minutes early!) so I was on schedule to get to Newark Penn Station with ample time for reading, getting a snack, and otherwise loitering (though, really, if I’m a ticketed passenger, it’s not loitering, right?)  I know the main roads fairly well, but my friendly driver took an exit and got us on some backroads. I was excited at the prospect of learning a new secret ninja route to the train station. Instead, I now know a new secret ninja route to the AIRPORT. Yes, indeedy. He thought he was supposed to be driving me to the airport and when I noticed that he had taken an exit (from which there was no longer access to main roads to get to the train station) I spoke up and said, “Um… I need to get to Newark Penn Station, not the airport.” The driver actually took the flat of his palm and slapped himself in the forehead, muttered something to himself and then apologized profusely–and had to drive around the entire perimeter of Newark Liberty International Airport to get us back on the road.

But I got to the train station in time, so all was well. A little less than four hours later, we pulled into South Station here in Boston.

Since I’ve now taken the Acela express train to Washington D.C. several times and to Boston today, I feel comfortable saying that it is very much worth the extra few bucks just for the comfort factor. While regional service isn’t tragic, the Acela is definitely a nicer ride. I know some people who say it’s not that big a deal, but I ask them to try reading a book or doing a crossword puzzle comfortably on a four-hour regional train ride where you’re wedged in sardine-style with the person next to you. It won’t work. Also, if you ever have to get to Boston, taking the train is just a better option than driving. It’s a fairly beautiful ride since almost the entire second half is a ride along the Connecticut coastline so you’re seeing lots of little beach enclaves with waves splashing up against rocks and other such loveliness.

In true nerdy fashion, the first thing I did when I checked into the hotel was get the laptop out of my bag and connect to the internets. I felt right at home. Except that at home, I’m not on the 25th floor of a building overlooking all of downtown Boston. There will be photos later since I neglected to bring the USB cable for my (not that great) digital camera.

Blah blah - did stuff at the convention center - blah blah - figured we could call it a day until tomorrow - blah blah - weren’t hungry yet and decided to head over to Newbury Street to do some shopping. In doing so, we discovered my new favorite shopping street (and it might be my favorite shopping street ever since there aren’t that many terrific shopping streets that are affordable). The first thing that caught my eye was a Paperchase store right on Newbury. Not a Borders with a Paperchase boutique: it is a full Paperchase store. I could’ve done some serious damage, but instead I got a gold and pink velvet patterned change purse that was 75% off ($3.25) and some beautiful kraft paper notecards with intricate floral curlicue patterns in varying colors of metallic ink. (Photos of these to come as well.)

Further down Newbury Street, we walked into Tealuxe. It’s a tea shop with a glorious selection of loose teas to purchase by the gram. We got a list of their flavors and after a few minutes debating in line, I purchased 50 grams each of five teas:

• Puttabong 2nd Flush Darjeeling - black tea, “A bright bouquet and wonderful complexity, termed ‘the champagne of tea’”
• Pear and Pomegranate (black tea with pear and pomegranate)
• Lady Londonberry (black tea flavored with lemon and strawberry)
• Buckingham Palace Garden Party (Earl Grey tea with jasmine and blue cornflowers)
• Chocolate Raspberry (black tea flavored with chocolate and raspberry)

I have a feeling I’ll be going back tomorrow to get more. There’s a coconut green tea that sounds divine (and my coworker bought some and let me smell it - DAMN, it smells delicious) as well as Kashmiri Chai (chai with cardamom, peppermint and nutmeg) and Moroccan Mint (since it reminds me of the tea I had in Tunisia - strongly brewed mint tea is a “thing” in Northern African countries like Morocco and Tunisia).

Finally, we had a delicious dinner at Stephanie’s on Newbury. I had my New England clam chowder (mine only inasmuch as having some while here was a goal of mine) which was absolutely delicious and probably contained a full cup of cream. This was followed by pan roasted sea scallops with garlic, corn chowder, roasted red skin potatoes and thin onion strings (like onion rings, but not) accompanied by a glass of pretty tasty rioja (Marques de Caceres Rioja Crianza 2003). I ate all but half a scallop and skipped most of the potato and onion starch-fest because I wanted to leave room for dessert. And we got dessert. That was a roasted pear turtle cobbler (warm roasted pears with chocolate and caramel, topped with pecan crumble served with vanilla ice cream). I totally couldn’t finish that, but what I did have was incredibly flavorful and rich and wonderful.

So now I’m in my hotel room, drinking some of the mint verbena tea I brought with me from home in hopes that I will be able to digest all this food and feel not so much like a stuffed pig on a spit when I awaken tomorrow morning.

In two hours, the car service is coming to pick me up so I can head to the train station and take a ride up to Boston for a conference. I’ll be there until late Saturday night. I’m bringing a laptop, but we’ll see if I have anything to write about - I try not to write about work-related things, though that might be interesting to some people. I don’t want to have to put up the “these are my thoughts and anything I write here doesn’t reflect the opinion of my employer” disclaimer. I’ve been at this far longer than I’ve been with my company… so I think it’s a bit of a “HA! I got my flag here first!” attitude on my part.

Anyway, while I can’t plan on having ridiculous amounts of fun (I am going for work, after all) I hope to have some good chowder. I’ve recently overcome my dislike for New England clam chowder (”the white one”), so what better place to appreciate this newfound delight than in Boston?

Now I must run to CVS to pick up some travel size shampoo and such. You never know what to expect with the hotel stuff, and I neglected to pick up the “travel bottles” to carry smaller portions of my usual products. Oh, well.

Breakfast would be good, too. Small town NJ provides me with a CVS and a Dunkin’ Donuts right across from one another. As well as gas stations, banks, a nail salon and a karate school. At some point, I’ll have to provide a count of the banks and nail salons in my small town. The bank-density in our 2-mile long town is quite entertaining.

I found this wooden mask at HomeGoods or some such store several years ago - the eerily strange beauty of it was fascinating, so I scooped it up. It was made in Bali and is exactly what it looks like: a comedy/tragedy mask in one.

It currently rests on a floating wall shelf along with some blank journals, my incense holder, meditation balls, and a selection of books about sleep and insomnia (I group some books together thematically).

Sometimes I look at it and just think, “Exactly.”

There is a minor freak-out happening in my head.

I have a bad headache. My left forearm and wrist are sore from climbing and overuse. I am stressed out over this coming week. I am only in the office for two days and then I’m heading up to Boston for a conference on Wednesday morning and not returning until late on Saturday night. I will have to fit five days of work into a two-day week. I hope I can find a laptop to bring to Boston so I’m not totally disconnected whilst sitting in my hotel room. I need a haircut before Wednesday. I have to do some crazy cleaning around my living space so I’ll actually feel relieved to get home on Saturday. I’m going to have to do that tomorrow night after work and running. Probably Tuesday night, too, after a haircut if I can schedule it for then. I’ll have to pack for the conference. I have to drop off my comforter and cover at the dry cleaners. I would do the same with my winter coat if the weather forecast for Boston wasn’t for a high of 40°F/low of 34°F. I could use some new work clothes. I could really use a manicure and pedicure.

This is the bullshit minutiae making me a little crazy right now. It’s all part-and-parcel of my whole mental “thing.”

Most important, though, will be the cleaning. Once I restore a sense of order in my surroundings, I will feel 120% clearer and better and less stressed. In the same way that getting dressed up and looking good on the outside can make you feel more confident, being organized and compartmentalized outside can help with the interior issues. A little, anyway.

A week or two ago, I heard a short interview with Harold McGee on my local public radio station - WNYC. The audio is available online here. McGee is a food scientist; his book “On Food and Cooking” is sort of the bible of molecular gastronomy and general foodie craziness (it’s been around for 20+ years and was completely revised and updated in 2004). I was fascinated by that short clip (where he spoke with my favorite public radio host, Soterios Johnson) about the chemistry of forcing water into rice and pasta, cooking sous-vide, and the window of time to cook something to perfect doneness.

So I ordered it from Amazon because it seemed right up my alley. It arrived earlier this week and it just makes me feel all powerful flipping through the pages (which, incidentally, feel really nice. Good paper choice, production folks at Scribner/Simon & Schuster!)

I’ve been flipping around and reading the chapters/sections that capture my interest: the milk and dairy section gave me a better understanding of cheeses and the differences between ice cream, custard (ice cream + egg yolk) and gelato (custard with more butterfat). The chapter on eggs opens with the answer to, “What came first? The chicken or the egg?” (appropriate for today, I suppose). His answer: eggs existed long before chickens did—he sides with Samuel Butler who said, “a chicken is just an egg’s way of making another egg.”

Interesting stuff on muscle fibers and how they determine whether meat is light or dark, judging doneness of meat by feel, the chemistry behind the onion’s tear-producing skills (a sulfur compound known as the “lacrimator”—lacrimose means tearful) which is essentially a molecular bomb that hits the nerve endings of our eyes and breaks down into hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid. Yes, the same sulfuric acid that we would add to sugar in high school chemistry class to create a pillar of stinky black carbon in a beaker. It’s also the same stuff that will burst into flames if a 100% pure piece of it comes in contact with air - it reacts violently with water, so the moisture in the air does that. A 98% pure piece of it will burn through paper just by touching it. Fun stuff. And that’s what makes us cry when we’re cutting onions.

I skipped past the fruit chapter for now and am about to start Chapter 8 –”Flavorings from Plants: Herbs and Spices, Tea and Coffee.” Mmm.

Easter breakfast with the family is finished (I made a kick-ass Asparagus and Leek Frittata - except we didn’t have leeks or shiitake mushrooms, so I used scallions, onion and red peppers instead. It worked out OK.) Yay, food!

We got back from Philly tonight. It was a long, long day, and two relatively little gals can get pretty tired.

By my calculations, my friend Sara and I carried well over 800 pounds of stuff up two flights of stairs between last night and tonight (Ikea tells you what the boxes weigh… and I extrapolated based on that info). We accomplished a lot - it feels good; I feel extremely strong and resourceful (Leatherman on my keychain helped!)

We successfully loaded a small car with large ungainly Ikea boxes (twine and hazard lights were required for the drive home, but we made it.) A great many heavy boxes were lifted, a bed frame was assembled, pictures were hung, and an empty apartment began to look like a bit more like a new home for Sara.

There was a run-in with a shower apparatus from hell, a trunk lock that wouldn’t release, a parking ticket, a navigation system that was freaking us out by repeating “Make next available U-turn” about 8 times in a row without rest (it sounded frighteningly and disconcertingly desperate for a GPS) when we were already getting a little lost with her help… and the usual jollity that accompanies assembly of Ikea furniture. That said, there was a lot of entertainment and happiness in there, too, which sort of tempers the rest of it.

For example, when finished with phase one of assembling the bed frame (which involved screwing brackets onto the headboard), Sara pondered, “Do you think we’ve had enough screwing for today?” - and I don’t think the full entertainment value of what she’d said hit her until I gave her my pseudo-shocked look.

This morning, however, things started easily enough… with a bagel. I thought the toaster “grill” lines were particularly fun, so here is a glamour shot of a whole wheat bagel, toasted, with vegetable cream cheese.

At Ikea, Sara noted that this would be a cool shot… this veritable sea of Ikea shopping carts. And it is pretty cool:

The Ben Franklin bridge against a really clear spring sky:

And the Cira Centre, also against a very clear sky. The way it reflects the sky does make it look a bit like it’s beginning to go transparent and blend into the sky.

A Mexican restaurant called Johnny Mañana’s has this “I don’t know if I’m entertained or offended” (but nicely painted) moustache & sombrero combo on the outside of their joint:

This beautiful mural caught our eyes while we were driving back to Sara’s new apartment from Ikea. There’s some glare from the windshield since I was in the car, but you still get a good sense of the color.

Sara lives in the same building as someone quite famous. OK, OK - I was just amused by the fact that the mailbox covers the address label where it does. Aren’t you?

Ikea is selling a small selection of artsy wall stickers, so when we got back to her new apartment, Sara went ahead and put those up in the kitchen. She now has a virtual garden of gigantic poppies - sort of Alice in Wonderland-esque, no? They look absolutely glorious in real life.

One of the intentionally stupidest and funniest lines in “Best in Show” is that one, about going to visit Philadelphia, home of the cream cheese.

Yeah. So, tonight I’m heading down to Philadelphia to help a friend move into her new digs, have a fun time and perhaps enjoy some culture. I’ve been tipped off to a supposedly fantastic Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  So if there’s time, I’d love to check that out. We’ll see if my friend is down with it.

In the meantime, I have 45 minutes to pack. Not a big deal… I’m back Saturday afternoon, just in time to get some sleep before the Polish kielbasa-fest that is Easter morning. Smoked pork products. Tasty.