Movies at the Boston Harbor Hotel

Every Friday in the summer the Boston Harbor Hotel hosts free movies. They're busy other nights of the week too, with swing dancing and their Blues Barge; maybe I'll check out one of those next year. Anyhow, guests have three options for seating. They can sit at one of the cafe tables and order dinner, they can sit on the hard granite steps, or they can sit on cushy folding chairs on the Blues Barge, which is what we did. The barge provides the best (free) seats in the house, as long as you don't mind that an outgoing tide may produce a stiff neck since the movie screen gradually gets higher and higher.

We saw "The Apartment", which I'd never seen in full before. It's definitely a product of its time, full of things that immediately strike the un-pc chord; like how many times does the doctor slap Shirley MacLaine in the face? And man, what a tool Jack Lemmon's character is! Nevertheless, it's a classic for good reason. Next week, the last week in the season, is "The Hustler".

Freaky Flowers

Siamese zinnia:


This one isn't freaky exactly, but it's a good example of how the morning glories strangle everything. I have to snip them off the cosmos, otherwise they pull them to the ground with their freaky tendrils and cover them almost completely with saucer-sized morning glory foliage. I can't save everything - there are dill-like little wisps of cosmos peeking out all over the front lawn.

Lunchtime Walk

A new mural in my neighborhood.



Tree chair, Lee St.

Me 1, Squirrels 2

Damn critters. I have an ongoing battle with the squirrels. They made a nest in my attic and made a pee stain on my living room ceiling. They were humanely evicted. But now they're back, chewing through my formerly pretty porch lights. JERKS!!!

Later, I found a dead bird nestled in the purple pansies in my front porch window box. I don't think the squirrels had anything to do with it, but it was sad. There was a nest directly above the window box, and it looks like the bird just fell out, which would be weird. I gave poor little bird a proper burial out in the swampy back yard so that the neighborhood cats wouldn't dig him up. I hope I don't have West Nile disease.

Ginko, Please

I forgot the PIN for my ATM card. . . the one I've had for 10 years and use sometimes multiple times a week. At this point it's basically an automatic, physical motion that kicks in when I'm in front of a keypad. Except for today at the grocery store when it didn't work. After two more tries I got locked out and had to call the bank to have them reset it. I think I know what it is, so I'll try again tomorrow at an ATM that doesn't suck my card all the way in. Shute. That combined with ordering and paying for a burrito and then almost walking home without actually taking the burrito from the counter is making me think that perhaps I am not aging well. Or maybe I've just reached my username/password saturation point!

Photo: Athens, 3/2007

Happy Mother's Day!

Floury Footsteps

I liked the trail of floury footsteps. This is Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord, where I stopped to get a sandwich so I wouldn't get wilty later in the afternoon. Today I took the day off of work to go to the jewelry show with my mom & aunt. We all found a number of strands of pretty beads and will be wearing some pretty necklaces as soon as we string them.

Flowers I Like, Early Spring Flower Twins

My neighbors are far ahead of me when it comes to planning ahead for early spring color. I took these today before work on Thursday in an attempt to beat wilt and damaging rain. My four favorites can be paired off.

Stearns St., Cambridge

Dana St., Cambridge

Upland Rd., Cambridge

Mass Ave., Cambridge.

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday fell on a Friday this year, so I decided to throw a party for myself! I had fun, and I think that my guests had fun. I'll be having one next year, since my birthday will fall on a Saturday, and then a birthday Sunday brunch the year after that.

I took a photo of my wonderfully messy kitchen table after clean-up round 1 before I went to bed because I liked the oranges, reds & blues.

Bubble tea. . . the tea you can chew!

My coworkers and I have been spending a ridiculous amount of money on bubble tea at the independent zen tea shop across the street. While we love the place and like to support the owners I wondered how difficult it could be to make my own bubbles. I did a little research and a few days later a brick of tapioca bubbles landed on my doorstep.



Tapioca bubbles are basically tapioca starch and caramel coloring pressed together in fragile little powdery pellets. I cooked about 2 cups of them in water (with plenty of room to swim, just like pasta), and then turn the heat off and let them sit covered for a half hour. At the same I prepared a sugar syrup with white and brown sugar. when thebubbles are cooked they need to be drained and rinsed. Some of the bubbles dissolve so when they're done they're sitting in a gelatinous black mass. Once they're coated with the sugar syrup they look like this:



If you go to a bubble tea stand or a tea shop you can get all kinds of flavorings and mix-ins and sweeteners added to many different tea bases. Personally, I like regular old black tea with no flavorings and maybe a little milk. The tapioca bubbles in their syrup are fairly sweet, so I usually don't add extra sweetener. Here's the green tea with vanilla soymilk (and bubbles) that I made for myself:



The bubbles stay firm, so you need a special wide straw to suck them up. Sometimes they get stuck:



Bringing them to work, they looked like a science experiment: