Memorial Day Weekend in Boston

For the long holiday weekend, Peter and I decided to head up to Boston for a little change of scenery. I haven't really spent much time there and he lived there for a few months before moving to NYC.

Some of the fun things we did:

- Had dinner at Peter's favorite sushi place in Boston, Shino Express Sushi.

- Made fun of the fabulous and not-so-fabulous costumes for Anime Boston 2006. (I think anime conventions follow us around the globe - first Tokyo, now Boston)

- Got smarter at the MIT Museum.

- Got thoroughly amused by The Museum Of Bad Art. If you have not been here, you can't truly appreciate the ambiance. First of all, it's in the "basement" of a movie theatre in Dedham, MA. Keep in mind that the basement is the entryway to the Men's room. Also, the 30 or so works of art(?) were surrounded by the flood from the bathroom which left a very large and yucky puddle, preventing us from truly appreciating the entire collection. Totally worth the price of admission - $0.

- Rode around in a Toyota Prius - due to the ease, convenience and relative price-effectiveness of Zipcar. I am still hoping that this will revolutionize or at least greatly impact the car rental industry.

- Ate chowdah. Oh yes, there was chowdah!

- Watched both X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code because of the relative closed-ness of Boston on Monday and the scorching heat.

- Enjoyed (well, Peter did) the $2 cheese burger and fries at the bar of McCormick & Schmick's after 10PM. I watched and sampled the fries.

- Learned about the "special" logic that is frequently used in Boston. It was amazing the number of times the phrase "it makes sense to Bostonians" came up in conversation. It's not something that I truly understand, but then again, I'm not from Boston, nor have I spent more than 3 days in a row there.

All in all, it was a very good weekend.

Jury Duty

I was called in to do my Civic Duty beginning today. Nothing like uprooting my job and life for sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers, all loathing the situation. There were quite a few people who left early to defer their service because of various reasons. Probably because we were told to anticipate being there for no less than 3 days and as much as 2 weeks. Like the trooper that I am, I decided to stick it out.

By lunch, not a single case. It wasn't until about 3 that they finally called jurors for a trial. I wasn't in that group, but then the odds were in my favor, since there were about 150-200 people waiting along with me.

Then at about 4PM, we were told that the trials were moving slowly and there would be another bunch of jurors tomorrow. So, we had officially served and can't be called for another 4 years. That's right, not even a full day and I'm free of Jury Duty until 2010.

I'm not going to lie. There was a twinge of superiority in knowing that those suckers that bailed in the morning will have to serve in the very near future for, most likely, a lot longer than one day.

I am so ready for this week to be over

This week started out with a phone call at work from my landlady telling me that my kitty (Koshka) was wandering around the hallway of my apartment building. Poor guy was pretty freaked out when I got there. He must have zoomed out when I was leaving for work in the morning and darted up the stairs. He is happily back inside and not venturing out any time soon.

I also made plans to go up to Boston for Memorial Day weekend. Peter told me that he liked the Boston Park Plaza Hotel and Towers and wanted to stay there if possible. When I looked up rates, it was a little bit higher than I was hoping to get for a room. So I did some hunting. Everywhere I looked, it was about the same. So I tried Hotwire.com for the first time. Of course, they don't tell you the name of the hotel until you confirm the booking. So I debated between a hotel that was in the right price range and the next one higher which was still at the original rate. At the last minute, I decided to go with cheap. When it was all confirmed, I ended up with the Boston Park Plaza. Who knew?!?!

I have managed to work a lot of crazy hours this week followed by late nights of playing Kingdom Hearts 2 to relax from the working. So there has been a growing lack of sleep that is starting to show signs. I am truly not as young as I used to be.

We are trying to hire someone at work to be an addition to the roles that my colleague Gus and I have. We are both a bit overwhelmed with this very busy time of year. So in addition to all of the work that we have to take care of, we are also tasked with finding a new person. Isn't that the way, in order to lessen your work load, I have had to greatly inrease it. On the bright side, we have 3 people coming in today to meet our staff (or as much as will be around).

Allergies have been out of control lately. I read over the weekend in the New York Times that "The tree pollen count in Brooklyn yesterday was 690, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Counts above 90 are considered high." I generally don't have a huge reaction to allergies. Maybe a day or two of being uncomfortable in the Spring. But in the past month, I have been on prescription medication and that hasn't been enough to keep me breathing well. I am happy to say that the massive rain that fell overnight has dropped the rate to "low" for today.

And yesterday I got the confirmation that Mom and Dad have purchased their airline tickets for their visit to NYC in October. Now I have to find someplace for them to stay. I'm looking forward to their visit. I think I'll try to get some good tickets to see Jersey Boys. I'm sure they would love to see this show. Of course, I see it twice a week, every week. I guess that would make me a bit of an expert. And they can be like the rest of the audience and tell me that I don't know anything about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons because I'm too young. But I bet ya that I know more of the songs than they do, and all of the words, and the choreography...

Okay, I have to get myself ready to go in to work early again. Today will be another 15 hour day between the two jobs. Wish me luck!

Busy Weekend

So this weekend, I found myself in all kinds of fun adventures. Saturday was spent almost entirely win Brooklyn with friends at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden: Sakura Matsuri Cherry Blossom Festival. With a slight Japanese twist to lunch and dinner, it was almost like going back to Tokyo. Especially since it was so crowded. (Here's a link to a picture that Peter took while we were there. I'm getting very lazy with the picture taking with him around. )

On Sunday, after brunch, I was surprised with tickets to see the Moscow Cats Theatre with my friend Aaron. There is nothing like seeing cats do things that cats are rarely seen to do, like being trained in any way. It has inspired me to teach my cats to balance in my hand with their hind legs in the air. I have faith that they will learn this eventually. Though I don't know if I'm ready to lose that much blood.