Our next day in Boston

Our next day in Boston

After one long day in Boston, we repeated the experience! We got up a trifle earlier, enjoyed breakfast, and set out. One of the things we'd already decided by the second day was that, despite the reasonableness of the hotel and the perfectly decent room, the next time we're in Boston, we're going to be going for something closer in. There are lovely hotels in or next to the Prudential Center as well as some great hotels in Copley Square and nearby. While we certainly saved a bundle (hotels in Boston are really expensive) staying a about half a mile out from the Prudential Center, it was a bit of a nuisance grabbing a cab. I had the feeling that it'd be great to just walk out of the hotel and Be Right There.

Now, I know we'd said that we were going to do the swan boats, but it turned out that these are things that you pedal. After a day of walking around, pedaling a boat around a lake appealed to neither of us, so we gave that one a miss. But we were definitely going to go out on the water: we had been itching to do a Boston Duck Tour, a tour in an amphibious WWII landing craft. Duck tours leave from outside the Prudential Center.

Our duck

It was a little cramped in the duck (well, they were built for functionality and not comfort). These have been remodeled some; the originals had more armor plating, which you don't need quite as often in the streets of Boston as you did on the beaches of Italy and France.

Inside the Duck

We got to see a lot of Boston that we hadn't seen before and some we had before we got into the water. The driver was a great guy who kept up a snappy patter throughout the trip. He knew a lot of history and was very entertaining.

Our Duck guide

When we got into the water, we drove under a couple of the bridges and back. The driver pointed out the Boston and Cambridge sigils on the sides of one of the bridges.

Bridge with Boston sigil

Cambridge bridge ornament

We finished the tour--it really was a great tour--and went to the Museum of Fine Arts. We'd had extensive discussion about what we were going to do, the MoFA or the Peabody, and we ultimately went with the MoFA. This involved a "T" ride out to the Musuem. It was a fairly hot day and I'm glad that the museum was cool.

The MoFA has a great collection, but I think I was after something more like the Tate Gallery in London. I was left with a bit of my desire for paintings unfulfilled. This is not to say that I didn't have a wonderful time. There was artwork dating back 6000 years ago from the Nubian empire. There was a lot of Assyrian work and a number of mummies and sarcophagi. The display of musical instruments was another specialty exhibit. Sadly, we weren't there at the right time for a full gamelan orchestra concert, but we could see the instruments set up. (I love gamelan music; if you're not familiar with it, check it out for yourself.) There were some beautiful Asian exhibits, too. I like what they've done with their displays.

We wandered around for quite a while but there was no mistaking the fact that all this walking was wearing us out. And we were hungry. We went to the museum store (an excellent store; we bought a copy of Bela Fleck's CD, Perpetual Motion), then we had lunch at the Museum café.

We finished at the Museum and rode the "T" back in to town. (Next time, we're hitting the Peabody.) There was one more thing we wanted to squeeze out of the Go Boston Cards: a harbor tour. The harbor tour left from the Long Wharf. It was a good day to be on the water: the stiff wind was fairly cooling and it was sunny and clear.

Boat in Boston Harbor

We went out on the water all the way up to Charlestown, where we saw the USS Constitution. The Constitution is still in active service after 208 years of duty. It got the nickname of "Old Ironsides" because its sides are made of 7"-thick oak heartwood and cannon balls would bounce off her sides.

USS Constitution

USS Constitution

A good concise history of the USS Constitution can be found here on the Wikipedia.

USS Constitution

Near the USS Constitution, which we all know a little about from history classes in elementary school, was the USS Cassin Young, about which I knew nothing.

USS Cassin Young

The Cassin Young was named for a Medal of Honor winner. It saw duty only in the latter half of WWII. Her most notable battle was surviving two separate hits by Japanese kamikazes while patrolling off Okinawa. I don't recall seeing a destroyer before and for some reason hadn't realized how big they are. I was confusing them with PT boats, which are a lot smaller.

USS Cassin Young

We walked up a few blocks from the wharf to get cold liquid and a nibble, then came back and waited for our final tour: the Ghosts and Graveyard Tour. Here's a picture of our friendly and helpful staph:

Guides on Ghost tour

The tour took us to a couple of the burying grounds in the area first. We rode up to Copp's Hill (named after a Mr. Copp, natch).

Copp's Hill plaque

This tombstone was the basis of a story. Tombstones weren't cheap in them days… well, they aren't cheap now, neither, but I digress. Someone paid the gravediggers 30 shillings to bury him in the same plot and then add his name to this really attractive tombstone. They did--it's off to one side, but not easily visible in even the 1600x1200 version of this file. It got to be a habit for quite a while until someone caught them at it and also complained. We can only assume that they stopped the practice after that.

Tombstone at Copp's Hill

We also were given a night tour of Boston Commons and told about the public executions. Our guide called for a volunteer. I felt a hand pushing me forward almost instantly.

Preparing the noose

The guide asked the Babe what I was being executed for. Now, I thought she'd say "For crimes to numerous to mention," but she said "Hubris." Turns out that this needed to be explained.

Hanged for hubris

We saw the Granary Burying Ground again, but this time at night and with a guide. And we heard some amazing ghost stories, including one of a highwayman who had a book bound in his own skin after his execution and had it sent to the man who's testimony convicted him. (Nothing like having a really lasting sense of humor.)

At the end of the tour, we went to the Legal Seafood restaurant at the Long Wharf. We'd been to the one in the Prudential Center two nights before and had had steak and lobster; this time, we just split a lobster. It was lovely both times.

We crawled back home and slept. On the morrow, we were going to pick up our car and drive west.

Our next day in Boston

Boston vacation stuff updated :)

Okay, if you go to the "Today in Boston...." entry on the 9/11 page of my blog, you'll see I've expanded the text considerably and added a zillion pictures. I still need to add photos of the Duck Tour and get to the photos of Lexington & Concord, Andras and Deirdre, Vermont, and Philadelphia... but this is a start, hokay?

I'm taking a break, making coffee, running the dishwasher, and going out to run an errand. Go read. I'll be back later.

Boston vacation stuff updated :)

Progress report: updating the vacation blog entries

Just so's y'know, I'm updating the blog entries for the vacation with aaaaaaaall the pictures and a lot of new text. It's taking a while--the Boston part of the vacation entry is 22 pages long when you figure in the pictures (which admittedly take a ton of room). Watch this space; it should be done shortly. :)

BTW, I have finally gotten all of our digitized wedding photos online, 277 of 'em. As soon as I get the vacation blogged, it's my intention to gut the pages of the www.marilynandjohn.com website and then replace them with the wedding photos at last.

Progress report: updating the vacation blog entries

We already could've guessed this...

...but it's lovely having one's opinions confirmed by scientific research.

Yes, it's true: too much religion in a society does make you socially backward and prone to murder, rape, and moral decay.

According to the Times today:

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

We all knew this--well, those of us who aren't damaged by this kind of belief, anyway--but it's wonderful to see this in print in something like the Times.

We already could've guessed this...

Married to a pirate as well :)

I just wanted to make a quick note to the effect that The Babe's pirate name is Mad Mary Rackham.

Married to a pirate as well :)

A grand day out

I have uploaded the pictures from the vacation to Flickr; now I just need to put them together into blog entries, which will take a bit of work. You can look at Flickr to see the pix for the time being while I get blog entries together to tell the stories, but in the meantime, I wanted to put up a small event from August.

I've told the Babe about the joys of rafting for years and we finally got out to do it. Steve & Andy came down and stayed with us for a few days (a real pleasure in itself; I'm very keen on the Babe's family). We drove out to Belknap Hot Springs, which is a lovely resort with hot springs funneled into swimming pools and rooms looking out over the river and into the forest. (The resort has been there for a long time and has a wonderful and friendly history.) It's also the jumping-off point for High Country Expeditions raft adventures.

All of us got into vans and rode to the drop point on the McKenzie River. We had all been warned to bundle up for being on the water, with a particular injunction to not wear jeans or all-cotton things because they'd get soaked and we'd freeze. The water was very cold, they assured us (48 degrees), so dressing warmly was a major consideration. We all had nylon shirts and plasticized pants and so on for the occasion. The guides gave us life vests and rubber shoes and nylon overpants as well. I felt like I had way too much on but I knew that it was going to be bloody cold when we got onto the water.

We got into raft groups. Most of the rafts are 6-person rafts, but there was one raft that is a 4-person raft with the guide sitting in the back with oars, so the four of us got into that one. Guys being guys, Steve and I got into the front and Andy and the Babe got into the middle seat. Each group carried their raft down to the water and we boarded, then waited for the rest of the rafts to assemble.

A couple of rafts of us

While we were waiting for the other boats, out guide stepped us through some practice paddling so we could get the feel and the rhythm. The other rafts did the same as they got into the water, too. We were finally all ready to go and we set off down the river.

The intrepid explorers

The McKenzie River is a gorgeous piece of the Pacific Northwest. The weather was great for a day out on the river messing about on rafts and it's quiet and fresh and green.

Calm waters

As we floated along, the guide told us a lot about the river and the surrounding area and pointed out evidence of the 1964 floods, which had been a 1000-year flood. Every bridge we saw was new since the flood, he said, because the ones that had been there at the time had all been washed away. In some cases, the water would have been 15-20 feet over the road deck on some of the bridges. Oy. (There was also a flood in 1996 that our guide told us about. This one wasn't quite as bad, he said, but it was almost as big. The 1964 flood was much bigger and more damaging and most of the new bridges that had been built were stronger and a little higher in places. Or maybe there just wasn't quite as much debris to wash downstream at that point.)

Moving at a fair clip

Because of our dry summer, the river was low and it wasn't more than a difficulty 3. About 15 minutes in, we hit our first rapid.

A small rapid

We paddled hard and bounced around a bit.

Navigating

As it turned out, I was on the side of the boat that got splashed a good deal more. Steve, on the left, got splashed a fair amount, but I'm of the opinion that I got more of it. Well, if I hadn't wanted to get wet, I wouldn't be on the river.

Splashed on my side…


…and on Steve's side

These rapids weren't very big, so it was more like having a bumper car ride with water and lots of whooping from the raft.

...and through!

Having gotten down this part of the river, things were much calmer for quite a while. As we drifted along, we occasionally saw people sitting on their decks and a few groups of people fishing. The guide pointed out some truly exceptional eddies in the river for fishing including one where he said it was almost impossible not to get a fish. The guide said that he'd seen 32-inch trout pulled out of that spot. I was very interested to hear more about that.

The guide also told us about the houses and the resort cabins we were seeing along the river, some of which were truly dazzling. He also showed us where he and the other guides live, a few cabins on the river run by the rafting company. It sounded like a wonderful summer job: lots of exercise, fresh air, and the opportunity to lounge around when not on duty. We also saw several collections of resort cabins. Between these and the fishing, we started talking about a larger family vacation with the better part of a week on the river for next year or maybe the year after. It should be a lot of fun; like I say, I really like hanging out with the Babe's family.

A while later, the guide told us we were getting to the hottest rapids on this particular trip. He briefed us on what we were going to be seeing and how we'd handle it.

wheeeeeeeeeee!

Scylla and Charybdis

Most of what we needed to do was just keep paddling strongly so we could keep the raft moving forward straight and true.

Paddling furiously

Shooting forward

We went over several large boulders in the river that we could feel passing under the raft. As we were doing all of this, I kept thinking for some reason of the Lewis & Clark expedition, who'd been doing all of this kind of thing in canoes, which are noted for their relative lack of stability compared to rafts.

Coming out the other end

We all came out at the bottom of the rapids wet and laughing. Shortly thereafter, we pulled the rafts in to the landing point and hoisted them up to the trailer. We shucked our life vests, overpants, and rubber shoes, then got out of the water clothes we'd worn and changed back into the clothes we'd brought with us and drove back in the vans to the We drove out to Belknap Hot Springs. It was definitely part of our plan to do some swimming in the hot springs swimming pool (which isn't as hot as a hot tub, but it's close in places and very balming after being out on the river), but we were all starved, so we drove up the road about 8 miles in search of burgers and hot sandwiches to a restaurant we'd noted earlier, then came back to the resort. We swam a while, then set out for driving home, but we were absolutely required to stop at the restaurant again on the way home for dishes of really good local ice cream.

A grand day out

Found the chip widget!

I was digging out the suitcase in order to pack for my next trip (Denver, STC Board meeting) and the widget for holding the camera's picture chip was buried in the bottom. Yay! I've downloaded the pix from the chip to my computer, but uploading them all to the picture website is going to take a while--there are a little over 200 of them to sort through. It'll take more time than I've got at the moment; gotta get ready to go to the Board meeting oh yippee skippee.

Hold that thought, beloved readers; I'll be back in a few days assuming the planes get there and back okay.

Found the chip widget!

Back home at last

We arrived back in Eugene just before midnight on Monday, exhausted after a cross-country flight. It wasn't a bad flight, but it was long. I didn't get a lot of sleep, as I had to get up to deal with one of the cats, after which I couldn't get back to sleep. Annoying.

I've got about 150 pictures to download from the digicam and then upload them to the picture website I use, but I cannot find the flipping chip-holder for the camera's chip to plug it into the USB port on the computer. Well, we're not unpacked yet, so I'm hoping that it's still to be found, at which time I can download, upload, cross-reference, and post a lot of things here.

In the meantime, in honor of "Talk Like a Pirate" day yesterday, here's my pirate name and an opportunity for you to find out your pirate name.

My pirate name is:

Mad John Flint

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Back home at last

Lovely Vermont

Just a quick note because it's late.

We drove from western Mass to Vermont today. We stopped in for a truly amazing evening at Andras & Deirdre's farm near Worthington, dear and wonderful people who I haven't seen in far too long. (Again, lots of pictures to come soon.) We're now near Ascutney, Vermont, visiting a high school friend of The Babe's. It's amazing to me how heavily forested it is in Western Mass and Vermont. I dunno; I expected it was going to look like... oh, New Jersey or something.

Going to shower and head off to bed.

Lovely Vermont

SiteCoach--a real piece of shit product

I'm using the hotel's computer (better connection than in our room via wireless). They've got the computers in their guest business center set up with a product called SiteCoach. It's got built-in censoring filters and everything. So far, we've had it tell us that the Northwest page of the Tacoma News Tribune violates their policies and that an ad that showed up on the United Comics website when we were trying to look at "Frazz" was also too racy for us to see. I'm sure that there are other helpful sites that you couldn't get to simply because they don't want you to see them.

Perhaps even more annoying, I can't break around their software (and I keep getting kiosk ads on the side of the page, so I'm stuck using their crappy Internet Exploder here). Since IE doesn't allow something intelligent like tabbed browsing, I have to open a new window each time I want to look at something separately without losing where I was. If you get too many windows open--and we sure ain't talking a dozen here, y'understand--the software won't let you open them. Well, hell, if the computer isn't unhappy, what's YOUR problem?

All I can say is "WHAT A P.O.S.!!!!"

I'm continually amazed that people will actually buy into this sort of garbage as if it's anything useful or good.

SiteCoach--a real piece of shit product

Today in Boston...

Addendum, September 28, 2005: I've added pictures to this article and expanded the text greatly.

We had a wonderful time here today!

We got a late start, unfortunately, but it probably wasn't overly realistic to figure we'd get up at 7:00am local time and grab breakfast and get a cab into downtown, given that that would've been 4:00am body time and it was a Really Long Day yesterday getting here. So we actually slept until about 9:15. Fortunately, the hotel breakfast buffet was still going and I was able to grab food for us. It was totally uninspiring, but it stoked the fires and there was lots of protein in it and there was drinkable coffee that got our eyes open enough to head out the door.

The Hampton Inn we're staying at has an Enterprise Rent-a-car pick-up and delivery option. The Babe saw the sign for it and noticed something unusual about the pick up option (appearing in the second column of the picture below--look very closely at the first line under "Friendly and Professional Services" to see what's different). You don't normally get this kind of friendly and professional service in a three-star hotel, at least, not for free. She mentioned this to the desk clerk who blushed very red, but put the sign back down on the desk and didn't change it. It was still there a few days later when we left.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car sign

We picked up our Go Boston Cards (a package deal for goodies and tours and entrance and so on), then did a Freedom Trail walk with these nifty wireless audio packages. (A virtual walk of the Freedom Trail is available Freedom Trail.) It was very interesting and quite moving at times.

Prior to embarking on the trip, we took a side jaunt down to the other end of the Boston Commons. One of the things that choked me up was when we were walking by one graveyard at the end of the Boston Commons that had (among other people) Gilbert Stuart, the painter. There were a number of vaults there (an interesting phenomenon in themselves) and the names on most of them were eroded into illegibility. The Babe commented on this and I was very moved thinking of the saying "Men die, cattle die, and only the legends live on." That and Ozymandias, a poem that's always meant a lot to me.

There was a good deal of information at the start of the Freedom Trail about the Boston Commons itself, which was the meeting place for a lot of activities as well as the place of public punishment. The audio went on for a while about stocks and pillories and other Puritan entertainments. We walked across the Commons and up to the steps of the Massachusetts State House. Only rarely is the front door used--by the Governor and the President. Almost always, the side doors are used.

The Massachusetts State House

On the grounds of the Massachusetts State House is a statue of Mary Dyer, a Quaker martyr who was executed by the Puritans in 1660 for professing her beliefs. (So much for the idea that the Puritans believed in religious freedom for anyone but themselves.) Across the street from it is a monument to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first black regiment to be recruited in the North. (If this sounds familiar to you, it's because this was the story told in the Matthew Broderick film, Glory.)

We walked down the street and around the corner to the Granary Burying Ground. This is one of the oldest burying grounds in Boston. Like most of the burying grounds there, it was horribly overcrowded: at one point there were 11,000 infants and children buried in one section of it.

The Granary Burying Ground

The tombstones were marked with fascinating variants of death's heads and winged skulls and so on. A lot of it looked rather primitive and the Babe pointed out that it reminded her of Mexican "El Dia de Muerte" stuff. I hadn't drawn that connection, myself, but she's right.

Tombstones, Granary Burying Ground

Tombstones, Granary Burying Ground

Tombstones, Granary Burying Ground

The Franklin Family Memorial (though not Ben Franklin himself) is here as well. I was able to get a shot of the Babe next to it, in a classic tourist photo.

The Franklin Family Memorial

You can read about the Franklin Family memorial if you click on the picture to expand it.

Guide to the Franklin Family Memorial

Samuel Adams of Revolutionary War fame is buried in the Granary Burying Ground. That there's a Samuel Adams Brewing Company is no coincidence, really: his father was a maltster. The company itself bears no particular connection to the historical figure, but someone clearly took advantage of their local history education and founded the company in honor of and to capitalize on the name of Samuel Adams. He was a great revolutionary and the beer made in his name is pretty good stuff, too.

Sam Adams' grave marker

Right next to Samuel Adams' grave marker is a grave marker for the Boston Massacre dead. Crispus Attucks, a black man who was a sailor and ropemaker, was the first man to die in the fight. It's likely that a mob was harassing the British soldiers until they fired on the crowd, killing five people.

The Boston Massacre dead

I saw a gravestone I've known of for decades. It had the person's name and the date (I've a photo of this; I've got a zillion photos of all of this that I won't be able to upload until I get back), followed by the epitaph: "Remember, friend, as you pass by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be; prepare for death and follow me." (Morbid stuff, ain't it?)

Tombstone, the Granary Burying Ground

Down the street is a very pretty building, the Tremont Temple, an old Baptist church founded in 1839 (the building in the photos dates from 1894). The pastor believes that the Tremont Temple is the first integrated church in America.

Tremont Temple

The building is done in Venetian stone and terra cotta. Be sure to expand the picture to it's max to really appreciate how they did it.

Tremont Temple - detail

Half a block further down Tremont street is the King's Chapel.

King's Chapel

King's Chapel, the first Anglican Church in New England, was founded in 1686 by the Royal Governor of the Province of New England. In 1785, it became the first Unitarian Church in America. (Note: We kept bumping into Unitarian churches throughout our trip. It made us feel at home.) King's Chapel was also the first church in America to use an organ. I peered inside briefly; it was very attractive in a polished wood and stone way.

King's Chapel plaque

Still adjoining King's Chapel is the King's Chapel Cemetery. Boston was owned and operated by Puritans at this time and they refused to sell land to the Anglicans, so the church was built on a corner of Boston's first burial ground. The audio guide for the Freedom Trail said that there were so many people buried here that there were problems with decaying coffins, bits of bones sticking up, and even the occasional undecayed piece of body. I'll bet the place reeked of decay, too; it must've been very unpleasant. As with the Granary Burying Ground, there were a number of unusual tombstones.

Tombstone, King's Chapel Cemetery

There are a lot of famous people buried in the King's Chapel Cemetery, including William Dawes (Paul Revere's assistant who finished the famous midnight ride), Elizabeth Pain, who Nathaniel Hawthorne used as the model for Hester Prynne in "The Scarlet Letter," Mary Chilton, the first woman to step off of the Mayflower ship, and a number of other people including John Winthrop, the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Company. John Winthrop was largely responsible for the Puritan colonization. He felt that non-Puritans should be weeded out as the colonies should be for Christians only to carry the Gospel into the New World and to convert the gentiles therein. While by most accounts he was actually a decent man who did not seem to suffer from most of the faults of religious bigotry that the Puritans tended to suffer from, the Puritan colonization was largely his fault.

John Winthrop's grave

I was also able to snap a quick picture of a scenic tourist tattoo. I was sorry I couldn't see more; it looked like a goodie.

A great-looking tattoo

Around the corner from the King's Chapel is the site of the Boston Latin School, the first public school in America (1635), which Franklin attended. He was born a block away from here. This is also the site of the old Boston City Hall. There is a statue to Franklin here, unsurprisingly.

Ben Franklin

Across the street from this is what I'd swear is a reproduction of the Bridge of Sighs, a structure in Venice that led from the Doge's Palace to the Prison. It was so named because the sight of the harbor and sunlight was frequently the last that the prisoners being escorted were ever to see and they knew it. I haven't found anything further about it yet.

Bridge of Sighs

One other thing that choked me up was seeing the Old State House, notable for a lot of things but most impressive to me for being the place where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the public (from a second floor balcony). That was a powerful image for me.

Old State House

We stopped about halfway through the walk, at Faneuil Hall. There was a lot more to see on the tour, but little of it interested us all that much and it was another 2 miles of walking. Moreover, we had to get back to the Visitor's Information Center we'd rented the wireless thingies from and return them by 4:00pm or they'd charge my credit card for them (ick!). We did spend a fair amount of time in the various markets at Faneuil Hall. We window-shopped and listened to a few very good street musicians.

At the marketplace, we saw a fun street performer: he was dressed as a Greek statue. If you gave him a donation, he'd give you a scroll. He'd stay motionless otherwise. It was very convincing. Good street theater adds a lot to a day out.

The Oracle

The Oracle

One of the shops along the way was a large Christmas store. The Babe loves Christmas stores (well, I do, too) and we spent a while there. Here's a picture of me with one of the shop residents.

John and revolutionary mouse

We got back to the VIC, handed them the audio units and the young woman said I didn't need to do anything else, then we scampered over to the point where we were to pick up the Beantown Trolley (another freebie on the Go Boston Cards). We had an interesting driver who told us a lot of things about Boston and Cambridge that were fun to know. An added benefit was that we got to bloody well sit down for a couple hours.

One of the highlights of the trip was driving by Trinity Church. When we return to Boston in the future, I'd like to see the inside of it.

Trinity Church

Trinity Church detail

Trinity Church detail

We also drove by a building that was designed to look like a castle for no particularly good reason. It's just fun.

Castle

We finished the tour and got off the trolley, had a surprisingly nice dinner at Bennigan's and wandered over to see Shear Madness, a very funny murder mystery play that the audience gets to take part in. It was a nice night out. We headed home to the hotel and, after looking at email and writing this on the computer, pulled our shoes off our tired feet and went to bed.

Tomorrow, we're going to get up early (no, really!) and go book a reservation on the Boston Duck Tours, a bunch of amphibious WWII landing craft that drive around the city and into the water as well to give you tours of Boston. We're also going to hit a museum, though whether it's going to be the Museum of Fine Art or the Peabody (I'm too tired to look up any more links; you do it yourself!), is still undetermined. There are also other excitements for us tomorrow such as riding on the swan boats (okay, that one I knew you wouldn't be able to find on your own).

Oh, and seeing as how it's September 11, I feel obliged to say this: every fundamentalist asshole who thinks they have a right tell the world that their imaginary friend is better than every other imaginary friend should go to the hell of their own choosing and stop trying to take us with them. The departure of fundamentalists from this planet would really make this a paradise. This applies to fundamentalists of EVERY religion. I'm disgusted by fundamentalist Muslims but fundamentalist Christians are even more obnoxious. If they want to kill each other in the name of their gods, I'm all for it--just do it quietly, don't leave craters, radiation, or toxic molds, and fucking leave the rest of us alone to enjoy their absence.

Today in Boston...

On the Road!

Okay, we're on the road at last. We're in Boston on an anniversary vacation and I'll try to make postings to the blog here as circumstances allow.

What's been happening in all that silent time for the last month or so:

Life's been very, very crunchy. There were vast quantities of work to do--nice to have the work and all, but it was busy (which is why they call it "work")--and there were just a few leetle hassles with life going on as well, much of it related to the house.

As I mentioned only a few posts ago, the contractor that we were dealing with for the new house was not the most cooperative guy in the world. We came to an agreement that we were going to go away, he gave us our money back, and we left. I'm still annoyed with him: when you say you're going to do a "custom home" and we're paying you vast quantities of money, it really ought to be a custom home done like we want it to be done and not like the builder wants it done. Oh, well. We subsequently heard a few things about him that supported the opinion that we'd come to about his operating style. It'll all work out, I'm quite sure.

Well, since then, we've been looking for a new house. We found a great place to have built in a new development by a different builder (who's got a great rep for being organized and efficient) and we were very impressed. When we saw the model home, the Babe said "If I'd seen this before the other house, I'd have never signed up for it." I agree--it's much more spacious, really attractive, and a lot closer to the house we wanted. We expressed strong interest in getting one of these done to the developer (who seems to be a nice guy). He said that there was the chance to have this one done in the development because one couple was swapping out from their lot to buy a corner lot across the street and up that was going to have the same house built on it because that couple was buying still another lot elsewhere in the development. Far out! So, meanwhile, we were looking at other houses just because it was going to be a year from now before we could move in and being in the house we're in now could be seriously frustrating.

We found a very nice house elsewhere. It's quite big enough, very spacious, incredibly pretty, with truly dazzling landscaping. It even has a lovely San-Francisco-ish pink stucco exterior. The master shower is an entire room unto itself done up in mottled tan marble. It's big enough to sleep four. The master closet is bigger than M's first studio apartment. We want it. We want it bad.

Unfortunately, it's out of our price range as it turns out. Oh, we got instant approval for the mortgage amount (which surprised the heck out of us, but there you are), but the actual payments are too much when weighted against other things, like our desire to travel, or to cover the kids' college educations, or to buy a new fuel pump for the Babe's car, which we had to do a couple weeks ago. If we bought it, we'd have a truly wonderful upscale house that would be a joy to live in, but we'd have no surplus cash to deal with the surprises of life... and with three kids and five cats, there can be a lot of surprises. It was kinda like, "well, can we come up with another $75,000 in hand?" The answer was a resounding "no, we can't." Bugger.

We hadn't completely given up on this, but we'd always figured that we'd be buying in to reserve a house with the new developer (keeping a second string for our bow). I phoned on Thursday to make the appointment for Friday (the 9th). Interesting things: the people who'd vacated the lot we were going to be buying were leaving the area and so we now had a choice of two lots with the house we liked on it, one of which was a corner lot. Not bad. And, oh, by the way, the house that they'd been going to buy on the corner lot (which was now open to us) had a fixed price of $40K lower than the price of the new house. Were we interested? Ohhhhhhh, yeahhhhhhh....

We went in on Friday to sign up. The long and short of it was even better: we could get the house we were planning on or we could get a whole new house plan that they'd just gotten back. We looked at it--actually, the Babe expressed strong interest; I was in love with the way the house looked and didn't want to have anything cause ripples.

We looked at the new house plan. Closely. And you know... it's a heckuva lot better. It's only ("only") 2531 square feet (versus 3300) but it got smaller by eliminating all the stuff that were weren't going to be using anyway: the formal dining room, the sitting room, some of the great room that was kinda oversized. Everything that we wanted--big master bedroom on the main floor, nice office area for me, sewing room--was still there.

So the upshot of all of this is that we bought the new house plan on the non-corner lot we'd been looking at, but for another $20K less than we'd gone in planning to spend. We'll be moving in August or September of next year, which'll give us time to get our current house fixed up to sell and everything boxed. And with housing prices rising the way they are, it's likely to be a close-to-straight-across deal for the sale.

The gods are smiling on us.

The shuttle's going to leave so I'm going to sign off and head out for a day of sightseeing. TTYS!

On the Road!