Sometimes on the weekend, Pete convinces me to get off of the couch and out of pajamas early enough to enjoy breakfast out. We have three different cheap and tasty breakfast places within a short walk of our place, but lately Newcomb Farms has been Pete’s favorite.
Also, note the look of annoyance on his face because I have my camera pointed towards him.
Posted by Sarah G on April 3, 2011
https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/04/03/newcomb/
When Groupon posted a deal for Shabu Restaurant, of course we bought it. And I made sure Anna and Alex saw it, too, because they love Shabu-shabu as much as we do (I think at least half of the emails Anna and I send each other have the subject “swish swish” because we’re making plans to get together for shabu). Obviously we invited them to go with us to use ours.
As usual, Pete and Alex picked the craziest sounding Sake they could find on the menu. I don’t think they have managed to find a more entertaining one than the Poochi-Poochi Nigori Sake from our first visit, but I guess you can’t expect ridiculously translated labels on every sake bottle.
Posted by Sarah G on April 3, 2011
https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/04/03/swish-swish/
I was reading an interesting (and long) article on Slate about how iPods have changed the way we listen to music, and this bit really struck a chord with me:
So, too, […] has music become a common way for people to get through the workday. Your local cafe’s barista may literally depend on Bon Iver’s reedy lugubriousness to palliate a dreary job as you depend on coffee.
This is so true for me! I count on music to get me through a lot – the insane boredom of running on a treadmill, quality checking 125+ year end reviews at work, those last few breathes of a yoga pose when I’m pretty sure I’m about to collapse.
Not discussed in the article, but something that I’ve noticed and thought about a lot lately…I attach music to memories – memories that are vividly triggered upon hearing certain songs or albums, to the point where my mood will change in an instant while I’m listening to them. Sometimes it’s a memory of how I felt when I first heard a song live, sometimes a memory of multiple events that happened while listening to a certain album…but I can always picture it perfectly in my head, and remember exactly how I was feeling and what I was doing at the time.
I can’t remember now what made me pull up Unwritten Law on my iPod last night when I left the gym, but I can’t listen to their self titled album without being brought right back to the desk in my dorm room senior year, writing my thesis and motivating myself with M&Ms. I could draw you a diagram of how the furniture in the room was arranged. I can picture the freshman girls down the hall that were blasting Britney Spears, forcing me to turn up the volume on my own stereo. I remember being scared out of my skin when the volume was so high that I didn’t hear my roommate come in from her class and I suddenly caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
Sometimes I wonder if these memories will fade over time, or if I’ll ever listen to these songs or albums without the memories rushing back. Ask anyone who knows me well and they’ll tell you that I inherited my Dad’s memory. Or lack thereof. I walked out of work today knowing I had to stop and pick up a print at the photo shop next door on my way home. It took me the elevator ride down ten floors and the walk out the door of the building to forget. What’s that? Maybe five minutes? (Luckily the photo shop has a sandwich board on the sidewalk and it reminded me.) But these music memories…they have stuck with me so far. Maybe they are here to stay – after all, I can still feel my old bedroom rug under me and Dad’s old transistor radio (Hee! It looked just like this one!) in my hands every time I hear The Beach Boys’ Do You Wanna Dance?.
Posted by Sarah G on March 30, 2011
https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/03/30/music-and-memories-unwritten-law/
This list has been really difficult for me to write. To be honest, I’ve probably spent more time thinking about whether I should combine my Spring and Summer list than I have considering what would go on each of them. In the end I’ve decided to go with two lists, but I know that some of these thing will likely carry over into the Summer. Especially since I’m planning to do some of these while on vacation with friends in June…and vacation week happens to be the week of the Summer Solstice!
Without further ado, here’s my list for this Spring:
1. Buy a bike and ride it
2. Try Phở (carried over from the winter) DONE! (But with no photo/post)
3. Learn to kayak DONE!
4. Go to a New England Revolution game DONE!
5. Complete a Mark Simmons Death March DONE!
6. Create a new blog header
7. Run the Corporate Challenge in under 35 minutes DONE(ish)!
8. Have (another) Hitchcock Movie Marathon on a rainy day
9. Read the Penguin Best Books Ever Written: Best Minxes Started, working on it
What’s on your Spring To Do list??
Check out my past To Do Lists:
A List: Winter 2011
A List: Fall 2010
A List: Summer 2010
Posted by Sarah G on March 29, 2011
https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/03/29/a-list-things-to-do-this-spring/
Maybe I’ve lived the majority of my life in Boston. And maybe I’ve walked across or along the Freedom Trail on at least a weekly basis for the last five years. But maybe I’ve never walked the actual Freedom Trail, from beginning to end. Worry no more! The situation has finally been rectified. And I have pictures to prove it.
In anticipation of this adventure, I downloaded a podcast audio tour. It was free and I thought I would like it better than finding a book and having to read as I went along. In case you’re ever walking the Freedom Trail and want an audio tour, don’t download that one. It’s probably worth paying for one of the not free ones that you can find on iTunes. It was entertaining to listen to the ridiculous computer voice call the Old North Church “the Old Number Rth Church”, but it got annoying once it mispronounced Copps Hill as “Copes Hill” for the tenth time. I’m sure there are better audio tours out there, I just didn’t spend any time researching. Learn from my mistake.
Pete joined me for the first half of this walk, and because he’s a history major (sometimes referred to as the “Human Wikipedia”…by himself) he was annoyed that I kept stopping to listen to my podcast so I would know the significance of everything we were walking past, and amused that I kept stating facts that were completely obvious to him but completely new and interesting to me. I should have just made him play tour guide and left my iPod at home.
Right before we parted ways (he went home to spend some quality time with the couch, I continued on to the stretch of the trail that I have never walked along before), we saw a big line of folks waiting to enter Faneuil Hall for who knows what. There were two Boston Police Officers standing at the doorway who I guess were in charge of letting them in when the time came. And until the time came, they were in charge of trying to hit the lotto with scratch tickets. Pete thought it was hilarious and made me take a picture. I didn’t even bother trying to be subtle because they were so absorbed in their scratching that they never even saw me.
Once I got into the North End, I realized exactly what I would do differently if I were ever to walk the Freedom Trail again – and/or what I would recommend to someone doing it the first time. Go backwards. Start at Bunker Hill. Timing wise, I would definitely start after a good lunch. By the time you’ve climbed the Bunker Hill Monument and made your way across the bridge, down Copps Hill, and through the North End you’ll be 100% ready for a cappuccino and a delicious pastry as you’re passing Modern Pastry.
After your treat you’ll be refueled and ready to fight through the most crowded portions of the trail.After you finish the trail, head down the hill on Beacon Street to Charles Street and have a dinner at whichever restaurant you come across. You won’t go wrong with any of them, but I’m partial to King & I for Thai food or 75 Chestnut (turn right onto Chestnut St to find it). Bonus: you get to browse some very cute local shops and antique stores.
Anyway, back to my own Freedom Trail adventure and not someone else’s hypothetical one. I was cheap and wanting to get on with my day and get home, so I didn’t go into Paul Revere’s House or The Old North Church. I did find this brick with my sister Jen’s initials outside of Paul Revere’s House though. I’m pretty sure that at least a dozen tourists who were standing along the trail there and taking pictures of the Freedom Trail plaque in the sidewalk or Paul Revere’s actual house wondered what the hell I was doing taking a picture of a random patch of sidewalk two doors down.
Out of everything along the Freedom Trail, I was probably the most interested in seeing the USS Constitution. I knew it was free admission and while I’ve walked along the waterfront in Charlestown, I had never checked out the Constitution itself. I was even more excited after coming across the first adorable sailor in his wide leg pants and cute white hat. I was a little less excited after sitting out on the windy waterfront waiting for the tour to start – it was chilly! Not that you would know that if you saw the goofball wearing flip flops who was also on my tour. Anyway, it turned out that the tour of the USS Constitution was definitely the highlight of my adventure. The guy that led my tour was pretty good looking (and that sailor uniform certainly doesn’t hurt!), but it was real fun to climb around on the ship and hear stories about what life was like for the folks that served on it. Definitely worth every penny! ;)
…stairs that look like they may never end. I would love to show you what you see when you get to the top, but you’re going to have to survive that climb yourself! Just kidding. Well, not really – you really will have to climb it yourself to see, but not because I’m a jerk. The batteries in my camera died. Oops! Anyway, it’s worth it once you’re up there. Not just because they have a few benches up there, but because the views are pretty nice. Also, thank God for the breeze at the top, because I was definitely sweating by the time I got there. My calves were also killing me, but the breeze didn’t help at all with that.
I did treat myself to a frappe at Friendly’s on the way back to the T – I figured I earned it with all those stairs. And now I can finally say that I’ve walked the Freedom Trail!
Posted by Sarah G on March 28, 2011
https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/03/28/two-point-five-miles-of-history/
My Monotonous Life 
