Lentils for lunch,
Beans for supper...

It makes up for being extravagant yesterday and stopping for dinner downtown on the way home. Although I had beans then too, along with bangers and mash, fried onion strings, and apple chutney. There's a lot of pseudo-Irish pub food in Boston, which suits me, since I like it now and then.

And besides, there are occasionally side benefits. Like the chief cook coming out to ask me himself about my carrot allergy. Especially when he's cute. Very cute. And doesn't make his gravy with stock that has carrots in it so I can have gravy, which is a bonus, but the cute part would have been sufficient on its own.

Having indulged that far I decided on dessert, strawberry shortcake with a shot of Grand Marnier (which the waitress asked me before she poured it over the top, and was good even though I don't often have alcohol.) It required tea to accompany it, and that was good too, because being pseudo-Irish, the bar had to provide tea done the right way, with a pot of hot water and the milk separate so I could brew it to my own liking and pour the milk into the cup before the tea. (yes, it does make a difference).

So today is beans.

mmmmmm... beans...

The other evening I left the T at Downtown crossing because it was pretty clear that there were a gazillion people waiting for a late orange line train, and it was going to be a whole lot easier, and more comfortable, to walk the few blocks over to the blue line and get home that way.

Of course, once I was above ground I was in the temptation zone, and I decided to have some chili at Wendy's for dinner instead of crawling home and staring uselessly into the refrigerator. Got my chili, looked for a seat, found one, much to the annoyance of the guy who had spread his stuff over chairs at three tables. (No, actually, your backpack does not count as a "person", so I can sit opposite it quite happily.) Squirted the not-quite-sour-cream (acidulated?) into my chili, crunched up my crackers and deposited them into same, took a sip of Dr. Pepper and began to dine.

As I ate, I read, and was about halfway down the container when I heard someone say "Nice hat!"

Now, I get "nice hat!" a lot, because I usually wear a black cowboy hat with indian bead trim. Particularly from street folks, who spend a lot of time people watching. But on this occasion I was wearing a bright orange knit creation with two dangly bobbles at the bottom and one bobbly bit at the top, and so far it hasn't yet attracted the same kind of attention.

I turned to thank my admirer and found myself eyeball to eyeball with a little old lady -- emphasis on the little! (Remember I was still sitting down.) She leaned on her cane, eyeing my hat gleefully and said, "I wore one that same color to school on Saint Patrick's Day when I was a girl."

"That must have been interesting," I said, since by her accent she'd grown up in or near Southie.

"Oh yes," she giggled wickedly. "Mrs. Murphy made me go to the principal."

I raised an eyebrow. "You wore it deliberately?"

"Yes!" she said, enjoying my astonishment. "I was always the one who would do things when I was a girl. If you were afraid to do it, you'd ask me, and I'd do it for you."

I laughed. "You must have had a wonderful time."

"I did," she said, with great satisfaction. "Nice talking to you!" and off she went to get her supper. As I was leaving I saw her again and complimented her on her choices.

"That looks good," I said.

"Yes," she said. "It's a dinner of 'I didn't have to cook' and that's always good."

We said our goodnights, but today I saw her again as I went through one of the T stations. She was wearing a soft beret in the hottest pink this side of 1978.

"Hey," I said. "Nice hat!"

On a Friday night, when I'm actually riding the trains at rush hour, I usually can get home in forty minutes.

It took me an hour and a half to get halfway. Including shuttle buses. Overcrowded shuttlebuses. I bailed out at that point and walked over to the other trainline and got home around 7.

I'm just hoping that this is actual problems and not the government buggering up my transit system for the big practice drill that's happening one of the weekends this month, because I've got to take the trains to and from work tomorrow too.

Have you ever heard a pile driver?

Imagine a steady, monotonous knocking, like Paul Bunyan taking chunks out of a forest with his ax on a leisurely morning.

It's a sound that's just regular enough that you can almost sleep through it. Almost. If it's at a distance. Like jackhammers, it's the sort of thing that distance mutes into dream-fodder instead of irritation. And like jackhammers, it tends to start and stop based on some strange criterion which is difficult to suss out from the depths of the pillows you've jammed uselessly over your ears.

Actually, one criteria is clear. They're not allowed to start until 7 a.m. 7:30 for the pile driver, unless they cheat and go a minute or two ahead.

Too bad I'm in the habit of waking up at 8:30, hey? And alas and alack for Tuesdays, which used to be the day I could sleep till 10:30 without a qualm. Getting to sleep at night has never been fun, but lately I stare at the clock, desperately telling myself "you gotta sleep now" and watching the minutes I could be sleeping slip away irrevocably. Morning was my best time for sleeping -- it really was. I almost never have nightmares once the sun is up.

The construction company finally sent around a letter to tell us what they're up to, and how many piles they need to drive before they build the luxury condos a couple of blocks away. Several thousand.

Oy...

I spent the day home, coddling a cold, although I did do some frantic dusting on the off chance that my best friend and her mom might come by. (Yes, laugh... but at least the respirator my boss gave me for Christmas is a useful gift!) Reread a book, watched a couple of episodes of the Emma Peel era Avengers. Made oyster stew, which curdled, darn it, just after I'd dished the first bowlful. (Don't ask me why! It was fine till then!)

But at five minutes of midnight I went out to court pneumonia and watch fireworks.

I live that close to Boston Harbor, and on First Night, the fireworks are always on the harbor. Depending on the tide they might be way out by Castle Island or nearly all the way in towards Charlestown, but tonight they were due south of Eastie -- due south of my perch on the iron railings of Piers Park.

It was good...

You can always tell how warm it is by how many other people come out to watch, and by how much noise they make. This year it was practicaly tropical. I didn't take my fluglehorn, not wanting to contaminate it for next year, but others did, and the ringing notes of sick-cows filled the air, along with the pop and bang of the small fireworks that the teenagers were setting off in the street behind us. Lots of whooping and hollering -- I wish the guys on the firework barges had tape recorders or something so they could hear our appreciative oohs, and ahs, and the occasional oh! f&^%! that was a good one! from the drunks. It was plenty noisy tonight. But we manage to generate a fair bit of noise even on the coldest of New Years' Eves, when only a few frozen diehards gather together with our faces wrapped up to the eyes and our toes slowly freezing off. I've been out there when it was ten below and I was not alone. I try not to look for omens in the fireworks, but one year they didn't go well, and neither did anything else. This years went very well indeed, with a couple of shapes I'm not as familiar with, and more colors added to the usual banging noisy finale that is so much a part of Boston that I think I'd be astonished to find it happening in Denver, where the finales were always chrysanthemums when I was a kid. Heck, half the display in Boston looks like what I think of as a Denver finale.

Mind you, it's not a long fireworks display. Fifteen minutes, max, and I can scuttle home to hot chocolate. This year I'm having sparkling cider. It was on sale at the grocery today, even though it's not the same brand I had on Christmas. Nice, once I found the church key and got it open. I'll probably go and try to sleep now, although I expect it will be a little longer before the children and drunks wander in. On colder nights that's usually not a problem. But even if it is, it won't be for very long.

Goodnight! Sleep well! And may tomorrow be better!

No, no, not the TV show. Me, trying to find my way from downtown Boston to East Boston by following the signs to the airport.

Some of you will understand why I ended up in Dorchester.

THE STREETS IN THIS TOWN WERE LAID OUT BY COWS!!!! DRUNKEN COWS!!!!!!

And the signage was done by demented "Bert and I" fans.

There was a hobbit greeting people in the subway this morning!

(He was handing out lovely flyers about the props/costume exhibit that is coming to Boston's Museum of Science next month.)

*still grinning*