i was there

I'm looking at last week in my planner, trying to figure out where it disappeared to. I have all of these things I was supposed to do written down, but most of my plans fell through, for one reason or another. I ended up being at home quite a few evenings last week. Monday of course was the very delicious Melting Pot in Framingham, with Karen, Sarah K, and Adam. Definitely worth a visit, at least once.

Thursday I attended a free workshop on nonprofit incorporation, put on by a lawyer's association at the BPL. I learned a lot in the 2 hours, and I was surprised how they flew by! It's been quite a while since I've been in a classroom setting, but I do vividly remember always half-wanting to fall asleep quite often. Luckily, that wasn't the case the other night! The presenters were great: very knowledgeable, helpful, and straightforward, especially when it came down to the more complicated legal ins & outs. I don't quite know when I'll need to apply this information (initially we thought it would help with Code Pink Boston, but I think we've decided against that), but it's certainly a good thing to know the basics of.

Friday night, I attended an opening for Bethany's friend from her RISD summer program, with her & Kevin. There was also an open studios going on, so we wandered around there for a bit. There are some great artists at work out there; I made one small purchase, even! (Can't disclose at the moment, though....) Then we headed back to the North End, where Dan joined us for a lovely (and delicious) dinner at Billy Tse's.

I went to bed pretty early because I had to get up at 6 the next morning, to do a 7-9 shift at the Women's Lunch Place. I had a great time -- luckily, Gina was running the kitchen -- and was energetic enough afterwards to walk over to Shaw's and do a bit of grocery shopping. It's lovely how quiet the supermarket (and the city in general) is at that hour on a Saturday! The weather was so pleasant, I found myself needing to strip down to my tank top during the walk home.

I spent the rest of the day rather lazily, just doing my usual lay-low activities, and then around 6 o'clock I headed out to the Avalon to meet up with my friend Nikki, to see a Jonny Lang concert. Now, I had never heard of the guy before she invited me (she ended up with an extra ticket & wanted company at the show), and it's not really my kind of music, but I had a pretty good time. The beer helped, because man were some of those people (young and old) stuffy!! They just stood stock still, or else bobbed their heads awkwardly & out of time with the music. Oy. So we amused ourselves by dancing a bit, and whispering comments to each other about our dorky-but-amusing neighbors.

Since the show let out before 10 (!!!), we decided to stop for a bite to eat at the Chili's in Copley Place, where we spent some time catching up and talking about our proclivities towards solitude and supportive relationships (both taken separately, and together, if you can understand that). We found that we think very similarly in a lot of regards, which is probably why we gravitated towards each other in the first place. (I only met her a few months ago, at a meeting of our book club; she just recently moved up here from Georgia.)

I was getting tired as I went home, but I got enough of a second wind to watch Babel with Dan when I got home. Good movie! Not quite what I was expecting, but I did really like the message of it, and some of the acting was really superb.

Sunday was another quiet day at home, but around late afternoon I was struck by the cleaning bug, and managed to tidy up most of the kitchen and -- a daunting task -- all of Dan's clothes that were in a big pile on the floor of the bedroom. I am really trying to find something that will work with that boy, because he isn't the neatest person in the world. My hope is that we can hit upon something that will be a good compromise for both of us. Is that really too much to hope for...? (Probably, but I'll keep trying, at least for now.)

Well, tonight Bethany & I are volunteering at a dinner being held for International Women's Day, which is coming up on March 8. It is supposedly a fundraiser for the WLP, although we know nothing more about it than where we are supposed to be tonight, and when. Maybe I'll fill you in a bit more tomorrow! xoxo

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