Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

cattitude, adrian_turtle and I are going to move in together, as one household.

We're all looking forward to this, except for the part that involves moving, and finding a place to move into. So, "plans" may be overstating it, but we have a decision/goal, and the beginnings of a plan.

I went to the edge of the ocean, and got my feet wet, and enjoyed the faint salt water/ociean smell. The water was cold, of course--this is Boston Harbor, and May--but fine for a little bit of wading with my pants legs rolled up.

A few days ago, I was thinking about how long it had been since I looked at the ocean, and I remembered adrian_turtle talking about having been near the beach while tutoring students who lived near the red line in Boston. I asked her for more information, and after telling me that there are beaches near the Andrew or JFK station, she suggested that we go there together. We woke up to a warm day, with nothing else planned, so we went after lunch.

I had fun, despite not being dressed for the beach. I rolled up my jeans, put my shoes and socks in my backpack, and left it on the sand near the water. I stood in ankle-deep water for a bit, looking at the water and the sky, and it was good. I ant to go back soon, dressed more appropriately, and without a backpack full of stuff that I didn't want to leave at her place for several days. (I tried that a couple of visits ago, and the weather shifted, and I wished I hadn't left my jacket there.)

It's been a long fourteen months, and also I hadn't been doing as much exploring (random or otherwise) of the area as I intended to when we moved here. This is a bit of that, and a good (re)start.

I spent last night and this morning with adrian_turtle. It was in my calendar as "date night," but she wasn't feeling well, so it was mostly quiet conversation and me taking care of her in low-key ways.

The friend who has been doing her (and a few other people's) grocery shopping forgot one of the things Adrian needed for Passover, and she was talking about it probably being safe enough for her to duck into Stop and Shop, go to the end cap with the Passover stuff, and then directly to the check-out. I noted that right now, that sort of thing is lower-risk for me than for her, because I've had the first dose of a Covid vaccine and she won't be eligible until early April.

We walked from her place to that supermarket, and I went in, grabbed the Kedem grape juice, plus U-Bet chocolate syrup and some fruit-flavored jelly candies (for cattitude). I gave Adrian her groceries, and took the 77 bus up to the Arlington Heights busway, and then walked a couple of blocks to Trader Joe's. It was uncrowded (though not to the extent that the Stop and Shop had been), and I came out with lots of dried fruit (mostly cherries) and frozen things, some chocolate, and a bell pepper. I wound up calling a Lyft for the trip home, because it was 63°F (17 C) and I was worried that things would start to defrost on the bus (the entire length of the 77 bus route, connecting at Harvard Square, and then the 73 to near the end of the line).

Tomorrow is in my calendar as a rest day, because I don't want to chance being worn out Thursday, when I have an MRI scheduled.

adrian_turtle and I were comparing our calendars for the next couple of weeks, looking for a chunk of time when neither of us had plans, and then she said "Should I just come over now?"

So we did that.

cattitude went for a walk that included going to the Belmont farmers market, giving me and Adrian some time to ourselves, and then came home with all sorts of tasty things, and we had a few hours of three-person social time, which we have also missed. Three people is a small bubble, especially since we don't all live together.

We had an early supper, because Cattitude had a phone date and Adrian wanted to walk home while it was still light out. We sent her home with the last few strawberries, a pint of blueberries, and two plums, and I walked with her for a few blocks, also unplanned, and thus without a mask. (Residential neighborhood, early evening, it wasn't even difficult to maintain distance from other people.)

I stopped on the way in to do one of my PT exercises, which requires a stair to step on and off of, and it was the most normal thing I've done in ages: walk a few blocks with my girlfriend on a cool evening, then come home, exercise, and bring in the mail. I've been wearing a mask whenever I went anywhere beyond taking the trash out, gardening, or bringing in the mail, because it's a habit worth getting into, and who knows, I might want to go into a shop.

In the morning, I planted lettuce seeds in two small flowerpots and placed the pots in the garden next to the newly transplanted cucumbers. The already established cucumber vines not only have several small fruits, I saw flowers and bees visiting the flowers, which is promising.

I just spent a day and a half in Arlington. Or so it feels, given that we didn't get back from the train station, fed, and our shoes off at home until past ten Friday night, though my time away from New York was just over 48 hours. So, a short visit, and a low-energy one, as I was still getting over whatever had me home sick from work last Tuesday and Wednesday, but worth it. I took the train both ways, trading money for comfort and convenience. (Convenience in part because the Route 128 station is near adrian_turtle's job, so it made sense for her to pick me up there Friday, rather than for me to go all the way to South Station, by train or bus, and then take the T to Arlington.) Amusingly, Friday morning, I was telling some of my co-workers about the very cheap Greyhound tickets from New York to Boston that can be bought online.

I considered cancelling this trip, but we'd already not seen each other in six weeks, which feels like a long time (we average about every four), and if I'd not gone this weekend it would have been over two months between visits, which wouldn't have been good. We were quiet and domestic, mostly--that is, we did go as far as Cambridge, to eat pho and buy tea, before getting groceries. My major contribution to domesticity for the weekend was carving the chicken. Adrian fed me a nice mushroom-barley soup. cattitude has mentioned corn chowder. It tastes like winter.

I came home to an unrelated but very pleasant thank-you email. (*waves* in the direction of Minnesota)

adrian_turtle was here for the weekend. She got here early Friday afternoon; I met her in midtown and we came uptown, had lunch, and spent the afternoon here before cattitude got home from work, carrying a smoked whitefish and other good things to eat.

The three of us had thought of going to the Great Hudson River Revival (Clearwater's music and environmental festival) on Saturday, energy allowing, but that seemed hypothetical enough that we didn't buy advance tickets. In the end, energy did not allow, so the three of us spent a lazy day here in Inwood. I was disappointed not to go, but glad I'd realized the possibility and not bought advance tickets: it seemed better to pay an extra $5 each at the gate if we went than to risk losing $40 each by wasting tickets.

Today we slept in a little, and Cattitude and I played Scrabble in the morning while Adrian read. We all agreed it was too hot to go wander around in the hills this afternoon, much as we like Inwood Hill Park, so after lunch Cattitude went to see Shrek III, and Adrian and I spent another couple of hours by ourselves, in the air conditioning. Cattitude got home just as Adrian and I were finishing the late afternoon cups of tea, and gave me a suddenly much-needed hug. Adrian's and my conversation shortly before that had left me missing, in the abstract, casual fannish socializing that drifted away over a long period, and that I know I don't have the energy for these days: I'd turned down a party invitation for last weekend because I knew that accepting meant I definitely wouldn't have the energy for Clearwater this week, something we all three wanted to do. And then it still didn't happen. Similarly, There are plenty of you who I would like to see, if I had the time and energy, and who would be glad to spend time with me, in any number of contexts. These things aren't always rational. Hugs from Adrian had also been helpful while I was thinking about this.

Cattitude and I walked Adrian to the subway, came back, and decided laundry could wait. This evening I've done a bit of hand wash, and a bit of freelance proofreading.

I spent Labor Day weekend in Arlington with adrian_turtle. Saturday I was feeling bright and cheerful, having actually gotten eight hours' uninterrupted sleep. We spent the afternoon at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, which Adrian had told me about on a previous visit. I particularly enjoyed the outdoor sculpture, and the chance to walk around on the lawns. It's a good place for children; we saw several families, and children who liked the sculptures and were dashing from one to another, which you can't do in a conventional museum without the guards getting annoyed. Adrian pointed out one of her favorites, Jim Dine's "Two Big Hearts": the two hearts are in dark gray metal, with all sorts of stuff on them, tools and shoes and hands and a coffeepot, a lifetime of memory. The two hearts are similar, but with noticeable differences. elisem, you should see this if you get the opportunity. What caught my eye indoors (which has some sculpture, plus paintings and photos) was a selection of very realistic-looking birds, Audubon style, in ways they would never be seen in nature. [I thought I remembered the artist's name as "Walden Ford," but Google is finding nothing. Adrian?] One is called "Last Words," and is a group of Carolina parakeets standing around one dead parakeet; the curator noted that this was modeled on "The Death of General Woolf," I think Benjamin West's painting. Then we came home and cooked misia's recipe for red-simmered protein (chicken in our case), which went nicely with salad and sourdough bread.

Sunday was rainy and gray, and I'd not slept so well. We stayed in most of the day, and I even took an afternoon nap. Eventually we baked brownies, then went out to dinner at Za, which does weird and tasty pizzas. I mentioned the brownies to cattitude, who expressed enthusiasm, so I brought some home with me. We stayed up later than we'd meant to Sunday night: having gone to bed at a more or less sensible hour (more sensible for someone who hadn't been behind on sleep, I suspect), we talked for at least an hour before Adrian finally said "bedtime." This would have been okay if I'd slept straight through, but at least this time I got back to sleep quickly after Adrian snuggled over to me to get warm, and after holding her for a few minutes I got up, turned the fan off, and made sure she had covers over her.

Monday we had lunch at Bengal Cafe, a hole-in-the-wall Bangladeshi restaurant which Adrian had noticed smelled good when walking by a few times. I looked at the menu in the window, said "they have things I've never heard of," and reached for the door as Adrian cheerfully said "New Yorker." We declined the waitress/cook's offer of the lunch buffet, because we'd spotted things we liked on the menu. We had Chat Putty, a delightful mix of white bean and potato, served at room temperature; a nice but unspectacular goat and lentil curry; and Shorshe Hilcha. Hilcha is a freshwater fish that she compared to shad; it's delicate but has lots of bones. This preparation was a mustard and onion sauce, also excellent. (Note: the bits of orange in the sauce are not carrots, don't bite into them. It took quite a bit of plain rice to get that much hot pepper off my tongue.) I was disappointed by my masala tea: she uses more black pepper, and less of the cardamom/ginger/cinnamon cluster of sweet spices, than I prefer, but the third and fourth sips were better than the first, and I did finish it. The menu is a mix of things I'd not seen before, and what looked like standard Indian-restaurant fare, including kurmas, curry, paratha, pakoras, and lassi; we deliberately ordered things we can't get in lots of other places we eat. There were plenty of fish choices, unsurprising in the cuisine of a country that sits on a river delta. Bengal Cafe, 2263 Mass Ave, in Cambridge. 617-492-1944, and it says here that they deliver in North Cambridge. Lunch everyday, 11:30-3; Dinner 5-9 Monday-Thursday, 5-10 Friday-Sunday.

Note to self: Adrian's current arrangement of chair, desk, and laptop was okay for me to use for short periods, but not to settle in at and get work done while she's asleep. This may be a temporary thing, because I hadn't noticed it before and my back had been bothering me before I got there, let alone sat down to use her computer.

The bus trip was uneventful and quick in both directions. No peafowl this time, but I got a nice look at the underside of an egret in flight, making a turn as our bus passed it.

I am home, after a weekend with adrian_turtle, in which I helped her buy a computer and met her ex-housemates. The computer shopping was complicated by the difficulty of finding a laptop with a decent non-flickering screen--she'd already bought one based on descriptions and had to return it. We swore at Mapquest, went to two different stores, and rejected one incompetent salesman, but Adrian got her computer, and this is very good. We had sushi beforehand, and determined that seagulls are irrelevant while in the parking lot at PCs for Everyone (a nice salesman there, but no suitable hardware).

Sunday Adrian did some writing while I proved that baking is not, in fact, an exact science--lacking measuring spoons, I guessed at the baking powder, and the cakelings came out fine. Then we went over to Keith and Cyd's, where I met them and their daughters. I read to Katrina a bit, and we did more baking before dinner. I think I had too much tea.

Today I am home, having discovered that mass transit can also get lost--the driver got on the east-bound instead of west-bound Mass Pike after stopping in Newton, but we didn't lose much time. cattitude met me for a late lunch of grilled tuna over salad, then we bought some groceries and came home. We spotted a newly blooming dandelion in the park, and he showed me where two of the January dandelions [sic] are happily forming seedpods, and another is continuing to bloom.

I am short on sleep, having been up past 2 on Saturday night and until 1 last night. Adrian gets up at 6 on workdays; to be out on time, I reactivated the 40-minute morning technique I perfected when I had the Commute from Hell. Since we had an hour, I was able to drink two cups of tea in that time, give Adrian one, and braid her hair. To my surprise, I drowsed on the bus--I almost never manage to sleep in any kind of vehicle, or while sitting in a chair of any sort.

The MBTA is replacing subway tokens with stored-value cards. Unlike New York City, they're doing it on a station-by-station basis, and just switched over at South Station. On Friday, I fed my token into a vending machine, which gave me a card that I then fed into the turnstile, and had to take out again before the turnstile would open. I automatically kept the card until I got out of the system at Harvard Square, because that's what you do with a London Travelcard, and the need to take my card back pulled up those reflexes. This morning, when I exited at South Station, there was a man standing at the entrance from the railroad station to the T station, with the decidedly unenviable task of shouting instructions on how to insert the new cards, repeating himself about every 20 seconds. This is a task that cries out to be automated--recorded messages don't get bored, nor do they get laryngitis.