Arlene on the mend and just a quick clip

Arlene thought she had the flu. Well maybe she did, but several days ago I got a call at about 7:30 a.m. It was Arlene asking me to take her to the emergency room. Well it really wasn't the emergency room it's called Prompt Care. Anyway she had been coughing for almost two weeks. Well long story made longer by me saying long story what she had was an upper respiratory infection. Now whether that was a result of the flu or an infection that landed in the lungs I'm not sure but she has been sick. She works with children and they can be little disease bags. Anyway she had an x-ray and a couple of prescriptions and she's doing much better. The doctor told not to wait two weeks if you have been coughing for two weeks. This has taken up some of my time when it comes to tending to my cyber duties but I think I'm back.

I was going through my computer organizing  some photos and deleting things. My computer is old. It's gasoline powered. You start it like you start a lawn mower. Ok I made that up, but it is slow. I tried to update my portable gps. I don't have one standard in my car as it's ten years old. So as I plugged it into my computer what was supposed to take "a few minutes" to download an app was taking forty five minutes and it never completely downloaded so I gave up. This has nothing to do with what I was going to write but I can be easily distracted. Oh there's a plane flying overhead...sorry. And now the chilling conclusion to our story. I found one picture of a sunset taken on a certain island off the Massachusetts coast this passed October. I looked at it and thought that I must of really enhanced the hell out of this photo. Well there was also a video clip from our last trip and I've already posted the video of that night as we went to dinner watching the sun go down over the little harbor. Well when I looked at the clip the sunset was just as bright and colorful as the still picture I took. Below is the first 29 seconds of that video as we drove to the restaurant.         



So this will be a quicky. Tomorrow I will take Arlene on a few errands as she is not fully recovered but she is doing much better. She expressed an interest in going out for a nice Italian meal and I will never say no to that. Perhaps I'll get one of my favorite dishes, Spaghetti Lemoncello, that's artichoke hearts, roasted peppers in a lemon wine sauce with either chicken or shrimp. I can tell you it is quite delicious.
Ok that's it for now.
I'm outta here.

Auto Show. Kinda boring.

So my friend Dave and I went into town for the auto show. Now I've always like cars but aside from exotics and custom jobs all the other cars were much like the cars you see on the street. Now I was perfectly willing to take public transportation because getting around Boston by car can be quite a trial but Dave said he didn't mind driving and he knows the city quite well. I did find it amusing hearing Dave say that he wondered why more people didn't take the T, the name given to public transportation as he volunteered to drive in. Not that I'm complaining. I don't know how people do this every day. I worked in town a few times and if I worked an early shift it wasn't too bad especially if I had the 6 a.m. shift. I could be there in 15 minutes. Any later and it was an hour. When I worked near Fenway Park and there was a ballgame it was it was not fun.

It rained all day Friday and it really didn't stop until around 6a.m. Saturday morning. Not only that but the temperature was 61 degrees this morning but by this evening it will be in the 20's. All the snow from last week is gone. Still what happened around here is nothing compared to what's going on in Southern California. Those poor people. The snow storms seem kind of trivial compared to the fires and the landslides. I guess you pay for your thrills when you live in southern California.





Below is a quick video from the show.

 

Three shots as we sat in rush hour traffic though there was nothing "rush" about it. 

 

 

Last week.

 

This morning.

 

So that's about it for this edition. Tonight it's over to Arlene's for supper and the Patriots game. Could they do it again? Hope so!

I'm outta here.

Snowstorm 1,04,2018

Ya know snow is one thing. It snows in New England. If you live here you have to accept it. To me the worst part of the weather over the last week could of easily have been the snow but we've had worse snowfall amounts in the past. Still 12 to 14 inches is nothing to sneeze at though I don't know how or why that would be relevant. The worst of it was the cold weather and the near hurricane force winds.

Anyway long story short, it snowed, it was cold but it's all over. The next day I went out took a little drive around the city. The main roads were clear. Once again all the plow people did a good job. I screwed up the video a bit but who cares. You'll get the idea.



Arlene is under the weather with the flu, though she does feel a bit better as of this writing. Ok it's over and done. It was a nasty storm and more than likely we will get a few more before the winter is over. Still everyone came through it and we all survived. So now it's close to supper. I think I'll make a pasta dish. I have some chicken, broccoli, garlic, some chopped up pancetta and lemon juice. Let's see what happens.

I'm outta here.

I gotta get the bread and milk!

We who work or have worked in the supermarket business and live in an area the receives snow know all about stocking up on essentials, particularly bread and milk. The bread aisle and the milk case are invariably wiped out. Now while you are working at the market it is you duty to make fun of everybody in the middle of a panic buying binge. Well it will be one year on Jan.5 that I will have been retired. I went out yesterday and got bread and milk. I just want to say that it's not me in the video.   

The market lot was packed. As I walked toward the entrance I noticed that the place where the shopping carts (around here they are often called  carriages) are kept...empty. Uh oh. Then again why should I be surprised especially after 46 years in the business. It didn't really matter to me as a hand basket would suit my needs. There was plenty of milk and bread in stock at the time I went in. I only got a few things a couple of cans of pinto beans, a couple of cans of Progresso soup, some garlic though I did forget spinach. I don't sound too Italian. Pasta fagiole (beans and macaroni) tonight. Once again I have begun writing this the morning on Jan. 4 whether I publish today, tonight or tomorrow remains to be seen. 

It's now around noon and it's coming down at quite a pace. Around here we're supposed to get about a foot of snow. I am not looking forward to going out later and shoveling.  I suppose I could call Arlene next door and we could start drinking early. 

The video below is simply recorded off the television by pointing the camera at it, late morning early afternoon and a couple clips out my bedroom window. It's no academy award winner.



Later that night...

Check out the snazzy car the wind and snow customized.

At about 9 pm the driveway has been plowed and all the shoveling is finally done. I am one tired BostonBoy.

This was this morning Jan. 5.

As I write this It's still FRICKEN COLD but the wind is making it FRICKIN' worse. Now cold weather is nothing new around here but we are on our way to 0 degrees and less tonight and tomorrow and that's not factoring 50+ mph winds. It is sunny though!

Watching television you could see all the news and weather people were there for the long haul. They began making mistakes. Snowmobilers became "snowmobowlers". Local officials-local offishush and my favorite. What was supposed to be "clean the main arteries" became, "clean the main artilleries".

I did go out for about an hour and I have to give all the plow people credit. I think they did a great job on all the main roads, excuse me, the main artilleries. The smaller side streets are tough to deal with. Lots of people and lots of cars. I should have taken my camera with me and made a little movie driving around. Including two of the oldest streets in the city dating back to 1630. One was part of the "highway to Boston". It's not picturesque in any way with several auto dealerships, restaurants, maybe a technical type or two company, Medical building etc. and a view of a bit of the Boston skyline.   

Alright it's taken two days to put this extravaganza together and I'm going to wrap it up.
I'm outta here.    



Did I mention that it's still...

...FRICKIN' COLD! This blog entry started but probably won't be finished on New Years day/evening. This morning it was 0 degrees. The last time the temperature was 30 was Christmas day. As I write this in the 6 PM hour in the evening, the temperature has soared to 8. There is also more snow in the forecast. Alright I know I sound just like the people I used to deal with back in my Star Market days, particularly after the weather forecasters said snow was coming and that would set off panic buying. On the other hand back in 1978, even though we were in winter, rain was predicted. Instead we got 21 inches of snow. So when a few days later another 6 inch snowstorm was predicted nobody seemed to care. Surprise! We ended up with a near 36 hour storm, 27inches more snow and 70 mph winds. This wasn't only happening in the Boston area. It was all of New England, New York, New Jersey and probably northern states in the middle of the country.
Some pictures from back then around eastern Mass.

Downtown Boston. When I was little my mother would take me to Jordan Marsh to see Santa.

By the way the restaurant behind the piles of snow, The Union Oyster House, is the oldest continuous running restaurant in the country. Since 1826.

Now while I looked up a few stats pertaining to back then I found a picture of a red fishing shack in Rockport Mass. that was supposedly famous in the art world for being painted many times over the years. It was called Motif #1. Well that was destroyed back in 1978. 

Well it was rebuilt and soon I found myself looking at pictures and paintings of it. I found myself off on another tangent. Most of the pictures are done by professional photographers. Some beautiful shots. 

  

  

And now for a completely different tangent though it does involve the ocean. There's a tradition in South Boston and in other states as well, that on New Years day a bunch of people run into the ocean. Around here they call themselves the L Street Brownies. They always show them on the news every New Years day. 



Oakee doakee. It is now Jan. 2. Oh, and did I mention it's... FRICKEN COLD! As I write this it's about 6-8 degrees. Yesterday morning, or, the beginning of this blog, it was 0 degrees.
It is being said that more snow is coming on Thursday. What are you gonna do? There's plenty to do around here, whether I do it or else is another matter.  I have no desire to go outside because it's... FRICKIN' COLD!

I'm outta here.