Category Archives: Boston

Today marks our annual pilgrimage to a Red Sox game – officially monikered the BroSox Adventure – and come rain or hell or Mercury in retrograde, we’ll be there. We go into this one without much of a plan or theme, other than relaxing and having fun. The last few years have been tumultuous – these BroSox weekends have been points of peace and hilarity. Skip is easygoing that way, and I’m easygoing around him; it’s the ease of friendship.

This is our ninth year of BroSox Adventures, so we are keeping it low-key. We may go big and crazy for #10, or return to basics. We’ll probably decide when we get there. If you’d like a more comprehensive look-back at previous outings, check out this post for the early years, and this one for the later ones. Those were the adventures up until COVID hit. 

Then came the most recent ones:

Brosox Adventure 2021: Part One and Part Two

Brosox Adventure 2022

BroSox Adventure 2023

Summer is wily in its ways, and though the next day dawned in overcast fashion, the sky was light, with no rain forecast until later that afternoon. Acting strangely against knowing better, we headed out into the day without umbrellas, making vague promises and plans to be back for our afternoon siesta well before the rain returned. Famous last words…

The goal of our excursion was to find a ‘festive’ outfit for an upcoming graduation brunch for Suzie’s daughter Oona – when pressed for a more specific dress code, Suzie enlisted the help of her son Milo, who described it as “festive business casual summer night dress code”. In other words, I will wear whatever the fuck I want and everyone is going to like it. Still, it’s nice to have a little goal, especially in the summer, and it gave us purpose as we traipsed through our usual Downtown Crossing clothing haunts.

In truth, any loosely-assembled reason would have worked – the real goal has never been an outfit or an accessory, only a desire to spend time with a friend. We moved through Faneuil Hall then crossed into the North End for an Italian lunch as the clouds rolled in. Many a fun meal has been had in the North End, and I remembered dinners with Mom, Chris, Suzie, Kira, and the twins. Summer leans into nostalgia, even if it’s not my usual province. 

We finished lunch and managed to make it all the way back to Arlington, where we pushed our luck and browsed along Newbury Street as the clouds darkened. As we reached Mass Ave to turn around, the rain had arrived. We went store by store, starting with Muji, pausing at Uniqlo, and taking our make-do siesta at the Mandarin Oriental lobby. We wound our way through the Prudential Center and took one final break at a coffeehouse near the condo, before making a run for dryness and warmth. 

Kira promptly took a nap when we got back, and I did my daily meditation. Soon it was time for a later dinner, and we headed out into a calmer night. A lighter dinner of small plates from SRV right round the corner proved the perfect culinary ending to our weekend. On our way home, this rabbit posed for a picture. 

It had been a largely rainy weekend, and there was something healing in that. Without a bombastic and sunny reason to be out on an endless city stroll, we leaned into stillness and silence. It was enough just to be beside a friend who has also experienced loss, to sit together and breathe together and simply be together. 

There is beauty in the rain that only summer can elicit, and if this is how summer begins in Boston, it’s going to be all right. 

Beneath the full Strawberry Moon, a recent entry into Boston was a wild ride thanks to the lunar madness at hand, but Kira and I needed to kick off summer in whatever fashion possible. That meant dealing with a rollercoaster of weather – from the very finest sunny day that greeted my arrival, to several torrential downpours that did their best to fuck shit up, but summer is happening no matter what form it takes, and we were there to celebrate our friendship and find a bit of solace now since we both lost our fathers in the past year. It’s a different kind of club to which we now belong, and it shades summer differently because that sort of loss, once it begins, doesn’t really end.

Boston laid out its full-moon zaniness with a big-ass Celtics celebratory parade, which apparently was ending just as I was trying to find parking. A sea of people waiting to get onto the Orange Line spilled out onto Dartmouth Street, almost blocking traffic. Luckily there were visitor spots near enough to the condo, as the mass exodus of basketball fans were making their way back to where they began.

Opening the windows in the front of the condo, I let the stuffiness that had accumulated over a few days of 90 degree weather dissipate, then started the window air conditioner and set up a fan to cool things down in the bedroom. These were happy summer practices, and brought back memories of a heatwave during one my first summers living in Boston, as well as the installation of our current AC unit courtesy of Skip during an early BroSox Adventure. Summer memories are often the best memories.

When Kira texted that she was arriving at Back Bay Station, I rushed out to meet her halfway along the Southwest Corridor Park. It was resplendent in full, gorgeous bloom, and as I was bending down to take a few of these photos, Kira arrived and we picked up where we last left off, with perhaps a little more world-weariness to our steps. Kira’s had more than her share of loss over the past few years, and where I would have once filled the silence with my typical silliness and nonsense, this visit I let the quiet simply exist between us. True friendship has always proven itself in the comfort one can experience without filling the silence with words or distractions. We let the flowers speak for us, and they whispered secrets of beauty as a balm and calming background as we returned to the condo and settled in for some mocktail magnificence.

Our dinner plans were a loose hodge-podge of ideas – we started filling up with some cheese and crackers, and I brought the ingredients for a Mexican salad – but we needed a few more items, so we set out on a walk deeper into the South End to find the Whole Foods Market. As we neared it, the sky opened up and a torrential downpour quickly whipped itself into a frenzy of wind and water. The full Strawberry moon was in effect, and we were suddenly trapped as the heavy rain showed no sign of letting up, and we showed no sign of preparation being completely caught without our umbrellas. Consulting the weather report on our phones, it looked like the storms would continue until 8:30, which was much too long to wait it out at a Whole Foods, I donít care if they do have hot and fried food available for purchase. We did have some French fries to wait it out a bit, but when the rain refused to subside, I found a decent deal on an Uber and took it home. Even with that luxury, we were quite wet by the time we got back, and the summer day that had greeted our arrival had turned into a stormy evening. It felt fitting, and sleep is always more sound when rainfall is mumbling somewhere in the background…

Outside, the rain grew heavier as the afternoon turned to evening, while inside the light was warm, the company was true, and the pasta dinner was on the way. We started with some prosciutto and olives and fennel biscuits. The older we get, the more we seem to appreciate simply being at home. The delights of the city – at least what delights us these days – are rarely found to be accessible late at night, and our bar-hopping shenanigans and clubbing chaos are long behind us. Gratefully, we leaned into the afternoon with some tea, embracing the coziness of these last weeks of winter. 

I made a very simple, light pasta dinner with artichoke hearts and broccoli and freshly-grated parmesan cheese. A bit of butter and cream, along with a small diced onion, added the only flavor we needed, and it was done in about 20 minutes – also ideal for anyone watching their meat intake in this season of Lent. (On Fridays we do fish!)

As the evening marked the anniversary of Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ album release, I told Kira we should wind down for the night with a listening session of the whole album. Lowering the lights and operating with only a few lit candles, we settled into the same room in which I first listened to that album way back in 1998. 

It was as magical and mystical as I remember it being all those years ago, and hearing it with a friend made it mean a little more. By the time ‘Mer Girl’ wrapped up the night, the rainy cloak of something approaching healing and solace had wrapped itself around us. 

When next we meet, may the fountain be running, the windows wide open, and the leaves on the trees… 

This will mark the last time Kira and I rendezvous in Boston until summer, as our schedules don’t quite seem to allow for a spring visit. Putting that depressing thought from our minds, we made the most of our time together on a recent weekend in our favored city, trudging through the benign days of a waning winter. Arriving on Friday, I didn’t have a meal plan in effect, and was largely planning on winging it with some pasta and artichoke hearts I’d brought. Upon setting out to procure a few more items, we decided to simply grab a Thai dinner at a nearby restaurant rather than attempt a dinner-making scene at the end of a wearing work week. 

Walking around Boston often means passing by sites and spaces that hold special significance, such as this little section near a park where Alissa’s daughter Sophia once played as a child. The ghosts of youth – mine and theirs – haunt quietly and for the most part kindly these days. They no longer hold the same sad sway they once did, and I no longer consciously work to avoid them, instead allowing the feelings to arrive like waves, knowing they will subside. 

The day’s light is still growing longer, but dusk still descends sooner than welcome, so we hurried back to the condo and a few minutes of a movie before falling asleep. 

The next day Kira treated me to lunch at the newly-opened Sugar Factory in Faneuil Hall. We don’t frequent that tourist-heavy place much, and walking past the many empty storefronts of retail space revealed that we weren’t the only ones. I wanted to give the Sugar Factory a whirl to see if it was something I could stomach with the twins, as they would probably enjoy it. Sweet excess trappings aside, the lunch we had was decent enough, and we didn’t even have room for dessert after the bodacious burger and mile-high club. 

Rain was starting just as the afternoon began to ripen, and we didn’t quite make it home in time to beat it, but a hat for Kira and hood for me mean we stayed relatively dry where it mattered. We walked through the Fairmont Hotel to see their flowers, as the drab and dull winter day demanded some floral cheer… but more on that later. 

A quick and relatively quiet weekend adventure in Boston is previewed here, as Kira and I spent our last weekend in town together until probably summer, thanks to booked schedules and the business of work and life that seems to always be in the way. Our Boston weekends together have provided a bit of a respite for winter doldrums and the general malaise of growing older, and I will miss them in the coming weeks, but we have spring duties to perform, and many happy memories of previous Boston getaways, such as listed below… 

Kira and I first met in Boston during our stint at John Hancock way back in 1998. We hit it off, being of entirely different dispositions and sensing that the other might help enrich our lives, and hung out until I left for Chicago and she moved to Florida, in both cases for men who would not end up staying with us forever. Ten long years passed until we reunited in Boston, and since then we’ve been meeting up and making the most of the city.

Our first documented holiday stroll took place in 2012, but I believe the first actual stroll was the year before. Either way, it was a while ago, and a happy tradition that has somehow continued despite a few hiccups. 

When times were tough and we couldn’t do it in person, we did it virtually. 

Some of our times together were literally bloody.

And sometimes we made magic in the city, seeking out adventures in the night, following witches and warlocks, and finding our own mischief to manage.

Holiday strolls form some of our happiest recollections, as seen in our most recent one which incorporated a special guest star as well. 

As it looks like we won’t be back together until summer, I will look back at this summer jaunt from a while ago, and set our sights on this coming summer – always a fun stance.

Maybe we will rendezvous in Albany again this summer… 

While my favorite concerts by Madonna remain her Drowned World Tour and the Confessions Tour, her current Celebration Tour may rank as a tight number three, and the residual glow and high from that night carried me through the days in Boston that followed. Normally I’d have returned to work and real life the day after such a concert, falling as it did on a Tuesday night, but by some strange auspicious stroke of excessively indulgent planning, I’d taken off three days. Work has been so busy that if I didn’t get a break I might have broken. Sometimes we don’t see such things until we add some distance and then assess what we’re doing. Bottom line: this was a much-needed escapade in the city I know and love.

Boston was busy making its own sort of magic. After a brutal rainstorm event that almost took us out on the night of the Madonna show, only some wind and an occasional shower bothered the city the next day. Between the clouds, there were brilliant peeks of sun and blue sky, and the light painted shifting scenes throughout the afternoon. 

Boston isn’t particularly renowned for its architecture but I find many of its buildings beautiful. Maybe that’s because it remains a home for me, and we always have a soft spot for home. On this blustery day, it retained that beauty, even as it tempered it with typical New England bite. 

As the afternoon unfurled, dusk fell customarily early for this time of the year. January can be brutal here, however, and since we stayed above freezing it didn’t feel so bad. Still, once the light left the sky, I hurried back to the condo for warmth and coziness and a hot bath.