The bad things about yesterday:
1. My phone falling into the toilet. I was trying to coordinate with two different people about the only bus to catch to Lexington in time to spend the Fourth with my family, so I had it on the back of the toilet while I dressed; it received a message, buzzed, and catapulted itself into the drink. I had no time to pop the battery, drop it in a bowl of rice, etc.; I knotted it up in paper towels and a plastic bag and did not run screaming into the noonday sun, because it was murderously hot and I didn't want to move that fast, but walked at a reasonable pace to make the bus and hoped the phone would go into hibernation or something until someone could take a look at it.
2. Cutting my index finger open on a lobster claw. In the lobster's defense, as if it needed defending, I should point out that I wasn't actually using a cracker, I was just breaking the claw open with my hands because I can do that if it isn't the crusher claw. It was a deep cut at the first bend of the index finger and required a heavier-duty Band-Aid than we had in the house, so I cut a surgical pad in strips and used that. Then I ate the lobster, vindictively, and it was delicious.
3. The fact that it was was so damn hot that I had to go home and sleep in air conditioning because anywhere else I would have lain awake all night overheating.
The good things about yesterday:
1.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derspatchel meeting me on the 80 to Arlington Center, where my mother had agreed to pick us up. I got on at School Street, he got on at Powderhouse. "Is this seat taken?" And all without recourse to cellphone—I'd called once from adrian_turtle's before I left the house to warn him, and then we just trusted in our mutual ability not to miss the bus and the MBTA's slightly less consistent ability to provide one.
2. The Fourth of July afternoon. We had to start early this year, because my brother and his wife were time-sharing the holiday between his family and hers, butschreibergasse came down from Portland, sharhaun came from wherever it is in Boston that he lives when I still haven't seen him in person for a year, we churned my family's traditional strawberry ice cream sitting on the front steps of the house and Rob took lots of pictures, including of the earthenware ducks at the base of one of the maple trees. gaudior and rushthatspeaks joined us for dinner, which is likewise by tradition my brother grilling all the things. My father contributed two different kinds of fruit-involved salad and little sugar cones for the ice cream, although it wasn't stiff enough this year to scoop rather than pour. (Possibly too much strawberry juice in the custard. There was a lot of pulp in the mix. It was delicious.) I'm totally taking the gjetost and the brigante with me when I leave again this afternoon. A great deal of ginger and root beer was drunk by all.
2a. Getting to say to someone, regarding my mother's new box garden she had asked us to cut some chives and small yellow tomatoes from, "It's right by the radio telescope."
2b. Being greeted by Rush-That-Speaks with a small package containing an official state-certified cast of a clay tablet with Linear A script from the Archaeological Museum of Chania. They brought it back for me from Kastelli and Knossos.
2c. Bitter lemon!
3. Watching 1776 (1972), as is also the tradition. Especially with people who like to talk about the history and occasionally sing along.
4. Watching the Esplanade fireworks from Prospect Hill. Schreiber' and Sharhaun peeled off back to their respective homes, but the rest of us staked out a blanket-patch of grass right at the edge of the terrace, on a level with the trees; we had a gorgeous view. The young couple next to me had to lean sideways to see past the leaves, so I bent my knees and the girl leaned her head on them so she wouldn't get a crick in her neck. (The guy talked about the chemistry of explosions.) We thought maybe the pale violet and the bright yellow colorings were new this year, and we couldn't remember ever seeing the spheres in four colors before. Someone was letting off flares only a few roofs away. The willow-gold horsetails are still my favorite, and the powdery firecracker lightenings, and just the traditional huge fallouts of white and blue at the end. This was the first Fourth in years I hadn't needed to put earplugs in for. That way I could hear the Talking Heads and Jimi Hendrix, playing from the iPod of the blanket behind us. Rob and I walked back to Davis afterward, which is a much shorter walk than from the Charles River.
5. My brother resurrected my phone.
And this morning my throat hurts worse than the last two days and my head is aching badly, so I haven't shaken last weekend's viral whatever, and I am so tired I slept through my alarm and three or four phone calls, and I have to go out and buy an air conditioner.
Yesterday was very fine.
1. My phone falling into the toilet. I was trying to coordinate with two different people about the only bus to catch to Lexington in time to spend the Fourth with my family, so I had it on the back of the toilet while I dressed; it received a message, buzzed, and catapulted itself into the drink. I had no time to pop the battery, drop it in a bowl of rice, etc.; I knotted it up in paper towels and a plastic bag and did not run screaming into the noonday sun, because it was murderously hot and I didn't want to move that fast, but walked at a reasonable pace to make the bus and hoped the phone would go into hibernation or something until someone could take a look at it.
2. Cutting my index finger open on a lobster claw. In the lobster's defense, as if it needed defending, I should point out that I wasn't actually using a cracker, I was just breaking the claw open with my hands because I can do that if it isn't the crusher claw. It was a deep cut at the first bend of the index finger and required a heavier-duty Band-Aid than we had in the house, so I cut a surgical pad in strips and used that. Then I ate the lobster, vindictively, and it was delicious.
3. The fact that it was was so damn hot that I had to go home and sleep in air conditioning because anywhere else I would have lain awake all night overheating.
The good things about yesterday:
1.
derspatchel meeting me on the 80 to Arlington Center, where my mother had agreed to pick us up. I got on at School Street, he got on at Powderhouse. "Is this seat taken?" And all without recourse to cellphone—I'd called once from adrian_turtle's before I left the house to warn him, and then we just trusted in our mutual ability not to miss the bus and the MBTA's slightly less consistent ability to provide one.2. The Fourth of July afternoon. We had to start early this year, because my brother and his wife were time-sharing the holiday between his family and hers, but
schreibergasse came down from Portland, sharhaun came from wherever it is in Boston that he lives when I still haven't seen him in person for a year, we churned my family's traditional strawberry ice cream sitting on the front steps of the house and Rob took lots of pictures, including of the earthenware ducks at the base of one of the maple trees. gaudior and rushthatspeaks joined us for dinner, which is likewise by tradition my brother grilling all the things. My father contributed two different kinds of fruit-involved salad and little sugar cones for the ice cream, although it wasn't stiff enough this year to scoop rather than pour. (Possibly too much strawberry juice in the custard. There was a lot of pulp in the mix. It was delicious.) I'm totally taking the gjetost and the brigante with me when I leave again this afternoon. A great deal of ginger and root beer was drunk by all.2a. Getting to say to someone, regarding my mother's new box garden she had asked us to cut some chives and small yellow tomatoes from, "It's right by the radio telescope."
2b. Being greeted by Rush-That-Speaks with a small package containing an official state-certified cast of a clay tablet with Linear A script from the Archaeological Museum of Chania. They brought it back for me from Kastelli and Knossos.
2c. Bitter lemon!
3. Watching 1776 (1972), as is also the tradition. Especially with people who like to talk about the history and occasionally sing along.
4. Watching the Esplanade fireworks from Prospect Hill. Schreiber' and Sharhaun peeled off back to their respective homes, but the rest of us staked out a blanket-patch of grass right at the edge of the terrace, on a level with the trees; we had a gorgeous view. The young couple next to me had to lean sideways to see past the leaves, so I bent my knees and the girl leaned her head on them so she wouldn't get a crick in her neck. (The guy talked about the chemistry of explosions.) We thought maybe the pale violet and the bright yellow colorings were new this year, and we couldn't remember ever seeing the spheres in four colors before. Someone was letting off flares only a few roofs away. The willow-gold horsetails are still my favorite, and the powdery firecracker lightenings, and just the traditional huge fallouts of white and blue at the end. This was the first Fourth in years I hadn't needed to put earplugs in for. That way I could hear the Talking Heads and Jimi Hendrix, playing from the iPod of the blanket behind us. Rob and I walked back to Davis afterward, which is a much shorter walk than from the Charles River.
5. My brother resurrected my phone.
And this morning my throat hurts worse than the last two days and my head is aching badly, so I haven't shaken last weekend's viral whatever, and I am so tired I slept through my alarm and three or four phone calls, and I have to go out and buy an air conditioner.
Yesterday was very fine.
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