On Saturday, plumtreeblossom and I went to the American Museum of Natural History, one of my favourite places. sexykneesocks, who happened to be in town as well, met us there, and it was great catching up with her. I took lots of photos, which I will try to get posted at some point.

plumtreeblossom and I tried to go next door to the Rose Space Center, but we got there close enough to closing that we couldn't see a show, so we went back to the AMNH for another half hour or so.

After that, we met nex0s and midnightstation for dinner nearby, and had a fabulous time. I'd seen nex0s in Boston a few months ago, but I hadn't seen midnightstation in far too long.

On Sunday, we got together at Fred's, a dog-themed restaurant I've posted about before, for brunch with beetiger, eisa, and fairyleathrdady, who surprised us by paying for brunch. Lovely seeing all of them, and I'm so glad beetiger drove in to meet us.

Then we made our way back to Chinatown to take the Fung Wah back to Boston and had a lovely snuggly trip back with lots of nice conversation.

Y'all should also go read plumtreeblossom's post about the weekend here, since I'm posting this in a hurry and I'm certainly missing stuff.

plumtreeblossom and I are here in New York. Our hotel (which we got on Priceline) is excellent. We're staying at Gild Hall (NB spelling) in the Financial District. The room is just really pleasant and comfy, and the staff are friendly and relaxed and very helpful. It was a really good deal.

Our bus ride down was nice (despite me running very late and almost making us miss the bus). The bus wasn't full, and it was didn't smell bad, and it got us here in very good time, so it was a pretty good Fung Wah experience.

(I basically skimmed LJ on the bus because my net connectivity wasn't very good, by the way, so feel free to call my attention to anything you particularly want me to see.)

We had a very good dinner (actually it was breakfast for me since I hadn't managed to get food before getting to the station in Boston, and the bus didn't stop on the way) at a Sichuan place right next to the bus drop-off. I had particularly good General Tso's and dun dun noodles, and our fried pork dumplings were quite possibly the best I've had; I usually like them steamed but I'm glad plumtreeblossom wanted them fried.

Then we made our way to the hotel, which took a bit of wandering around because Google Maps had a confused idea of the street numbers, and checked in and unloaded. On our way from the subway to the hotel we had discovered that there's a small branch of the Strand in the neighbourhood, so we spent a couple hours there. (I picked up a book on the history of the English language, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang, on which the nearly eponymous movie is based, and a book about the prehistoric origins of language, as well as a few post cards. We both got Strand messenger bags to carry our haul away in.

Then we stopped in at an Irish pub around the corner from the hotel. We were a bit underdressed; I wasn't even wearing a tie. The place was very nice, with very traditional décor, and the bartender was friendly, but things shut down very early. At 9 when we got there, there were three or four other clumps of people; by 10 when we left there was only one, and the staff was cleaning tables and putting stuff away. At 10pm on a Friday night. We felt like we were back in Boston! I guess the place caters to the after-work crowd.

(After close to twenty years in Boston, it feels weird to be someplace where people are cheering the Yankees.)

Anyway, delightful trip so far!

Another lovely weekend with plumtreeblossom. On Saturday we went to a sheepshearing festival¹ in Waltham with teratomarty and trouble4hire (big thanks to them for posting about it!) and had a lovely time. It was great hanging out with them, and great doing country-fair things within easy reach of Boston. (I drove, but the festival venue is bus-accessible.) While there, we bumped into mrpet and, lady_anemone. Anyway, after the festival, which was huge amounts of fun, the six of us wandered Moody Street and then had yummy tapas for dinner before plumtreeblossom and I went back to my house, where we watched the first two-thirds of Lust, Caution.

On Sunday, we went to a Poly Boston dim sum organized by a wonderful person whose LJ name, if he has one, I don't know. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. Thanks so much to the organizer!

Last night was the monthly Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci's (the first one in a while plumtreeblossom's been able to make it to, because of theater commitments), and tonight plumtreeblossom, cathijosephine, and I get to go see Eddie Izzard perform! Life is incredibly full and fun.

And this coming weekend plumtreeblossom and I are finally making a trip to New York City.

Whee!

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¹ Sadly, the venue has already taken down the web page about it. If you are luckier than usual, I will eventually get around to posting some pictures, though. Because, you know, you all appreciated the Topsfield Fair pictures and the pictures of our trip to DC to meet bcat1 and spacechicken so much.²
² That I haven’t posted yet. Those pictures.

So on Saturday plumtreeblossom and I went to Worcester for a Barack Obama rally [warning: bacground audio]. The campaign was encouraging local groups to have simultaneous rallies nationwide on that day, and plumtreeblossom found this one. (Boston didn’t have any when she first looked, although there were signs that one might get organized last-minute.) And of course she asked me if I wanted to go, and of course I said yes.

Because I was driving, we got there very late (and had to resort to old, 20th-century technology by stopping and buying a map), but we got there. It was fairly small but lots of fun and totally worthwhile. And there was a bagpiper! That was quite a surprise. We had a great time meeting people and talking and listening to the speakers and the programming, and we came back with Obama swag.

I ended up taking a bunch of pictures (and plumtreeblossom took a couple of me), and they’re up on my Flickr set of the event.

Well, I had a bad cold towards the end of last week, and I took Friday off from work (and slept for most of it, which was glorious). But I was better by Saturday (sleeping late Saturday as well), and Saturday night I went to see plumtreeblossom and many other wonderful people at the closing night of Much Ado About Nothing at Theatre@First. The performance was great (as opening night had been), and a lovely bonus was bumping into minerva42 and getting to catch up a bit. (See my earlier post for more about the performance.)

Afterwards, I helped strike, which was lots of fun but took longer than I had expected (given the extremely minimal set) because Theatre@First needed to clear everything out of the prop closet so the church could do some remodelling. I enjoy doing stuff like that where I can just look around and find some mindless task that somebody else will have to do if I don’t do it. I think I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much if I were one of the people trying to keep track of all the tasks, mindless and difficult, and making sure they all get done efficiently in the proper order by the proper people.

And after strike, I joined plumtreeblossom at the wonderful cast party at heliopsis’ house. It was a great party with yummy food and munchies and delightful people. Did I mention it was at heliopsis’ house? It was at heliopsis’ house. This is of note because ① heliopsis is a total sweetheart and ② a gracious and welcoming host who ③ throws a kickass party and his house is gorgeous and just perfectly laid out for that sort of party. (I understand that surrealestate sold it to him. Way to go, surrealestate! You need to sell houses to more people whose parties I go to!) He’s also ④ a spectacular cook, by the way.

At some point during the party, heliopsis put on the Kenneth Branagh version of Much Ado (which I had watched with plumtreeblossom a few weeks ago) and we all sat around and watched and compared performances. We had to stay through plumtreeblossom’s lines, of course, but she and I were pretty tired by this point, and by the time we said our goodbyes and made our way to her place (just a few blocks away) and got ready for bed it was something like 3:00am. Whee!

We slept late (for plumtreeblossom, not really for me), and Sunday morning we hustled out of the house and got on the road to try to find the Gideon Freudmann concert in Vermont. Now, I had spaced on the fact that we were doing that until Saturday afternoon (I blame several days of a cold), and had scrambled to find and print out directions when I was leaving for the show Saturday night, and, long story short, I was not clear on the directions, I did not have my GPS with me, and I knew we were cutting it close on the timing even if everything went perfectly. Only everything didn’t go perfectly; the Google Maps directions I had printed out had some turns (or forks) onto streets which did not have street signs, and in at least one case probably looked more like a long driveway than a street (unless I really wasn’t in even approximately the right place to start with). So anyway, there was much driving back and forth trying to figure out where our turn was, and after about 40min of this I decided even if we got back on track the concert would be mostly over by the time we got there, so we turned around and looked for food.

We drove around for a while in White River Junction looking in vain for something that was both more upscale than a slice of pizza and open at 7pm on a Sunday, but plumtreeblossom found a Chinese buffet just as we were getting back on the highway, and we had a very satisfying meal there.

Only after the meal I got on the wrong highway. And I didn’t notice I was on 91 instead of [EDIT: 89] until we were almost to Northampton, which added at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half to our return trip. plumtreeblossom was very sweet about it, but remember that we’d been up till 3:00am the previous night — she was very tired and wanted to be home in bed. I felt bad about that. But most of the drive was delightful and sunny and I got to spend almost the entire day with my hand on her knee, so as far as I am concerned it was a win.

Next Sunday plumtreeblossom and I are making a long road-trip up to Lincoln, Vermont, to hear a concert by Gideon Freudmann (warning: unobtrusive background music), a whimsical electric cellist that minerva42 and underwatercolor introduced me to on a visit a while back. (Big thanks to them for that!) He also has a bunch of concerts in Connecticut on this visit out east (and some private concerts in schools in the Boston area, even) and one in Western Mass, but this was the only one I’m sure I can make it to, and it’s a great excuse for a drive.

I mention this in case any of my more northerly friends might want to go (it’s almost a four-hour drive from Boston) or in case I can hook any of you on Gideon Freudmann’s music. (Alas, I can’t give anybody a ride; the drive is going to be date-time.)

Here’s his calendar of upcoming gigs.

At least one person at last night’s party wanted to know ( where I got the fish socks I gave cathijosephine )

plumtreeblossom and I are at an Arby's outside of Richmond that we put a fair amount of effort into finding. This is a big deal.

plumtreeblossom and I have been having a fabulous time with spacechicken (who cooked us a great breakfast this morning) and my sister bcat1. So far it’s involved lots of shopping and lots of coffee. After two days of driving, it’s a treat to be chauffeured around town. We spent a lot of time today in the trendy-boutique area of Durham and had a lot of fun. And bcat1 and spacechicken are just tremendously fun hanging-out-and-chatting people.

I’m so glad my girlfriend and my family like each other!

Oh, we’ve also been having some good adorable-cat time.

plumtreeblossom and I are at a truck stop in Baltimore, on our way down to North Carolina to visit my sister bcat1 and brother-in-law spacechicken. We drove down to New Jersey last night after work (getting a late start for various reasons including frozen locks on my car), and crashed at a Motel 6 in New Jersey. Today we got an even later start due to me sleeping late and not noticing for a while that I’d gotten on the Turnpike going the wrong direction. But so far it’s been a lovely, relaxing drive.

Really looking forward to seeing bcat1 and spacechicken! And plumtreeblossom is a delightful travelling companion, as always. We might get to meet justanyolname and her husband while we’re down there, schedule permitting.

plumtreeblossom says to tell you all she says hi. :-)