Scenes from the Urban Canyon

There’s nothing like getting your hair done when you’re suffering from a mad case of the Hags. (Symptoms : Overall feelings of haggishness, corpulence. Crows feet - pronounced. Skin – pasty.) But it was tough for the Hags to bring anyone down this weekend. The SUN was out. Bulky outerwear was not required. The Red Sox SWEPT the Yankees for the first time since 1990 (and made HR history…that was insane!).

I wanted to skip – all giddy and gay -- down Newbury to my hair appointment. I had to downgrade to a shuffle, however, as the sidewalks all over the city were busting at the seams and were not conducive to strides or skips. Street musicians and artists were peddling their wares on every corner. A pack of elderly women was doing Tai Chi --- inexplicably -- on the corner of Dartmouth and Newbury which created a serious bottleneck. I was actually getting sweaty as I made my way to the salon. I had an overwhelming urge to ditch my black sweater and jeans for a sundress but there was a line to get into H&M, the only place I could afford an impulse purchase.

I let it go. It was finally above 60 degrees. This-is-why-I’m-hot. Embrace it. After downing an entire liter of spring water, I told Maria, my hair stylist and sister-in-common-law, that I was rendezvous-ing with EPB and Code Red at the Urban Canyon a.k.a the roofdeck at the Rattlesnake later that afternoon. Maria – always a conjurer of random cool stuff -- produced a GC to the Snake circa 2001. You can understand why this GC sat dormant in her wallet for six years. The food at this place is awful but it’s the perfect setting for certain situations, i.e, watching the Sox game outdoors in an uncrowded setting with cocktails.

Pointy Note: EPB -- pictured here -- is moving to Australia in June to work for at least one year. He’ll be firing up his own blog “Bean Down Under” soon so we can keep tabs on his adventures among the wallabies. Some friends of his who have lived there said kangaroos on the golf course are regarded with the same indifference as pigeons on the Boston Common. I can’t wait for his first posting which will likely involve giggling and the uploading of kangaroo photos to his BDU blog. It’s only a matter of time before the Aussies start calling him Joey.

Anyway, EPB was telling Annie and I the story of how whenever his parents go out to dinner, his 79-year-old father always thinks someone at the restaurant “looks familiar” and he can’t help himself from striking up conversations with these familiar-looking strangers, regardless of how obscure.






Less than a half hour later, in a seemingly unrelated incident, EPB pointed to a very tall, very young waitress in gaping fishnet stockings. “That waitress looks really familiar.” Right. Sure. “Seriously. I’m not making this up. She really does. I think she’s from Weymouth.” OK. He was adamant and was on the verge of betting cash-money that the woman -- if not from Weymouth --was from definitely Quincy or Braintree or Hingham or anywhere within a 10-mile radius.

Sure enough, he stopped the woman, confident in his point. “Excuse me, where are you from?”
Was it Quincy? Braintree? Weymouth? Hingham?

Nope. Ukraine.

After Annie and I stopped laughing, he said he said he was glad he didn’t know her after all, referring to her “skanky tights."

Oh man…EPB….I’m going to miss you so much!!