(Sea Burds)To celebrate the summer solstice, we gathered at Tavern on the Water last night for a seaside Suppah Club. The TOTW is a favorite al fresco haunt from the Charlestown era. The back deck is the perfect hang on summer nights where you sit surrounded by views of the harbor, the North End wharves, and the Zakim bridge. The occasional LNG tanker, with its clustered chaos of helicopters, tugboats and armed FBI agents, serves as a reminder that your quaint harborside dinner could be interrupted by an apocalyptic explosion at any moment -- but it's all part of the experience.
It was not terrorism that threatened our estival nosh last night, however, but a Boston.com weather advisory posted by Todd Gross predicting severe thunderstorms and hail (Hail!?) around our arrival in the Navy Yard. Not again.Brownguy banished our discouragement, kicking off a positive-thinking email chain: Are you going to believe this guy?
(Don't turn around. Uh oh.)Right on. It wasn't one of those days where the air was so thick and moist that the skies just erupt under the pressure. The "wall of ass" wasn't present. As a weather junkie, I just wasn’t feeling it.
Positive thoughts coupled with a talisman -- an email sign-off of "Fuck Todd Gross (FTG)" for the rest of the afternoon -- seemed to work. But as Jess, Auntie and I made the slow crawl up 93, a text message told otherwise. Brownie sent us a picture from the deck of the Tavern that showed a menacing Independence-Day-like cloud rolling in from the north. FTG.Amazingly, the ID cloud missed us, and when others loomed, we used Auntie’s hair as barometer: If it wasn’t curling up or fraying at her temples, it wasn’t humid enough to thunder. It didn't.
(Mamas)As our shelter-seeking anxiety subsided, Suppah Club convo finally kicked off: Jess talked about wanting to go on a high-end safari and we wondered aloud about the difference between high-end vs. low-end safaris. Low-end: A busted-up Jeep, some mosquito netting and the ever-present danger of being mauled. High end: Perched on an African veranda overlooking the desert, sipping martinis and commenting -- in a very affected Howell-ish tone -- "Oh darling, look -- monkeys."
We toasted JAL’s still-legal, always-to-be-legal marriage and marveled at Cameo who is headed to Peru to volunteer at an orphanage for a few weeks. So very proud. It's sure to be a life-altering experience for our friend on many levels. We’re just hoping the alterations don't involve a Peruvian infant in a Baby Bjorn on the Nantucket trip next month. Godspeed!
4 comments:
KJ,
I referred a friend to the PU. He had some interesting comments, and suggested that you see...
1. Robert Altman's "Dr. T and the Women".
2. Todd Solondz-director of "Welcome to the Dollhouse"- directed a very interesting film "Storytelling".
Um, ok. I’m a little confused as to why, though – is it to mock me or educate me? Forgive my paranoia.
“interesting comments?” – are you trying to kill me!?
Neither. It's to offer something to the mix.
I should have commented in the anniversary blog (happy 2nd, by the way): I have a great deal of respect for any writer who leads with their face.
The PU offers such an interesting oeuvre into issues of friendship, orientation, gender, class, education and I think he thought you'd be interested in on how Solondz and Altman weigh in on those subjects.
American men and women have changed so much in a short time, and I think one can see those changes so well-pronounced on the PU.
In the thrown out stuffed animal blog you asked jokingly (or maybe not) for analysis of it. I think one could draw an interesting parallel between that scenario and the PU in a larger sense.
Thank you for this.
You have no idea.
I am a mentorless person -- not by choice -- and reading this from someone who is so clearly a gifted writer literally brings tears to my eyes. I'm not joking, I'm tearing up. Neither the PU nor I have never received a larger compliment.
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