Do I look like a bikest??

When Adam and I set out on finding some bicycles, we had a few important criteria:
It must be cheap
It must be a one speed with no bells and whistles
It must have a place for a basket

Meet my bike, Panama Jack. It met my criteria and more! First, it is from Walmart and cost $165.

It has a vintage color scheme and design

Extra big padded seat for my booty and a platform for a basket attachment

A bottle opener!!!! Whaaaaat!?

And a bottle-holder and a pouch for my granola bars and sanitary napkins!

Do I look like a bikest???

Oh, and Adam got a purple bike

We have tested these babies out by riding around our block several times and then riding down a very short woodsy back path. We have to work our way up to riding on real-life streets. Our goals for our bikes include but are not limited to: Riding to Moody St. to get icecream; riding on the bike path to get to the basketball courts so Adam shoot hoops and I can chase the rebounds; work out our glutes; show off my cat helmet.

More bike adventure posts to come. Welcome to Springtime! The blog is now out of hibernation.

Gentlesness corrects whatever is offensive in our manner.

 

This is the finest item I've ever purchased for $3.77. This book contains over 1,300 proverbs and I am already ten times wiser after having skimmed this. It is very hard to resist listing 100 of my top favorites, but I'm going to try to have a 'proverb of the day' on facebook (I know.) to curb this.

So, the beginning of this blog entry is what journalists call burying the lead. That is, I have entirely failed to discuss what is to be the highlight--actually, topic--of this blog entry. One day roadtrip to Scranton, Pennsylvania. There. Second paragraph. Not so buried.

Adam wanted to plan a manageable trip over one of our rare 'free' weekends. After he attempted to plan this without my input, I informed him that I had neglected to put two important events on our google calendar for both Friday and Sunday. Rather than cancel the plan, we just decided to condense it to Saturday.

Why Scranton? Because we're fans of The Office? No. Because it met the following criteria: a) Within 5 hours b) has funny local sites to go to. Okay, so we had countless options if that were our only criteria so I guess it's because we are aware of the town's existence due to The Office....And we didn't want to go to New York.

These pictures came after I missed the sign for "Welcome to Pennsylvania". Scenic, yes?





We left Massachusetts at dawn with snacks, audio books and giggles in tow. First stop (aside from the potty at McDonalds) was the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour. The tour entailed going in a big cart into an actual (non-functioning) coal mine and walking around underneath the ground through some of the 'veins' of the mine. The coal mine opened in 1860 and stopped operation in November 1966 because other sources of energy were much more easily harnessed. Our tour guide, Tony, was very knowledgeable and I think not-so-secretly angry at The Man. He made it a point to stick it to the Federal government for secretly being responsible for pollution, coal miners deaths, child labor, and creating the lazy youth of America that we have today.

 

 

Oh...As a side note, and by that I mean as the highlight: I bought the proverb book and Adam got a sick T-shirt in the gift shop.

Our next attempted stop was at the Houdini Museum...I dare you to go to the website--It will help you understand how insane this place is SLASH why we weren't surprised that the door was locked and had a hand-written note about needing a reservation. Fail. But, a predicted fail.

We had a back-up site because we knew the Houdini Museum was either non-existent or was not going to work out as planned. We went to the Everhart Museum which had natural history (dinos), art (folk, contemporary and local) and STUFFED BIRDS OF EVERY VARIETY.

 

 

Last, and finally not least, we chose a nice restaurant in Moosic, PA that got 4-5 stars across the board on yelp.com: AV. There was no menu online, but the reviews raved of the food and the prices. The other main point that the reviews made was that the outside is a shit hole and to not be discouraged. When we arrived, we noticed that the outside was a shit hole. To be fair that picture isn't the worst ever, but the building looked like a one-story warehouse with a sign that looked like it should belong to a condemned discotech.

The food and price were perfect. We got the bruschetta with olive tapenade, parmesan and tomatoes, the spinach salad with bosc pears and walnuts; I got the roasted chicken with veal and sage stuffing and lyonnaise potatoes and Adam go the pork chop with chive butter and frites. Boom goes the dynamite.

After, we went back to our $77 hotwire.com hotel and rested up for our return-trip at dawn.

Thank this

I have been utterly absent from my blog, but not for lack of amazing things to blog about. I go into every experience and take pictures as if I plan on blogging, but end up "failing" to do so. However, the excellent excuse that I have been providing to my clambering public is that my hunger for creativity that resulted in the formation of this blog has been so fulfilled by the blog itself as well as the one million other things that I have been busy with.

That being said, today is a good day to do a thankful-for-slash-two-month recap of the things that I love and appreciate.

1) Book Club: In October, I organized a book club (Jeal?). It has since been dubbed sexy lady book club (I think), and us sexy ladies get together every 4-6 weeks to discuss the latest book, eat some snacks and drink wine. This is my greatest joy. So far, we have read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken. I will not comment here on my actual opinions of these books, other than to say that the discussion that they have and will provide is rich, touchy, and entertaining.

2) The marriage of my two lovely and in-love friends

 

Mary and Carl had their wedding at the Fuller Craft Museum; handmade all of the center pieces and wedding favors; tied their rings inside a Harry Potter book; were married by our good friend Matt (son of a preacher man);...on top of a home base plate; Mary had a m-f'ing rainbow dress; and Carl is the man of her dreams. Best day ever.

3) Seeing my lady friends all the time. This includes and is not limited to: going to see The Donkey Show; going to Drink; having joint birthday parties.

 

 3a) Okay, to be fair, Drink deserves its own category

Drink in the seaport area of Boston is the shit. I'm a late-comer to this fine establishment. They have no drink menu besides wine and beer so you say things like: "I like gin gimlets, can you make me something more exciting?", and voila

Then other lady friends said, "I like sexy rum drinks"...Or, "Put anything in any sexy glass and I will be sure to put it down my gullet". That's pretty much happen, so it's a shock and happy surprise that I have any documentation of this evening. Because, no only did we drink, but we ate. Oh how we ate. Amazing Babara Lynch food.....Including, but obvs not limited to: falafel

 cauliflower

4) Finding hikes in Waltham with my husborg. We lovvve nature.

 

Oh and going to Sweet Tomatoes afterward...

 

7) ALL THINGS HALLOWEEN

Adam and I were Ms. Pac Man and Clyde. Clearly.

Carving pumpkins with friends and playing "guess what time of wine this is" with friends is where its at.

7a) and again, to be fair,  The Paint Bar in Newton, MA deserves its own category.

For $35 (And with a groupon $17!), you get a canvas, paints, brushes and instruction on how to paint the painting of the day. You sit around with a bunch of friends and ladies AND there's a bar with beer and wine. We happened to go on their halloween party day so there was also gallons of free candy. Win.

8) Fall things: Adam joining a softball league and going apple picking with friends

9) and last, but not least...(As you know, since they are in every blog post), the daily joys and giggles that my Nuni and Beatrix bring to me

10) Okay fine, one more, from the immediate present: THE MACY'S DAY PARADE at 9am, THE DOG SHOW, AND MY MOTHER'S STUFFING.

Welcome to the Tham

We sure know how to pick 'em. Adam and I are masters at living in the suburbs because we have a rich appreciation for local flavor. And by that I mean we are grandmothers. 

Moving out of Natick was more out of necessity than desire, though we were excited for a change of scenery. While everyone knows that Waltham has Moody St. and a movie theater, both of which we love, we have been pleasantly surprised by the variety and nuance of local Waltham culture.

First priority, was of course, finding new walking paths. Somehow we pulled off living along the Charles River and therefore there are several path heads right out our front door, including this welcoming "Healthy Eff Trail"

.

 

As you I know, Natick was filled with nature trails, so while this is a nice amenity in Waltham, it's nothing to write home about.

Second order of bidness was to be sure to try out the culinary strongholds of the city which has so far included: Solea, Boca, Tom's Pizza, Francos, Jocos, Lizzy's, Tara Restaurant and Carl's Subshop. Respectively that entrails Spanish tapas, Costa Rican food, Just-OK-rated pizza, townie bar/ pizza shop with live band, townie bar with decent televisons and great Moscato, ice cream, pizza shop/chilean sub shop and THE C OF TC LANDOS!!!!

All I have to show for myself is my steak sub, Adam's budster and a blurry picture of Lizzy's.

 

On our Waltham exploration weekend that didn't take place until one month into our habitation because we have extensive social obligations....We were sure to check out the Charles River Museum of Industry, off of Moody St. and the Gore Place.

The industry museum was, fo reals, fantastic. First of all, it's straight up steam punk, including exhibits about textile manufacturing, watch making, steam power, and an interactive machine shop.

I got a free dog tag thingy that I punched a hole in and then hammered imprints of letters onto. Essentially I did arts and crafts while Adam learned about the intricacies of pulleys.

 

Jealous?

Finally, they had this bogus exhibit that apparently was designed by the bassist of Phish. There were colored glass lumps on the wall, each with a name like "Cleopatra", "High strung", "Nebulae", which, when approached, would start making a particular melody. What!?

Our next stop was the Gore Place. This is a mansion built in 1806, used as a summer home by Governor Christopher Gore and his wife Rebecca. It is surrounded by a lot of land, including a still-functioning farm and walking paths. They do tours on the hour and you get to see all the fancy decorated rooms and furnishings.

I found this tour equally as compelling as any mansion tour that you can do in bigger cities, particularly various European destinations. I mostly liked it because there was a legit tour guide who told us stuff and it was very New Englandish and I felt more connected to it.

Clearly, I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside. Also, we were the only ones on this tour so sneaking pictures was not an option. So instead, here's a picture of the David.

In other news, due to new territorial rules in our new apartment, the horrible monster cats are getting along much better. Oh 'Tham, you're too good to me.