Autumn's First Birthday and Robin's Thirty-Something-ist

Autumn's birthday is easily remembered because it is 10-11-12. Robin's birthday is October 14th. To celebrate both birthdays, Frank and I flew from Boston, MA to Oklahoma City, OK via a Southwest Airline flight that stopped off at Baltimore, MD. We got there in time to help with the preparations for Autumn's birthday party to be held on Saturday, October 12th.

We did not need to switch planes on our way to see Robin, Jeremy, and Autumn, but we did have one stopover.

Jeremy, Robin, and Autumn all came to pick us up at the airport. We stayed at their new home our first and last nights in Oklahoma. The other nights we stayed at the Hampton Inn and Suites so that Jeremy's mom, dad, brother, sister, brother-in-law, two nieces, nephew, another sister, and her boyfriend could all stay together at the new house. Yup, that's two from Robin's side and ten from Jeremy's side to be at the party - and that's before the daycare classmates and their parents were counted. After all, this was a special event. Autumn was turning one! Robin had planned a party with a theme of a "Monster Mash" and had even sewn her a monster print dress for the occasion.

Autumn is wearing the party dress her mom sewed for her
while showing how many years old she is.

All those extra hands were invaluable, pitching in to make the snacks and deploy the decorations Robin had planned for the party. There were Frankenstein snack cups, Monsters Inc. apple slices, witches' brew punch, and witch hat cookies. Adding a bit of the Halloween bent, were orange mini-pumpkins with tiny stems, spider deviled eggs with legs of olive slivers, and oreo cookies with orange frosting faces.

Frankenstein snack cups were created in the lab of a mad scientist from green waffle cones
with anatomically accurate frosting features affixed. 

Apple slices have more "a-peel" when presented with Mike Wazowski flair.
Mike was Sully's side kick from the Monster's Inc movie.

Jeremy's sister Felicia presents the "steaming cauldron" of witch's brew,
an apple juice punch magically enhanced with a bit of dry ice.

The witch hats were concocted of Hershey kisses, inverted fudge stripe cookies, and a
special spell of steadiness cast over the hands that applied the orange frosting hat bands.

These peeled clementines with celery stems were kid size pumpkins.

The decorations followed the monster theme. Each guest could have his picture taken inside of Boo's disguise when she was being hidden from the citizen's of Monstropolis. Notice I said each guest, and not each kid.

Here is Frank making sure the camera shots of the kids will work well.

A path of Sully balloons led the guests to the front door. Side walls of the dining area displayed hand-painted renditions of monsters, baby style. The far wall as you entered the dining room presented the food spread and the banners announcing Autumn's Monster Mash. 

Sully guided the guests path to the party.

Wookie widda bottle was one of the baby monster portraits on the walls.

The spread for Autumn's Monster Mash included a pennant banner and
two Draculas in tuxedos acting as sentinel cupcakes on either side of the cake.

Frank and Robin picked the cake up from the bakery while I stayed in the car with Autumn. The cake was to have a big reveal and no one was to see it until Autumn's daddy had. Jeremy was busy with other tasks and could not take the time to look at the cake. I tried to contain my curiosity and went off to do other preps. When I passed by the dining room later I saw the lid of the cake partway up. Thinking Jeremy had already seen it and that I had missed the big reveal, I raised the lid further and looked in. The cake was decorated with monsters and even Cookie Monster had a cookie in his mouth. It was so cute... except for one detail. The bakery had misspelled Autumn by omitting the final letter. "Didn't any one notice Autumn's name?" I asked Robin. Her first instinct was be shocked and to gasp at me, "You peeked before Jeremy?" Then she rushed over to the cake, peered in with dismay, and proceeded to rant against the bakery. Had time permitted she would have stormed back there to have them fix it. Luckily, Jeremy's brother had a very steady hand and there was leftover orange frosting from the witches hats, so Josh came to the rescue and added the "N". Crisis averted.

Josh's steady hand saved the day.

Happy Birthday A-u-t-u-M-N

What "Monster Mash" would be complete without a "Graveyard Smash"? Autumn was not tactilely timid. She initially explored the cake gingerly but then dove into tasting all that gooey, messy, chocolate stuff.

A gravestone smash cake.

Patty cake, Patty-cake...

Yum! And what photographic foresight! Black icing contrasts really well.

Cleanup was best achieved by going directly to the kitchen sink. Autumn thought this part of the smash cake ritual was fun, too.

Robin and I hosed icing off Autumn legs, arms, and face.
I loved the Monster's Inc. pink onesie Robin selected for her ritual cake smash.

What birthday is complete without presents! Frank and I sent a Kettler tricycle ahead as our gift, and Frank assembled it shortly after we got to Robin and Jeremy's home. It has a push handle and foot rest feature that let her enjoy the tricycle even before she learns to pedal. She loved it! That red bell accessory has a very merry sound that just makes you smile, even if the cute, little, blond, blue-eyed rider that's wearing a big grin isn't your granddaughter.

Grandma and Autumn are trying out her new tricycle
in the circular driveway in front of her house.

Toodle-oo Tuesday in Boston

Dan and Carrie would be leaving on a mid afternoon flight to return to California but we still had Tuesday morning for a final Boston activity with them. The agenda included a guided tour of Fenway Park. The tour began in the team store, a strategy representing entrepreneurial planning at its finest. Dan, Carrie, and I browsed the store while Frank sat in a comfortable seat to wait for the tour to begin. I bought a Boston Red Sox rubber duckie for Autumn. Then we were off! Cue organ music... Take me out to the ball game...

Frank prefers waiting to spending money.
This tends to be his fiscal philosophy in general so we complement each other well.

Autumn thought this little duckie was yummy.
Upon my giving it to her, she shoved it straight into her  mouth, baseball cap first.

The exit to the store directed us across the street to historic Fenway Park.

The tour started by a taking a peek into the visitors' locker room. Then the guide led us single file up into the stands to get an overview of the stadium. Each party in the line paused in front of a photographer, who posed them for a souvenir picture, another fine example of entrepreneurial excellence. Dan took a photo of Frank and me as we passed along one of the upper walkways. Frank asked how the intricate pattern in the playing field was made. We could understand how a mowing pattern could make the striped or checkerboard design but how about the "B Strong"? We learned that the pattern is created by angling a hose directing a stream of high pressure water to lay the grass down in different directions, providing the two tones of color. I thought to myself, "This is just like the nap of velvet, corduroy, or fur fabric." The fabricaholic in me never dies.

Frank and I paused to admire the playing field from up high.
I was fascinated with the technique for patterning the green.

Behind our backs in the "B Strong" photo is the Green Monster. The scoreboard is in that tall green wall. The corridor behind the scoreboard is unheated, icy cold in chilly weather, and swelteringly hot in warm weather, and yet two men worked faithfully within those non-ideal conditions updating the scores during every game. Well, almost every game.  They only missed one game collectively within over twenty years of service. That was the day one of them got married and the other was his best man. Our tour guide thought the wedding should have been scheduled during the off-season. Our tour then walked to the seating area above the Green Monster and we were allowed to sit there a bit and admire the ball field from that vantage point within Fenway Park.

Here are Carrie, Frank, and Dan in the seats above the Green Monster.
Note the sign at the lower left corner. There is a close-up of it next.

I don't quite know why, but I was bemused by this sign at the Green Monster seating area.
Do the seats spring up and fire the offending fan into the air?

Our tour continued among the various pavilion levels of the stadium. We entered and paused for a bit in the pressroom, where the sports writers and sports reporters watch the games. We learned there is assigned seating and a pecking order. Along the way we passed no other than Micky Mouse. As a Disney fan I could not pass up a photo-op with Red Sox Mickey. I also could not miss the opportunity for another father/son photo during our saunter around Fenway Park.

As a Disney fan I could not pass up this photo-op!

This photo does not have the same prestige as the "Men of Boston" photo from my previous post
but it gets across the same point.  We were all having a fun time bonding while horsing around.

We also saw the Citgo sign, an iconic part of the Boston skyline. One well-known baseball player whose name I have forgotten (sorry, but, no sports figure is well-known to me) got his inspiration to hit home runs from the sign. He would spur himself on by envisioning the ball launched off his bat with the words,  "Cee - it - go"! The CITGO sign is also a nostalgic image for Frank and me from our MIT days. During the majority of his graduate student years, Frank lived on the 11th floor of Tang Hall, a graduate student dorm.  Frank's room 11B-4, had a great close-up view of the CITGO sign right outside his window.

The final bullet of the CITGO sign facts points out that anytime a home run ball is hit
over left field in Fenway Park, the CITGO sign is in the image.

At the end of the tour we walked through the Red Sox and Fenway Park memorabilia room. One gentleman there proudly showed me his world series rings.

This gentleman was not a Boston Red Sox player but sported two rings.
The team had voted that support members got rings as well.

This is a closeup view of the World Champion rings for 2007 and 2004.

After the Fenway Park Tour we had enough time for a light lunch before Dan and Carrie had to catch their ~3:00 flight. A restaurant just outside and across the street from the park was Sweet Caroline's. Carrie, technical writer that she is with a strong eye for detail, immediately spotted the mangled reference on their advertising chalkboard. Dan and Carrie were married in San Juan Capistrano.

Can you spot the phrase? Were those flocking fish intentional?
Maybe the beer does flow like wine within.

Although I did not know it at the time, I now know that the phrase is a quote from the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber.  I guess my taste in movies back then did not sway me to rush right out and see that one. Or, if my younger tastes did woo me into watching it, then there is mercy in getting older, and I've forgotten I'd seen it. Here is the phrase in context.

Quote from the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber

As I was writing about this I found out that those salmon have their own web site, too.  Check it out at http://salmonofcapistrano.com/. Although "the Salmon of Capastrano" was a bit of a slight to their wedding venue in a weird way, it was also funny. We laughed it off and ate there! We sat at a booth where the wall behind us was a vertical bank of dirt planted with real foliage. I wondered how the restaurant owners watered it? Although the bar was extensive, the wall gave the room a very atrium-like feel and the abundance of wood tones lent a luxe feel.

We had our final lunch with Dan and Carrie at Sweet Caroline's, across the street from Fenway Park.

We made our way back to the town home on Appleton street where Dan and Carrie picked up their luggage and set off for Logan Airport. It was great to have been able to spend such concentrated time with them. It was even more special to have had the opportunity and circumstances to share with them snippets of our lives when we were just a few years younger than they are now, back just before and just after Frank and I were married.

Dan and Carrie posed for one last picture in our 83 Appleton rental before departing for the airport.
This downstairs area was where Frank and I stayed while their bedroom was upstairs.

We had the rental on the town home for one more night since our flight to Oklahoma was not until Wednesday. As timing worked out, we were able Tuesday evening to re-connect with our friends John and Sue for a quiet evening of dinner and conversation. John works in nearby Cambridge and Sue drove into the city after she left work. We relaxed in the town home for a bit and then meandered to the Metropolis Cafe on Tremont Street for dinner. It truly was Toodle-oo Tuesday since we said good-bye to them also that day. Wednesday morning we took "the T" out to Logan airport.

In the background behind Frank, the train of the first leg of our subway route to the airport is approaching.

We were off to Oklahoma to celebrate our first granddaughter's first birthday and her mommy's over thirtieth. I took the following picture at Boston's Logan airport because it just seemed to capture the role of the modern grandparent - getting out of their rocking chairs to fly off and see the kids and grandkids.

The modern vs. the old. Jet plane vs. rocking chair.

A "Dry" Monday in Boston

The rain from Sunday stopped. It was to be a dry Monday. We peeked outside the front door of our brownstone home-away-from-home to check out the weather.

We were in the first and basement floor portions of 83 Appleton and it was really quite roomy.
Frank just had to duck his head to get in there!

The reason "dry" is in quotes is because we started the day with the Samuel Adams Brewery Tour, possibly Dan's most anticipated event of the trip. We took mass transit to the brewery, signed up for the noon tour, and were given Grumpy Monk labels as our tickets. While in the waiting room we tasted some spices that can be added to beer. The ones I remember were rose hips, nutmeg, and coriander.  I learned that coriander is the seed for cilantro. I never knew that!

Our ticket for the tour was a beer label.  Different tour times had different labels.

Since grain is the primary ingredient of beer (except for water, of course) the tour begins with sampling from three barrels of grains of different degrees of darkness. We were instructed to place a few grains in our mouth and chew them. The guide tells you how one has a fruity flavor, another a caramel toffee taste, another almost a coffee flavor and how each is the major component of either an ale or a lager, the two main beer types. Fruity and caramel were a large stretch of the imagination for me. The grain that went into the darker type beers actually tasted burnt to me even though it was described as espresso-like. I do not drink coffee so maybe espresso and burnt are one and the same. I am a fruit and caramel fan, though, and I was still skeptical of his flavor descriptions.

This is the grain tasting beginning of the brewery tour.

The Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston is a research facility and not a mass production plant. The brewing process was quite complicated to me with the tour guide throwing around a whole slew of chemistry terms. The time that the yeast is allowed to work is critical to too-sweet or just-right a flavor since it generates sugars. Exactly when the water is drained off has an effect on what components have been allowed to fall out of the mash solution as a sediment. Temperature is important too. It was all too much information too fast and I did not follow nor can I repeat most of it. Maybe I should have taken notes? Nah! But I can simply report with certainty that the copper vessels were pretty and impressively large. We also learned that the brewery workers are allowed to drink beer while on the job, in moderation, of course. Personally I think the bulk of the tour was just a pretense to get to the tasting room.

This room houses the brewing vessels.

Here we are in the tasting room. Pitchers of three different kinds of beer were passed around and we could fill our plastic cups to the brim. We were asked to notice the smell, the clarity, the foam head, and the flavor nuances of each. Dan seemed the happiest of us four. After I'd taken a sip from the partially filled cup I'd so gingerly poured myself, I hid my face so the tour guide would not see my grimace and then discretely poured my sample into Dan's cup. The guide asked for a show of hands of those who were tasting Sam Adams Beer for the first time. Dan insisted I raise my hand and he added that I had never tasted any beer before, ever. The tour guide declared "Yay. We popped her beer cherry!" With all that beer in abundance the mood was very informal.

In the tasting room, at last. For many, this is the climax of the tour.

The tour guide asked what I thought. I replied, "It's...," pausing to find a good non-insulting word to describe the fruits of this man's chosen profession, "it's... different." He quipped back, "Hey, that would make a great Sam Adams commercial". Then he deadpanned a guy pointing to a bottle of beer in his hand, stating in a monotone. "Buy Sam Adams Beer. It's different."

Sam Adam's Beer. It's different.

After the tour we went to the gift shop where Dan got a shirt and jacket with subtle Sam Adams references. The brewery actually offered an unlimited number of free post cards you could write to your friends and they would also cover the postage. I thought this was a generous gesture. Then we boarded the Party Bus and were off to a lunch at famous Doyle's Cafe. Doyle's is within walking distance of the brewery, but taking the Party Bus would be another experience. Packed with people who have just happily imbibed several plastic cups of beer, outfitted with a sparkling disco ball, and boisterously pumping Sweet Caroline out the speakers, the bus merrily trundles along the streets of Boston and its riders gaily sing along in full voice. Pedestrians along the way often chimed in. Why Sweet Caroline? The song is a Boston tradition. Sweet Caroline has been played in the middle of the 8th inning at every Fenway Park game since 2002.

Frank is ready to board the Party Bus to Doyle's. 

Dan and Carrie sat before us in the Party Bus. Frank and I were in the rear row,
just like we were in the Fenway Fanny Duck. Hmmmm. Is there a trend here?

Doyle's was a typical Boston pub with typical pub food. Dan turned in his Grumpy Monk label for a free glass of Sam Adams beer. He had to buy the beer, just the glass was free. But it is a special glass with a shape specially designed to keep the beer cold since you hold it at the relatively narrow base. The base also is molded with bumps to cause nucleation sites for the bubbles in the beer. The glass broadens upward from the base and then tapers inward to funnel the aroma to your nasal passages. And lastly, the flared rim holds just the right amount of foam.

There is a lot of science in the design of this glass.
And to think, Dan got it for free!

After lunch we set out for Boston Common and Boston Gardens. It was in Boston Commons during the holidays in our college days that I asked Frank where all the Christmas lights were plugged in. I remember fondly how we embarked on the adventure of tracing the path of the wires back to their source. Little did we know then we would be revisiting decades later with our son and his wife.

History is repeating itself a generation later as we visit the commons with Dan and Carrie.

We headed over the the Boston Gardens next. We only had to go to three out of the four corners to finally find the Make Way for Ducklings bronze statues modeled from the classic Robert McCloskey children's book of the same title.

Here I am with Mama Duck. The names of her eight babies are
Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack 

Frank and I sat on a nearby bench and enjoyed watching kids scrambling all over the statues. I looked down at our feet and noticed we were sitting on the Grandparents Bench. How fitting this was since within four days we would be in Oklahoma celebrating the first birthday of our first grandchild.

Frank are going toe to toe in this grandparent business!

The Swan Boats had be put away for the season and were not available for riding.

No, Frank, no! You really cannot get to those swan boats that way!

It was still fun seeing my two men posed under the Men of Boston monument.

Dan and Frank are admiring each other in front of
this monument dedicated to the Men of Boston.

It was getting late and the sun was setting but we had one more destination before nightfall. We set out to take the "T" to the end of the Green Line at the Lechmere stop. Just a few blocks from here was where Frank and I lived just after were married in 1975. The address of the house was 60 Otis Street, Cambridge, MA.

This was our nearest street corner. Many buildings have sprouted up around the area in the last 38 years.

At night from our apartment you could  hear the squeal of the trolly wheels on the rails as they made the tight turn. Dan and Carrie rode a similar trolley with Frank and me to view our first apartment.

The turn radius at this end of the line is reputed to be the smallest on the MBTA
and thus limits the car sizes that can go there.

We lived on the first floor in a one bedroom apartment with a living room, small office area, kitchen, and one bathroom, just off the kitchen. That bay window at street level in the front was our master bedroom. The bathroom was all the way at the back and you had to walk through the office area, the living room, and the kitchen to get to it. The rent was $200 a month and we brought home $250 a month. We would put a candle underneath the pipe that fed the toilet to keep it from freezing when it got really cold since the bathroom was in the corner of the building and thus had two outdoor walls. Our friends John and Sue lived on the third floor. In fact it was they who let us know of the vacancy in the building when we were searching for a place to live. We lived here in Cambridge for only one year before moving out to California. It was fun to revisit it and even more fun to share it with Dan and Carrie.

Frank and I spent our honeymoon year here at 60 Otis Street, Cambridge, MA.

It was a long day and so this was a very long post. Congratulations if you have read this far. We went back to our Appleton Street abode and rested a bit. We later topped off the evening by having a simple dinner at the Upper Crust pizzeria before going home and collapsing.

Once again the restaurant selection on Tremont Street did not fail us.
The pizza here was great and the atmosphere was quaint and fun.