It was an eventful mid march weekend. After a long week I got home Friday night and honestly I was down for the count. I fell asleep on the futon, woke up in the wee hours of the morning, and then I slept till afternoon on Saturday.
After pulling myself together I went to Charlestown to pick up Mike Caprio, and we headed over to see Scott Wilkinson (both are old friends from St. Joe's College) at his new (to me anyway) condo in Maynard. It is a nice two bedroom unit in a small complex situated on the banks of a rushing brook. The view, and the sound of the water rushing by alone makes it an ideal place to live.
The night started with candlepin bowling in Stow MA. For those outside of New Endland, candlepin bowling uses small heavy balls without holes. A key difference is that the dead pins that don't roll off the alley remain between your attempts to knock down the pins with in a set. This would seem to help, but it doesn't very much. I was watching the alley to see if anyone bowled a strike, but the occasional spare was about as good as it gets.
The bowling alley was very busy and populated mostly with teenagers and a few family outings. It actually had computerized scoring which surprised me. Typically candlepin alleys tend to be really outdated and lack such technology. In typical fashion I lost all three rounds of bowling to both Scott and Mike. (Candlepin ain't my thing)
After the game we picked up some beer and pizza and headed back to Scotty's to watch the Pacquiao-Marquez rematch fight on pay-per-view. The deal included 3 fights beside the Pacquiao-Marquez battle, however this feature fight was by far the most entertaining. It was very close in the end with an early knock down of Marquez giving Pacquiao the edge. After an entertaining evening I drove Caprio back to Charlestown, and then headed back to Melrose. Before going to bed I did some final work on my draft rankings for fantasy baseball.
I woke up early the next morning (early for a weekend anyway....) to go to breakfast with Kate at the South Street Diner. The diner is really close to South Station, however I did have a bit of trouble finding it. I was 15 minutes late and cranky when I arrived. Kate didn't mind (or tolerated) my tardiness and we waited another 15-20 minutes to get in side. My irritation (mostly at myself) melted away once the coffee was in front of me and we were seated at the bar of the diner. We were directly under a heater blowing down on us which also to the bite out of the cold and damp March morning. I had a cheese omelet with toast and home fries, Kate had eggs, toast and home fries. The home fries were exceptionally nice and were more like lightly spiced, small cut potato wedges. It was a neat little greasy spoon with an edgy staff which was curt but friendly. We were served by a pleasant waitress with a lip ring. The cooks and the wait staff argued about pop culture and what songs to play next which made for interesting entertainment. Because of the St. Patrick's Day festivities the music was primarily of an Irish nature. Some of the staff was irritated by one waiter's enthusiasm for local act "The Dropkick Murphy's" (made popular by "The Departed" and use by The Red Sox to celebrate recent victories). The waiter defended the band with the claim that "They make me want to kill someone....... In the best way possible, of course". Overall for those of you in the Portland area, South Street diner sort of reminded me most of Marcy's with a potentially more interactive dining experience.
After our food Kate and I made our way over to Broadway in South Boston to watch the parade. Broadway station was mobbed with people to the point you could even move. We walked nearly all the way to the far end of Southie before the crowds thinned out slightly so we could get a good vantage point to watch the parade. It was a little chilly, and we had some mixed precipitation, but the festivities, the amusing (and often intoxicated) crowd, and people watching made it all worthwhile. It was the first time I'd been in my several years living in "Greater Boston" and I'm glad I finally saw it. Some pictures below....note the hokey "St. Patrick" fake beard and all. I missed getting a picture of the bomb squad and the trash truck, both would have been good captures.
After the parade we made our way to Brookline (with some degree of difficulty breaking free of the crowds). In Brookline we rented "Gone baby Gone" which lived up to the Dennis Lehane novel (author of Mystic River) it is based on. Casey Affleck as actually well cast as Patrick Kenzie who is a private investigator at the center of the story. His character is not really a leading man in the book and embodies many flaws. Kenzie's determination and ability to relate to the blue collar and criminal elements in Boston make him succeed at role within the story. Patrick Kenzie is a re-occurring character in Lehane's novels and I'd actually like to see Affleck reprise the role. Despite Affleck's success at making Kenzie a reality, I felt Angela was not as edgy or true to the tough intimidating beauty that is portrayed in the novel.
Kate and I had a couple of subs for supper from a local shop in Cleveland Circle. I had a meatball and she had a ham & cheese prepared "Italian-style". We each had a half of each others sandwich and split a bag of chips while enjoying the movie.
Reluctantly I eventually headed home. I fiddled around the apartment a bit and now I am finally off to bed.
Anyway have a splendid Monday. Happy St. Patrick's day!
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