in_the_blue | Hey Theah from Boston

So we got up early today and went to Fenway Park. I consider it to be the perfect place for a pilgrimage: the first thing I wanted to see in this city after being away for 14 years. Even though it was closed, we still pahked the cah and went over to Yawkey Way to the souvenir shop... I promised the teacher I work with at OSM her Johnny Damon shirt, after all. I always liked Kenmore Square anyhow but man, the city looks different! I kept thinking if I moved back here, I'd have to learn it all over again.

We took Hannah to the top of the Pru (that's the Prudential Tower for all you non-natives) to the 50th floor where they have a viewing platform-slash-skywalk with an official audio tour of the city. In all the years I lived here I never did the touristy things, really, but why not now. It's so pretty from up there; it's a perfectly sunny day; the views were spectacular. I would love to come back here with Hannah so we can actually see some of those things not from 750' up in the air but at ground level. Then we did a little driving tour of the place, too: through Back Bay and Beacon Hill and past Government Center and over past Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, to the Aquarium and the North End and back around again.

And now here I am, just getting ready to finish packing and I'll be home. I feel like a stranger in this city, it's changed so significantly since I was here. Then again, I remind myself, I lived out in the burbs the last however many years I was here. But still, I like it, I always did. Today's lesson: when you don't grow with a place, it grows without you.

This concludes the tour-guide portion of our program. When you hear from me next, I will be back in Portland (the other one, on the other side of the country), ~~bitching~~ talking about all the usual everyday stuff. It's been good to get away, but it will be good to get back. I miss my kitties. I won't miss the $2.50 Pepsi machine outside the door here.

On another, more sober note: hugest hugs ever to