I’m having an interesting weekend.
Right after work on Friday, I rushed back home and manically packed my suitcase. The traffic leaving Boston on a Friday night would be bad, of course. But, sooner in, sooner out, right? I threw clothes and books into my comically large suitcase, tossed it in the car, and took off.
Into the 0 mph (or 0 kph if it makes you feel better) slog called Friday rush hour on the “Pike.” At some point around exit 15, everyone else seemed to go home and I had the road to myself. I’m curious what illicit dealings were happening at exit 15. Very popular.
I headed down 84, 684, and then a bunch or roads that were too dark to really figure out. I missed a few turns, ate a few cookies, backed up and corrected those turns, and managed to end up at my aunt and uncle’s. We got a late dinner (thanks to me, obviously), sitting down at 9PM. The dinner was great and the waitress was ready to leave. If your server is wearing a North Face Eskimo coat, it’s a pretty clear that it’s time to go go go.
My uncle’s pretty busy with work lately, so it was just me, my aunt, my cousin, and a whole bunch of excited dogs in the morning. We had (delicious) blueberry pancakes and went to their gym. I did not think of bringing shorts , so I ended up borrowing my uncle’s tennis shorts. I didn’t even bother with sweats, but man, it was really cold.
The gym was real fancy-like. They had a few virtual reality bikes. You can steer (and of course pedal). The first course was a dragon catching game. You pick up coins, then try to run into goofy dragons wandering around in dragon void. Also, Journey was playing on the headphones.
I then (somewhat accidentally) went on an “extreme” course and only made it halfway. They’re not kidding about the extreme. I can verify that steep hills are accurately simulated.
My aunt made us her special pasta sauce which was really good. It’s a pesto with some almonds and a lot of tomatoes. I also ate an embarrassing amount of bruschetta.
After lunch, I drove down to visit my bro in NYC. He lives out in Jamaica (part of Queens, apparently). I made a detour (not on purpose) and drove through most of Manhattan. Oddly, New York driving didn’t seem that crazy or bad. I think I even passed a taxi. Boston, apparently, has corrupted me.
My brother and girlfriend were setting up for her birthday party the next day, so I helped out a bit. Afterwards, we went somewhere in Manhattan (I have no sense for NYC geography, so that’s all I could surmise). We had dinner with a couple of my brother’s girlfriend’s friends at a tex-mex place. It looked like a ranch house, and since we were in the corner, you could hardly tell you were in a city, let alone the city. It takes a while to get back to my brother’s place from anywhere apparently, so it was pretty late when we got back.