Boston Bike Sharing is Here!

Check out the Hubway, Boston's new bike sharing program. It's currently $60 to become a member for the year. (It will eventually climb to $85.) Once you sign up to be a member, you get a key that will unlock bikes stationed all over the city. You can also use your credit card at any bike station to get a 1 day or 3 day pass.

Hurray! Boston is one step closer to being the best bike city in America.

Raspberries, Rye Rye and Iced COFFEEEEE

Team Robeson Floor 2 Circa 2010 reunited this weekend to raspberry pick at Smolak Farms. Luckily for us, other people either didn’t find or didn’t know what to do with the white raspberries. Holy crap, they’re delicious. It was totally worth the traffic, sunburn and $14 I endured to get three quarts of them. The super ripe ones taste like peaches and a lot of them were huge. We also went to Salisbury Beach and enjoyed some spectacular people and seagull - watching.

There is a tie for music of the week: Beyonce’s new album 4 has some winners on it and Rye Rye has released a mix tape, for free, which includes her bitchin’ cover of “Party in the USA.” There is some awesome dancing in the video below.

Even though I think driving is the devil, I must say that I love babysitting my little brother’s Cadillac. Even if it earns me $40 parking tickets, something my bike would never do, I love it because it affords me ample time to explore Boston’s radio offerings and sing at the top of my lungs. While rocking to some 90s classics on Saturday morning, it occurred to me that one great thing about 90s rock songs is the abundant use of the long, drawn out, or oft repeated “yeah.” When songwriters ran out lyrics, they’d throw in some dramatic “yeahs.” In some instances, this bridge of sorts is the best part of the song. It’s like negative space in art. When used well, it can make a masterpiece. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I find the “yeah” is notoriously absent in the repertoire of today’s indie hipster post-post-80s revival songwriters. Today’s music is like the opposite of negative space. Sometimes, maybe more so in pop music, it sounds like folks are trying to use all the crayons in the box and cover every inch of white space. I really hope the next wave of music involves a “yeah”-revival: a tribute to Counting Crows, Red Hot Chili Peppers and other masters of “yeah.”

While we’re on the topic of 90s rock, I should mention that I was sad to learn this weekend that Alanis Morissette was not saying “It’s not fair to deny me of the cross-eyed bear that you gave to me.” Oh man. Lyrics. What tricky little things they are sometimes.

Iced coffee. I'm addicted. I’ve been averaging 1.5 cups a day and Lordy, I’ve been paying for it. I normally try not to pay for coffee and I've decided I can’t let myself do it any longer. I’m in such denial that I’ve been rotating between three coffee shops to make it seem like I’m not a regular at any of them. Who does that? This girl. So, to remedy the situation, I’m trying the Pioneer Woman’s recipe for make it yourself iced coffee. She uses Café Bustelo, recently selling at 2 cans for $5.00 at Stop N Shop, so I am hopeful that I can fulfill my need to suck cold caffeine through a straw without needlessly sucking my bank account dry. I’ll let you know how it tastes/goes.

Here is Rye Rye's "Party in the USA" for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Travel on the cheap

In trying to book flights for summer weddings, I've been dismayed with what seem like incredibly high prices. My usual go-to websites and airlines (i.e. kayak.com and southwest) are turning up fares that make me want to cry. $400 to go to Nashville from Boston? I've flown to California for less.

Thankfully, this recent New York Times article offers some helpful tips on how to keep traveling in 2011.

If you have travel deal secrets, please share them in the comments box!

Can you Belize it?

Toucan.

You can see some more photos here.

The Last Two Weeks

I'm currently on a Megabus (top level, the only way to go) en route to Boston from New York. Yesterday, I finished part two of three anti-microbial treatments meant to rid me of Lyme Disease. After part three on Monday they'll test me again to see if there are any little Lyme fuckers left in my body. Unfortunately, during this part of the treatment, any symptom I've ever had can come back and a few good ones have. Welcome back sinus infection, muscle twitches, body ache and gastrointestinal trouble. Welcome back perma-headache! You always were my favorite.

On a brighter note, despite the needles, headaches and pill popping, I've had some really good times with friends in the last two weeks. And, on my friend Corbin's recommendation, I've given the new Vampire Weekend album a second listen. It's still not as solid as their debut but it is quite catchy, particularly the title track "Contra."

So, Noelle's highlights from the last two weeks, in reverse chronological order:

- Marathon Monday - I love that Boston has turned its marathon into a holiday, Patriot's Day. Sadly, the holiday isn't recognized by the Public Interest Network so this was my first time celebrating. Watching the runners was awesome but the crowd of babies, dogs, homemade signs, cowbells and drunks was just as entertaining. As Veronica noted, there's something beautiful about strangers cheering on strangers. I joined Wyatt, Nate and Ross in a percussion pep band along Beacon St in Brookline and did my best to keep up on cow bell, wood block and tambo.


- Welcome back dinner with the roomies - We made some vegan goodies from Bryant Terry's cookbook, i.e. garlic potato soup, and Emily made an amazing dinosaur berry pobbler. "Pobbler" because it was halfway between a pie and a cobbler: baked as one, served as the other. In a shout out to Ula's signature Squirrel pumpkin pies, she put a Graham cracker crust dinosaur on top. I will post recipe.




- High School Friend Reunion - Before I left New York I had lunch with my friend Nick Riccobono. We hadn't seen each other in seven years but, after hugging with enough enthusiasm to knock over a water glass and cause a huge scene, it was clear we had it goin on, and got along like two peas from the same nerd pod. I credit the fact that we're both Capricorns but maybe we were just meant to be buds. After lunch we explored Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights. That place rules. Not only do its trees, soaring heights and pretty flowers make you forget you're in Manhattan, but there is a bar/restaurant in the park with a great happy hour. I couldn't take advantage of it, given current dietary restrictions, but you better believe I'll be going back there for a $4 beer on the wooded patio.


Other highlights included walking through the fairly new high line park in Chelsea, catching up with good buds in Bushwick, visiting the famed waffles and dinges cart with my Mom and crusing around Red Hook, possibly my favorite part of the five Burroughs.

Norm Covers Jay-Z and Reader's Wives, Birthday Brunch and the Boston Flower Show

This weekend I joined my roommates and one of their mothers in a visit to the Boston Flower Show at the World Trade Center. Pictures of that soon. There we ate nuts, bought butterflies in boxes and squeezed through big crowds of mostly middle aged and older women to see landscape exhibitions and prize winning flower arrangements. It was awesome.



This is my dear friend Normie, getting his performing on:




Sunday we hosted a brunch to celebrate Emily and Veronica's March birthdays. I totally failed in the photo-taking department but highlights included bloody marys, deep fried eggs, tater tots, burnt sugar cupcakes, carrot-apple-ginger juice mimosas, homemade pizza and lots of deviled eggs. Mmm mmm.

THE FUTURE

In an effort to premptively fight the winter blues I am embarking on three projects:

1. Making a winter mix for all my friends. I am borrowing the idea from my fair maiden of the North, Melanie Kowalski. Mel, I hope that's okay. You'll get one, promise!

2. Planning a big or at least significant 25th birthday for myself. Christmas babies always get screwed. Not me. Not this year, bitches!

3. Concocting a plan for making my long dreamed of epic cross country road trip a reality. I need a car and I've been brainstorming ways to get a sponsor. Most ideas revolve around food and having somekind of food blog that would be sponsor worthy, i.e. the Organic Potato Grower's Association sponsors me to travel around the country and write about good food made with organic potatoes. If you have good ideas for this kind of project, do let me know. I already started mapping out places I'd like to go on Google Maps. It is not complete yet but feel free to leave comments and suggest a stop.


View EPIC road trip in a larger map

The Color Men Choose When They Attack the Earth

This is a little belated, but I have a few things to say about my recent Halloween trip to Houston, where I was visiting Laura Richardson, an old partner in crime and now a PhD candidate in English Literature at Rice University. Not only did I have fun partying with a bunch of English nerd for 2.5 days, but I was pleasantly surprised by the city of Houston, especially Laura's Montrose-Westheimer neighborhood. Apparently it's known as the gay neighborhood and, like JP, gay = cool. Obvi. There were yummy eats- like the black bean burger at Ziggy's and the good breakfast Mexican food at Tacos-a-GoGo. I had some other yummy Mexican food too but the restaurant name escapes me. I especially enjoyed the peoplewatching at Anvil, a classy spot with specialty drinks and a popular stop along the annual Houston Halloween bar crawl. One guy was the karate kid, complete with a showerhead and shower curtain. In the small, crowded bar, he quickly became very annoying.


The Magritte and wooden sculpture below were from the Menil Collection, a small eclectic art gallery with unecessarily creaky floors. My favorite piece was a giant, bright yellow rectangle with a tiny stainless steel plate in the middle that read, "THE COLOR MEN CHOOSE WHEN THEY ATTACK THE EARTH." The artist is Walter de Maria. The pictures online suck and they wouldn't let me take one at the museum so I guess you'll have to see it for yourself.

All the houses surrounding the museum, the adjacent Rothko Chapel and the surrounding park are owned by the Menil endowment and are painted gray to match the museum. Laura, Lucy (the beast) and I spent some quality time hanging out in the park, playing frisbee and singing songs. It never gets colder than 50 degrees in Houston and, as a result, there are palm trees and the big gnarly trees you only see in other Southern cities like Savannah, New Orleans and Mobile. They might be Southern Live Oaks but I'm not sure.





Enjoying the warmth and sunshine in my hangover daze on Saturday morning, I almost forgot we were in Texas. Then we walked past Planned Parenthood. Six PP volunteers in flourescent yellow jackets were hanging out and chatting, presumably keeping tabs on the 40+ anti-abortion activists that lined both sides of the street in front of the clinic. Most of the protesters were young girls in pink shirts. It looked a lot like a sorority volunteer event. I suppose it could have been. Yay Texas!