king of the castle

A representative from the moving company came to the apartment today to assess my belongings and determine how many boxes the movers would need to bring when they come to pack my things. "I'm basically a professional counter," he said as he proceeded to count my chairs, shoes, and books. Afterwards, I went to get my car serviced at the dealership. By the time they finished, it was too late to head to work, so I drove over to Castle Island instead. Sullivan's, the burger shack at the edge of the recreation site was open for teh season, so I ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings served in a brown paper box, and looked out onto Boston Harbor, contemplating the move ahead of me. Found some beautiful violet blue mussel shells littered along the shore and had to snap a few shots. Here's one:

flowers, for me?

Lazed around for most of the morning, but decided to pick myself up off the sofa and walked to Downtown Crossing to do some shopping and enjoy the warm weather. Strolled by Lambert's Market on the way home and picked up two bunches of asparagus, two boxes of strawberries, and some blueberries. I needed a little pick-me-up, so I bought a boquet of tropical flowers – bright orange birds of paradise, cranberry-colored bromeliad, and bushy palm fronds.


As I walked through the Westin, on the way back to my apartment, I passed the doorman, who gave me a thumbs up and said "Well done, man!" I was puzzled at first, but chuckled when I realized that he was referring to the boquet I was clutching under my arm. Little did he know, the flowers were just a selfish indulgence.

For dinner, I made a mushroom and wild rice risotto with spears of steamed asparagus, from the market, on the side. Thought briefly about pairing it with a glass of wine, but laying my eyes on the tropical boquet gracing my living room and settled on a cold bottle of Corona instead, dreaming of lying on a beach somewhere warm and sunny with the waves creeping up to my toes.

go slow...

Left the office early, after a full day of meetings, intending to meet Sylvi, Fredrik and Trine for dinner at Django, a great slow-cooking BYOB just off of South Street. As soon as I got on Kelly Drive, I realized that I had left my cell phone back at the hotel and didn't know exactly where the restaurant was located. "No problem," I thought, "I'm going to meet up with Sylvi & Fredrik at their house anyway, then drive down together." So, satisfied by this, I parked along the Drive, and watched the rowers glide down the Schukykill River as the sun set on the snowy banks.



I then drove to their place, but saw the morning paper still on their stoop and figured that they hadn't arrived yet, so I walked down teh street to grab a chai latte from the little coffee shop down the street. When I walked back to their place and saw the newspaper still there, I realized that they were probably running late and had most likely gone straight to the restaurant instead. So, I hopped into the car, tried to navigate into Center City, trying to find a restaurant that I didn't know the address to.



I'll skip over the rest of the story, but an hour later, I finally arrived at the restaurant, happy to see my friends and even more thrilled to enjoy a scrumptious slow-cooked meal on a cold wintery day.

going dutch

At the end of a rigorous two-week review process at work, I hopped on a plane and headed to Amsterdam. After a year-and-a-half of waiting, I'm finally here to see see if I still want to accept the job that has been kept open for me. Should be an interesting week!

chasing sunsets across the desert