Sometimes I hate the fact I have to shovel snow, not because it can be hard work (it often is) but because it ruins what is otherwise beautiful scenery.
Fluffy, fluffy snow
Tag: Boston
So you can see for yourself
Here’s a screenshot of my Weatherbug from a few moments ago.
So that is showing a temperature of minus 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit with a windchill of minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. I think this may actually be one of the coldest, if not the coldest, temperature I have ever experienced. And I don’t think it’s stopped yet.
Sorry to keep going on and on, but weather (and weather history) fascinates me so I am just geeking out about all of this. I am wondering if temperature records may be broken tonight or tomorrow.
-Geoff
We have come a long way indeed
Wow.
The new cover of Sports Illustrated talks about this amazing World Series win and features Big Papi and the three Boston police officers from some of the most iconic photos on the day of the Boston Marathon bombing. Those same three officers had been on a previous cover shortly after the bombing.
John Silber is spinning in his grave
If only we could figure out how to harness him up, we’d have a new power source.
Cooking is too much fun.
I have been cooking historical recipes for many years, mostly stuff from 18th and 19th century America. I like cooking anyway, and as a historian I find that sort of thing interesting on several levels. More recently I have been trying to make medieval recipes, and so for the last few years I have started picking up some medieval cookbooks and reading some stuff online about it. It seems a lot more difficult, I think. And although I have managed to successfully make a few things (this spinach tart turned out really well, I think), I have just not found a lot of medieval recipes that really made me want to try them.
Until a few weeks ago, when Kelly got me A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook.
BEMF concerts for your calendar
Several friends are performing in BEMF concerts this year. These will be great concerts, please attend if you can. There is a lot of variety here so there should be something for everyone.
See? Make Way for Ducklings is true.
The beloved children’s book, set here in Boston, has a real-life counterpart across the country.
And truth be told, I know a lot of police officers who would do the exact same thing.
-Geoff
Boston Strong
It’s been a little over a week since downtown blew up and everything went to hell, but since then Boston Strong has become the catchphrase for how we’ve all held up. The whole tough New Englander attitude, some would say “crusty”, is well known. We’re tough people and down through generations we’ve been through a lot.
I have no idea who it was who coined the phrase. I hope it wasn’t some marketing VP somewhere who’s made a mint from it. It has helped, and it has spawned Watertown Strong and Collier Strong, on their own indications of what we’ve been through separately and together and how we’ll persevere.
Check out some of the images, below the cut, that have come up in the last week plus that I’ve liked the best or that I think are the funniest representation of Boston Strong.
We will bounce back
Now that I have had some time to sort of process the events of the past week, I think I have managed to sort it all out inside my head. And so yesterday when a friend and parishioner asked me how I was doing and what I made of all this, I told him what I thought.
I said “This is Boston. We’ll bounce back. We always do.”
Maybe this is the new normal?
At least for now.
We’re 48 hours out from the bombings and things are… different. It isn’t just the obvious police presence or the national guard people in uniform everywhere. Things are different. Yesterday everything was eerily calm, almost like the afternoon of 9/11 when all flights were grounded and nobody knew what was going on, except that yesterday there were helicopters in the air overhead and we were all waiting.
Waiting for news of who else was going to die. Waiting to hear from that last person or two that we hadn’t yet heard from. Waiting for news from the police, the feds, the various hospitals. Waiting. It was like life in suspended animation.
We were going to work and going through the motions, but everyone was asking the same thing, “Should we be doing this?” “Is this appropriate?” “What is the right thing to do now?”
Nobody has an answer for that. There is no single answer when there is a 15 block long scar in the middle of your city that was carved out by a coward with bombs, a bone to pick with humanity, a need to see his human fears and frailty writ large on the TV, and not enough guts or intelligence to make the change he wants to see from within the system.
The Books are Taking Over... 