#46 Boston - Shorts and Tank Tops April 22 07

Yes, spring has officially arrived yesterday – we have had nice weather for two days in a row, and everyone in Boston is delirious with pleasure. Oscar has started a chirp fest with the birds on the other side of the window, and I am not sure yet as to who will win. Let’s just say that Banana Boy here seems to be enjoying himself nevertheless. Today, for the first time in 2007 I jogged in shorts and a tank top, exposing those pasty legs of mine to some sunshine and to some lusty-eyed old men on the corner of Beacon and Cambridge Street, most of who would certainly benefit from a little jog or at least a walk around the block once in a while.

Should we trust the first signs of spring? After all, this is New England, and considering our recent weather history, anything could happen. Snow, rain, sleet, cataclysms, avalanches – I certainly will not put the basement pump in its summer resting spot until there has been a spell of about 10 days of decent weather.
I learned the hard way. We have gone in less than two days from wearing sandals in 70 degree weather to 40 degrees and snow. New England weather - Never a dull moment.

But you know what? The dreariest weather in Boston is so much better than the nicest day in Los Angeles. I know, last week’s write-up was a bit on the enthusiastic side, but as mentioned I was way too giddy from seeing sunshine, after having lived in the dark for three months straight. Admittedly there are nice corners in the LA area, Santa Monica and Venice for example – beautiful and sunny, just as you imagine California should be. If you live there and never have to venture into any other part of Los Angles, you are fine. Downtown is a mixed bag – on my first day I was in the new and shiny financial district, clean, bright, even a few trees here and there. Move three blocks to the right, toward “historic downtown LA” and your first thought is “Oh my God, I am going to die!” Seriously. It is smelly, stinky, grimy, skuzzy and dangerous. My friend Valeria from Barcelona, who was my conference and jogging companion, started to get quite worried, and kept asking if we could head back to the nice part of town. Historic my foot! Run-down buildings, disheveled and tattered, boarded up and forgotten. What a shame.

And this is not even the worst part of town – on the way back from a business meeting in Beverly Hills our cabbie delighted us with stories from famed South Central LA and Watts, two sections of town that are so beaten down and dangerous that apparently even cop cars only go there in twos. Both areas are impoverished, ruled by gang violence and have literally no infrastructure aside from fast food places, 99 cent and liquor stores. Wikipedia reports that in the 7 years between 1998 and 2005, 200 homicides alone happened in Watts. The city of Los Angeles at some point changed the name South Central Los Angeles to South Los Angeles, hoping that the image of the area as a crime-ridden, newsworthy-for-the-wrong-reasons part of town would be a little less prominent. Again, a darn shame, since this is one of the oldest neighborhoods this Southern California urban sprawl has to offer, with some wonderful old Victorians in West Adams for example. USC, the University of Southern California is down there – scary place for a campus.

Stark contrast – Beverly Hills, where my colleagues Geoff and Tracy and I had ourselves a little business meeting – people watching included. While we were waiting to get into a decrepit old cab, Bentleys, Lexuses, Mercedeses, Beamers kept pulling up, and we stared at pretty much everyone to see if we could recognize them from TV. I swear that I saw Fred Dalton Thomson who plays a DA on Law and Order, but I could just be imagining things. Conference delirium, who knows, he could have just been some nice older man, who was taken out to dinner there by his wife.

The conference was exhausting, and I pretty much plopped into my hotel bed every night, dead tired. Running around these conference centers all day is toilsome; tons of meetings; moving around on concrete floors made my shins hurt so much that I had trouble running on the treadmill in the hotel gym. Trying to get a decent meal is another thing in LA – probably as a result of 17,000 hungry oncologists all swarming around downtown, this proved challenging – thanks to my friends at Smeraldi’s (located in the Biltmore Hotel) not only for its California Mediterranean cuisine, but for a free desert on a night when I really needed one; and a second thank you to the fabulous Seoul Jung with its very very fine Korean fare. (http://www.wilshiregrand.com/restaurants&bars/seoul_jung.htm)

Back to Boston, and straight to a day of hosting a company for a pipeline presentation – a very good and successful, but fatiguing day, and when Thursday night came around I was so happy to put my feet up for once, watch a movie and veg out on my horrendously neglected couch. (Did I mention that I had a meeting Wednesday night about an hour after I came home? Of course! Why wouldn’t I? Actually Hilary and I were planning running routes for a “fun run” I am hosting in May – more on that later).

Friday evening brought a little culture for this tired traveler, ushering duty at my cherished Faneuil Hall, the Boston Classical Orchestra celebrated strings with its Viva Vivaldi program – there was a little J.S. Bach thrown in there as well, and our good friend Francois Couperin, which rounded out the evening nicely. We learned a little more about Vivaldi that night. His nickname was “The Red Priest” because he was a priest and he had flaming red hair, duh. Legend has it, he was not a very good priest, and only read mass once – apparently he had such terrible stage fright, that his first performance in the pulpit did not go over that well at all, so he focused on his music, and one can safely say – “Good Choice.” His life was quite interesting, from his early start as a maestro in a children’s orphanage to his life at European royal courts, and his death in poverty in Vienna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi). Highlight of the evening were Ronald Crutcher (who aside from being a famous cellist is also the dean of Wheaton College) and Owen Young, two African-American cellists, who absolutely barocked the house and made the audience rise to a standing ovation (http://www.bostonclassicalorchestra.org/).

The weekend was started with a quiet morning today, a quick jog and some volunteer work at a track meet at MIT – Community Running helps out once or twice a year at such an event, and my task was to lug hurdles around, change their height and then lug some more. The weather played along nicely, even a bit too much at times, and a late afternoon breeze was welcome by all. I just returned from my dinner group at Paula and Waleed’s new Frank Lloyd Writish-looking house in Lexington – a lovely evening with spirited conversations, plans for an all-night “movies-that-are-so-bad-they-are good” slumber party are being hashed out, but first the group has promised to come to Petra’s Haus for some German deliciacies in June. Ja, ja.

So, must go to bed now, it is late and there is some hiking in the stars for tomorrow. Enjoy the sunshine!

Pet :)