As autumn slips through my fingers

[bironic]

Things that are good:

- Made crepes for the first time. Mmm. I love crepes. Filled 'em with warm, sliced-up banana and a few chocolate chips. Not bad for having no food in the apartment.

- Indulged in a ticket to see Richard Shindell in a week. Since the school year started I haven't gone out and done anything for fun that costs money apart from meals with people and on-campus movies, so I don't feel too bad about it.

- Four-day weekend for Veterans Day. As of Thanksgiving, the number of days we've had off since September will equal the number of holidays I had off at my old job in a year.

.

To welcome the holiday, I took a three-hour walk this morning downtown to soak in the fall scenery and get an umbrella and a couple of other things. It was cloudy, but it's been and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, and who knows how many of the leaves will still be there next weekend, when I'll probably not have time to go again anyway. So I went.

I haven't really left campus since I got here, and most of what I walk by every day is industrial-looking, so this was a nice treat. I didn't get anything I went for, but I did bring back two avocados and sixty pictures.

   

If you're worried about connection speed, you can see everything as a slideshow, but the photos are automatically resized over there and might look chunky.

Otherwise, feel free to look at 28 pictures behind the cut:



On the way to the T station. My street is dull, so I like to take the circuitous route.






















A telescope sculpture near campus:










The most beautiful tree on the block.
















At the Boston Public Garden. You can barely tell, but sometimes the breeze would start up and it would rain leaves—clouds of them, fluttering, like something out of a movie.































Across the street and into Boston Common:


























One of the frogs watching over the Frog Pond:






State House, a.k.a. the shiny gold dome at the top of Beacon Hill:






Old South Church. Or Old North Church. I never could keep them straight. Note that they've already put up Christmas decorations on the lampposts.






Boston Market and Faneuil Hall:






There's a beautiful Holocaust memorial between Faneuil Hall and Government Center, four tall glass monuments etched with … names, I think.






To get a sense of how dreary Boston is in wintertime, subtract the leaves from this picture.






I passed by two cemeteries on the way back to the Common. Both date from the 1600s, I think.











And now, to work!

Comments

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Beautiful pictures!

And yay, Richard Shindell! I haven't seen him play in ages. I thought about going to see him in Northampton next Sunday, but I'm already going there on Saturday night to see Iron & Wine, and just couldn't justify two trips (and two concert tickets) in one weekend...

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ooh. Wouldn't that have made an incredible double-bill?

R.S. usually hits my hometown when he does his yearly(ish) tour, but now I am not there! Fortunately he also tends to hit Cambridge. I'm really looking forward to it; I love him to pieces.

[synn.livejournal.com]

I miss boston.
Not that I ever *lived* there, but I miss it from all the times i visited.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Good thing you will be seeing it again next month (hopefully)...... \o/

[roga.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I need to be in Boston RIGHT NOW. Those TREES. That shade of red. NOOOOOW. (And arrgh, tickets to the US right now are 777 frigging dollars! That is absolutely nothing! That's, like, free! WHY DO I HAVE SCHOOL NOW, WHY?)

Other than the (gorgeous!) trees, I love the frog. And hey, Faneuil Hall! I remember that. There was a great street show there. And I remember the Holocaust monument too - it just came out of nowhere, we weren't expecting it. There are either names etched on it or numbers.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I think you're right that they're numbers. They line up in columns, don't they.

Yup, they do street acts at Faneuil all the time. Today there was a South American band called Inka Son (they're everywhere in the northeast, I swear -- Penn Station and Times Square and Harvard Square Oktoberfest), a bucket drummer and some kind of magician. I remember the first time I went there, there was one of those living statues guys -- painted himself green and had a green suit with fake bird droppings on it, and stayed very... very... still... until a kid would walk up, and then his eyes would move, and he'd slowly... slowly... bow if someone dropped change in his hat.

Wish you could be here in Boston too! I took many of these pictures for you, like the one entirely of leaves on the clover. (Did you take one like it recently? Or am I thinking of the pomegranate seeds?) $777 sounds cheap from all the way over by you, but I wouldn't say it's practically free! :D Not from within our own economy anyway, and not when one is a student with no income. Alas.

[purridot.livejournal.com]

New England is so lovely in the fall! Our leaves out here in the prairies only seem to turn yellow. How nice that you had a day out for a change!

Also: crepes ROCK.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

They do. And they're easier to make than I thought -- my parents used to complain (lightly) about the effort that went into making the batter, which is why we only had them once in a while growing up.

I would like to see a picture of the prairies sometime. Especially if you get one of those ice storms I think I remember you mentioning. (Or was it Topaz?)

[purridot.livejournal.com]

You'll no doubt get your wish! It will snow any day now *looks around fearfully*

I will say that the snow is at least pretty when it happens. And sitting inside reading fanfic and drinking hot chocolate never hurt anyone!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I was struck suddenly with the desire to reply with,

BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN

So there it is. Hm.

Snow will be fun if and when it arrives. (We're having a warm and disgustingly humid streak lately. But I'm sure it'll disappear and we'll wish for it back.) Winter would be nice if it always snowed. It's when it's gray and frigid and windy (and urban) that things get depressing.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

Aw, Boston. <3

[bironic.livejournal.com]

:) I bet the other school, known around here as "the one down the street" or "the lesser institution," looks lovely these days.

p.s. The nuclear reactor says hi.

[ahab99.livejournal.com]

The nuclear reactor still freaks me out! I checked with my college friend who went to MIT for grad school, and even he didn't know about it. Very disturbing!

Larry Summers loved saying, "Oh, I got my degree from the little institute down the road." Of course, then he turned out to be a bit of an ass, so.....let's just rule him out, I guess.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I hear he's being considered for secretary of the treasury? Bizarre-o.

even he didn't know about it.

It doesn't look like much from the outside. But it's definitely labeled on the map. :)