stephanieNY

Adam and I are taking a trip out to Illinois next week to see his family. For fun, we're taking the train from Boston to Chicago (and back the next week). The Lake Shore Limited takes 23 hours, but Adam's promised me that it's really really fun. I do love a good train ride, but 23 hours is a loooong time. I'm optimistic though. We'll bring books, movies to watch on our laptops, and a deck of cards. The seats are supposedly really comfortable and recline to facilitate some sleeping. (I might have to cave and get one of those dorky neck pillows.) For one of our meals, we'll make reservations for a scheduled seating in the dining car, where you sit and dine with other travelers.

Apparently the view along the route to Chicago consists mainly of the graffiti-ridden backs of buildings, and the only scenic part is along Lake Erie which the train passes in the middle of the dark night. Either way, I think we should soak in some of the graffiti from the cool panoramic observation car as we move along the suburban string that links Boston to Buffalo to Cleveland to Chicago.

Yesterday marked the official opening of 45 Province. The building is done, and people are moving in! In October 2006 (almost 3 years ago!) I attended the groundbreaking ceremony. Last summer, the topping off ceremony. And yesterday, the ribbon cutting/grand opening ceremony. Per usual, Mayor Menino was there in all his mumbliness. He spoke along with some other important people with lots of money, before they invited us in for a tour of the building. It was quite the mid-afternoon soiree.

I met up with some of my former co-workers to walk around and admire our work. It was so strange/cool/enlightening to see our 2-dimensional drawings turned into physical space. Space seems way bigger on paper. Although my role in this project was more drawing-based than it was designing-based, I felt sort of proud to be there in the finished product with the people that I worked with.

It's official, I'm unemployed for the summer. I'm trying to pick up some drafting gigs here and there, but for the most part, I'm living the life of the jobless. So to fill the time, I'll need a hobby or two. I've started already by practicing my cooking. Grains and legumes are/were my first endeavor. I made a sad pot of lima beans last week. They were pretty bad, but I learned about soaking and cooking dried beans. Next, I made a happy pot of vegetarian chili. The recipe called it vegetarian chili, but I would call it mexican lentil soup. Lentils, barley, and bulgar make it grain-heavy and really hearty. It's been crazy cold here this week, so it worked out to have a pot of soup around. No plans as of yet for my next experiment (suggestions are welcome). I'm no natural, so recipes are my friend now.

The Waterfront has new triangular coasters in and they couldn't be more entertaining.
Required: A passion for clean geometry and patterns.

Blend cannellini beans, milk, parmesan, and some spices of your choice oregano. Throw in some tortellini and colorful peppers over heat and voila...best meal ever, where richness and lightness live together magically.

I'm starting to show signs of Italian lately. I am back in full force in the North End where conversating for most involves your hands as much as your mouth; I've been eating my share of pasta; and I spend many of my nights watching The Sopranos. We started a few weeks ago with Season One, Episode One and we're working through the entire series. I'm learning more about the ways of the mafia than you can imagine. More importantly though, every once in a while and outa nowhere, I start throwing my arms around while talking, and putting accents on syllables I never had before.

Example:
Adam: (after napping on top of the covers the other day)
Me: (shoulders shrugged, arms turned up in front of me) Whoa! You, with the covers! You make it through a whole nap and now you gotta mess up the bed?!

It's a little Tony Soprano, a little North End native, and a little Joey Lawrence...yikes.

The Guggenheim in New York is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and honoring its architect, Frank Lloyd Wright with a near-museum-wide exhibit of his work. Adam and I stopped by yesterday to help celebrate and see the exhibit, Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. The name recalls his design philosophy of exterior form of a building following the function of the spaces within. Case in point, the exterior form of the Guggenheim is clearly a direct translation of the interior spiral ramp of galleries on the interior. His drawings and sketches were on display and made me nostalgic for days of hand drawing (if it's possible to be nostalgic for a time before oneself).

...to the girl with the check in her hand! After an excruciatingly long month of trying to sublet my room for the summer, I finally sealed the deal yesterday with a nice girl that was eager and ready to take it. Before Monday, I had shown the apartment to a bunch of people, and emailed with countless seemingly interested individuals. I had my hopes up and then subsequently crushed over and over, until Monday, when the three girls I showed the apartment to all called within hours to say they wanted to take it.

The difference was surely the air conditioner that I bought and installed in my room. Like a lot of city apartments, my window has security bars on the outside. Well, they pose a pretty big problem when you go to stick a massive a/c unit out the window. Per usual, Adam came through and engineered a brilliant solution. It involved cardboard and duct tape and works like a charm. The pictures below show his handi-work and my attempt to mask it, respectively. Good thing the view out the window isn't a desirable one.

Yesterday was one of those amazing summer days that is perfectly fun in every way. Factors that make a perfectly fun summer day that were included in yesterday are:

• Hot sun: Yesterday was 80s and sunny here...perfect.
• Outdoor games: We played bocce ball for 4 hours!
• Solo cups and koozies: Fun drinks are allowed and encouraged at the bocce courts.
• Roofdecks: The party continued atop Kim's apartment building in the North End.
• Pizza: Plans for a cookout were quashed after hours of bocce-playing.

Here are everyone's bocce action shots:

This past weekend marked my final deadline for the semester - the End-of-Year Show. Each studio (class of 10 or so students) puts together a display on which to exhibit their semester's work. My studio displayed our work on a sort of poster rack mechanism that we designed and constructed. You stand in front of it and swing the panels to look through our projects. The panels were actually stretched canvases (ala Jackson Pollock) that we pinned our drawings to.

Kim and Jill came from Boston to see the show, to celebrate in NYC, and to accompany me back to Boston on Sunday. Ryan joined us from downtown for the show and the celebrating parts. We did brunch outside spring-style at Elmo, and returned to The Half King, an old favorite, for dinner after the show.

With fresh fruit smoothies from a street fair in my neighborhood on Sunday, the three of us packed up a sweet Saturn sedan rental with all my stuff and headed north. After Adam and I returned the car to Avis at Logan Airport that night, we stayed in East Boston for sausage and pizza dinner at Santarpios. It was the perfect ending to a weekend that was the perfect ending to Year 2.