Travel: June 2008 Archives

It seems like I turn around and another week is gone.  I've been meaning to sit down and post for quite a while, but with one thing and another, it hasn't happened.  My husband marked another year on the calendar (happy birthday, sweetheart!), Ms Z had her first overnight away from home and parents this week (she was with her Babcia while John and I celebrated his birthday a la Belgian beer without having to worry about when we had to get home) and at work I am settling in with a new boss (I've now watched several leadership changes where I work, so the transition doesn't seem quite as traumatic as it might have at another time).  So it's all good, but this biologist is busy, and not getting a whole lot of non-work related computer time.

Boston is always one of those places I like to visit.  It's filled with history and roads that don't necessarily go where you think they will.  It's got crazy drivers (they make Chicago drivers look like they are out for a Sunday stroll) and beautiful landscape.  It's got good shopping and great eating (as far as I am concerned, no meal that involves fresh oysters on the half shell can be too bad) and some beautiful spaces.  The picture above was taken in one of them.

Thanks to some very helpful commenters, I learned that "Make Way for Ducklings" (a book I knew about but had never actually read)  was centered in the Boston Public Gardens.  And with the help of the most fabulous Claudia (who gave me a great tour of the area near the Boston Commons and the gardens) I not only found a copy of the book for Ms. Z, I also got to see the famous bronze statues of Mrs. Mallard and her celebrated ducklings. To commemorate the trip for both me and Z, Claudia took a picture of me with Mrs. Mallard -- I'm going to print out a copy of the picture and put it in the front leaf of the book, so Z will have a small set of books that are part of her mother's travelogue.  And if I go back to Boston, I still have some good book options -- I found out later when Claudia and I went into an old cemetery not too far from the garden, Mother Goose also hails from the Boston area (and is buried in that cemetery), so if I get back that way while Z is young, I know what book I will be looking for next.

I also got to come home with my own heart warming Boston story.  On Wednesday evening after I had dropped off all my booth shipping information to the shipping company, I went outside the convention center to wait for a good friend from when I was doing my post-doc.  She pulled up and while I was putting my suitcases in the back of her car my iPhone decided to make a run for it.  It was a little rainy and rather cold and a bit noisy and I didn't notice it's unfortunate bid for freedom until we got to Burlington for dinner.  After searching my friend's car it was clear that the phone was gone.  Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.  Borrowing my friend's phone, I called John.

The call went something like this:

Me:  Guess what?

John: You lost your iPhone?

Me: <surprised> How did you know that?

John: The person who found it called me at the same time as you did... I'm going to merge the calls...

As it turned out, not too long after we pulled away from the convention center, a gentleman on a bike with a penchant for electronics noticed my iPhone's bid for freedom.  He stopped, surprised to see it in the street and nearly getting run over himself, retrieved the phone.  He took it home and there he and his wife turned it on, saw the picture of Ms Z on it that is my wallpaper and decided that the phone must belong to the mother of a cute baby and that it needed to find it's way home.  They figured out where my recent call list was, saw that John had been called more than anyone else, and called that number to find out if he knew anything about me or my phone.  And just at that time, I called John as well.  The gentleman who found the phone agreed to leave it at a hotel near the convention center where I could pick it up.  With Claudia's help I retrieved the phone the next morning.  I never got to meet either of the people who helped my phone come back to me, but they did leave me a nice message telling me that they had once lost a phone and never gotten it back and they knew how frustrating that was and wanted to make sure my phone got back into the right hands.

These people deserve much good karma to be sent in their direction.

Needless to say, I am still sort of in shock (in a good way) that my phone came back to me.  I know most people do the right thing given the opportunity, but I guess I just don't expect it to happen when it comes to me.  One of the other things I have been doing this week is finding some Chicago things to send back to them to say thank you for going out of their way to help me out. I settled on a pound of Intelligentsia coffee and my favorite variety of Vosges chocolate bar and a gift card.  Z and I are going to head off to the post office after her afternoon nap to see these goodies on their way.

Tonight I start my first color theory class at Quiltology (I am so excited about this I can hardly sit still) and then we're off to Ann Arbor this weekend to celebrate Father's Day with my dad.  I wish all of you a most wonderful weekend full of family warmth.