More walking-to-work photos

Looking out the window at work. I work on the fourth floor in a library at Harvard Medical School. The red trees below this window get more amazing every day, although it was really windy today, so those leaves' days are numbered. Also in this shot are the T (subway) tracks. The lines are mostly underground, but some are along the street.

On one side of this photo (below) is a street, and on the other side is a piece of the Muddy River, which in turn is part of the Emerald Necklace. Frederick Law Olmsted is the father of American landscape architecture. He designed Central Park and the Emerald Necklace in the 1800s, along with lots of other parks. I get to walk through this part of the Emerald Necklace on my way to and from work every day. It was designed to be a series of linked parks in Boston, but as the city has grown, it's gotten more and more segmented. There are plans to reconnect the parks and they recently added a new piece.

Okay, I just have to share this (below). I was so tickled at the scene, and so happy I grabbed my camera in time. Neon orange spike heel pumps are, in themselves, something of note. In the rain? Definitely daring. But neon orange high heeled shoes in the rain on a bike?!? Yes, it's true. I didn't get a photo of it, but I saw this young woman pedalling down the sidewalk, orange heels on the pedals, and holding an umbrella over her head. I'm certain she could make money doing that.

This is one of the marvelous trees that now is nearly completely leafless (so that's what they mean by "fall"). A friend of mine took this photo of me and the tree after we voted. What a glorious day that was.

Just more gorgeous autumn leaves...

I organized the first annual Pumpkin Carving and Cider Sipping at work. Mine is the little guy on the right.

The tap water is getting colder. My apartment hasn't been too cold or too hot (from my not being able to control the heat) yet. It's still pretty mild outside. I hear it's been 80 degrees in San Diego. I think it's best to love wherever you are, and I love that it's cool-to-chilly here. Today I went out in a sweatshirt and was fine, but the other day it was in the 40s and I was a little cold in my sweater, hat, and gloves. By the way, although I showed you pictures of the possible snow showers last week, it hasn't snowed in Boston yet. But it's snowing in places nearby...

This is a non sequitur, but light switches are outside of the residential bathrooms here. Have I mentioned this before? Aside from my being in the habit of reaching into a bathroom to turn on the light as I enter, it seems less practical this way. When you're trying not to wake someone up in the middle of the night, it's polite to enter the bathroom, close the door, then turn the light on. Unless you have octopus arms, this can't be done with the switch outside the bathroom. Since I have a few grandparents and an ex-boyfriend reading this, I'll clarify that this impracticality was brought up when my dad visited. See my halo?

My mom and brother are coming to visit me next week!

Ahhh, October in Boston

Snow showers!?!?

Walden Pond, Lexington, & Concord

Admittedly, it's slightly past foliage "peak," but Walden Pond was still gorgeous. I went leaf peeping again with a friend from work. We saw Lexington and Concord, in addition to Walden Pond. What a beautiful day.

I Saw Al Gore!

Al Gore is a Harvard alumnus. This afternoon, he spoke in the Harvard University quad. A work friend and I left work early and took the shuttle from the medical school to Cambridge, met up with my friend Cynthia, and (along with thousands of others) heard him speak. It was so great. He talked about global warming; Harvard is launching a new initiative to reduce our carbon emissions by 30% by 2016. We already compost our plates and utensils from the cafeterias, which I think is very cool. The Veep was funny, engaging, and passionate (what did you expect?). It was so cool to see him. Don't forget to VOTE.

My Apartment Hisses / Go Sox!

The other morning, around 6am, I woke up to the sound of hissing. (I don't think Billy knows how to hiss yet, so I knew it wasn't him.) I got out of bed and realized it was coming from the radiator in my living/bedroom. I know it's a radiator only because I asked. There are pipes running from ceiling to floor in my kitchen and bathroom, and the radiator with its tall metal coils in a corner of the bedroom. There was a hissing noise coming from all three places. At 6am in Boston and 3am in San Diego, anyone who could help assuage my fears of gas poisoning were asleep. Sleepiness got the best of me as well, and I went back to bed, hoping that the hissing was normal radiator behavior.

Turns out, it is normal radiator behavior. The thing has kicked on twice now, hissing for awhile, then going quiet again. I've learned that steam is pumped through the pipes to heat the whole building. Since I'm on the top floor (thank you, no upstairs neighbors), my apartment should get the warmest in the winter. This will either be a relief to my thin Southern California blood, or I'll spend the winter with the windows slightly open.

The temperature in Boston hasn't gotten that cold yet. It's been ranging between the 50s and the 70s during the day, and sometimes into the 40s at night. I bought new sweaters, tights, and scarves, then we had a warm week. I enjoy seeing the struggle as one season tries to wrest control from another. I always have an umbrella and a warm top layer with me.

As an aside, I often look up words when I'm writing, just to make sure I'm using them correctly. I just looked up the word "wrest," and here's what I got from dictionary.com:

1. to twist or turn; pull, jerk, or force by a violent twist.
2. to take away by force: to wrest a knife from a child.

I'm sorry, but does it seem like a good idea to wrest a knife from a child? You could slice his little fingers off.

Since I now live in a baseball-loving city and can hear the games from my apartment, I've been following the Red Sox. I don't watch the games, but I listen to the news and people chat about it. Coming home the other night, I got off the T (subway) right as tens of thousands of fans were emptying the stadium heading home. It's amazing to see so many people at once, and almost all of them wearing Red Sox gear.

(Billy just woke up and sleepily came over to curl up in my lap. He's so sweet.)

If I understand correctly, there are three tiers to the playoffs. The Red Sox beat LA in the first round, so now they're in the second round with Tampa Bay. Game 6 is tonight. To make it to the World Series, they have to win tonight and tomorrow. Last Thursday, the roar from the stadium was pretty loud at 10:30pm. The game hadn't started until 8pm, so I knew it would be on for awhile longer. I shut the bedroom windows and went to sleep. At 12:30am, I woke up to the song, "Everybody's Working for the Weekend," and I knew the Sox had won and that the contest would finish up this weekend. At the same time, Sunshine texted to ask if it was loud here, since the Sox had just won. Yup, sure was. I'll be bummed out when the post-season finishes, as I gotten a little connected to Red Sox Nation.

Leaf Peeping

There are lots of places in the world where the leaves change color in the autumn. As a San Diegan through and through, this is something I haven't had much personal experience with. But even in places where the leaves do turn, not everyone goes leaf peeping. 'Leaf peeping' is driving out to the country for the express purpose of seeing the leaves. I did this yesterday, and wow. I had been watching the Foliage Network, which puts out a report twice a week during leaf season. This report came out two days before we went out.
Hotels and B&Bs sell out during leaf season. It's a big deal. In addition to Massachusetts, we went through Vermont, New Hampshire, and briefly into New York.

Of course, I took far more than twelve photos. I hope you like these ones that I culled out from the bunch. I'm hoping to go leaf peeping again this weekend. It should be a shorter, more local trip, but you don't have to go far in New England to see stunning fall colors.