The Standell prophecy

Last time I checked, the top two trending topics on Twitter were #aquapocalypse and #H2OMG. This because (in case you haven't heard) there was a massive rupture in the line that supplies 85% of the water to Boston and environs¹, which forced those in charge of the water to switch to unfiltered pond water from a reservoir at about 6:30PM yesterday. To make a long story short, we have to boil our drinking water for a while. There has been a certain amount of panic and overreaction — it is impossible to buy either bottled water or bleach in the area — but most people seem to be taking it in stride. For my part, I spend a week every summer swimming in unfiltered pond water, and if this reservoir is anything like the others I've seen it's probably cleaner than most ponds — festooned with "NO TRESPASSING" and "NO SWIMMING" signs — so I've been using "Would I feel comfortable doing this in Long Pond?" as a yardstick.² Bathing? Sure. Accidentally swallowing a tablespoon? No worries. Mixing up a pitcher of lemonade? Not without boiling it. (Cormorant poop, ew.)

I think it says something that this relatively minor inconvenience has taken top honors on Twitter, while the oily doom bearing down upon the Gulf Coast — an incomparably worse water disaster — is #4. It doesn't necessarily say a bad thing — I am, after all, choosing to blog about the minor inconvenience as well. We tend to chat about the things that affect us personally, not the vague threats that foam in the sea, and we all have the right to be affected by the things we're affected by. But as adfamiliares points out, this is a good time to remind ourselves how good we have it — much of the world not only has to purify their water (if they can), but has to pump it and carry it, or doesn't have enough of it. We in the Boston area have slipped down one rung on the ladder of liveability for a few days, but we're still pretty near the top.

That said, there is no coffee at Diesel. Exclamation mark exclamation mark. I worked around the problem by buying an iced mocha from Crema Cafe in Harvard Square and toting it up to Diesel for the evening — they had a "Bring Your Own Coffee" sign up, and I bought a pastry, so I wasn't being an ass — but I can't go on like that forever. I've got a book to write here, people!

¹ Except Cambridge, the envy of us all.
² I've mostly been doing a lot of skinnydipping.

Busy weekend

After spending a week feeling weary, achy, and scattered, I decided on Friday to show my body who's boss, which led into a pretty packed weekend:

• Friday, I rode my bike nine miles to the aquarium, which marked my first time riding in downtown Boston traffic. Once there, I spent a lot of time communing with a cuttlefish, which floated in front of me, eye to eye, like a tiny tentacled dirigible. They can change the color and texture of their skin, and even when they're not actively doing so the chromatophores in their skin flicker, exactly as though someone were watching a TV inside them. Such beautiful animals. (And delicious ones.) I also saw mossy frogs, which look very much like plastic Swamp Thing action figures, as well as the usual array of moray eels, sea dragons, penguins, and jellies. Then nine miles home, which left me feeling energized and more in control of my physical self. I tackled the end of chapter 29, and knocked it out by 2AM.


• Saturday was the Scottish ball, which occupied us from 3PM onward. We and another dancer were in charge of the after party, so we spent a lot of time scurrying about arranging food, but we still had plenty of time for dinner and dancing with friends. Apart from a calf cramp toward the end of the night, I had quite a lovely time, and enjoyed showing off my new(ish) kilt. Since we had to stay until the bitter end of the after party, we got home around 2AM, which was a bit late for K. I stayed up to boil me some water.


• Today I headed to Somerville to see the Museum of Modern Renaissance, which was open for Somerville Open Studios. (The pictures on the site are well worth checking out — the interior is sort of a crazy outsider art explosion.) I happened to get there at the right time to both bump into elusiveat and hear ten minutes of a glass harmonica concert in the brilliantly colored main hall. Soothing and wondrous; it got me out of myself for a bit. Then I walked to a spot near Porter to collect a scrap of drywall from another Open Studios artist (I have a hole to patch), and on to the big May Day festival in Harvard Square¹, via a moderately inefficient dead-reckoning route that had me worried for a while but worked out in the end. I met adfamiliares and obtained dinner from a sweet-as-peaches Thai street vendor, then did the iced mocha shuffle described in my previous post. Now I'm home, with writing to do. Whee!

¹ I've now walked all the way from Medford Square to Davis to Porter to Harvard to Allston to my house, though not all at once.