#31 Boston - Back to the Grind January 5, 2006

Happy New Year and welcome back to the daily grind! I got back to Boston this past Sunday night, utterly exhausted from a long trip and with a big fat head from the New Year's Eve celebrations at my brother's house. I had warned them to not let me near the champagne, but what can I say! Some of you might recall the effects champagne has on me, I turn into this giggling heap of a person and will laugh myself silly for no apparent reason, hours on end. It is a sight to behold, and maybe not the first thing you would like to experience in the new year.

New Year's Eve is always a pretty cool event in Germany - usually celebrated with a pile of friends, sitting around a fondue pot (with meat of course, what did you think - cheese?), chatting and drinking away, games are being played, and come midnight everyone storms out onto the street to see the neighbors set themselves on fire by lighting fireworks illegally purchased in Slovenia or some other obscure Eastern European country. I am convinced that some of the neighbors spend their entire Christmas bonus on fireworks, and we got a little worried at some point that my brother's birds (he raises them) would fall off their perches with heart attacks. Fortunately they all survived and all was well in general, except for the next morning when my head felt as if someone had inserted barbed wire and installed tiny little loud speakers (this has nothing to do with the birds, BTW). It did not help that we had to get up at the ungodly time of 8 AM to drive to the airport in Zurich where my return flight awaited. It was a quiet ride to sum it up, everyone looked a bit pale, and we all could have used a giant slurpy size coffee just to keep our eyes open.

New Year's Eve ("Silvester" in German) has a couple of nice traditions associated with it - my favorite is to watch a little piece on the tube that has become a bit of a cult thing , and is shown on pretty much almost every major TV channel on New Year's Eve. It is a 15-minute English theater play called "Dinner for One", and is an absolute must-see! This sketch from the 1920s features Mae Warden as Miss Sophie and Freddie Frinton as her butler James. Here is the gist of the story: Miss Sophie is celebrating her 90th birthday with her four best friends - Sir Toby, Admiral Don Schneider, Mister Pomeroy and Mister Winterbottom. Only problem is: all of them have been dead for years. Miss Sophie (sharp as she is) insists on the dinner, and the poor butler not only has to play all four characters, he has to drink for them all through a five-course meal. On his way to desert of course, he gets quite sloshed, and keeps asking Miss Sophie "The same procedure as every year, Mam'?" to which she replies "The same procedure as every year James!" Quotes from this piece have become common language and are used frequently ("I declare the bazaar open") - for my Boston friends, I will glad to have a little showing some time (champagne included) (http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa010101a.htm).

Another lovely tradition is to go visit your neighbors after midnight to toast in the New Year. I have always found that to be a very lovely practice and have tried it once in California, but with minimal success. For some reason people did not want to open their doors there after midnight. Party poopers!

Two weeks in Germany passed quickly, and as mentioned last week, I had a lovely time. On Friday I headed out for one more cross-country ski trip with my friend Joachim, to the area of Malsburg Marzell. On a most gorgeous day with stunning blue skies we hoofed it up the Gleichenspur (mostly uphill and it does not help if you are being passed by a 70-year old woman), and after our skiing expedition we stopped at the SkiClub's cabin (http://www.lipple.de/html/ausblicke_7.html) for some local cuisine. Interestingly enough, on our way home we drove by a sanatorium where I spend 7 1/2 months in 1977 to recuperate from tuberculosis. Not the best of memories associated with it....

Meanwhile, back in Boston - I of course completely had spaced that Monday was a holiday (on account of New Year's falling on a Sunday) and showed up at work with no-one around. After digging through 250 emails I decided to call it a day, go for some retail therapy and then meet my friends Ellen and Patrick for a New Year's lunch in the North End (http://www.northendboston.com/). I love this part of town - most of the time I feel as if someone had stuck me smack in the middle of a "Sopranos" episode. Lovely restaurants, great stores (Polcari's comes to mind with 27 varieties of coffee alone) and if you need some holy water or an Italian soccer uniform, this is the place to go.
In the evening I drove to the lovely Atlantic ocean community of Nahant on the Northshore, about 15 miles north of Boston (http://www.nahant.com/welcome.html) where Oscar had been happily vacationing with my friends Stephanie and Dan. It was time to get "banana boy" home (He told me he had a wicked fabulous time), and I think he was quite contended to see me after all.

I am looking forward to this coming weekend, trying to get the jet lag out of my system, take care of a throat infection, and get in some fun activities, a theater play, a visit to the Athenaeum, condo shopping and a hike are on the menu.

Be well and again, Happy New Year!!

pet:)