If I die young, bury me in satin

Tonight, I wrote the "if I unexpectedly and tragically die in the Middle East, here's where my usernames and passwords are" email to my parents tonight. You see, my trip to THE HOLY LAND^(TM) begins late Friday night and I'm scurrying to get my affairs in order before I leave.

And of course, my car decides to up and quit on me Monday night. It's cool, just kind of hard to run errands and get everything all situated when you're somewhat housebound. But I've been half packing my bag for 2 months now (seriously, my clothing collection is color and theme coordinated for maximum mix-and-match-ability and wash-in-the-sink-ness).

But this post isn't about the future, it's an homage to the last six weeks of my life that have been full but woefully underrepresented in this fine establishment. When I come back it'll be all about camels and me looking like a hot and sweaty mess for 17 days. (SEVENTEEN DAYS.) [Side story: I walked to a client meeting today {see broken car above} and nearly died outside. Temperature only read 82. It's 104 in Cairo next week. I'll be there in +2 weeks. YIKES.)

So Spring 2011! You were good to me. Some highlights:


The Great Urban Race - my friend Meridith asked me if I wanted to compete with her in an Amazing Race-style scavenger hunt in and around town one flash-storm Saturday. We raced all over Cambridge and Boston, I felt very out of shape, fell down and bled, got rained on, took the bus (3 times), the T, ran and ran and answered clues, passed obstacles, and finished 23rd out of 400+ teams! We qualified for Nationals in New Orleans, but I guess we'll pass since neither of us have been there.

Family on the East Coast SON! If you haven't heard, Kendall, Josh and lil baby Henry are in Brooklyn for the summer and came up to Boston for three amazing days and nights. We ate, laughed, walked on the Charles, went to the Old North Bridge, checked out my office building and accidentally managed to match every single day. (Blue at the Old North Bridge, Red in Cambridge.) It's rather uncanny. I left to camp for Memorial Day (see below) and Kendall and Josh scrubbed my bathroom, did my laundry, organized my kitchen cupboards and left frozen cookie-dough balls in the freezer. Naturally, I'm itching for them to return.


Camping in Acadia National Park - I've wanted to do this since I moved to Boston and wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, someone else put the trip together. I rekindled my love of hot dogs over an open campfire and was somewhat floored how hard it was for everyone to put their phones away. (YouTube videos around a campfire? You're FIRED.) The weather was brisk but unfortunately pretty overcast and foggy. We hiked to the top of a small mountain but couldn't see one thing. With a little luck, it cleared on our last day and we drove to the top of a peak, caught some great views, ate a lobster, and headed back to Boston.

I also went to Houston to visit Julie. We don't take photos of ourselves anymore.

In between all of the above, I managed to win not one, but two Biggest Loser competitions. Neither were all that competitive, but it feels nice to be feeling better about fitting my clothes better. Here's hoping I drop another few while traveling where the food might be questionable, none of my favorite candies to purchase, and a metric ton of sweat to be shed from my body every day!