My first day of 2010.
Jan. 2nd, 2010 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasToday was a pretty busy day, actually.
Yesterday, I got an email from Dad saying that he was planning on doing something stupid today, but he only could do it if there was someone there to help him out if he got into trouble. There was to be a group of people jumping into Walden Pond at or around noon on January 1. I phoned him up and said I'd be there.
This morning, we started by taking a long shot and phoning up our favorite diner, to see if they'd somehow decided to open on New Year's Day. And they HAD. So we went there for breakfast.
On the way out, I figured, what the heck, and threw a pair of swim trunks in the car, Just In Case. And my down sleeping bag, to have something warm to hop into after. We went to Ernie's, and had a wonderful meal, as usual there, and then we drove out to Wayland, and got our stuff together -- warm clothing, towels, and so forth, and I explained to Father that I was actually going to join him, and that Lis would therefore be coming along to take photographs and call 911 if we collapsed from heart failure, and the like.
It was actually quite a nice day today -- it was right in the 28-to-32 degree range, about -1 to 0 centigrade. Which is quite a nice temperature for January 1.
We got to Walden Pond about, oh, eleven-thirty, quarter of noon or so. We were among the first people to show up carrying towels, although plenty of people were carrying skis, snowshoes, and the like.
Father and I walked around to various likely spots around the edge of the pond where one could get into the water easily, and looked for the spot where the ice was thinnest. As we finished up our observations, more of the people who had actually called the event showed up, and they decided which spot we'd be going in. So we all trooped over there, and I got the splitting maul and ropes from the truck, and people got logs and sledgehammers and coal shovels and pitchforks and so forth, and we set about chopping up the ice around the landing we were to use. One of the useful techniques was to tie a rope to a log, or a sledgehammer, or splitting maul, and throw it out onto the ice, then drag it back in and repeat. Someone showed up with a roof-rake, which we were able to use to drag aside much of the chopped ice.
This exercise kept us nicely warm until we'd cleared a big enough hole. At this point, the only one of us who was cold was Lis, who was standing on the shore taking photos. So we got down to our swim trunks, and got in.
As it turned out, I was actually the first one in, and my father the second. I just went in, dunked under, and came right out; Father swam around a little bit, came out, then decided he wasn't done, and went in again.
It was honestly not all that bad. There was no wind, and the air temperature was only about 30 F, or 0 C, so, we were really rather comfortable, and warmed up right away after drying off and getting dressed again.
We went back to my parents' house, where Mother had made up a fresh pot of hot soup for us, which was quite delicious (soup is one of my mother's specialities), hung out for a bit, then drove into Dorchester to visit the Buttery's New Year's Party, which had apparently been going on for well over 24 hours when we got there around three in the afternoon. We saw, briefly, many friends, but only stayed a relatively short time, then went into Harvard Square.
We went to Grendel's Den for supper -- from 5:30 to 7:30, all food is half-price, as long as every member of your party spends at least $3 on alcohol. So Lis got a hot mulled cider with port in it, and I got an Elderflower Manhattan -- see, Grendel's Den is a dive bar run by hippie mixologist foodies. You can't get a Bud, Michelob, Coors, or Heinekin there, but you can get any of a number of local microbrews -- at nearly dive bar prices. My Elderflower Manhattan, made with several premium liquors, was the most expensive thing on the drinks menu, at $9.
A shot and a beer at Grendel's costs only a little more than a shot and a beer most places, but your whiskey will be a Sazerac Rye, and your beer will be a Magic Hat #9.
The food is decent, and cheap -- even when you're NOT getting for half-price. During half-price time? It's unbeatable. But entirely edible. It was the worst meal we had today -- but that's being compared to breakfast at Ernie's, my mother's soup for lunch, and the snacks that the folks at the Buttery set out -- so "worst meal today" is STILL quite good in objective terms. It's a very high bar.
After that, we went to see BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, a gospel-and-R&B show based on THE WINTER'S TALE. I'll write more about that, probably in the morning. The short of it is, Lis and I are glad we saw it, we quite enjoyed it, the music was better than the play, there were serious flaws in it, and they came up with at least one idea for their version which is an improvement on Shakespeare's original.
After that, we went back to Grendel's for one more drink -- alcoholic for Lis, non- for me, and came home. Now, to bed -- we've got to go to the gym in the morning.
Yesterday, I got an email from Dad saying that he was planning on doing something stupid today, but he only could do it if there was someone there to help him out if he got into trouble. There was to be a group of people jumping into Walden Pond at or around noon on January 1. I phoned him up and said I'd be there.
This morning, we started by taking a long shot and phoning up our favorite diner, to see if they'd somehow decided to open on New Year's Day. And they HAD. So we went there for breakfast.
On the way out, I figured, what the heck, and threw a pair of swim trunks in the car, Just In Case. And my down sleeping bag, to have something warm to hop into after. We went to Ernie's, and had a wonderful meal, as usual there, and then we drove out to Wayland, and got our stuff together -- warm clothing, towels, and so forth, and I explained to Father that I was actually going to join him, and that Lis would therefore be coming along to take photographs and call 911 if we collapsed from heart failure, and the like.
It was actually quite a nice day today -- it was right in the 28-to-32 degree range, about -1 to 0 centigrade. Which is quite a nice temperature for January 1.
We got to Walden Pond about, oh, eleven-thirty, quarter of noon or so. We were among the first people to show up carrying towels, although plenty of people were carrying skis, snowshoes, and the like.
Father and I walked around to various likely spots around the edge of the pond where one could get into the water easily, and looked for the spot where the ice was thinnest. As we finished up our observations, more of the people who had actually called the event showed up, and they decided which spot we'd be going in. So we all trooped over there, and I got the splitting maul and ropes from the truck, and people got logs and sledgehammers and coal shovels and pitchforks and so forth, and we set about chopping up the ice around the landing we were to use. One of the useful techniques was to tie a rope to a log, or a sledgehammer, or splitting maul, and throw it out onto the ice, then drag it back in and repeat. Someone showed up with a roof-rake, which we were able to use to drag aside much of the chopped ice.
This exercise kept us nicely warm until we'd cleared a big enough hole. At this point, the only one of us who was cold was Lis, who was standing on the shore taking photos. So we got down to our swim trunks, and got in.
As it turned out, I was actually the first one in, and my father the second. I just went in, dunked under, and came right out; Father swam around a little bit, came out, then decided he wasn't done, and went in again.
It was honestly not all that bad. There was no wind, and the air temperature was only about 30 F, or 0 C, so, we were really rather comfortable, and warmed up right away after drying off and getting dressed again.
We went back to my parents' house, where Mother had made up a fresh pot of hot soup for us, which was quite delicious (soup is one of my mother's specialities), hung out for a bit, then drove into Dorchester to visit the Buttery's New Year's Party, which had apparently been going on for well over 24 hours when we got there around three in the afternoon. We saw, briefly, many friends, but only stayed a relatively short time, then went into Harvard Square.
We went to Grendel's Den for supper -- from 5:30 to 7:30, all food is half-price, as long as every member of your party spends at least $3 on alcohol. So Lis got a hot mulled cider with port in it, and I got an Elderflower Manhattan -- see, Grendel's Den is a dive bar run by hippie mixologist foodies. You can't get a Bud, Michelob, Coors, or Heinekin there, but you can get any of a number of local microbrews -- at nearly dive bar prices. My Elderflower Manhattan, made with several premium liquors, was the most expensive thing on the drinks menu, at $9.
A shot and a beer at Grendel's costs only a little more than a shot and a beer most places, but your whiskey will be a Sazerac Rye, and your beer will be a Magic Hat #9.
The food is decent, and cheap -- even when you're NOT getting for half-price. During half-price time? It's unbeatable. But entirely edible. It was the worst meal we had today -- but that's being compared to breakfast at Ernie's, my mother's soup for lunch, and the snacks that the folks at the Buttery set out -- so "worst meal today" is STILL quite good in objective terms. It's a very high bar.
After that, we went to see BEST OF BOTH WORLDS, a gospel-and-R&B show based on THE WINTER'S TALE. I'll write more about that, probably in the morning. The short of it is, Lis and I are glad we saw it, we quite enjoyed it, the music was better than the play, there were serious flaws in it, and they came up with at least one idea for their version which is an improvement on Shakespeare's original.
After that, we went back to Grendel's for one more drink -- alcoholic for Lis, non- for me, and came home. Now, to bed -- we've got to go to the gym in the morning.