AKA Puffbaby, AKA P. Baby
Woke up at 2:45 am to the loudest bang I've ever heard and the house shaking. It stopped after about 3 seconds and I waited for either the baby to start wailing, or the ceiling to cave in or both. Neither happened. About 10 minutes later, Chris's friend called from Danvers and asked if we had felt it too. He said that he could see flames shooting up behind the trees about a quarter mile away from his house. I ran outside and from the back yard I could see a huge orange glow about a mile away and black smoke billowing up. We thought a plane had crashed.
It turned out to be an explosion that levelled a chemical plant that makes inks and solvents. It was a huge relief to find out that no one had been killed. It was almost impossible to go back to sleep not knowing what was going on and not knowing how bad the fire was or where it was.
Chloe on Essex St. November 5, 2006
It made sense to me, if you can put one pin in a map on pininthemap.com, then why not several? I think a lot of people are wondering this since it's on their F. A. Q. page. They think it's a good idea too because they are "working on it". So my plans to have a map of Salem with little pins where you can buy, do and eat various things is kind of futuristic right now. I did follow through on one thing and update the lens today.
Daddy had to work, so I took the Chloemeister out for a walk around town. I had gotten an e-mail from Salem Sounds about a blues jam that would be happening from 2 to 4 as part of the Second Saturdays in Salem program and it was the Essex St. Fair as well so you can't say there was nothing to do.
The street fair was crazy. Lots of tables selling the kinds of trinkets and knickknacks that you get used to in this town. I don't think I've ever seen a place where you can buy a pentagram necklace and a figurine of a witch riding a broomstick in a garter belt along with your Sunday paper.
The blues jam was reverberating throughout the walkway between Essex and Front St. It made a little ampitheater and the band was playing to a crowd spread out on the steps in front of the old town hall. A lot of great covers and the singer's voice was a good match for the two-guitar, two bass and drums line-up. I had to take refuge in the alley behind Cafe Graziani for the sake of the baby's eardrums, but the sound was still pretty good.
Band: Vocals: Sarah Seminski & Helen Watson-Felt Guitars: Jon & Eric Reardon Bass: Bob Hamel & Doug Blake Drums: Mike Stewart
After the concert, I started working my way up and down Essex St. for a long-putoff project of doing a Squidoo lens about Salem. Every time I go out, I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of witchcrafty and trinket stores in this town, and I think putting a page on pinonthemap.com might help me to sort it out a little. Stay tuned!
Later on we went to Bangkok Paradise and met up with our friend Rich. There was a pretty good ska funk band playing in the main room. We locked the stroller up to a signpost outside and sat in the window to shield Chloe from the sonic blast of drum/bass/vocals+Bangkok Paradise bar crowd. The BP further sealed its status as the Kowloon of the North Shore and I had the tofu and tamarind sauce which was amazing. I actually cleaned my plate, post-baby diet be damned.
North Station is being renovated! Again! Yay! I used to live in Fort Point and my daily commute home would involve walking through South Station and I always found it to be a somewhat more tolerable aesthetic experience than North Station. I grew up on the North Shore and North Station has existed in my memory since I was 6 years old. I can still remember sitting on a wooden bench, watching pigeons and listening to my dad read "The Princess and the Goblin" out loud to me. I remember when the rail company switched owners in the late eighties and the sale took over at midnight on New Year's Eve, stranding hundreds of revelers as the trains went out of service. I remember watching drunken Vietnam vets race their motorized wheelchairs back and forth on the concourse while waiting for a Christmas Eve train home.
Basically, I have a certain nostalgia for the place, with its kamikaze pigeons, tiny restrooms, and Darwinian approach to customer service. It's nice that they are trying to make it into a clone of South Station but I hope it turns out better than the first 7 clones in "Alien Resurrection". .
With that in mind, here are a few simple rules of ETIQUETTE people! So sit up and take a freakin' listen:
1) Do not yell into your cellphone. Do you actually think other people care what your S.O. is making you for dinner?
2) Do not try and program your "groovy" new ring tone near someone trying to read. Especially if that person is me. I will go Chris Farley on your ass.
3) Thank you for having the wisdom to realize that if you attend a "sporting event" at the Garden or Fenway, you will get too twisted to drive yourself back to the suburbs. But that does not excuse you from exercising enough self-control to refrain from drinking so much that you become a helpless, vomiting mess in public.
4) Congratulations on your enormous brood of children! Now try to herd them responsibly so that I do not "accidentally" run into them trying to catch my train. If they are capable of walking upright, (and what child over 2 isn't these days?) please let them do so. Humungous strollers are the Devil's little red wagon.
5) You're trying to close that important business deal with China? That's nice. Please stand still while you do it. Do not wander back and forth with the phone stuck to your ear. John Nash's theories have already been well documented.
6) You see the elderly person standing there? The one leaning on their cane trembling? Yes, that one, next to the woman who looks about 11 months pregnant. Oh, you can't see them because you are sitting there staring at your PSP? Then get the hell up and give 'em the freakin' seat already.
7) Wow, I wish I loved my job as much as YOU do! At least, I figure that's your reason for elbowing other people out of the way at you barrel through the station, staggering under your ginormous backpack. What's in there anyway? A survival kit in case the aliens come today?
8) Unless you are in the army and are being told to march in formation by Lee Ermy, or unless you are currently in the Rose Bowl Parade, I see no need for you and your friends, family or co-workers to walk 4 abreast down the track to your train. Please let me get by you, because you don't want the guy in Rule #7 to hurt you.
9) Please remember that you are buying nothing more than a glorified subway ticket. It is not a plane ticket to Dakar, or a shuttle ticket to the moon. The only question you really need to ask the ticket seller is "How much do I owe you?" Do not quibble over the price like Chris Rock's character Cheap Pete. "How 'bout I pay you 25 cents and I just hang on to the roof?" Pay and get out of the way for the next customer.
10) Those little 2-wheeled suitcases are great for only 2 kinds of people: 1) Stewardesses trying to catch their flight in 3 inch heels, and 2) Your grandmother traveling in from Nebraska. If you are a reasonably healthy adult traveling from the train to the subway. You do not, I repeat, DO NOT have to play Sherpa. Especially with a little cheap-o number that tilts over every three steps, requiring you to constantly come to a full stop to make adjustments. Pick up the damn thing. Carry your stuff like a man, dammit. Or if you are a woman, just shove everything into about 5 little Vera Bradley bags like everyone else.
That is all, enjoy your trip, and THANK YOU for riding the T.
I was either too hot or too lazy to cook, or I just wanted to get out of the house, I can't remember. Anyway, we ended up at Passage to India around 8:30 on a Saturday night with the baby in tow. I was worried about how they would be about a baby at that time of night, but our fears were abated when I opened the door to go in and ask about a table and ended up holding the door open for another couple with their baby who were just leaving. The baby was sound asleep which was a good sign. The owner/bartender knows my husband pretty well so he was delighted to see Chloe for the first time. We tucked her carrier into a booth and she behaved the entire meal. The staff was great with her and she was a little flirt with the busboys. The food was great and now we have another place that has been "kid tested" and approved.
To re-cap:
Baby Friendly Restaurants in Salem:
Finz (outdoor seating with room for a stroller)
Taste of Thyme (staff loves kids)
Fresh Taste of Asia (outdoor seating)
Passage to India (staff loves kids, lots for the baby to look at)
So I took the train home last night and after the morning’s commute in via the ferry, the hot, sticky crowded station full of grumpy sweaty would-be passengers seemed extra-depressing. By the time I slogged through the heat to get to North Station, it was so jam packed that I gave up trying to press through the crowd and took a spot near the McDonald’s. The 6:10 was called 5 minutes after it was scheduled to leave the station and I noticed a couple of people who looked too purposeful to be tourists taking photos of the swarming crowd with professional-looking cameras. I think they were taking photos for the story linked to in the headline of this post.
By the time I made it home, I was too exhausted to do anything but pop the cap on a beer and wait for my husband to come home after picking up the baby. We had made plans to go out to eat at Fresh Taste of Asia because they had outdoor seating, which I have found is the best solution for taking a baby to a restaurant, at least in the summer. Usually you can sit near the edge of the sidewalk and park the stroller so it’s out of the way.
Fresh Taste does a great job living up to its name. We decided to go with the traditional Chinese Restaurant Experience with tropical drinks (the Zombie), scallion pancakes, an order of rice and two entrees to share; the Broccoli with Garlic Sauce and the Home Style Tofu. The drinks were larger than the ones I was used to from the Kowloon and a lot more potent. It had an aftertaste that reminded me of rubbing alcohol but in a good way. On top of the beer and combined with the heat, I knew I had to visit the restroom while I could still negotiate my way through the restaurant without making too much of a fool of myself.
The ladies room was a pleasant experience and when I got back to the table, serendipitously the scallion pancakes had arrived. They were a big improvement over the flat, tough greasy ones I was used to getting at a takeout palace. This was a big doughy silky righteous pancake cut into 8 pieces. It was so good I almost didn't have room for the entrees and I felt bad since the Broccoli & Garlic was so good and peppery that I really wanted to eat it all right there. It was such a warm night that everyone was out walking around and as we sat back under the Christmas light-festooned trees, slurping our Zombies and stuffing our faces, I could have convinced myself that we were in a restaurant in Hanoi. (Not as grim as it sounds, Hanoi has sections that are almost glamorous.)
All said, I think we've found our Kowloon right in our own backyard, minus the tiki room and the colored fountains,even though the Essex Street fountain outside Rockafellas is a pretty good substitute.
Today I turn 37 and to cheer me up, Chris said he could use one of his 10 Ride ferry tickets to get me on the ferry to Boston. We dropped Chloe off at my mom's in Beverly and then raced back to Salem for the 7am departure. Derby St. is a one way where the ferry docks, so it was a few frantic, French Connection-like minutes before we found a street that would get us pointed the right way on Derby and we screeched to a halt in the parking lot with 2 minutes to spare.
It's definitely a big improvement on taking the train. The pilot yelled at us to slow down as we raced for the dock. As we ascended the stairs to the top deck with coffee purchased at the snack counter, blithely tuning out the mumbled announcement (something about life jackets, whatever), and settled into a bench, I was already sold. Unlike sitting in an un-airconditioned commuter-rail car crammed up against fellow cranky commuters, it is really hard not to feel good when you are flying along the open seas with the wind whipping your hair around. (Mental note, bring a jacket next time) As we raced by Marblehead, then Lynn, Nahant and Revere I kept running around the deck like a complete tourist, taking pictures. (I wish I could post more right now, but Microsoft's Windows XP imaging doesn't let you rotate photos(!) and I took a lot of portrait ratio ones) We landed at 7:50 on the dot right next to the seal tank at the New England Aquarium, surprising a couple of trustafarians communing with the seals.
All said, it was well worth the extra dough and nothing beats going to work with salt spray in your hair on a beautiful summer's day.
More photos soon, I promise.
Saturday was the Latino-American fiesta day on the Salem Common. Last year it took me by (pleasant) surprise as it's held in the same location where I went running, so I decided to take Chloe by there and let her check it out. The day started out really foggy.
In addition to sausage carts, bandstands and an inflatable moon-walk castle, they also had people dressed up in these amazing costumes running around scaring kids. Hopefully, I didn't warp my child's mind.
Saturday is pretty much always Taste of Thyme day for us, but Sunday came and I kept thinking about the crepe place on Essex St. I think of crepe places as being in the same category as Indian restaurants: You see the new one open, it looks great, you've read a couple of good reviews and you promise yourself that you'll check it out "soon" only to have it close down due to slow business before you've had a chance to darken the doorstep.
I vowed this wasn't going to happen and I shook my husband awake, got the baby and all of her many acoutrements into the stroller and we headed out. 10 minutes walking later, we were standing in the Z Crepe cafe trying to figure out how to place an order with the lanky young man lurking behind the counter talking on his cell phone. I got Chris's order and mine all set and stepped up to the counter, guessing that this was the way to obtain one of the crepes advertised. Without warning, a European tourist couple swooped in from the other entrance that opened out into the Essex Place shopping mall and the kid on the cell phone was so flustered by their direct assault that he turned to them and began taking their order. Oh well. I didn't feel like bitching about it since we had the entire day ahead of us, but it was a hilarious exchange to watch for a variety of reasons. 1) The kid behind the counter managed to pour two cups of coffee without getting off of his cellphone, 2) The female tourist became very protective of her money and kept reminding the clerk that she had given him 4 dollars as if he was about to shortchange her and he became thoroughly confused and 3) They asked for the coffee to-go and the kid said they didn't have any cup covers so they ended up gingerly tiptoeing out onto the cobblestone street with coffee all over their toes. We placed an order and went to sit outside with the baby.
We both got the "Zen" crepe (cucumber, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, basil)and coffee. Chris had been cajoled into eating a crepe in Paris about 10 years ago on the street and he warned me to expect a greasy, egg-y morasse of doughy goo. So it was a nice surprise when what actually showed up was a chewy, thin and light pancake wrapped around a mass of gooey cheese, crunchy cucumber and fresh tomato chunks. I cleaned my plate and we staggered around downtown Salem with no particular plans until Chris decided that he wanted another cup of coffee. We ended up at Jaho's on Derby St. and I checked out their cappuchino macchiato gelato. Jaho's actually had enough space for us to bring the ginormous Graco stroller inside since the weather looked kind of dicey and Chloe had a great time entertaining the outside patrons through the window.
I felt like a boa constrictor after Thanksgiving for the rest of the day but it was worth it.
Got to North Station in plenty of time to catch the 5:55pm train but it was delayed as usual so we waited all jammed up in the vestibule, I mean, station. The train finally showed up on track 6 and there was a mad rush to get on. I stepped into the nearest car and began the long trek up the aisles of the different cars trying to find a seat that wasn't already taken up with either an obese perspiring office worker or an overworked yuppie hammering away on a laptop. Finally I reached a car with lots of empty rows but when I stepped into it, I could tell why.
There should have been a pile of white towels by the door and a ladle for pouring water onto hot stones. The car had been traveling back and forth all day in the hot sun and it felt like a schvitz on wheels. Still, I took a seat and sat there fanning myself for the entire ride with one of those flyers for a mcCollege that promised degrees in fields that would be really depressing, like law enforcement. I reasoned that at least when I finally got off the train, the air would feel that much cooler in comparison to the air in the car. Also, the conductor never came around to take tickets because he probably didn't want to listen to everyone bitch so I got a free ride. AGAIN.
Saturday was a busy mommy day. Chloe to the doctor's office for a quick weigh-in (11 pounds, 7 oz), late breakfast at Taste of Thyme, and then off to the mall to get new cell phones since my husband's got soaked on the job last week. The Red Sox were in town for a 7pm game and he desparately needed a new phone so he could meetup with his friend and they could catch the ferry into the city. All he knew was that the only shot they had to get to the game in time was the 4pm departure.
After 45 minutes at a cell phone kiosk going through the rigamarole of setting up two new cell phones, my mind was a bit numb but I knew that we would be lucky to pick up the friend in Salem and find the ferry landing in time for them to be off. Finally got on the road at 3:30 to go back into Salem, quick stop at the house, swung around to Big Sammy's Roast Beef (surprise! It was "Big Fred's for decades but it's under new management now), grabbed the friend and set off in search of the ferry landing.
All I knew was that it was somewhere down off of Derby St. I had seen the location on Google Maps and I had seen a few small tasteful signs around town, but having never been to Blaney St. before, I was traveling down Derby in the hopes of finding something like an obvious ferry landing, i.e. something like a big dock with a large ship that said "FERRY". We drove past the House of Seven Gables, then past a couple of tiny side streets. The street was becoming narrower and narrower. Finally we saw a small sign saying, "Salem Ferry" with an arrow pointing to the right and turned to follow it.
Suddenly, we seemed to be driving straight into the water. "Do they want us to friggin' SWIM to the boat?" my husband asked. I saw a small band of people wandering somewhere to my left and turned the car to follow them, hoping they were heading for the ferry and they had a better idea of where it was than we did. We followed them into a haphazard looking parking lot, bordered by a rusty half swung open gate and there it was. Eureka. Our friend put it best; "Jesus, you would really have to know your way around to find this thing." Luckily we had found it in time and they were off. I was back to the mall, now in the beginning of a low blood sugar meltdown, with a screaming baby in the back seat, going back to pick up the photo ID I left behind and ask about something called a sim chip that didn't seem to be working in one of the phones.
8 hours later my husband was back from the game. "How was the ferry?" I asked. "Awesome" he said, "You can drink beer and check out the planes coming into Logan."
We'll try it again and maybe take the baby in for a festival in the North End. I went to the official web site and it's a little shakey, but you can get most of the important info here. It's strange that it's tucked away so far down Derby St., but at least that should keep it from getting as crowded as the commuter rail.
After lots of experience and math, I decided since the daycare/commuting schedule will be so crazy in months to come, that the best thing to do is to buy the "12-ride" ticket every other week or so. I travel from Zone 3 somedays and Zone 4 other days. So for 45 bucks, Zone 3 and 54 bucks, Zone 4, I don't have to fumble for cash or go to the wasteful expense of buying 2 separate T passes. I don't take the subway since I'm trying to lose some baby weight, so even with one zone it would be a waste of precious $$$.
By sheer serendipity, this is a great way to save on commuting costs. To explain: On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, Chloe goes to her grandma's in Beverly and I walk to the station at Montserrat for the 7:20. Most of the time the conductor is too busy getting ready for the Beverly Depot stop and they don't bother going through the car to check tickets. After Beverly, they are so busy dealing with the people that just got on that they can't get to where I sit before the Salem stop. By the time everyone at the Salem stop crowds on, the conductor is now so overwhelmed by the number of passengers standing in the aisle that most days they just give up completely on collecting fares, assume everyone has a T pass anyway and hide somewhere for the rest of the ride.
Today being Wednesday, I got on at Salem. For once, the 7:29 express had come on time so a lot of people had missed it and there were a lot of people. So we all tried to cram onto the 7:34, politely asking people if we could squuuuuueeeeeze into the seat next to them. I actually got a seat and sat down, wallet in hand, waiting for the conductor. I could here the little "click click" sound of the ticket punch about 12 rows back. Then the train made it's stop at Swampscott and everything went to hell. People crowded on, resigned to standing for the rest of the ride, except for one woman. Wearing blue nurse's scrubs, she plowed through the people entering my car, complaining to everyone that the AC wasn't on in the next car and now there were no seats and it was FRIGGIN' RIDICULOUS. She took her position about 3 rows in back of me and kept bitching. The conductor asked her for her ticket and she says: "WHY THE HELL SHOULD I PAY? THERE'S NO AC, NO SEAT AND IT'S LIKE THIS EVERYDAY! WHO CAN I COMPLAIN TO?"
I think at this point I would have suggested to her that she go on the MBTA's website and register a complaint. I've heard other conductors tell passengers to do it when the train is running its usual 5 minutes behind schedule. Instead, this guy started telling her that it says somewhere that buying a ticket doesn't entitle you to a seat. Things went back and forth until the conductor started screaming at the woman to not touch him. At this point people started to actually turn around to see what was going on. The woman, playing to the entire car now, yelled even louder, "WHO CAN I COMPLAIN TO??" "LADY, YOU CAN COMPLAIN TO THE LYNN POLICE!" he yelled back. By now the train was at Lynn station and the woman was hustled off the train Gestapo-style, leaving the rest of us to gossip freely about her.
But the best part is, the conductor was so freaked out at a passenger actually refusing to pay for late, crowded, uncomfortable service that he didn't continue to go through the car and I got a free ride AGAIN!
So it was a good morning.
We took Chloe up to Russell Orchards a couple of weekends ago. There's a theory in the medical community that since children who grow up on farms tend to exhibit less allergies, then exposing your kids to a farm enviroment gives their systems a little boost. Of course, George Carlin has been touting this theory for almost a decade, but I wasn't about to dunk my baby in the Charles River to test it out. Plus this way I could boost her immune system and buy a bottle of pretty good raspberry wine at the same time.
BTW, besides peacocks, ducks and an 800 pound pig, this place also has great Pick Your Own crops. Here's a great link to a site that indexes all the PYO places around.
Pretty soon you are going to overhear some HYT on Essex St talking on her cell phone about her “cute” condo in NOBO (North of Boston) that was a “steal” at $400,000. Consider yourself warned.
It’s not that I don’t love living here, because I do. My litmus test of Salem's changing demographics is the weekend crowd at Taste Of Thyme café and lately there have been a few too many people snapping their fingers at the staff. People! This isn’t the South End. Chill out.
And personally, it kind of bugs me when people walk in and sit at a table and plunk down their big Starbucks cup. It's kind of like walking into a brew pub and bringing in your own beer.
I took Chloe to the Peabody Essex Museum to see their new exhibition; "Painting Summer in New England". It was pretty much what I expected, pretty paintings of dunes, people in dunes, sunsets and sun rises. It even had a painting by Maxfield Parrish, the Thomas Kincade of the early 20th century. There were a few surprises though. Having never seen an Alex Katz painting in person, it was interesting to see two canvases that were the size of a barn. In the last gallery of the exhibition (there were 5 in all, wear comfortable shoes), there was a slightly modern-looking/Impressionist oil painting of a typical Boston brownstone that turned out to be G-Spa at 33 Newbury St. which is a property of the real estate company I work at. Small world.
The PEM has recently won the honor of being voted one of the top 10 art museums for kids in the country. When my parents moved us here from South Carolina, I vividly remember going to museums in Salem as a kid. They tried to take me to the Salem Witch museum, but the presentation with the lit-up tableaux and glowing red pentagram scared the crap out of me, so we ended up at the PEM in it's former incarnation as a dusty, neatly labeled version of Grandma's Attic. The object that still sticks in my mind is a tiny dessiccated monkey's head and torso sewn onto a dried fish tail with it's typed gray placard that read "Japanese Mermaid".
Hopefully Chloe's first trip to a museum didn't warp her mind like that did. She really got into an Alex Katz seascape. And she loved the Van Eyck-like self portait by a painter who depicted himself in his boxer shorts holding a baby in his lap. I think it reminded her of the struggle mankind faces in our postmodern society.
Hello and welcome to Salem Living!
I decided to start this blog for several reasons:
1) My husband and I have lived in Salem for a while now and it's the first place we've lived that has something cool going on all the time.
2) As a new parent, I'm constantly trying to find resources out there and if I find something useful, I want to share it.
3) Salem's going through a lot of changes right now and I think it's a good idea to document it somehow.
Hope you enjoy the postings to come and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, I'm always listening!
