UNO, dos, tres

I’ve known Christian since he was a college kid. 15 years later, he and his wife Hannah have become world citizens, moving easily between the country side of eastern Africa, dance clubs in Madrid, conference rooms in big pharma and biotech companies, and the suburbs of Sacramento. They met in Tanzania, while he was living in Heidelberg and she was in London. I’ve seen them in San Francisco, London, Marrakesh… But visiting them in Boston was the first time I’ve stayed with them both where they live.

And I’ve never had a great time in Boston, or liked it very much. Probably because I’ve only come here for conferences and meetings. But staying with C&H at their South End apt turned me around. They have a great place, recently remodeled, on the top floor of a brownstone. Often these places have a rooftop deck, which theirs did. A 360 degree view of the Boston skyline is accessed through a strange kind of skylight door set in the roofline at about 45 degrees from the mezzanine floor.

The neighborhood has gentrified recently, and is pretty fancy-pantsed now, with many great restaurants and galleries and boutiques. My favorite place there was a small café/bakery/coffee shop called the “South End Buttery”. I think I went there 4 times in 4 days. Great coffee and a heavily trafficked place, so you see who lives in the South End. And all the butter they use in their baked goods is supposed to be good for your coronary arteries. I think. I might have that wrong.

Saturday night they had a party, with the nominal excuse of getting rid of all their half-empty booze bottles (they’re leaving this wonderful place soon, wanderers that they are). I met some interesting folks, though as the good liquor got finished and the group turned towards the bad, the conversations turned largely to how to make bad booze into good. The most interesting person to me was a woman OB/GYN clinician who has a vision of co-opting the porn industry to promote good and safe sex practices through the actual production of pornography. She wants to become a producer, essentially. She did not attempt to recruit me for the project, for some reason. Maybe it was the bad booze that clouded her judgment?

Hannah’s got pictures on her Facebook page of the party (from where I stole some photos for Icelollysforall), and other moments. I looked kind of uncomfortable in some of them. Guess I felt a little bit old at a party where there was a Twister game being played…

But, as the night wore on, and the party got smaller, we decided to play the card game, “Uno”. I didn’t know how to play, but I caught on pretty quickly. An entertaining game in general, but made hilarious for me by Hannah’s friend “C”, who was pure id: alternatively shouting “fuck you” and “I hate you guys” at us when she’d lose a hand, and then seconds later would be hanging on Hannah’s neck, embracing her.

At one point, maybe 2AM, Hannah stopped for a break and offered us all frozen popsicle treats. She called them “ice lollies” (Hannah is from England.) I thought that phrase was so entertaining, I adopted it for this blog. When I registered the name for the blog, though, I didn’t spell the plural form correctly. So sue me. You’re reading this aren’t you?

It rained most of the days I was there, but that made for a great Sunday retreat when the three of us camped out at the Liberty Hotel while it poured. The building is an old city jail, now converted to a luxury hotel. Champaign, oysters, papadam (big discussion over how to spell it), roasted egg plant, New York Times.

I like hanging out C&H, because I often find myself doing things I don’t usually do. I had my first pedicure here. It kind of smarts! Thanks for springing for it, Hannah. My feet will be the talk of Rome, I’m sure. Boston and visiting C&H was a nice springboard for my transatlantic jump, which is coming up next…