One Year Down

Well, we've lived in Boston for a year now, a milestone we celebrated by drinking the bottle of champagne the realtor left us when we moved in with some oysters. Bet you didn't know we had oysters living with us. They keep to their beds for the most part. We were both somewhat surprised by how similar living here has been to the other cities we've lived in. Certain things (seafood, general quality of pizza) are mildly better; others (driving, Massholes) are slightly worse, but I sort of think there are more similarities than differences to living in larger U.S. cities--at least in Mpls, STL, and Boston.

We do sometimes use wicked as an adjective to modify other adjectives, which is still a conscious decision done for the the novelty. For now. I can also affect a slight Boston accent when I want to fit in with the Massholes. I guess that's about the only way we've become Bostony, Liz was a honker when we moved. I also get angry at and think bad thoughts about people who do inconsiderate things while I'm biking, but it's still the inwardly directed, Minnesotany kind of anger that simmers more than it yells swears at strangers. My co-worker who moved from IA says he likes the east coast abrasiveness because you know immediately who the assholes are; in the midwest it can take years to find that out.

We got visited several times, which was nice. My dad (2x), Liz's mom and Mitch, Liz's cousin (2x), Liz's sister (Kris), Liz's aunt and uncle, Missy and Rob from NYC, our Alabama friends, Greg, and Craig (last night) have all made appearances. Come on out, it gives us an excuse to eat lobster.



On the MN front last year, we made it back a few times and saw our last game in the Dome, where Liz had her last Dome Dog. We always wish we could be there more.




I've found that if I just pretend the Twins making the playoffs is like them winning the world series, it helps. Their runs have been just as exciting as any world series game and it softens the recovery time after a bad playoff performance.


Oh, and of course we were thrice blessed with nepheeci last year. It turns out there's not a collective word like "siblings" for nieces and nephews, so I invented one.




Pretty decent year, all told.

Tasting Mother Nature's Booty

One of the things we were most excited about home ownership was finally being able to grow some edibles. We tried beets, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, peas, herbs, and cucumbers. Our results were mixed. The peas and cucumbers died within weeks of transplanting them outside. The zucchini flowered but never zucchinied. One beet survived in a pot. I grated the little guy over a salad. It was enough to turn the dressing pink. The peppers did OK, I think we got about five off of three plants. The greenies went into a salsa and the reds went into a shrimp and spinach and brown rice concoction. The cherry tomatoes were a big success, we ate them by the handful and had plenty for salsa.



we inherited an apple tree in the back yard as well. The squirrels got most of them but we had enough for Liz to make a crisp for us and one for the neighbors.


The mint garnish came from the garden as well. The rest of the basil and thyme went into pesto. Some made its way onto this salmon and we froze a nice batch as well.



I do not believe our farm was cost effective compared to what we'd have paid at the grocery store, after buying all the planters and soil we'll probably break even around 2012 if we keep at it. It was fairly fun either way and we were proud of our meager yet tasty harvest.