Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1545
Drivin' to Boston
Good morning friends. Greetings from the playground next to our apartment in Somerville, MA. We are just back from the Ukrainian breakfast joint. No babkas today. They have moved the beverage fridge and the little service tray with utensils, napkins and straws. But it is still great. Jane for a bagel and a muffin. Eyes bigger than her stomach that one.
Gonna try and write this whole try on my phone from the playground. Wish me luck.
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I am eight days Covid negative today very exciting. No bounce back. I did not give my family Covid. Yay me.
We drove all day yesterday, left at 7:44 AM and arrived at 8:45. Not bad. Three stops total. Jane threw her one fit in THE EXACT SAME PLACE she throws her fit every time, at the Maryland House rest stop. Except this time we didnt even stop there. As the signs started appearing for it on the New Jersey Pike; she started throwing things at me. Called me the worst daddy every and I should be kicked out of the family because I made her stop. Emma says I should have ignored her and let her continue to throw at me her arsenal of small rubber human figures with magnets in their hands and feet. She is probably right.
Later in the trip she told Emma some mean thing. But it passed quickly.
So my big epiphany now is that from the NJ-DE border to Hartford or so, Waze; Google Maps and Apple Maps are basically uselsss and you should ignore them. It is so weird. Every time I would make a decision to go a different way than the apps were recommending (we were checking all three), the estimated arrival time would go down ten minutes or more. Every time. It was wrong about which bridge to take. It was wrong about the Hutchison like three times. It was wrong about I-84. It was crazy! Arriving into Boston, it told me to take route 9 into Somerville. I ignored it; stayed on the Mass Pike, and the arrive time decreased by sixteen minutes.
I'm not sure what's causing this but it is absurd. I suspect because everyone is using it now? And when there are; like; two or more parallel routes to go somewhere; as there often are in New Jersey, they do not distribute the load, they send everyone on the same route. There aaa one point in Jersey where it had us get off the turnpike for a bit and take that bit of I-80 that runs parallel to the pike for six miles or so. It made EVERYONE get off, the traffic sucked, and you could SEE the empty NJ turnpike a couple hundred yards to the east.
Then we all got back on. For no reason.
That was the end for me. I will listen to them no longer. In this very specific part of the world. It (and when I say it" I mean all thee apps in unison) absolutely refuses to endorse the Major Deegan and it is obviously the best route. It kept insisting it would add 20 minutes to my trip. As soon as I got on it, they were like "naw dawg it's all good, this will actually be five minutes faster."
Absurd.
(Hrm the bold formatting button just broke in the Buttondown mobile view so no more build I guess.)
Apartment was in pretty good shape for having a 100 or so nights of visitors since we were last here. Maybe seven different parties. All very clean. Except:
1) No one cleans toilets
2) No one mops
3) Batbrub for dirty
4) Every cable in my computer setup and nightstand setup was inexplicably unplugged from the wall and the power strips and everything. All the USB cables pulled from the monitor and on the floor. The POWER cord to the monitor unplugged from the back of the monitor. Very mysterious. Almost as if there was a circuit blown and people had to futz with something. Very mysterious.
We don't Airbnb the place it's all friends. And we don't charge market rate, just $50 a night. Which is dumb when someone stays all month and the rent is still not covered. And it's dumb because it's not enough to hire a cleaning service in between guests. I guess we could hire one right before we come. Hrm. There is no reporters system.
I am sad I did not take the two weeks off while here - or even one. Just not enough vacation time after all the Alaska funeral trips this year. And work is pretty busy this week.
But it is good to be here. I am very excited about installing the foot rail that work bar in the three-season room. Hopefully I have enough energy to do that today.
I love walking. I love walking TO places. I love walking to breakfast every morning with Jane. We talked about how nice it is to walk places. We learned the etymology of croissant - it is from the word crescent. That seems really obvious. I love that we got here and Jane's summer playground friends were at the playground already. They seem to always want to play "jewelry shop."
Jane is displeased.
We have justa mix for you today. It is 15 minutes too long but I'm on my phone and I don't know how to fix that. It is all new stuff. It is mostly great. Love that new Doobie Brothers.
We’ll see if any of that formatting works. Maybe we can write all week from the playground. Until tomorrow.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.