Black Friday Blogspot: 2 blogs for the price of 1!

First Snow

Nov. 20: Today was our first snow in Boston! I was walking to my car after work thinking about how forlorn and lonely the grass looked against the fading trees. Its green was just begging to turn itself into something more subtle, so it wouldn't keep sticking out like a sore thumb. It seemed to be calling out in its tiny little grass voice, "Snow on me! Please snow on me!" I thought, "What a profound observation for my blog! Now, if only it would snow at this exact moment!"

And then, it did. Wispy little flakes flew down at first, and then great big clumpy ones began to fall. By noon, we'd received several inches and the frosted pines outside our office gave off the appearance of a veritable winterwonderland.

In late afternoon, a light rain melted away all the snow. By Turkey Day, we were back to a balmy 68 degrees!

Thanksgiving
Nov. 22: Thanksgiving in the Saylor household this year proved to be a grand success, thanks to the help of our San Diego visitors, Mark and Crystal Eutizi. (God bless them; they are very handy in the kitchen!)The day began lazily with a 10 am wake-up call. How true that we gen-Xers are loathe to rise at the crack of dawn to begin Grandma's recipes when hours before the turkey should be on the table, we can print 30-minute versions off recipeezaar.com! To exemplify this principle, I should note that I'd actually printed a lovely make-and-bake-the-night-before brunch casserole recipe offline in efforts to appear like an organized baby-boomer who prepares for the morrow. I'd even shopped for the ingredients 4 days before. Instead of slaving over my stove on Wed. night, however, we accompanied the Eutizis to a cozy little Italian dive (Giacomos) for dinner in the North End and didn't get home until 11:30. I completely forgot about my recipe, so we ate the eggs and sausage individually on T-day morning.

After our somewhat less dignified, but equally "fat and happy" breakfast, we sailed down to Plymouth to view the Mayflower model ship and paid a visit to Plymouth Rock. You'll be interested to know that the historical revisionists have not let Plymouth alone to revel it's glorified past. At every turn upon your visit to the mock plantation, ship, or rock monument you are accosted with negative quotes about "our" egregious errors in taking the "New World" for England. While I do not deny mistreatment of the Indians, I find comments like, "Thanksgiving should be a day of mourning for the atrocities we committed toward the natives" a mite preposterous. My theory is that this backlash has been caused by the Plymouth locals who, sick of 200+ years of tourists, have made the historical exhibits as negative as possible to discourage return. Well, "Ha Ha to you, Plymouth!" This was my 4th time clogging up and jay-walking across your fair village streets, so you can't stop me from glorying in trans-Atlantic survival and relating to the pathos of those seeking freedom of religious expression!

No more casual Friday

To an estranged Californian, Boston office culture seems like a study of traditions frozen in time. They’ve never even heard of Casual Friday. You should’ve seen the look my supervisor gave me when I casually mentioned it. They have another concept for the Christmas White Elephant, too-it’s called a “Yankee Swap”. What??? Oh, and while we’re on the subject-“dungarees” are jeans (I thought they were those big giant yellow overalls that fishermen wore in storms), “frappes” (pron: fraps) are milkshakes, and anything “wicked” is good. But you probably already knew that one…immortalized by Matt Damon in the movie, “Good Will Hunting.” God bless his beautiful soul.

I am a week into my new job and frankly, nothing but grateful to be employed…at whatever task. Oh I’ll dress up! I’d don real dungarees if they asked me to. Ironically, the fear that I wasn’t dressed professionally enough haunted me even into my dreams the other night when my new manager followed me home to critique my shoes, pair by pair, until she’d eliminated all but one deemed sharp enough for work. I guess my summer teaching job with the no “open-toed” policy had a deeper psychological effect than I’d imagined!

Seriously, my new job’s not bad. My official role is Customer Service Rep. in HR at BC (Boston College)-can you tell they like abbreviations? Basically, I’m a glorified receptionist. It’s easy, but people-oriented. I know that I am where God wants me. I have soooo much peace about it that even when I went to the program director’s office today to inquire about starting my Masters (in Global Social Work) in January and he said I have to wait until NEXT SEPTEMBER (!!!) I didn’t fret. Ok…maybe just a little. I figure I will have plenty to occupy me on campus, what with the gym, free language classes, lectures, employee lunches, football games, etc. It’s even a Jesuit university, so there is a spiritual dynamic to every aspect of university life. We discussed the conversion of St. Ignatius to Christ at our new employee Orientation! If I could pick a religious order to put on my postage stamps, the Jesuits would definitely be it. So, it looks like I’m going to be learning a lot about La Societe de Jesu!