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Jun. 14th, 2005 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oThis weekend CGU and I traveled up to Boston for my 15th college reunion. It was actually a pretty good mix of times with my friends, time with his, and time with each other, but the reunion itself was kinda boring and anticlimactic.
Best Part of the New Jersey Turnpike
The Molly Pitcher rest area
Worst Part of the New Jersey Turnpike
The various smells we encountered.
(Of course parts of New Jersey are lovely, but those parts are not apparent from the turnpike.)
Best Male Person of the Trip
At the M.P. rest area, a burly man with a full, grey-streaked beard wearing a sheer, animal-print skirt with black tights and pumps.
Worst Male Person of the Trip
The guy at my reunion who did "the whole private-equity, venture-capital thing." Right, that thing.
(The whole time he was talking, I couldn't help but flash back to the time in college I came home to my (lower) bunk to find him and my roommate amorously occupied in the upper bunk. Minutes later, the evening's alcohol caught up with me, and I up-chucked all over his pants, which were sitting on the floor beside my bunk. Heh.)
Best Friend's Family Member of the Trip
Five-month-old Ned, the first child of C & L (who graciously put us up for the weekend). He is just super cute and very sweet. He smiles all the time and fusses very rarely and was great fun to have around.
Worst Friend's Family Member of the Trip
RoboMark's friend B, who is a really wonderful person, is living with a total jerk. He's demanding and rude and braggy and whiny and just Ugh. RM gets along with practically everyone, and he can't stand him -- at one point, he actually switched seats to he didn't have to sit next to Jerky Guy.
B and Jerky Guy spent the whole time we were with them arguing about ridiculous things: Are we eating gelato or is it just ice cream? Do any Jewish people live in Brookline, Mass.?
It degenerated to the point that he was pointing out the window at all the people in the cross-walk saying, "He's not Jewish! She's not Jewish! Those girls aren't Jewish! That guy's Jewish, but he's *obviously* not from this neighborhood!" I kept wanting to interrupt and suggest that, yarmulkes or Hassidic apparel aside, there's no way to know for a fact whether a random passerby is Jewish or not, but that would only have prolonged the argument, and I just wanted them to Shut Up.
Best Kid (Over 12 Months Old) of the Trip
The 12-year-old who sat next to me on the overnight train to Boston. He was obviously trying to look as much like a tough teenager as possible -- he wore oversized shorts and basketball jersey, cornrows, a backward baseball cap, and a vaguely defiant expression -- but when the conductor dimmed the lights and people started to settle in to sleep, he pulled out a sheet with Pooh characters on it, and a stuffed Pooh bear to use as a pillow. It was the cutest thing EVER.
Worst Kid (Over 12 Months Old) of the Trip
The six-year-old who cut in front of me in the line for the ice-cream truck at the reunion picnic. I wasn't going to say anything -- I'm an adult, I'm not gonna fight with a kid for first crack at a popsicle -- but then her father came up and asked, with a smile, "Did my daughter just cut right in front of you?" And I smiled and said, "Well, yeah, she did," expecting him to give her a little talk about not cutting in line. Instead, he said, "Well, I'm at my 25th reunion and you're at your 15th, so I guess she gets cutting privileges." Ugh. I don't want to know her when she grows up.
Best Retail Experience of the Trip
The Garage, a small urban mall that, in my day, sold hippie apparel and incense and tapestries. It has become *totally* fannish: A stand selling Goth jewelry and knick-knacks, a store called "Tokyo Kid" that carries anime-related items, and an SF bookstore with a bunch of buttons about LJ and cons and stuff.
Worst Retail Experience of the Trip
In a fit of altruism I bought Green Living, a book by the editors of E magazine that claims on its cover to be a guide to "living lightly on the earth." Instead, it is a guide to avoiding multiple chemical sensitivity. Which is, yeah, an important thing -- but not what the book purported to be about. It had a section on *mold* -- allergen, yes; environmental threat, not so much. The section on pesticides was all about what they might do to the consumer -- which is a lot less important than what they do to farmworkers and in runoff.
Best Part of the New Jersey Turnpike
The Molly Pitcher rest area
Worst Part of the New Jersey Turnpike
The various smells we encountered.
(Of course parts of New Jersey are lovely, but those parts are not apparent from the turnpike.)
Best Male Person of the Trip
At the M.P. rest area, a burly man with a full, grey-streaked beard wearing a sheer, animal-print skirt with black tights and pumps.
Worst Male Person of the Trip
The guy at my reunion who did "the whole private-equity, venture-capital thing." Right, that thing.
(The whole time he was talking, I couldn't help but flash back to the time in college I came home to my (lower) bunk to find him and my roommate amorously occupied in the upper bunk. Minutes later, the evening's alcohol caught up with me, and I up-chucked all over his pants, which were sitting on the floor beside my bunk. Heh.)
Best Friend's Family Member of the Trip
Five-month-old Ned, the first child of C & L (who graciously put us up for the weekend). He is just super cute and very sweet. He smiles all the time and fusses very rarely and was great fun to have around.
Worst Friend's Family Member of the Trip
RoboMark's friend B, who is a really wonderful person, is living with a total jerk. He's demanding and rude and braggy and whiny and just Ugh. RM gets along with practically everyone, and he can't stand him -- at one point, he actually switched seats to he didn't have to sit next to Jerky Guy.
B and Jerky Guy spent the whole time we were with them arguing about ridiculous things: Are we eating gelato or is it just ice cream? Do any Jewish people live in Brookline, Mass.?
It degenerated to the point that he was pointing out the window at all the people in the cross-walk saying, "He's not Jewish! She's not Jewish! Those girls aren't Jewish! That guy's Jewish, but he's *obviously* not from this neighborhood!" I kept wanting to interrupt and suggest that, yarmulkes or Hassidic apparel aside, there's no way to know for a fact whether a random passerby is Jewish or not, but that would only have prolonged the argument, and I just wanted them to Shut Up.
Best Kid (Over 12 Months Old) of the Trip
The 12-year-old who sat next to me on the overnight train to Boston. He was obviously trying to look as much like a tough teenager as possible -- he wore oversized shorts and basketball jersey, cornrows, a backward baseball cap, and a vaguely defiant expression -- but when the conductor dimmed the lights and people started to settle in to sleep, he pulled out a sheet with Pooh characters on it, and a stuffed Pooh bear to use as a pillow. It was the cutest thing EVER.
Worst Kid (Over 12 Months Old) of the Trip
The six-year-old who cut in front of me in the line for the ice-cream truck at the reunion picnic. I wasn't going to say anything -- I'm an adult, I'm not gonna fight with a kid for first crack at a popsicle -- but then her father came up and asked, with a smile, "Did my daughter just cut right in front of you?" And I smiled and said, "Well, yeah, she did," expecting him to give her a little talk about not cutting in line. Instead, he said, "Well, I'm at my 25th reunion and you're at your 15th, so I guess she gets cutting privileges." Ugh. I don't want to know her when she grows up.
Best Retail Experience of the Trip
The Garage, a small urban mall that, in my day, sold hippie apparel and incense and tapestries. It has become *totally* fannish: A stand selling Goth jewelry and knick-knacks, a store called "Tokyo Kid" that carries anime-related items, and an SF bookstore with a bunch of buttons about LJ and cons and stuff.
Worst Retail Experience of the Trip
In a fit of altruism I bought Green Living, a book by the editors of E magazine that claims on its cover to be a guide to "living lightly on the earth." Instead, it is a guide to avoiding multiple chemical sensitivity. Which is, yeah, an important thing -- but not what the book purported to be about. It had a section on *mold* -- allergen, yes; environmental threat, not so much. The section on pesticides was all about what they might do to the consumer -- which is a lot less important than what they do to farmworkers and in runoff.