June 25, 2007
There are a few words or phrases to describe how my body feels after playing frisbee last weekend at a tournament in Devens, MA (30 miles northwest of Boston)...
- Old
- Tired
- Cranky
- Mad at me
- In need of conditioning
My frisbee team, Brass Monkey, came to the Boston area for the Boston Invitational tournament, and compete against the best mixed teams in the country in the first-ever elite division of this tournament. Boston Invite was the first of three tournaments that national-caliber teams agreed to compete in this year so that there was more exposure to the competition from the various regions of the country.
I flew to Boston on Thursday night, a day early so that I could hang out with my old roommate, Julliette, who lives in Cambridge. Jules was one of the four original members of the 512 household.
FRIDAY
On Friday morning, I slept in and then we headed downtown on the T (Boston's metro) Redline to have lunch. We headed to one of Jules' favorite places, Wagamama in Quincy Market (also known as Faneuil Hall Market Place).
At Wagamama, they make great noodles really quickly, which was exactly what we needed. The servers use those little high-tech hand-held ordering machines and they write numbers on your placemat so that food runners know what you're eating and drinking. Coincidentally, our table number was "512"...
I ordered the Teriyaki Steak Soba noodles, which were very delicious and went down very quickly.
From Quincy Market, we walked all over.
Through Boston Common, through the 1837 Public Garden, and up and down Newbury street. We stopped in many shops, had coffee, avoided the little spurts of rain whenever possible.
By the time we headed back to Jules' place in Cambridge, it was close to 5:30 pm and we were beat. We made plans to meet up with Nicole Tehrany, who I had played frisbee with in 2003, when Nicole was still living in San Francisco.
We met up for dinner at a sweet little bbq joint in Somerville called Red Bones.
This place was packed and we managed to get a table right away. Their menu is impressive and I ordered the Texas Beef Ribs with mac 'n cheese and candied yams. I had no idea how big the ribs were, so I ordered the large size (which comes with 4 ribs). I was a fool to think that these ribs might not be so big.
I managed to finish 2 of the ribs and saved the other two for Will, who was flying into to Boston later on in the evening.
After dinner, we said goodbye to Nicole and hopped in Jules' car to go pick up Will at the airport.
SATURDAY
Early Saturday morning, we roused our bodies and headed up to Devens, MA for the tournament. Julliette was playing on a women's team, Rogue, so it was nice and convenient for Will and I. Our team has a first-round bye, so we got there pretty early, but it was good to have some time to wake up, have a coffee, and chat with folks.
The format of the tournament was 8 teams with round-robin pool play on Saturday and Sunday. We had 4 games on Saturday and 3 games on Sunday. There were 2 hour rounds and we played from 11 am - 7 pm. Ick! We also didn't have our full squad and had some folks who were nursing injuries, so we were definitely short on fresh legs. I played far more than I typically do, and it was really noticeable by the end of the day. Rubbery legs indeed. We finished the day with a 3-1 record.
Our team was staying in Concord, MA, about 15 miles from the fields. For dinner, we walked next door to a nice little Italian restaurant, called Papa-Razzi.
Our buddy, Mike Margulies, once again ditched his NY team to hang out with us. And he's a captain now! His team must hate us...
The team split a bunch of glorious appetizers, including calamari, bruschetta, pancetta-wrapped scallops.
For dinner, Will and I decided to order and split two pasta entrees:
Rigatoni Con Luganega, with italian sausage, mushrooms, crushed tomatoes and carmelized onions with a touch of cream. Mmmm...italian sausage....
Agnolotti Al'aragosta, lobster and ricotta filled pasta in lobster sauce with a touch of cream and basil. The pasta was deliciously plump with lobster and the ricotta (kind of reminded me of Eric's crab rangoon), and the sauce was rich and tasty. Thank goodness we were splitting this meal, because it would've been too much to eat the whole dish.
It didn't take long for us all to pass out due to exhaustion...
SUNDAY
Thankfully, we had another early round bye, so we had a chance to get a good sleep and grab some food in the continental breakkie at the hotel prior to our games. We had three really tough games and finished the day 1-2, with an overall 4-3 record. The games were tight and it was great to see Brass Monkey rallying with energy and experience in tight times. Not bad considering all the elements stacked against us and we were psyched overall to have the experience. Great incentive for training and conditioning for the fall...
We rolled back into Cambridge in the early evening and after some refreshing showers, headed over to Jasper White's Summer Shack for dinner. We also picked up Akram (brother of Coco's girlfriend, Sonia) on the way. I was so looking forward to this dinner, and the lobster!
To start, I had a dozen fresh oysters, 6 Bluepoints and 6 Malpeques from PEI. Awesome.
Jules and I ordered lobsters, I chose a whopping 2-pounder...
Man, that lobster was delicious. I took my sweet time getting every piece of lobster meat out of that poor shell. So much fun.
The 512 House reunion picture:
After dinner, we retired back to Julliette's place, where we joined Rob in watching the final game of the NCAA College Baseball Championships. It was pretty easy to hit the hay after the weekend playing in the sun.
MONDAY
On Monday morning, Will, Coco, Julliette and I hit some brunch before Julliette had to go to work. We headed over to Somerville to have breakkie at Renee's Cafe, a cute litle place that has a great breakfast menu.
I ordered a featured omelette, called the "Philly Cheese Steak", with beef, cheddar and carmelized onions (I'm such a sucker for carmelized onions!). Very tasty.
After breakfast, we said our goodbyes to Julliette, who headed off to work. Coco and I weren't flying out until later that night, so we went back to Jules' place to tinker on our laptops and relax until we had to leave. Will did some work as well and then headed to Burlington (where Nuance has its head office), where he'd be until Wednesday.
Alas, the trip home was uneventful (thank goodness!) and I got home around 10 pm. Phew.
Thanks to Julliette and Rob for hosting us and taking me to awesome places to eat and hang out!
They like to compete for similar toys or objects, with Charlotte often using brute force to get her way.
By the time we had birthday cake, the twins were very tired and not very sociable.
Olivia was in good spirits, excited to have birthday celebrations, cupcakes and presents that she could open in the house. She volunteered to open all the birthday gifts because "Char-Char and Simey are too little to open their own gifts". She's going to be a tough negotiator when she gets older.
