Boston celebrations

-->

Graduations are a happy time right? Why do administrators ruin it by taking the first 85 minutes to talk about famous people and award them honorary degrees? And then have those famous people talk.  You’re at their mercy because you’re there to cheer someone on you care about.  That’s what should be the focus of the planning for graduations not all the pomp and circumstance. Two and a half hours today could have been pared down to 75 minutes.

 And guess what time you shouldn’t have graduation? At 11 so people miss lunch because of all the rigmarole.  In the lobby outside the graduation I attended today, people were dipping out to use the bathrooms and then asking about where to find a bite to eat or a cup of coffee, before they went back in to finish the ceremony. Even graduates were coming out for bathroom breaks!

The good parts? The Park Plaza hotel where the ceremony was held has nice architecture- lots of marble and chandeliers. And our daughter Eileen got a master’s degree. And we were there to share in the celebration!

 Much hard work and learning, many papers, and study sessions later, her cohort of 13 or 14 all survived the year's program and made friendships that will continue. Hopefully she is able to apply her knowledge the way she envisions. She is full of passion!

We stayed in Brookline in a B&B that’s more like a guesthouse, a couple of rooms in a very big old house. It was like a time capsule. Bamboo lamps, metallic wall paper from the 60s.  Lots of old stuff on shelves and in jars, huge gilded framed mirrors, antique furniture, and original lead windows.

The owner seemed in another world too. Mellow, not wealthy, handy with his hands, and renovating the house he was born in slowly.  Right in the city they have a vegetable garden taking up the whole front yard! A little unorthodox compared to the neighbors' landscaping. I wonder what the soil is like? It doesn't seem like it would be very good.

The front porch was a lovely respite from the city pace. It felt like summer had begun sitting on a glider bench looking at the flowering bushes and passer bys.  

 

 Boston is a city of walkers.  From the front porch I saw runners, dog walkers, a man in a suit walking, texting and carrying a photography stand. A woman formally dressed on her way to church. A man carrying a golf bag. Another was reading as he walked to the T.

We walked slowly through the neighborhood enjoying the elaborate entryways, columns, fancy leaded glass doors, clay and slate roofs, gorgeous plantings and various trees providing delightful cooling.  

In the heat and bustle of the city, 95 degrees, people were flocking to the parks, sitting on blankets in the shade, so much humanity, traffic, different people, trains, buses, taxis, cars. High energy. But for this Maine girl after a final photo I was happy to head east.