you can take the girl out of New England...

I'd forgotten how much I love New England. It makes me so wistful and nostalgic. I went to college in Western Massachusetts and, aside from my 2nd class reunion in 1999 when my closest college friends and I got together and once more gossiped in the dorm halls in our pajamas and drank beer at Packard's, I haven't spent much time there since.

Since Boston is a two hour drive away from Smith and I didn't get my driver's license until senior year at the ripe age of 22, I didn't spend much time in the city during school and so it's still a pretty undiscovered novelty to me. S and G's wedding ceremony was held in the unmercifully non-air conditioned St. Steven's church in the historic North End. (With its charming old brick buildings, small network of crisscrossing narrow streets, Italian restaurants and slew of beautiful Catholic churches, it's surprising to me how little resemblance it bears to San Francisco's own Italian quarter, North Beach.) S looked absolutely stunning and it nearly made me cry to see the expression on G's face as she walked down the aisle towards him. God, they are so madly in love, it's written all over their every gesture and interaction.





The reception was held at the Lyman Estate, a gorgeous spot in Waltham, a western suburb of Boston. There was a huge greenhouse in the back, as Mr. Lyman was a plant enthusiast who liked to grow his own tropical fruit. (Coincidentally, he is the same Lyman who built the Lyman Plant House at Smith). I ate some grapes off the vine and pondered buying a key lime tree, the first I'd ever seen, so I could make my favorite desert back home. (A mutual friend of S's and mine, Kyle, reassured me I could find a key lime pie tree in San Francisco and thus should hold out.) The caterer duplicated S's Trinidadian family recipe for spicy pepper shrimp and her mom made the cake herself.

There were pre parties and after parties, and much silliness was gotten up to by the wedding crew.




I stayed with Heather, my dear friend from Smith who lives in Braintree, a southern suburb of Boston, in the home in which she and her father before her grew up. What a strange and wonderful feeling to be in such an old house with so much history. The longest I've ever lived anywhere is five years, and that was from birth - 5, so I hardly recall it. Since then I haven't stayed put anywhere for longer than two years. I think I'd like to.

On Sunday, a spectacular thunder and lightening storm lasted most of the afternoon and we spent the day talking and watching the storm from the front porch. In the middle of a downpour, we put on our bathing suits and merrily sloshed through the standing rain in the garden to pick tomatoes for a salad.

Now I'm back in my room in San Francisco. The summer fog lingers around like a cold you just can't shake. I'm jetlagged and exhausted and getting way too used to my morning Americanos. Two more minutes 'til tomorrow. Good night!