I had a fine weekend despite the rain. Saturday I saw Jonathan Richman play an early show. He dances like I do. Or maybe he's better, I don't know. The audience was an interesting mix of college-aged to middle-aged, hipsters and hippies, and there was even a section of the floor right in front of the stage that was held for a group of sitting people. The standing ones let them have it, very civilized. I was standing on the border of the sitting-group, and some short guy kept invading my personal space. I hate, hate, hate having to touch someone repeatedly in order to stand my ground in a crowd. In this case my arm kept touching the guy's sweaty t-shirted side - not even an arm, his actual chest I had to deal with. He wasn't being aggressive, just oblivious. And annoying. I think this is a guy thing, to be that "free" with your body. Eventually I "accidentally" stepped on the side of his flip-flopped foot and re-established the beachhead for the remainder of the set.

Anyway. I do go on, don't I. After the show it had stopped raining so I strolled over to La Veracruzana to see if I could get a few tamales for later. They only offered them byt he dozen so I decided against it. On my way out, I saw my friends G and A sitting and eating with Martin, La Ver's owner, and two other guys. They had just been served big plates with rib-eye steaks, black beans, quesadilla-like things, oven fries, and guacamole. "Deb, are you hungry? Sit down, sit down!" I said, well, actually... "Come on, sit, we'll get you something!" Okay. I sat down and about five minutes later I get a plate like the others, sans steak (I don't eat it). I was offered wine but I passed. It was great. G and A are like living in a higher plane than I am. They go to silent week-long meditation retreats and stuff like that. And they're very generous, friendly, and hard to ruffle. After we were done eating Martin went and got his private family reserve bottle of tequila, which the men sipped. I kept leaning over to A and whispering, 'so should I try to give martin some money?' She said, 'I don't think so... just kiss him on the cheek when you leave.' Then one of the guys ran across the street and got an assortment of fudge. Eventually I had to leave in order to have enough time to go pick up my dog and return before my sister showed up at my apartment (arrival time: 11:30 p.m.).

Sunday was all rain, all the time. My sister and bro-in-law and I walked to Breugger's for bagels and got totally soaked. I brought the poor dog, too. After we ate we went to Ross Bros. in Florence, which, despite their sign saying otherwise, was closed. Hate that. Don't state your hours will be "1 to 5:30" if it's more accurate to add "but only if we feel like it." We went to the Haymarket instead and my sister and I mused about when it first opened and what a phenomenon it was. People would come from Hampshire College just to go to this coffee shop/bookstore. It was a cozy basement filled with old couches, chairs, and books, and it even had a separate smoking room. There weren't enough chairs for all of the patrons so people just sat on the floor, crammed in anywhere. This was during a hard stretch of winter. After a couple of weekends of sardine-like crowds, the fire marshall got them to post someone outside to count the customers so they wouldn't go over the occupancy limit. It was just The Place To Be.

Now it's a two-floor restaurant, the books have slowly but completely disappeared, and even the Haymarket pro-Labor aspect of the place is pretty much gone. It's much more polished and pretentious now, but they do have some fine and tasty food and coffee.

So I got a chai (mmm, caffeine) and by the time I got back to my apartment I was ready for some serious unpacking. Now I'm almost done! Yay, me.