Salon post: July 27

[jenett]

Welcome to this week's salon post!


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Topic of the week
What makes a great vacation for you? (Seeing as how I'm in the last couple of days of mine.)

What I've been up to
Much wandering around points in Boston. Introducing my friend to local foods! (This involved three separate lobster roll excursions: I am very fine with this.) There was making of art (her) and knitting (me) and good conversations, and tasty foods, and admiring of art in museums. Among other things.

(And then I spent yesterday at two appointments and revamped the world bible for a writing project and I have another project in mind, and I'm really really bad at this 'not working' thing.)


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Comments

[rmc28]

I am finding childcare and housework particularly tedious at the moment so I'd settle for a few days where I had to do neither, at all, of any kind. However that isn't likely to be possible any time soon.

What I like doing in my spare time, and am making an active effort to fit more of into my life even with job, house and children:
- seeing live performance art (music, dance, theatre)
- visiting museums
- wandering around interesting bits of cities
- riding public transit of assorted types
- swimming
- eating delicious food

My kind of ideal day on holiday would involve a bus (or tram or boat) tour of where I am, visiting an interesting museum, some tasty food, and a swim at the end of the day to wind down. (or, if with children, start the day with a swim to wear them out before making them sit on a bus/tram/boat tour, then proceed as previously described ...)

[finch]

On a totally selfish note, a great personal vacation day starts with dropping my kid off at daycare, but the best vacation days we've had as a family involve sleeping in, something hands-on we all enjoy, good food options and ideally a train ride because nothing makes the kid happier.

[redbird]

A question from another of your recent posts: are there places around here (Somerville/Cambridge/Arlington or easily accessible by the Red or Green Line) that you'd recommend for lobster rolls? (This is a general question, but Jenett mentioned having had three lobster rolls in five days.)

[jenett]

The place we went to twice was Steamers, in Watertown (not directly on a bus line, but about 3/4 of a mile from Watertown Square or a couple of other bus routes. Very very very tasty. They do the mayo version, though light on the mayo.)

The other one was at Legal Seafoods, which is also tasty (but pricier) but easier to get to. They do both butter poached and with mayo versions.

(Part of why there were three was discussing the differences between the two...)

[ckd]

Mixing shared experiences (meals, shows, sights) where I'm going places with one or more people I appreciate with some time for each of us to pursue our own specific interests. During the London trip before last year's Worldcon, this worked really well; some things were planned (tour of Stonehenge and Avebury, show at the Globe, etc), some were done as a group but not specifically scheduled (British Museum visit), and some time was there for individual things (one day I visited my employer's new office space, then went to one of my favorite museums).

[jazzyjj]

Good topic. It seems I'm always on vacation these days, or at least staycation. I quit my job a little while ago, and have more or less been looking for one that is more up my alley, i.e., technology-related. I've had some luck but not much, lol. But I've been spending a good deal of time at the beach this summer. I've gone to a few different ones in the area. My across-the-hall neighbor's nephew just started as a lifeguard and I was kinda hoping I'd see him at perhaps one of the beaches here, but thus far I haven't.





But speaking of my neighbor across the hall, we've been spending a lot of time together just hanging out. He and I have several things in common but not everything. I also plan on learning about the GPS functionality on my iPhone, so that I can at least start using it a bit. There's an instructor on staff at the place I went to for iPhone training, like I mentioned in a prior Salon Post. I contacted her recently to introduce myself and talk with her a bit about my independent travel situation, and she added me to her case load. Fortunately though, she is not employed by the state of Illinois. Long story short, I was denied formal travel training by the state voc/rehab agency.