Interpretive Driving

I used to always joke about doing my school presentations through interpretive dance, so it makes me laugh that driving in Boston is really interpretive driving. It's clear I'm in Boston when: they decide striping the road is irrelavant because the drivers make up the lanes... and when they do stripe the road for 2 lanes drivers end up using 6 "made up" ones... and running a red light only seems to count if you go through the light later than 20 seconds after it changes. Basically, forget what the signs say or the road markings indicate - you just make it up as you go. But I'm proud to say, so far no one has honked at me (and I've honked once! ...though in my defense, I did give the driver the standard Seattle 5-second courtesy wait before honking). But in all seriousness, Boston driving isn't nearly as bad as I remember it. They've all been quite sane. It's the constant jaywalking that drives me nuts; if people would just cross at the proper time, then traffic wouldn't get blocked so much! (but a big part of thinking traffic isn't so bad might be my GPS - it's been brilliant in the city and I can always find my way back out).

Anyway, I've been looking for an apartment for the last few days. I'm still mostly getting a sense of neighborhoods. It seems like I'll probably need to go through a broker to find the kind of place I'm looking for - going around today, the places that I found just by wandering tend to be more aimed at college students... and I'd like something a bit nicer (and with less keg parties).

I'm also having a ton of fun with my niece and 2 nephews. But I tell you, they wear me out. Between taking care of the dog and playing non-stop all day with the kids, I'm ready for bed by 9 pm (which should explain why I haven't had any new posts lately). But tonight was funny... their parents are out and I'm baby sitting so I took the kids for ice cream (I meant to take a picture because I was driving a minivan! Ha! Reed... in a minivan with 3 kids. That's just nutty. But I forgot the camera, so maybe another time). But of course, being a nutritoin grad, it became my little blood sugar experiement. Ice cream in, and it was kids bouncing off the wall. And now it's bed time (as I write this, I'm going to go upstairs and turn out their lights) and everyone is crashing... with tears and everything. Good times. At least it's funny to me because I don't have to deal with it every night :)

Oh, and when it comes to introducing new foods to the kids: yes to rainier cherries (it was fun teaching them that real cherries have seeds!) and yam fries, no to kombucha (though Ethan, the youngest, says he likes it ("Tastes like funny coke") but I think that's just to impress me). Yes, it should be no surprise that my secret mission is to expose them to many of my favorite healthy foods (now if I could just get them to choose kale over powdered donuts maybe that would be worth an honorary PhD? Or at least a book deal :)