Boston Bound

June 28, 2008

Today, I packed a token. It's an MBTA token and has sat -- with a faded and bent orange and silver Post Road Pumpkin Ale bottle cap -- on the edge of our TV for five years. A remembrance of an old life back east.

In a few days, it will get me on the T from Logan Airport and take me to my old neighborhood in Cambridge, MA and it will be a bargain! When we found that token shortly after moving to San Francisco, we probably paid $1.00 for it. Now, you'd pay $1.70.

Um. Or, actually -- good thing I'm doing a level of research before I get there -- those cute little brass tokens have been discontinued! I was all going to bring my cute little saved token and plunk it in the till and ride the T and then bring another home to replace it, but now I'm just going to have to save it. Put it in the Post Road Hall of "Things I Can't Get Out West." And instead, I'll have to buy something called the Charlie Card. Or, in Bostonian, "The Chah-lie cahd." Oh, Boston. I miss you, even with the repulsively twee name for something that gets me from Southie to Alewife!

I'm going to fly into Boston and take three different lines -- blue, green, red -- to get to our B&B in Cambridge. I'm going to fly into Boston and it's going to be 86° with 86% humidity. I'm going to fly into Boston and I'm going to strip off three wildfire-saturated layers. I'm going to fly into Boston and I am going to eat! East Coast fish! Nate's ribs in Wakefield! Darwin's sandwiches, proper cannoli from Mike's pastries, Magic Hat #9 beer, fajitas from Border Cafe, cubanos from Chez Henri, lobster rolls from the ocean, and saffron potatoes with kashk-e-bademjan from Lala Rokh. (All these things need exclamation points, but I'm tired and it's late and I just can't work up the energy.)