Boston, Day 2

Thank heaven we had a GPS.

America's Most Challenging Cities to Navigate

Getting to know a city is a big job, but getting through a city shouldn't be. Unfortunately, some of America's metropolitan areas present a navigational challenge for even the most intelligent, savvy drivers. In fact, according to a recent study conducted by "Best Places to Live" expert, Bert Sperling, Boston is America's "most challenging city to navigate", followed closely by Washington D.C. (2), San Francisco (3), Baltimore (4) and New York (5)*.
Following the national launch of Avis Assist, a mobile phone-based navigation system powered by Motorola's VIAMOTO software, Avis Rent A Car and Motorola teamed up with the city study specialists at Sperling's Best Places to analyze how difficult America's largest 75 cities are to navigate. Many popular business travel destinations ranked high on the roster, including Los Angeles (7), Seattle (8), Chicago (12) and Orlando (15), while other business travel hot spots such as Salt Lake City (61), San Antonio (64) and Las Vegas (65) were dubbed "driver-friendly."


Sperling evaluated the nation's top metro areas according to the following criteria:

-- street layouts (grids, diagonals, windiness, one-way streets); 

-- overall design and layout (how spread out the market is);
-- travel time index; -- percent of congested freeway and street lane miles;
-- bodies of water (rivers, lakes, oceans, bridges);
-- complexity of directions needed to travel from major airports to city center;
-- annual delay per person (person hours);
-- days of snow exceeding one-and-one-half inches; and
-- days of rain exceeding half an inch

Bert Sperling's Top 10 Most Difficult Cities to Navigate

1. Boston, MA
2. Washington, DC
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Baltimore, MD
5. New York, NY-Northeastern NJ
6. Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood-Pompano Beach, FL
7. Los Angeles, CA
8. Seattle-Everett, WA
9. Providence, Pawtucket RI-MA
10. Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach, VA

Additional Consumer Survey Findings -- When it comes to asking for directions, the age-old gender divide still holds true. 64 percent of women report that they are the ones who have to stop and ask for directions compared to 41 percent of men. -- 68 percent of Americans agree that getting lost causes tension with other passengers in the car. -- Women (71%) are more likely then men (56%) to feel stressed when they don't know where they are.


 I feel a bit too tired to relate our driving mishaps, but they were realy quite amusing. More to come...

Boston, Day 1

After bidding Tennisfiend goodbye at 4:00 am this morning, I managed to get a touch of rest before setting off to Boston.   We left around 2pm with Mom perched in the backseat to entertain Tyoma as I drove. An hour later, when traffic and off-ramps started to multiply, I realized that the sound from the back seat becomes amplified by a factor of four when I don’t know where I am going. The normally quiet clicking of his Monkey Speller sounded like a tiny ball peen hammer rapping on the windshield behind me. My grumpy complaints clued Tyoma into the excitement of whizzing cars and precipitous exits and he began repeating his interpretation of everything the GPS says. Mom, a bit anxious and trying to be helpful also piped up, adding to my distraction and frustration. Mom I can ask to be quiet, but Tyoma has to be stuffed with cheesy-poofs to ensure silence. We ran out of cheesy-poofs.

 

Our hotel, a Holiday Inn Express, looked surprisingly worn and shabby. I had forgotten the difference between big city and suburban accommodations. We could have been in an unlovely segment of France specifically built for budget-minded Americans. The narrow sooty streets, ancient misshapen pavement and clunky undersized elevators were much the same. Our third floor room was hot, close and dark. After partially unpacking, we discovered that the air conditioner was missing its dials and segments of paneling. It did not work. The only window was sealed closed and painted over at the bottom. To circulate the air, we turned on a dilapidated desk fan which creaked halfheartedly, tipped precariously to the left and ceased to function.

 

I fumed down the heaving elevator, ready for a fight if they did not give us a new room. The girl at the front desk cheerfully gave us a new room, as if we were expected to refuse our room, but had to be sent there anyway--for procedure’s sake.

 

What a difference the change made! For the same price we got double the room and six times the windows—a spacious corner room overlooking an athletic center and the adjacent building. It was difficult to believe that the two rooms existed in the same hotel. True, our light and airy room was a bit neglected but it was far lovelier than the tumbledown closet they sent us to first. After a hasty unpacking, we took off for a nearby pub which prided itself as the “Best Sports Bar in America.” Exhausted, I did not savor my delicious meal of ribs as I should have, but the red wine was incredibly tasty.  Tyoma was nodding off by the time we strolled back to our room. He conked out immediately while mom and I giggled and packed away leftover dinner.

 

Agreeing that an early bedtime was best, we crawled into our respective beds at a reasonable 8:30. A half an hour later we discovered that dance studio directly across from us had rehearsals. They practiced a jazzy West Side Story musical that made the windows vibrate. With the lights out we watched the sharks and jets fight it out. Mom commented that at last, it felt like an east coast city. I fell asleep marveling, amazed to be in Boston and excited about our upcoming trip to the aquarium tomorrow.

What! It's Easter?! (AKA: Getting Ready For Our Trips)

Tennisfiend and I spent our day preparing for our trips--his to Florida for a laser-hoober-joob conference and mine to Boston with Mom and Tyoma. E's job was fairly simple, his clothes were ready and toiletries packed. A quick zip, and he's good to go. On my end, I feel things are a bit more complicated. Pack the scooter and charger. Pack Tyoma's playpen, stroller and accessories. Pack Tyoma food, toys books clothes, diapers, and so on. Pack my load of stuff. Sheesh!  As if we were going on a 10 day safari in Africa. I guess I' m really apprehensive about driving in Boston. Even with the GPS, I can imagine trying to find my way around the historic center of town. Everything will be pubs, shoe stores and coffee shops. No corner Walgreen's. Better bring everything I can conceive of! Anyway, I'm mostly packed and pretty organized. During Tyoma's "nap" I helped mom color her  hair and then we are going to do an Easter Egg Hunt. We filled plastic eggs with little candies, treats and written clues. If he can follow the clues, he will get a special surprise (bananagrams). It'll be fun!!!

GPS

What a rainy, chilly day! Tennisfiend treated me to an early  birthday present. What a sweet gesture! We went to Best Buy and he picked up a GPS for our trip to Boston!  The staff was moderately helpful, but it was one of those   times when I felt acutely aware of being a consumer. The tired and hassled young clerk made every effort to be cordial and patient, answering questions he must have responded to hundreds of times before. I could sense the drudgery below a smile that seemed slightly forced. After our long discussion,  the GPS we selected was not in stock. I thought that the clerk was going to bang his head on the glass display case since it took us so long to select this model but we actually chose a second one quickly. The whole process worked very well for us since the second GPS was the same price and had better features.

We used my new toy to drive home and discovered that we can select the voice that gives driving directions. It's probably sexist of me, but I chose the male Don Pardo voice over the soothing female phone operator voice. "It's Saturrdayy Niiiight Liiiive!!!" all the way home. The best thing we discovered was that the GPS recalculates your route instantly if you get off track. This is probably a no-brainer for the technically savvy, but I can imagine myself in Boston making 100 wrong turns, waiting for the damn thing to tell me the right way to go and winding up in Georgia as a consequence. 

Let me share a funny moment--Tennisfiend made a rapid succession of turns to test the device. It responded with a succession of "route recalculation" announcements, each interrupting the previous announcement, giving the device the appearance  of stammering anxiousness. Tennisfiend found this to be humorous said "Hold on, little guy!" in such an encouraging and endearing way. I laughed all the way home.

Fun with chemicals

During Tyoma's nap today, Mom helped me color my hair. It's less of an ordeal than when I do it myself . How sweet to have a loved one part your hair into tiny sections and squeeze thin  strips of bleach and dye onto it! I remembered the old days when Mom would color and occasionally perm my hair. One year we got a bad batch of perm so  the last six inches of my hair was fried. The post-haircut result was actually pretty cool. I had a totally bitchin' lion's mane for about four months. Another time a new brand of  "ash blonde" it turned green. I soaked my hair in castor oil for three hours to soak the color out. Worked great, smelled foul. Anyway, Mom's  meticulous nature is reflected in  her hair coloring practices. When Fontessa does my hair she whizzes through  like a frenetic chef demonstrating Ginsu knives at two a.m. She's an artist, working quickly,  you have to have mad skils to be a silk painter for the Bolshoi Theater. Mom is an engineer,  thoroughly inspecting sections for exact haircolor application, taking temperature, altitude and wind speed into consideration. Since I will be doing Mom's hair over the weekend, I wonder where I fit on the continuum. Heh. I already know.  I'd best go calibrate my altimeters and anemometers!!

Dentist and Scooter

Tyoma was so surprised to see Grandma this morning! I've been telling him about her visit for weeks, but now she's here! When he saw her, he gasped and said, "Gramma!!!" After initial greetings, she gave him the first of many presents, an icecream playfood set. This was a big hit, especially after he discovered that the colors of each cone were printed on the reverse of each scoop.

We had fun talking about the colors and flavors of the icecream. Mom worked on teaching him the concept of "favorite." I'm not so sure that he understands that as well as he does spelling, which he still seems obsessed with! Over lunchtime I picked up Mom's scooter, a sleek red number that fortunately breaks down into peices that are less than 40 pounds each.

After that I went to the dentist, which I dread. It wasn't too bad, a relief to have it over for another six months. When I came home, I felt cranky and tired. I immediately obsessed over putting the scooter together. After much irritability, cursing and the dropping of scooter parts on bare feet, I assembled it. Tyoma was delighted to take rides around downstairs. It will be perfect for our trip to Boston!!!

Grandma's Here!

Mom arrived late this evening since her original flight to Boston was canceled. She suspects that the airlines are trying to save money by shifting passengers onto later flights. On one hand, it's good to save fuel and resources by running less flights. On the other, a practice like this sucks since you don't get advance notice to plan your day of travel.

Are airline consumers so docile that they can be shifted around like this? No wonder the airline passenger's bill of rights is on it's way to becoming legislation. So mom got in late tonight. After gabbing for a bit and calling dad to let him know she made it in one piece, I brought her in to see monster baby. We both laughed over the incongruityof his huge frame occupying and infant's crib. His body is ready for a twin bed, but his maturity is firmly in toddlerhood. We'd have to nail his door shut at night!

Shampoo!

Time for another hair-washing session! It's been a few weeks since the last shampoo, mostly because Tyoma has been keeping out of his poo. If you had a video recording, you'd swear I was pouring battery acid on him instead of water.

Strangely, he does like to pour water over his own head, but not in the context of shampooing. I'm hoping I can get him to the point where he can rinse himself so I do't have to deal with the screaming-squirmy shakes.

Coffee!

Tennisfiend and I drove to our favorite coffee place, JR Beaners, only to find that the "closed for the season" notice has morphed into a "closed for restructuring," i.e., "closed forever because we were too good to be true." The sentimental "Thanks for being our customers, see you soon..." note posted to the front door had a subtle finality to it, as if somebody's wife wrote it to buoy fallen family spirits. We went to Panera instead, a franchise with predictably decent coffee and sweets, discussing the success of dunkin donuts on east coast.

For a close to a buck you can get a good cup of coffee. Starbucks is expensive and serves the ashy-tasting type of coffee that trickles out of cheap hotel room coffeemakers. No wonder so many Starbucks are closing. Tyoma enjoyed his day at Olga's, but when I picked him up I noticed that Olga looked harried. She confessed that three kids all vying for her attention at once was trying. I felt very sorry for her and suggested that I bring Tyoma over when her older daughter is in preschool. We'll figure it out. Mom is coming and we will be enjoying a few weeks of vacation.

A Face To Go With The Voice

I met with Olga today, liking her immediately. She looks to be in her mid-thirties, fresh faced and slavic featured, with long sandy hair pulled up in a bun. I hate to sterotype, but she did fit my idea of a Russian stong woman--sturdy, earthy and very sweet. Tyoma liked her immediately and got on well with her two daughters. Olga and her partner have one birth daughter apiece with the same father. The girls were sweet, but I confess that the four year old was quite a handful. If she can deal with Lizzie, Tyoma will be a peice of cake. We set up a schedule for a few times a week, two hours a day. We have our fingers crossed!