September with Seafood

 

We learned a lot in our excursion to Salisbury Beach for the Arlington Ward's annual clambake, to which last year they added Cambridge 4th Branch (us) and this year also a mid-singles ward. For instance, they wanted us to fill up our cars because parking would be $14. Well, it is if you are from Massachusetts but when your license is from out of state it is $40!! And we never saw where anyone checked if you paid or not but I guess we have now donated our share to support Massachusetts state parks. Turns out if we had bought a senior park pass for MA for $10 we could have gone free.

It was a long drive, almost to New Hampshire, so I assumed it must be an amazing beach to spend the day at and didn't expect a narrow strip and then seawall. We did luck out on weather, as we have done a lot lately. Big storm came through later in the day after we are safely home. Drive ended up about an hour, maybe more coming home. After all the warnings about being there by noon to eat, we were surprised the hosts weren't even there much at noon and the Brazilians came about the same time except maybe a few more really late ones. We could have had a lobster for just $15 but didn't order them or clams. I did have someone (Paula, Ailton's wife) offer me a taste, and I had a couple of bits and liked it OK but not enough to want to spend big money and work to dig out the meat.

Branch president  offering clams

The pavilion was running out of table space so a bunch of our branch members ended up at an outlying table. There were also people going around instructing newbies on how to open and eat the lobster, so now I've learned a lot about it that I didn't know.

We did meet some interesting people and get to talk with some of our friends. We met a young mom of 4 who is from Lee's Summit MO, (hubby from Idaho, probably means they met at BYU). The organizers provided corn on the cob (boiled in big tubs over stands with gas flame), burgers and hot dogs, and we brought lots of sides and desserts _ there was a request for plenty of vegetarian/vegan salads "with protein" so I brought quinoa salad with and without feta and a lot was eaten. Scored some flan.

The Cambridge Stake just sent out a notice of their annual primary temple day, where they have activities in the meetinghouse right next to the temple and then get to walk around it and in small groups go just inside the door. Our branch had their own last weekend, they promised if everyone was really reverent during their walk through the temple gardens they could go into the entrance and then they had a lovely breakfast at the Belmont chapel. (It was the same day as the clambake and in the opposite direction!) One of the older boys who tends to be rather cocky bore his testimony about really feeling the spirit and loving the temple visit.

 

We also could have had free hot dogs and burgers the other day, by Texas Roadhouse, from the apartment management - and some ribs and peanuts - not a veg in sight except the pan of lettuce. We went down and had an interesting time meeting some neighbors that had lived here for years (Learned that the place to get best lobster rolls is Kelly's Roast Beef , Katz Bagels in Chelsea is famous, and S&N Subs near us is also famous and has huge ones - should have tried them for the zone conference). But the food was very late. We gave up, then went down later in hopes there might be coleslaw or potato salad (nope, so decided to eat our own leftovers instead). They've had a school supply giveaway too. Apparently 8-9 years ago - up until covid -the apartment supplied a shuttle to the T every morning and evening. The place was run by a family - Mom drove shuttle, hubby maintained, daughter ran office and son was concierge. It was fun to talk to some other residents but once there was food everyone did the usual disappearing act, none of the special events has resulted in much socializing. Maybe covid killed that, who knows. We got to hear more real Bostonian speech instead of all the Spanish and Portuguese. I feel bad for our former concierge who had been here a long time and knew many residents and was really nice, he was let go so they could switch to a concierge service company - I assume to save money.

Monday was one of those didn't sleep much nights so I was slow to get moving or we might have gone to New Bedford to the Whaling Museum. On the whole, we think it would have been preferable since the Science Museum is pretty cool but geared a lot toward kids and we didn't have any with us. We did see and learn some interesting things though - for instance, birds do not just flap their wings but move them around in a wave pattern.

There were a couple of math sections and a Red Sox wall, I called them the Evan and Drew Walls. We did try a few of the interactive things and found the gem mining programming was more interesting than expected. 

when we did the boat tour they told us the museum was on the dam that was originally a 7-8 acre park, when you look at a map itis easier to see that its a dam. 

It added up to a lot of money with parking and entry, Boston is not a cheap visit! But we did spend several hours and it was a nice change from the apartment and working on trying to find ways to do more missionary work.  

We and attended the Lightening Show and the beginning of the "pop-up" one about the ocean but it was geared for small children so we moved on. The giant globe is cool.

They carefully and repeatedly warned us that when he put on the earphones we might want to cover our ears, definitely did. I did not know you could use lightening to play music.

I was really looking forward to the devotional with the managing director of Church History dept. (who was one of the main people in charge of JS Papers and Saints), but I should have known the missionaries would send in the same basic questions, about polygamy, race and priesthood, translating. But I did learn there is a whole wealth of stuff I didn't know about in the gospel library under Church History, a section of topics that includes all sorts of things such as articles about translation of the Book of Abraham, a "prank" with false plates to translate, many many other things. AND Brother Grow is working with President Holland on his biography! So he told a couple of bits related to Boston area which I'm afraid I forgot - but maybe the book is one reason his health continues to improve. I'm looking forward to reading it some day.