Car. Last summer, the odometer on my car reached 75,000 miles. It's a 1997 Toyota Camry, bought in July 1997. So that means I've driven it 5,000 miles per year. But I seem to be slacking off. It's still not up to 76,000.
Storm. There was no major damage from Sandy here, but a large portion of a neighbor's tree fell on my garage in into my driveway. It didn't damage the garage, but it completely blocked the door.
Tuesday morning.
The neighbor has a chain saw and on Tuesday, he removed most of it, finished cutting it up on Thursday, and on Saturday trucked the small branches with leaves to the town dump.
Tuesday afternoon. Large pieces to the left, smaller branches to the right.
(As usual, you can click on the pics to enlarge.)
I guess I owe him dinner at a decent restaurant. I'll probably have to invite his wife too.
Shows. You can read on my music blog about the symphony concert I went to on October 18. The following evening was the opening night of the season at the Harvard Musical Association: first the annual meeting, then a buffet dinner, then a concert. The meeting is usually pretty boring, and this was no exception, apart from a rather interesting explanation of getting recertified for occupancy by the fire department, with the second story fire escapes and increased restroom capacity gaining us an increase in the numbers allowed on the first floor. Dinner was good, but there are never tables (just chairs) at this affair, and keeping the plate on your lap with your glass at your feet isn't ideal. I enjoyed the music, but began to feel drowsy, so I left at the intermission.
The symphony concert on November 1 was part of my subscription, but we had Mass that evening for All Saints Day. I realized the conflict quite belatedly (i.e., on Tuesday), and in order to exchange my ticket for the Nov. 6 performance, I had to get it to the Symphony Hall Box office on Wednesday. Making a virtue of necessity, I decided to redeem one of my Huntington Theater "flexpass" tickets for Wednesday's performance of "Now or Later." So I went in in the late afternoon, exchanged my symphony ticket, had dinner, and went to the theater. The show was quite thought-provoking. It's election night and the son of the man who is winning the election has been photographed at a party costumed as Mohammed and videoed sucking a dildo held by a friend costumed as Pastor Bob, a nationally known evangelical leader. The son was protesting the willingness of some of his fellow students to ignore homophobia and gender discrimination in the Muslim world, but now he's being pressured to apologize. Is he entitled to be simply a private citizen, or must he give up some independence for the sake of the country's relations with the Muslim world?
Halloween. The front doorbell has been repaired a number of times, but it never works very long. Since it's broken, to know when trick-or-treaters are coming, I have to leave the door open and sit nearby for about three hours. Going into Boston on Wednesday had the side benefit of getting me away from that nuisance.
Restaurant. There is a small chain of restaurants under the name Petit Robert. They aim to give something of the cuisine of French bistros. I've enjoyed dinner several times at the downtown Petit Robert. This time the one on Columbus Ave. was just about halfway between Symphony Hall and the theater, so I decided to try it. It's not elegant, but the food was good. I started with an appetizer of veal and sweetbreads in puff pastry and continued with venison medallions. Both were quite good. The cheese plate was okay, but not exciting. The waiter was wearing a hockey mask for Halloween, so I asked what he thought of my Halloween costume: dress shirt, necktie, jacket. The restaurant is in two storefronts, and I was seated next to the large window. That let me see the steady stream of trick-or-treaters with their parents, joggers, and people walking dogs. The children were about evenly mixed between white and African-American, which suggested a comfortably mixed neighborhood.
Race Committee. The second social evening of the HMA was on Friday, Nov. 2. I'd have gone to it, but that was also the evening of the end of season party of the Race Committee, which I attended. A pretty good time. I enjoyed conversing with a number of people. Toward the end, I was able to talk with Tim for a while.
Brother. My brother is having some sort of procedure on Monday to deal with an enlarged prostate. They'll keep him in the hospital overnight. Then he'll come here for a couple of days. I wasn't thinking about that when I got the ticket for the Tuesday symphony concert. Oh well.
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