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Tag Archives: outdoors

commuting thoughts

20 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

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Tags

boston, outdoors

When Hanna and I started shopping around for new neighborhoods, over a year ago, one of our first and highest priorities was that we remain within a 3-mile radius of the Fenway/Kenmore neighborhood where both of us work.

I’ve rarely been as glad as I have been during the past month that we’ve been able (and willing) to deliberately build and maintain a walkable life.

Modified transit map via Transit Maps.

While normally Hanna and I walk to work in the mornings, I typically use some form of public transit — subway, Hubway, or bus — to get home in the evenings. This week, though, I’ve been walking. Between the reduced service, uncertain travel times, and stressed-out fellow commuters, I’ve strapped the YakTrax onto my boots and struggled my way down uncertainly-cleared sidewalks to work and back, roughly a 5-6 mile round trip.

While I have my frustrations with crosswalks with ice dams, fellow pedestrians who won’t take turns down one-way snow canyons, and areas where the sidewalk simply disappears altogether, I’ve mostly been able to count on getting places in the time it takes me to walk there. I know I can leave the house and arrive at work 45 minutes later. And, crosswalks and drifts aside, I can mostly maintain my distance from other human beings — no jockeying for space in airless trolley cars — and enjoy some quiet thinking time along the string of Emerald Necklace parks of the Southwest Corridor path.

Some proponents of walkable urban landscapes maintain that parks are dead space, uninteresting to the eye and inconvenient to the commuter — thus barriers to two-legged traffic. It’s struck me, walking home during these frigid winter evenings, that perhaps urban designers are by-and-large not quiet people, or did not grow up in areas of the country where you learn to pay attention to the changing landscape of wild places.

The snow, this winter, is a wild place.

Local journalist E.J. Graff wrote a column in the New York Times today that has been widely shared on Twitter by New Englanders with whom it resonates: “Boston’s Winter From Hell.” She observes:

In just three weeks, between Jan. 27 and Feb. 15, we have had four epic blizzards — seven feet of precipitation over three weeks — which crushed roofs, burst gutters, destroyed roads and sidewalks, closed schools and businesses, shut down highways, crippled public transit and trapped people in their homes. The infamous Blizzard of 1978 brought around 27 inches of snow and shut down the region for a week. In less than a month, we’ve seen more than three times as much snow. The temperature has hovered between 5 and 25 degrees, so the snow and ice haven’t melted.

…For workers paid by the hour, the impossibility of getting to work means disaster, especially since high housing prices have pushed poor people out of the city to outlying communities like Brockton, Lawrence and beyond. When I commiserated with a checkout clerk at my grocery store yesterday — he’s been missing work when the buses break down or just don’t come — thinly veiled panic showed in his eyes. “People will be losing their houses,” he said.

As tenuous as our ability to afford living in Boston is, Hanna and I nevertheless remain in the city hanging on by our fingertips — and the socioeconomic privilege of being able to do so has rarely been as clear to me as it has been since January 26th, when the first of the major winter storms barreled down upon us.

the long winter continues [updates from minden st.]

15 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in our family

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

boston, fanfic, outdoors

The Great Snow of 2015 continues, breaking records of all kinds. It’s hard to believe a month ago, January 15th, we’d had almost no snow so far during the season.

Hanna had her gallbladder surgery on Friday, thankfully during a couple of days’ break in the intense snow. While hospitals are no fun as a general rule — can I say as the patient’s spouse that it sucks 150% not being allowed to sit in the operating room throughout? I would hands-down rather be there than stuck outside in the lobby — the staff were warm and professional, the surgery went smoothly, and the extremely unhelpful gallbladder has been removed to already-evident improvement.

So whew for having that done.

BREAD_2-14-2015

We’re particularly excited about the fact that it looks like Hanna’s gluten sensitivity may have been a byproduct of her chronic gallbladder malfunction, and that now her digestive system isn’t struggling we will be able to bake with wheat flour again! I celebrated yesterday by making homemade bread, which made the kitchen smell absolutely divine.

We’ve stayed in today, what with the snow and bitter cold wind whipping about. It’s been so cold and so snowy for so long that while those of us in more comfortable circumstances enjoy a record number of snow days, many people are reeling from the impact of skyrocketing energy costs, hit-and-miss childcare, and cuts to their wages as stores close early or open late — or the underfunded transit system fails to provide them with a way to get to their jobs.

If you can, consider donating to the Greater Boston Food Bank, a well-respected local organization dedicated to feeding those who face food insecurity.

You can see how the wind is making snow canyons up against our fence. The compost bin is in that drift…somewhere. Hopefully cooking away underneath all the insulation making us good dirt for the spring.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time while Hanna sleeps her way to recovery watching Haven on Netflix — and this morning I wrote a little ficlet that Hanna says gave her cavities. So I guess you’re warned. The title, “A Windless Peace,” comes from a poem by Elinor Wylie that I sang on youth chorale — it would have been two decades ago now! Somewhere my parents have a cassette recording. Here’s a children’s choir from Ann Arbor, Michigan singing it:

I also posted parts two and three of the Jack Robinson/Phryne Fisher porn I started last July and had cold feet about. “Placetne” is now finished, and I’ve invented the tag #queerhetsex because I’ve decided that’s what I write.

This has been an update from Minden St. Now I’m off to watch Duke, Nathan, and Audrey flirt shamelessly over dead bodies and steel myself for tomorrow morning’s shoveling.

snow on minden st. [thoughts on urban winter]

08 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

boston, outdoors

When I moved to Boston from western Michigan in 2007, I was baffled and amused by the seeming hysteria that overcame city residents at the advent of snow season. Schools and businesses closed, people seemingly forgot how to drive, “snow emergencies” were declared … for real? I thought. Sheesh, these city dwellers. Jumping at shadows. Or, you know, snowflakes.

The thing I didn’t really grasp, at that point, and which I’m only really starting to understand eight years later, is that urban density of the kind that Boston and a few other major metropolitan areas in the U.S. feature, fundamentally alter the experience of heavy snowfall.

Walkable urban density is one of the city’s great features — it’s resource-efficient and convenient for those of us who live within it; Continue reading →

brookline in fall [photo post]

02 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in our family

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boston, outdoors, photos

Last Sunday was another idyllic weekend, so as a nor’easter slams us with wind, rain, and snow-ish this weekend, here’s a last gasp of early autumn from New England.

Although Teazle continues to go out on the porch despite the weather, retrieving maple leaves and bringing them in as trophies, Geraldine is more selective. She likes to test the “out” before venturing out. Last Sunday was quite lovely. Continue reading →

the arboretum in fall [photo post]

26 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in our family

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boston, outdoors, photos

Last week Sunday, we took the Orange Line from Jackson Square (pictured above) to Forest Hills station so we could take a walk around the Arnold Arboretum. Continue reading →

october monday [photo post]

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in our family

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boston, outdoors, photos

Hanna and I walked into the city center this morning via the Southwest Corridor Park, from Jamaica Plain to the Back Bay. Here’s a selection of images we took along the way.

The Southwest Corridor Park was almost a freeway.

Instead, neighborhood activists came together to stop the freeway & today
the Orange Line T / commuter rail lines run alongside a nearly 5 mile urban park. Continue reading →

cats + porch [#move2014]

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

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boston, cat blogging, domesticity, family, move2014, outdoors, photos

We continue to feel so lucky in finding this apartment, particularly on sunny Sundays in June, when our back balcony is a breezy, cozy sanctuary; a liminality between in and out, private home and neighborhood society.

We enjoyed brunch together last weekend, along with a little light reading.

Repotted some happy plants…

… and got creative drying the week’s laundry in the fine weather.

The porch is a new experience for the cats, who are practicing giving their mother attacks of the nerves by exploring the top of the (second floor! far from the ground!) railing without a net. We feel they should could equipped with safety tethers.

Geraldine seems largely content to chill in the shade or sun and survey her surroundings.

The clean laundry is obviously the best place for a black cat to settle in for a nap.

Meanwhile, our next door neighbors M and J have gotten a head start over us in the gardening department, with lots of promising seedlings that spent the weekend drinking up the sun and water they were afforded.

Hope y’all are finding ways of being in this early-summer moment. Happy June.

blizzard of ’14 [more photos]

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

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michigan, outdoors, photos, travel

Today was a slump-y sort of day. We woke up to yet another round of emails announcing the cancellation of our flights home (scheduled for tomorrow) and no further updates re: when we might actually be able to head Eastward.

(my digital camera somehow did this, and I have no idea how!)

It’s not that we’re in a bad situation — we’re warm and fed, and have a stellar group of friends and colleagues holding down the fort in Boston — but it’s hard, harder than I would have anticipated beforehand, to adjust to repeated new plans. Just as we adjust to plan B it’s snatched out from under us and replaced with plan C, which in turn … you get the idea.

Hardly the worst thing that’s happened in the world since New Year’s, but kind of draining.

And we miss our kitties.

(We’ve been here long enough now that Toby will grudgingly share the blankets…)

So I tried to soothe my grumpy soul by taking photos of some spectacular snow, more snow and colder temperatures than my parents have seen since the late 1970s.

Hope College, where I did my undergrad and where my father works, has delayed the start of classes for (if I recall correctly) only the third time in the past quarter century.

This has been a self-soothing update from the Clutterbuck-Cook expedition of January 2014. I hope that wherever you are tonight, you are warm and well and with those you love.

snowbound in michigan [an update with photos!]

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

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hanna, michigan, outdoors, photos, travel

Since last Thursday’s post, our flights out of Michigan have been cancelled twice more due to weather, and now we’re scheduled to return to Boston Tuesday evening – closing in on a full week longer than we anticipated being away! 

We’re thankful to be safe and warm and not paying for hotels or on stand-by at the airport. It’s also wonderful to have parents/in-laws we get along with, a flexible cat-minder, and understanding co-workers.
This afternoon, following the third postponement of our departure, Hanna and I were feeling a little punch-drunk and decided to walk down to New Holland Brewery for lunch. I took the camera, so here are some pictures from my snowy home-town!

The obligatory couples’ portrait-taken-at-arm’s-length on the front lawn. The new knit hats from my mother-in-law have really come in handy!

Hanna bundled up outside the church on our block.

The wind and snow-blowers have combined to make intriguing drifts around the trees.

The iconic Dimnent chapel at my alma mater, in the snow.

The brewery, as one of the few gathering places open on a Sunday downtown, was hopping. The snow was very picturesque from inside the pub!

Hanna and I have been admiring the Christmas decorations on main street this year, which depart from the usual red-white-green spectrum.

There wasn’t enough traffic out and about to keep the snow off the roads. This is a view across the intersection of River and 10th, looking toward Centennial Park (dedicated in 1876).

The snow-melt network under the sidewalks was only keeping up with the snowfall under awnings, like here in front of the Park Theatre. No one had been out to brush off the public benches.

And this a view of the Holland Museum, where I got my start in public history twenty years ago. When I was a child, the museum was actually housed in what is now a B&B on the other side of the park, originally Holland’s first hospital. The building pictured here was our post office until the late 1980s, and now houses the museum and archives. 
When I was twelve I used to deliver the daily paper to a very sweet, elderly Dutch couple who lived in this house. I doubt they live there any longer, but Hanna and I both agree that its location directly across from the public library can only add to its charm.
Wish us felicitous weather for safe travels Tuesday afternoon as we are scheduled to fly home to Boston!

from the neighborhood: autumn sights

03 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by Anna Clutterbuck-Cook in a sense of place

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Tags

boston, cat blogging, domesticity, family, outdoors, photos

A few photos I took last weekend.

Afternoon sunlight on the fresh flowers we bought to put in the flower vase / tea pot brought home from the Thormoto wedding.

Shortly after I took these photos, of course, Teazle discovered the flowers and the vase had to be removed to higher ground.

Geraldine, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. Why should she, where there are laps/pillows available to sleep upon?

The house with the abundant garden on our walk to Coolidge Corner is settling in for the winter season.

The Hubway bikes will soon be put into storage to make way for snowplows and snowbanks, but for now they’re still available to take out for a spin!

A couple of months ago, Hanna and I realized that the central marquee on the Coolidge Corner movie theater often makes amusing found poetry. This is the latest iteration.

Enough said.
All is lost,
Don Jon:
12 years a slave.

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"the past is a wild party; check your preconceptions at the door." ~ Emma Donoghue

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