We started our brief stay in MA with a week with Jett’s brother Ray and sister-in-law Kim in Worcester MA. They provided us with a comfortable bedroom with a TV and a nice bathroom. But, more importantly, they provided friendship. And some terrific meals. Kim is a wonderful cook. Maybe “chef” is a more apt description.
It was great catching up with them. They are “just” the family of my late wife but they feel like real family to me.
We didn’t do much the first couple of days. Resting after our 3,000+ miles of travel, I guess. But things picked up later in the week:
- On Wednesday Marlene and I traveled into Boston to visit the Christian Science “mother church” and Maparium. This didn’t work out quite as I planned. You can see these attractions only on a tour, so, believing that both were seen on the same tour, I inquired at the information desk about the tour. They said one would by leaving in 10 minutes, at 3pm. We waited for the tour and were taken into the Maparium. When we came out we expected to be escorted to the church. But the guide simply walked away. At the information desk we learned that there are TWO tours – one for the church and one for the Maparium. The Maparium tours are frequent; the church tours are not. When was the last church tour of the day? 3pm – when we were viewing the Maparium. I don’t know why they assumed, when I asked about the tour, that I was referring to the Maparium tour. They apologized and took us over to join the church tour. But it was too late – it had already left the big church and was in the smaller, original church. We never did see the mother church. Dang! But we did get to see the Moroccan women’s bathroom in the administration building.
- The Encore Boston Harbor Casino. After the less-than-perfect Christian Science tour we zig-zagged our way through rush hour traffic to the Boston casino. I lost a bit but Marlene won nearly $500 and covered my $80 in losses in appreciation for taking her there.
- Dinner with my son Frank. After the casino we drove to Watertown MA to have dinner with my son Frank. Just did some catching up and gave him the toy samurai sword that I got for him in Japan two years ago (he had asked me to bring him a samurai sword).
- A New England Patriots scrimmage. I have never been to an NFL game. I still haven’t. But I have now attended a scrimmage of a real NFL team in a real NFL stadium. It wasn’t very exciting – we drove and hour to see a pretty sloppy hour of practice with no real hitting.
- A WooSox game. I think I have been to nearly 10 Worcester Red Sox games. This is the Red Sox AAA farm team. These are ballplayers who are just one promotion away from the Big League, so the level of competition is pretty high. And the beer is a lot cheaper than the beer at Fenway Park. They lost, but it was a close game on a beautiful night.
