The past few days have found me in the unlikeliest of places. For Mr. Anderson’s birthday on Sunday, I put on sneakers and went to Six Flags. I am one of those people that enjoy rides. Ahem. If there were a ride called “Operation Station” in which you spun in a centrifuge while having a kidney removed, I would queue up, clapping my hands. I did “Superman: Ride of Steel” twice, once plummeting into the mist cave in the dark. Awesome! A beautiful sunny Sunday in a theme park does have its dark side- The People. Inbreeding apparently still abounds in western Mass. There was a cloud of extra chromosomes hovering over a good portion of the thrillseekers. You have not lived until you have seen a raft weighted down by The Specialtons, all waving their sausage arms and hooting down the log flume. At the very end we all rode the carousel together, eating caramel apples and feeling as though life can furnish nothing greater than a stuffed leopard, your laughing friends, and a calliope. And Batman.

Yesterday I went to my very first ever Red Sox game at Fenway Park. There I truly felt like an imposter, an intruding interloping outsider. Because I have lived here and there around this fair city for years, always skirting Fenway and its loud, “R”-omitting, keg tapping, date rapers. I have kamikaze’d through game time traffic on my bike, and borne the loud talking, red-faced crowds on the T. I have endured their insults and their odors. So strange to be among them. My firm had a luxury box for a company summer outing. So the hot dogs were all catered and such. Our names appeared first up on the big screen in the 7th Inning Stretch. There was little else to enjoy beyond gluttony, nice weather, and an old ballpark, as the Red Sox, true to form, lost 8-3. I got a ride home from the Big Boss in his BMW cabrio. Now that’s surreal.

-xo