Run DMZ

*6 of them weird I was tagged by Laura to cite 10 interesting things about me (or, in two instances, people closely related to me) and Jessica for six weird things. I’d done the weird list before , but it’s fun to come up with more items and I love to play along with these memes. It just took longer than expected to respond this time. Without further ado, here you go. 1. I was born with purple eyes, not blue like other newborns. I now have the darkest black-brown eye color of any Caucasian I know. 2. My last name means “stingy person” in Finnish, “flower about to bloom” in Japanese, something altogether unrelated in Italian and something funny in Greek. I am none of those ethnicities. 3. My earliest memory is of evil people trying to kidnap me when I was 4. At least one of them went to prison. I clearly remember her screaming in the courtroom. 4. I like the taste of Tums. 5. I still dislike chocolate. 6. My nerdy dad made it to the Connecticut State Bowling Championship in the ...

When it came to putting together an itinerary for our New England vacation, I suggested a trip to Block Island . It’s one of the only places in the region I’d yet to visit. Just as the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are similar yet distinct, Rhode Island’s ferry-bound tourist spot has the same appeal. By the final day of our trip, we’d already been to Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun casino, where once again I proved I have no business gambling, and designed our own jewelry at a Mystic bead store. That Saturday morning we boarded a ferry in New London with hundreds of Glastonbury high schoolers. Midway across the sound we felt a thud and the engine slowed to a crawl for a moment, then regained its momentum across a fog-enshrouded sound. The official story is the boat hit a lobster pot but some of us still believe it felt more like a marine mammal. We arrived to damp, overcast skies and immediately headed to the recommended Orange Cat Café near the harbor docks to warm up with a h...

Today is my daughter Alex’s high school graduation. This afternoon a small group of family will gather in a barely furnished room to eat, drink and watch her open her gifts. Then we'll trudge through afternoon rush-hour freeway traffic, hoping to get to Cox Arena at San Diego State University on time. Tonight I get to stay up all night locked in a high school gym with 350 teenagers, hoping they appreciate the hundreds of hours of hard labor and fundraising we parents have done to make their Grad Nite so special. Tomorrow morning I take my houseguests to the airport. And continue packing at the old house and unloading boxes at the new house and doing all that other stressful, time-consuming moving stuff that seems terrible at the time but not so much when it’s done. And get the new sprinkler system fixed so I don’t have to hand water the new lawn much longer, especially while I’m also responsible for the old lawn. And get the old house ready for inspection on Monday morning (even if...

My first job out of graduate school was located in a State Street building between Quincy Market and the Custom House (clock tower), two prominent landmarks along Boston’s famed Freedom Trail. I frequently dodged tour groups accompanied by a costumed guide on my lunch hour and wondered what it must be like to see this place with fresh, relaxed eyes. So there I was with my three girlfriends doing the tourist thing last week during our two days in Boston. Any historical highlights along the Freedom Trail were more by chance that design. We basically parked our bags at the Mariner House in the North End and set off on foot to explore, beginning with lunch at one of my former meal hangouts, El Panini Express, right in the heart of Boston’s version of Little Italy. From there we hit the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market complex and then I lead us on a circular tour of Downtown Crossing before finally finding Brimfield Street, on which the City Sports Basement can be found. I bought a pair of runni...