New Year's Day Activity Guide - Boston

The query came from my son-in-law, Etan, via Twitter. Apparently he or a colleague was seeking stories from people in the Orlando area doing something unusual to celebrate New Year’s Day. Since I’m in Boston, I didn’t bother responding.

Feel free to challenge me on this. But aren’t there a limited number of New Year’s Day celebration scenarios for those of us living in the Hub?

(1) Hosting brunch for friends. In my house this means a trip to Whole Foods for a quiche, smoked salmon, cream cheese and an enormous fruit salad – supplemented by a trip to Panera Bread where they slice large numbers of bagels with a smile. Dennis is fussy about flowers, and loves Winston’s, where he has a loyalty card.

(2) Joining the L Street Brownies for an early morning dip in Boston Harbor. With memories of once having waded into the Dead Sea when the temperature was a balmy 40 degrees, I’ve always wanted to join the 600 or so crazies gathering at the beach in South Boston. Though it’s 11 degrees in Boston this morning, temperatures are expected to climb later in the week. Attention weenies, don’t even think about a wet suit.

(3) Going to the gym. If you lacked the discipline to stick with sparkling water at holiday parties and binged on large, candied orange slices dipped in dark chocolate, this could be a smart choice. My own fitness center will offer a 12 Noon spinning class, but that’s just about the time my brunch guests will be arriving. Warning: Beware of those gyms packed with newbie’s coerced into exercise by holiday gift memberships from concerned family members.

(4) Taking stock of one’s financial position. During those years when I was a young widow looking down the road to the day Daphne would start college, I spent New Year’s Day tallying up my portfolio. The S&P 500 was having a good run in those years, and except for losses from Enron, National Medical Enterprises, and Tyco, I found it comforting to perform this exercise. Certainly a more appealing option this year than last, I think I’ll take a pass on this ritual. Besides, it’s been more than a decade since Daphne graduated from Barnard.

(5) Finalizing plans for that perfect winter vacation. The 11 degree temperatures evoke memories of late January trips to the Caribbean with Daphne and her dad – when she was still young enough to miss a week of school. I can only dream of leaving a frigid Boston in the early morning, arriving at Barbados Beach Village just in time to enjoy a West Indian sunset while swimming laps in the pool. With my daughter living in Orlando, she eschewed the idea of a tropical mother-daughter vacation. I can enjoy New Year’s Day knowing my bag is packed for our post New Year’s trip to Paris.

(6) Making New Year’s resolutions. This need not be a trite ritual involving putting more money into one’s 401K, eliminating debt, eating sensible food, getting more exercise, keeping one’s desk more tidy, curtailing one’s alcohol intake, or using public transportation as often as possible. I think I’ll focus on working more efficiently so there’s more time for play.

Woo, Hoo! Got a Date for New Year’s Eve

My hope is that times have changed enough that single women no longer feel like outcasts if they don’t have a date for New Year’s Eve. The best part of being married to Dennis is that we don’t even need to pretend we have plans for the evening of December 31, 2009 – other than going out for an early dinner at Jumbo Seafood in Newton Centre or the Village Smokehouse in Brookline Village. It’s likely I’ll spend at least a portion of the evening cleaning our condo for the brunch guests we’re having on New Year’s Day.

But I have vivid memories of the times when I felt too mortified to tell anybody other than my closest women friends that I had no real plans for what often gets billed as the biggest date night of the year -- either before or after Valentine’s Day. There were also times when I was happier to have a New Year’s Eve date than the experience actually warranted. In that spirit I recount some previous New Year’s Eve dates:

1968 I was home in New York after finishing up my first semester at the University of Pittsburgh. My date was my childhood friend, Bonnie Merzer. I think she and I watched television and had a dinner of take-out fried chicken. The evening’s big source of excitement was witnessing her parents and another couple go off in their Cadillac for what I imagined was a night of dinner and dancing. Her mother looked very glamorous in her sparkly outfit and glittery shoes with heels just high enough not to have her towering over her husband, a dentist forever experimenting with new diets.

1971 A senior at B.U., I headed back to school before winter break was over to join Jerry, a tall, debonair psychiatrist 10 years my senior, and the man who became my husband 8 months later. A lover of classical music, he was thrilled to put his hands on tickets for a New Year’s Eve performance of Handel’s Messiah at Symphony Hall. At the risk of sounding like a philistine, I confide that I sat through the entire concert praying it would soon be time to go home.

1990 Now a widow, I had a date with myself. Knowing that things had to get better because I had a blind lunch date scheduled for early January, I bought a split of Champagne. With only the shadows for companionship, I watched television and toasted myself a better 1991.

1991 Disheartened by the type of men I was meeting at the many singles dances I’d attended throughout the Greater Boston suburbs, I had begun taking dancing lessons. Jitterbugging was my favorite, and I was relieved when a man I knew from the dance scene asked me if I wanted to go dancing with him on New Year’s Eve. Knowing my interest in him was purely Platonic and very short-term, I salved my conscience by insisting that we go Dutch.

1994 The hernia surgery I’d had just before Christmas made it painful to get in and out of a car. Not that the pain stopped me from driving to Boston’s Financial District to a dance club with a reportedly lively singles scene. A widower named Anthony gave me his business card, and I put it inside my Ferragamo pump. I had told him where I work, enabling him to charm a receptionist into giving him my home phone. What did I care? This culminated in the all-important New Year’s Eve date. Declining an invitation to celebrate at his home, and relieved that he was unable to get tickets for the Boston Pops, I enjoyed dinner followed by jitterbugging at his country club.

1995 Dennis, recently widowed and still very sad about the loss of his first love, Fran, joined me for what would turn out to be the first of many quiet New Year’s Eve dinners. I can’t remember what I cooked, but I remember him arriving with Champagne and chocolates. He became my husband in March of 2000, and thank goodness we still have each other.

Report of the Last Decade Never Sent

(Photo Courtesy of Virtual Tourist)

Dear Friends and Certain Family Members,

You would have no way of knowing that I’ve never included one of those year-end summaries with my holiday cards. Regrettably you've fallen off my list. Since we haven't connected since the year 2000, I thought I’d break the ice with a report providing the high points of my life during the last decade:

Acquisitions

(1) I made the switch from Dell to Apple, and from desktop to laptop, and couldn’t be happier. It’s not that I never owned a Mac computer before, but that was back in the ‘90’s, when that big bug appeared on the screen the week before Daphne’s college applications were due, and I knew we were screwed. Lest you think I’m completely lacking in tech skills, I set up the wireless Internet connection without the help of the incompetents who work at my ISP.

(2) Several months after my son-in-law -- Etan, who by the way is about to start a new job at CNN in Atlanta -- got an iPhone, I decided to toss my Motorola Razor, an embarrassingly archaic piece of junk. No regrets. Remember how once upon a time I lit a cigarette to kill time waiting for friends to show up at restaurants and other venues? Now I play with my iPhone, Tweeting, and monitoring text messages from Etan.

(3) Daphne may have sent me my first Starbucks gift card back when she was in college and I was drinking lattes. But it’s only recently that I’ve begun recharging the card amid the discovery that it’s a drag to have coins ruining the distressed Coach wallet I hope will last another decade. I now have a Dunkin Donuts card, courtesy of my employer, and also an iTunes card, thanks to Daphne and Etan.

(4) Recently I purchased a second digital camera in partnership with Dennis. It’s funny that when I was ordering that Dell desktop back around the turn of the century, a friend at the office asked if I’d need extra memory to accommodate photo downloads. Early adopter that I am, I said “Nah, I don’t think I’ll ever buy a digital camera.”

(5) The many large pieces of decorative glass, mostly purchased by Dennis, strike fear in my heart when I think of small children or the cleaning people I don't have. Though some folks decorate with colorful towels, table linens or plants, Dennis prefers the brilliant colors of Waterford and Kosta Boda studio glass. Forgive me for bragging but I think we now have a better collection than Bloomingdale's.

Travel

If you think I’m going to engage in a game of one upmanship by telling you about trips to Nepal, Bhutan or Patagonia, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Given our limited funds, we dedicated the bulk of our travel budget to visiting family.

(1) Dennis and I traveled to Copenhagen to attend a post wedding reception for his daughter, Julia and son-in-law, Ras. Herring buffets, trips to legendary pastry shops, and long runs around the canals were the order of the day. Not that I’m status conscious, but at the reception, Ras' mom seated me next to a former high-ranking official from Maersk.

(2) One of Daphne’s first jobs after Columbia Journalism School took her to Williamsburg, VA. Dennis and I were there within weeks of her move. We dined at A. Carroll’s Bistro, a place with a great martini bar and delicious crab cakes, which Dennis didn’t eat because he grew up in a Kosher home. We also dined at the Williamsburg Inn because Dennis wanted Daphne to experience a scene of sweeping green lawns and spring flowers while enjoying a mint julep. After Daphne introduced Dennis to The Cheese Shop, he developed an addiction to Virginia ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches on crusty whole grain bread.

(3) I spent a fabulous five days at The Sanderling on the Outer banks. Daphne joined me for part of the time. After spending each day doing nothing more taxing than sunbathing on a large, private swath of beach featuring only one or two quiet, well-behaved children, and bathing in the warm ocean water, we relaxed with raspberry iced tea and freshly baked shortbread, butterscotch and chocolate chip cookies.

(4) Orlando is what it is, but when Daphne’s job took her there, Dennis and I were happy to make the trip. Just for the record, I had never been there before, favoring Barbados and Cancun for winter breaks. But Dennis came to love the Charles Hosmer collection of Tiffany glass in Winter Park, and I found the designer outlet malls irresistible. But the best part was going to a Tweetup with Daphne and Etan, where I query the Orlando Sentinel's former food critic on restaurant ideas.

(5) Lest you think I’m lacking in sophistication or an appreciation of the finer things in life, I’ll close by mentioning that Dennis and I had the privilege of visiting the Uffizi and the Accademia in Florence. My husband wowed a couple from Bay Ridge with his knowledge of art. Now would be a good time for me to apologize for shooting that pic of the guard talking on the phone while the rest of the group on our Perillo Tour was admiring Michelangelo’s David. Our tour guide attributed the guard’s subsequent outburst to mental illness, and I feel bad about the incident.

Snow Days

Earlier this week I happened to be in Henry Bear’s Park, a lovely toy store in Brookline Village. As I waited for the clerk to ring up my purchase, a set of Caran d'Ache washable markers to contribute to the office toy drive, an older woman was making a purchase that caught my eye. In her arms was a giant toy snowplow truck for a little boy in her life that had specifically requested the item, somewhere in the vicinity of $60 to $70.

Since we had only light snow earlier this month and it melted pretty quickly, I realized the child’s request was gleefully anticipatory. It felt sort of like buying that fitted, belted down coat with fur-trimmed hood and stylish La Canadienne snow boots back in October, not knowing exactly when I could justify wearing them without looking foolish.

As a child, I was ecstatic when the New York City Public Schools were declared closed for snow – especially if we were scheduled to have a test in my worst subject, math. With my stay at home mom, the main worry was her being driven to distraction by three children routinely ringing the bell in need of another set of dry clothes after getting snow inside their boots.

I don’t think my siblings or I gave much thought to Dad’s problems commuting from Queens to Manhattan in stop and start traffic, made even more difficult by icy roads. His Oldsmobile didn’t even have front wheel drive.

When I became a working mom, the worries multiplied. What would I do about childcare? Was Daphne old enough to stay home by herself without getting into too much trouble? Would I be able to get the driveway shoveled out enough to get my car onto the street so I could drive to the train station?

Once at the parking lot for the train station, would the mounds of snow dumped by front-end loaders reduce the number of available parking spaces so severely that I’d be forced to drive home or drive all the way into Boston, where if I could find parking it would be at least $18? (Oh, how I date myself.)

I could always judge the severity of the snowstorm by peering out the window of my second floor bedroom, and judging the extent to which my car was buried. The “can’t you find some kids to shovel” comment proved irritating.

We lived in a neighborhood where kids had too many scheduled artistic and sporting activities to even consider anything so mundane as earning spending money. Even when my neighbor found a reliable plowman for all of us, I knew there would be the repeated backbreaking task of shoveling away the mounds of snow pushed against the driveway’s edge by the municipal plows.

Yesterday was a lazy Saturday morning permitting me to sleep in and then sip coffee inside the comfort of my Brookline condo with two underground parking spaces. Opening my MacBook I scanned utterances from the more than 400 friends, family members, perfect strangers, and institutions I follow on Twitter.

A punishing snowstorm had already hit Delaware – based on a Twitpic of a completely blanketed Wilmington that my son-in-law’s brother, Dan Horowitz, had posted. The snow hadn’t started here in Boston yet. With enough Bell & Evans chicken, panko crusted onion rings, green beans, and whole grain bagels in the freezer, plus peanut butter in the cupboard, I thought my time would be better spent cleaning our home than braving lines of hoarders at Whole Foods.

A woman from Duxbury who Tweets as BackPorchSoap sounded giddy about the prospect of people living near the Cape getting as much as 20 inches of snow by the following day. My friend Steve, living in Washington, D.C. where two feet of snow has no doubt paralyzed an area that never seems to have enough plows, said he looked forward to the prospect of a relaxing weekend at home.

The “following day” has come. I can hear the scraping sounds of the plows, but the snow doesn’t look especially deep. Assuming the steep ramp leading down to the parking garage has been plowed and sanded, I will soon drive over to HealthWorks for the workout I didn’t do yesterday.

The luxury of not having to shovel allows me to say I’m not a weather wimp. Not that Dennis and I have completely dispensed with snow issues. Time passes but memories don’t, and my husband and I spent seven hours inside his aging Geo Prism on that not so long ago day Mayor Menino decreed that the whole world should leave downtown Boston at precisely 2 p.m.

Though I have no Floridian or Caribbean trips planned this winter that will evoke fears of a snowstorm preventing me from flying out of Logan, I am praying for clear skies the day Daphne flies in from Florida. The two of us will be flying to Paris together, and I don’t want anything to disrupt our plans.

When Daphne and her husband were here last weekend, the first question she asked as we walked to our car in Logan’s Central Parking was whether there was snow on the ground. I guess the freezing cold temperatures weren’t enough, and she looked crestfallen when I told her whatever snow had fallen earlier in the week had melted.

Give the Green Line its Due

Not having seen the original “The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3,” my daughter Daphne was not particularly enthusiastic about going to see the remake of a film about a New York City subway train and its passengers taken hostage – replete with violence. But last June she indulged me in my need to experience public transportation with a sense of drama.

It’s been years since I’ve traveled as anything other than a tourist on the subway system of my youth. My tourist images include proud parents with kids in caps and gowns after Columbia’s commencement day, Hasidic Jews alongside Rastafarians, and travelers with eyes glued to books, serving that dual purpose of killing time and avoiding eye contact.

Earlier this month, I had a discussion with colleagues about what images would best depict Boston on a web site with local and national appeal. Not surprisingly they mentioned Fenway Park, the Old North Church, and the Zakim Bridge, which still feels like a worthy reward for enduring the travails of the infamous Big Dig.

But I was delighted to hear mention of what we Bostonians call the “T” – referring to a subway system run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Despite or because of our love-hate relationship with this aging public transit system, it’s an integral part of Boston’s identity. Having traveled on every line but the Silver Line, I have vivid images of each.

Aside from a recent accident involving the death of a T operator, a derailment or two, and garden-variety reports of pickpockets and gropers, the Green Line has always struck me as benign. A system of trolleys ferrying commuters from Brookline and Newton to work, students to classes at B.U., B.C., and Northeastern, and Red Sox fans to Fenway Park, the Green Line offers tracks level with the platforms.

So I’ve never had any concerns about being shoved down in the direction of the third rail by some crazy person whose family later claims he wasn’t getting the professional help he needed. Except for being packed in like a sardine, the Green Line bares the least resemblance to the New York subway. Evoking my own days as a college student, this is the line that makes me feel young.

These days, my trips on the Red Line are limited to those rare mornings when I leave my car at the boathouse after rowing, and take the T from Harvard Square to Park Street for work. Frequent breakdowns on the Red Line in the early ‘70’s, when I lived near Harvard Square and traveled to the Mass General for my first job, caused me to vote a first term governor out of office in the Democratic Primary. Knowing the quarter I’d put in the turnstile was lost forever each time I heard the term “shuttle buses” over the loudspeaker, I had to wonder what planet he was on when he espoused the glories of the “T.”

My sole experience with the Blue Line occurred when I was a college kid en route to Logan to catch a shuttle flight home to New York. The most accurate description of the would be suitor I encountered would be “unsteady on his feet with a strong odor of alcohol on his breath.” I politely declined his invitation to join him in watching the dogs race at Wonderland in Revere.

The Orange Line came into my life during a time of intense sadness. Having lost my first husband to cancer, I also lost the parking space in back of his medical office. No longer able to board the Green Line at St. Mary’s Street in Brookline, I found myself taking a bus to the Forest Hills Station. The train that travels through Roxbury and the Back Bay before emerging at Downtown Crossing was almost always fast and efficient. Boarding at the beginning of the line in the morning, I could count on a seat.

Life has come full circle, and last week I found myself on the Green Line nearly every evening. Dennis was working especially late on a brief, and I chose not to wait for him to drive me home. Though I grumbled about crowding and attributed the cold I now have to being exposed to “T” germs, I know I’m very lucky to live a very short walk from a T stop.

Rediscovering Boston

There’s nothing like out of town guests to provide you with a fresh perspective. My daughter, Daphne and her husband, Etan flew up to Boston this weekend. Based in Orlando, they still enjoy experiencing winter, a vestige of her days growing up in Brookline, and his in Philadelphia.

Having seen “Up in the Air,” the new George Clooney film, shortly after I picked the kids up at Logan, Etan proposed that we find something different to do on Saturday. Seated at the breakfast table with his new notebook computer, he began browsing Boston.com for ideas, and discovered a link for photowalks.com.

Despite the freezing temperatures, I was game to get out and see some Boston sites, getting a photography lesson at the same time. Though it was too late to book online, we eventually connected via telephone with a woman named Saba Alhadi.

As it turns out, she is the founder of Photowalks, offering “historic walking tours of Boston with a photographic edge,” and also author of a book called Boston in Photographs. Joined by a man named James who was visiting from Tulsa, Oklahoma, each of us paid her $25, well worth the money for a 1.5 hour tour chock full of tips on what vantage points make for the most imaginative shots, how to frame one object with another, and how to manipulate ISO settings for taking photos in dim light sans flash.

As instructed, the four of us met Saba at precisely 12:30 p.m. in front of the Boston Public Library -- affectionately known as the BPL -- on the Dartmouth Street side overlooking Trinity Church. Etan, James, and I had Single Lens Reflex digital cameras, and Daphne and Saba had point and shoots for the occasion.

My heart sank when Saba suggested we start with the inside of the library. Having been inside the Library just once for a work-related event in recent years, my more vivid memories of the BPL date back to my college years at B.U. in the early ‘70’s. I remember an odd cast of characters bathing in the ladies room, and strumming their guitars as I tried to focus on researching Renaissance poets.

My mood changed quickly when Saba took us out into the courtyard of the BPL. Noticing a little café on the way out, I imagined it must be a lovely oasis in warmer weather. A patient, gracious teacher, Saba began by showing her own pic on the screen of her point and shoot, told us how to replicate it, and then provided constructive critiques of the results.

Taking the stairs up to Bates Hall – with busts of Henry James and Socrates, a barrel vaulted ceiling and grilled, arched windows – I heard nobody strumming a guitar. Instead I saw lots of green lamps and students of all ages working on laptops. Instructing us to raise our ISO settings to 800, Saba took us inside where I captured shots that made me appreciate the beauty of using just available light.

What makes Boston special is its mix of old and new. As we walked out of the library, we heard police sirens, and instinctively ran toward Boylston Street – just in time to shoot photos of a large group of scantily clad runners. As it turns out, we were capturing photos of the Santa Speedo Run, a one and one half mile jog for charity.

We wrapped up our tour on Commonwealth Avenue, where Saba showed us how to capture an especially poignant shot. The foreground was a memorial to nine firefighters killed fighting a blaze at the Hotel Vendome on June 17, 1972 – the year I graduated from B.U. The background was the rebuilt Hotel Vendome, where in 1975 I gathered for lunch with my friends, Mimi Barnes and Susan Chan Egan, to celebrate the news I was pregnant with Daphne.

1975 was also the year Daphne’s dad and I purchased on Olympus OM-1, solely for the purpose of taking photos of our new baby when she arrived. Not an especially proficient photographer, I struggled with shutter speeds, aperture settings, and manual focus, and films with differing ISO numbers.

By the time I sold Daphne’s childhood home in 2007, I had several large cartons of negatives and contact sheets in the attic, and had moved on to digital cameras. She took some of the negs and had them digitized for the web site she and Etan set up in 2008 in anticipation of their wedding.

Over the last 25 years, I’ve snapped thousands of pictures in connection with my work in public relations. But it’s only recently that I’ve rediscovered the joy of shooting whatever catches my eye. I’m looking forward to my next photo walk.

My Best Five Moments in 2009

(Painting by Dennis Ditelberg)

As we head into the final stretch of 2009, newspaper editors have begun working on their wrap-up stories. People who died during the last 12 months or made the news for some other reason are likely to compete for highly coveted spaces on lists -- as are people who perceive themselves to be movers and shakers.

Although I can think of good people who didn’t make it to 2010, I prefer to focus on five “special moments” in my own life during the past 12 months:

(1) Opening a holiday gift package, courtesy of my stepson, Josh and daughter-in-law, Jane. Inside were packages of loose teas – including Rooibos African Jewel -- from Todd & Holland in Forest Park, IL. At a time of year when I try to adhere to my one glass of white wine and nothing else at holiday parties, this delicious, but non-caloric gift came as a blessing from people I love.

(2) Looking at a pic my daughter, Daphne, posted on Facebook. Having spoken to my dear friend and master pastry chief, Evelyn, I knew Daphne had called her to get her special recipe for gingerbread people. True to the Floridian lifestyle, Daphne and a friend, Eli Raynor Blachstein, chose to put bikinis and swim trunks of rainbow non-pareils on their gingerbread people, of course capturing the image with an iPhone.

(3) Seeing the Israeli film, “A Matter of Size,” with my son-in-law, Etan, at the Enzian, an art house in Maitland, Florida. Metropolitan Orlando is the last place I would have expected a Jewish film festival. The plot focuses on an Israeli who ditches his group weight reduction program for sumo wrestling. Repeated caustic comments from the woman running the dieting program account for much of the film’s hilarity.

(4) Receiving a beautiful red box filled with cupcakes for Valentine’s Day. Courtesy of my husband, Dennis, the white frosting was made with Madagascar vanilla, the pink with fresh raspberries, the yellow with fresh lemons, and anything chocolate with cocoa of the highest quality. Packed in ice, the cupcakes came from Teacake Bake Shop in Emeryville, CA.

(5) Visiting Dennis in his studio one Sunday morning. A chilly, gritty space in an old industrial building in Framingham, it has the northern light an artist loves. Knowing that my husband spends his days as a lawyer in a comfortable office with a bird’s eye view of Boston’s Zakim Bridge, I admire his ability to spend whatever spare time he has free of creature comforts. Especially when I see the beautiful paintings he creates.

Vote "No" on Robo Calls

My white porcelain “Lugarno” soap dispenser from Restoration Hardware lay in shards, liquid soap pooling in the narrow space between my vanity and my walk-in shower. Fearing that water would only “activate” the whole mess, I painstakingly got down on my hands and knees, trying to scoop it all up with paper towel, a step that had to be repeated three times before I reached for my wet Swiffer mop. Was this semi-catastrophe -- and yes I do have a sense of proportion, thank you -- worth the price of encouraging voter participation?

Two days from now, Massachusetts voters will cast their ballots to determine which of four candidates gets to be the Democrat running in a special election for the U.S. senatorial seat left vacant when Ted Kennedy died earlier this year. The record will reflect that I sent $100 to one of the candidates as soon as the election was called. Having sat in a few meetings with her during the course of my professional live, I was struck by her intelligence and decency. So when a lawyer I’ve met during the course of my work sent me an email at work requesting that I contribute to the campaign, I said "yes."

Back to my smashed to smithereens soap dispenser that I can replace easily for the low, low price of $52. Ever since the campaign to succeed Ted began, my home phone hasn’t stopped ringing with calls from two of the candidates, nearly all of which have been robo calls. It’s fair to say that the bulk of those calls have been from the campaign of the woman to whom I sent the $100, and that after getting the calls I like her less than I did before the campaign began.

Just for the record, Dennis and I don’t get to spend much time in our Brookline home, and cherish our limited moments of peace and quiet. My husband is considerably calmer in temperament than me, and says he’s shielded me from a lot of these calls on the evenings I’ve gone out to dinner with women friends.

But yesterday was Saturday, and Dennis was at his studio painting. After a grueling 9:15 a.m. spinning class at Healthworks followed by 45 minutes of upper body weight training, I headed home to do some serious cleaning before he and I needed to leave for a friend’s holiday party in Cambridge. I knew that if I worked quickly, our condo could pass the most demanding of white glove or eat off the floor tests.

I had already cleaned Dennis’ bathroom and was kneeling on top of the vanity in mine -- applying Glass Plus wipes to the mirror – when the phone rang. Hoisting myself down and pulling off my rubber gloves, I raced into our foyer to pick up the phone. O.k., so I don’t have caller I.D. on that particular phone. But my other phone with caller I.D. requires that I look at the phone to see who is calling. When I ran for the phone, I had no way of telling whether it was Dennis or another family member calling on an urgent matter.

Like many towns in Massachusetts, Brookline has a town meeting form of government with five selectman, all of whom I’m sure are civic-minded people with their hearts in the right place. Had any of my neighbors been home, they would have heard me shriek the vilest of obscenities. Call it an immoderate response to learning that I’d leaped down from that bathroom vanity to answer a robo call from a twenty something selectman named Jesse Mermell urging me to vote for the candidate to whom I had already sent $100.

Sure I have nobody to blame but myself for the smashed soap dispenser. But when I returned to my cleaning duties, I was so rattled that in one very quick motion, I knocked the dispenser over. The rest is history.

Political candidates using automated calling services feel smug about being exempt from the Do Not Call Registry. Rest assured I’m on both the federal and Massachusetts Do Not Call Registries.

Of course I was outraged that Jesse Mermell would be narcissistic enough to think that I would give a rat’s ass about which senatorial candidate she happens to be supporting. The comments on Jesse’s Twitter stream generally fall into the “Who Cares” variety. Still her Tweet gloating about receiving at her own home the robo call she had recorded struck me as one of two things: immaturity or sucking up to a senatorial candidate she hopes will provide her with some Capitol Hill sinecure.

The less gracious side of me wants to see Jesse punished for annoying me and countless other people. Put her in a replica of an old-fashioned telephone booth, and make her listen to her own robo call for 24 hours straight. I will not give into pettiness, expressing my anger about the robo calls by staying home from the polls on Tuesday. Nor will I vote for another candidate out of spite, because friends who live in other parts of Massachusetts tell me they have gotten an equal number of similarly annoying phone calls from the other candidates.

Just as I was able to unsubscribe from my candidate’s bulk e-mailings when they got excessive, I would like the option of being able to add political candidates to my do not call list. Although this would not be legally binding, I would hope that candidates would recognize it’s in their own self-interest to stop the uniquely offensive robo calls.

A Different Harvard Square

(Photo credit: Nextstop.com)

For those of us who hate wrapping up each workday in darkness, the prospect of winter solstice, less than three weeks away, carries the promise that the worst will soon be over. In the meantime I can visualize a simpler time in life when I coped with 4:28 pm sunsets by strapping Daphne into her car seat, tossing her stroller in the trunk, and heading off to Harvard Square in my Ford Maverick.

I could count on the Square to be brightly lit with neon and enough hustle and bustle to placate a 26 year old new, at home mom needing an escape from suburban Chestnut Hill. Parking was relatively easy, and our routine was simple.

The Harvard Square I knew between becoming a mom in 1976 and sending Daphne off to pre-school in 1979 no longer exists. Few young mothers I know these days have the luxury of postponing the decision about whether or not they should be out in the workforce.

It’s only in retrospect that life acquires meaning and structure. Despite my inner struggles about not yet knowing what my career might be or how I’d ultimately emerge as a professional woman, I now cherish that time with Daphne and the flexible schedule that allowed us to spend a portion of most days strolling through Harvard Square.

With a nod to Black Monday, I can’t complain about the convenience of being able to shop for books and clothing online, but the Internet hadn’t come into our lives just yet. Besides, the Internet would have done nothing to get us out of the house on dark, cold afternoons when I knew it would be hours before Daphne’s dad, a psychiatrist seeing patients at his office in Brookline, would be home for dinner.

Perhaps needing to conjure up sensations of summer, I usually made Emack & Bolio’s our first stop. Conscious of not wanting to remove chocolate stains from Daphne’s spiffy, one piece snowsuit, I would opt for a vanilla frappe the two of us could share without interrupting our stroll. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there are some things that can’t be purchased online.

Eventually we would make our way into the bookstores. The surprise is that some of them still exist, including the Harvard Book Store and the Grolier, specializing in slim volumes of poetry. Tennessee Williams’ Memoirs, the purchase of a woman who never regrets having majored in English, survived the purge preceding our move to a condo in urban Brookline nearly three years ago.

By 1977 I was free-lancing for The Brookline Chronicle Citizen. Daphne’s dad had suggested that I sign up for a series of writers’ workshops at Radcliffe Seminars, and I began selling my homework assignments to our local newspaper. Workshops often concluded with a stop at the Blacksmith House for coffee and sacher torte with the women from my class, all of whom were seeking an identity beyond wife and mom.

Once Daphne started pre-school and I began doing interviews for my stories, our trips to Harvard Square became less frequent. The big moment of pride came when the instructor for my writing workshops, Marty Robbins, asked me to guest lecture about how I’d developed free-lance opportunities.

My then three year old accompanied me in her little navy wool blazer, white cotton shirt, and plaid skirt. Just as Daphne was beginning to tire of drawing on a large, rolling chalkboard, I got a question from a fifty something woman peering at me over her half-glasses. “Do you have a five year plan?” she asked.

I told her I take each day as it comes. Some things don’t need to change, including the ability to embrace the spontaneity provided by life’s uncertainties.