Things that are good after a week like last:

french fries at Mead Hall



Trees in bloom at MIT



a breakfast picnic on the back porch



photography lessons and time in nature

Slowly but surely, life is returning back to almost-normal, though as I mentioned on instagram, I walk by the memorial to Officer Collier most days and am reminded that that's definitely not the case for everyone. For those of us who are lucky enough to get to keep going, though, it's nice to have life quiet down a little.

Yesterday

Well. Yesterday didn't exactly go as planned.

The plan was to have people over for waffles and mimosas, then go to Copley Square to cheer for our our friends who were running the marathon.

The conditions were perfect, so my friend Nat actually finished minutes before we got there. He ran the marathon in 2 hours and 40 minutes. He is a beast. We saw Emma turn onto Hereford, and she looked amazing.

Once Emma passed, we left our spot for a walkabout. My brunch friends all went back to Somerville while I walked around the Back Bay and went to my friend Christine's house to say hi. I was four blocks away from the finish line on my way to meet up with froworkers when I heard two booms. They weren't crazy loud, and my first thought was that they must have been a truck going over a bump or something. Then I saw a sea of people running towards me, and smoke rising in the air.

I spent the afternoon holed up at Christine's house on Beacon Street, watching the news and checking in with friends and family to make sure everyone was okay. All my people were fine. As I said on twitter, I'm so thankful for that, while also so sad that the same is not true of everyone's people.

I'm going to go for a nice long run along the Charles River today. It seems like the appropriate thing to do. Favorite running path in my favorite city? I think so.

South Face Farm

About this time last week, I found out that I would have the whole weekend off of work. It became clear that it would be a good idea to plan an adventure. This post reminded me that despite growing up in New England and going to college in the woods in New Hampshire, I'd never been to a sugar shack, so Emma and I decided to rectify that with a trip to South Face Farm.

We couldn't decide what to get, so we ordered one of everything and split it down the middle. It was all delicious, especially covered in fresh maple syrup. I liked the waffle the best- it was thin and crispy and really flavorful, but everything was pretty amazing. Afterwards, we watched them boil sap into syrup for far longer than I would have expected it to be interesting.

It was the perfect weekend adventure.

I got home from work extra early tonight, so my roommate Mary and I went on a little adventure to the Tufts library roof to look at Boston and see the sun go down.

It was chilly and the sunset wasn't particularly amazing, but it's still amazing to me that you can get a perfect view of Boston from pretty far away. That, and the roof garden itself is pretty magical.