Boston After A Binge

Or maybe I should say welcome back to Boston after an non-binge. It didn't feel like a party to us locals. More like a big pain-in-the-neck. The Democratic National Convention was about THEM, not US. It didn't seem to belong to many of us natives -- we all headed for the hills -- or at least made every effort to avoid downtown.

Everytime I tried to go downtown last week, if I really took a long look at the map and the driving and all the closed roads, I ended up deciding to just stay home. Nothing seemed worth the hassle. They'd turned it into a "you can't get there from here" traffic joke -- and this is saying a lot in a town where we've been dealing with THE BIG DIG for the last 20 years or so -- we are used to dealing with traffic nightmares, but this felt like THE BIG DIG SQUARED.

Also, so many of our friends and family got the week off to spend with the rest of us at home in the burbs, it was a mini-holiday just to have them around and for once, NOT commuting. Our town pool was host to all the moms and dads we never get to see enough of, so why go anywhere? A great reason to just stay put.