Shipping Up to Boston for my Sweet Caroline

Over the past four years, my baseball allegiances have expanded. The St. Louis Cardinals will always be closest to my heart, but the fanhood of my friends has slowly turned me into a hard core Red Sox fan. For two years, "watch Red Sox play at Fenway" has been on my secret To Do list (secret because I never expected it to happen after two previous failed attempts). When I turned down BU for grad school, I thought my chances were over. But no!! In my 36 hours of free time between the end of BELL Session I and the start of BELL Session II, I made it to Fenway to watch Boston take on Kansas City.

It was almost everything I had dreamed of. With a few exceptions, Boston fans are amazing. There was no sea of red like there is at Busch Stadium for Cardinals games, and the stadium itself is tiny, but what Boston lacks in size and color coordination, they make up for in spirit.

Evidence: The game was dull. A pitcher's battle. No home runs, and the only point scored came off a double hit in the bottom of the 8th. Since we couldn't count on the game to entertain us, the spectators instead sent the wave around the stadium nine consecutive times.

And the singing! After my preview at the Paw Sox game, I couldn't wait to sing "Sweet Caroline" with a stadium full of fans during the 8th inning. Just imagine 31,000 people "reaching out... touching me... touching you..." The energy was incredible! It was immediately after singing Sweet Caroline that the Red Sox scored the only run of the night.

Then, crowded onto the T for our trip home, people were still singing. Half of our train sang "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" (another Red Sox theme song) at the top of their lungs, and the other half probably wanted to be singing, too.

I guess I'm officially a Red Sox fan now. I could cross Fenway off my To Do list, but I loved it so much that I'm leaving it on. If you want to find me, I'll be shipping up to Boston.

The Smallest State, The Longest Name

Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations is considering changing its name to plain old Rhode Island. I had no idea! I love my little state with its disproportionately long name. And I loved this editorial, too. It made me appreciate all the quirky aspects of my homes, like the university-named streets of University City, how the rich live on Power Street and everyone else lives off Hope in Providence, and how hydrilla-infested Lake Seminole boasts the aptly named Fish Pond Drain and Grassy Flats.

Given that no one writes out "Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations" in everyday life, I support retaining the history of the name and oppose the change. If for no other reason, the full name serves the purpose of being a great trivia tidbit, and it perhaps attempts to compensate for the diminutive size of my for-a-few-more-weeks home.

Hello, July?

If you're doing a rain dance, please quit now! It officially rained every single day of June in Providence, except for maybe five, and today it hailed. My tent is still standing (unlike last year; see this post), but I am waterlogged. I can't believe that it's July and not March.

Actually, one of the five days it didn't rain in June was yesterday, and it was gorgeous -- 80-something degrees without a cloud in the sky! Conveniently, yesterday was the day we had our students building solar ovens. Also conveniently, it was my day off, so I spent the day reading on the beach, running in the woods, kayaking on the bay, and groundhog-watching under the shade of the trees.

So yeah, it's been a wet but otherwise uneventful start to BELL. The kids are great, the staff is great, the location is great, and I couldn't think of a better summer job. I'll be sad if my entrance into the real world takes me out of the world of BELL forever.

When I say a "wet" start, I definitely mean it. I leave you with this image of dinner clean-up tonight: a dishwasher not meant to be filled with soap, filled with soap. Soap spilling across the kitchen floor. Scooping up excess soap with mugs and tupperware. Running the dishwasher five times to rinse out all the soap. Washing dishes took an hour and a half, but I have to admit, I always wondered what would happen if you put too much soap in a dishwasher. I just never had the nerve to do it myself.