back to december
Back in October, while Kristie was still working at MIT, I gave her Taylor Swift’s new CD, Speak Now, as part of her birthday gift. That album quickly established itself as the soundtrack of her remaining months in Boston.
Fast forward to this past weekend, when on Saturday, Kristie and I returned to Boston for the first time since she moved out in March. The reason for the visit, appropriately enough, was the Taylor Swift concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, which she INSISTED that we attend. The show was in the evening, but we made a whole day of it in order to visit Kelly and Megumi and to wander Kristie’s old stomping grounds. We started with lunch at The King and I, a Thai restaurant by MGH that Kelly and Kristie had frequented during their long days working together. After the meal, I drove everyone into Cambridge for ice cream from Toscanini’s (kristie had to overcome a slight bout of ptsd as we passed the picower institute). We continued to get the latest dish on the MIT happenings, then we said goodbye to Kelly and Megumi, and Kristie and I headed off on our own. We went to the Harpoon brewery for me to refill my growler, then headed down south of Boston to Legacy Place, since it was practically on the way to Foxboro anyway. At 6, we made for the concert. The stadium was completely overrun by teenage girls wearing cowboy hats and boots, which I found peculiar because T-Swift is definitely more pop than country. I ordered a tall beer to mitigate my suffering, then we took our seats in the upper deck. We watched the sky shift from daylight to twilight to dusk as we waited for T-Swift’s grand entrance, which was met by a high-pitched uproar. She opened with Sparks Fly, then proceeded through all of the songs on Speak Now, as well as her more famous songs from previous albums. The concert took a turn for the surreal about two-thirds of the way through when heavy rain started to fall. To her credit, T-Swift kept the show going, even as her hair got drenched and her makeup washed off. It seemed very appropriate considering so much of the imagery in her songs occurs in the rain. When the concert ended, we followed the hoards of teenie boppers back across the street to the muddy parking lot and made a late return to New Haven.
On Sunday, we slept til noon then cooked french toast with strawberries and whipped cream (i do love me some brunch!). I hung around the house for the the next few hours, watching the Red Sox beat the Pirates in interleague play and writing wedding thank you notes. Later in the afternoon, Kristie and I played tennis together at Wilbur Cross High School, then went out to dinner at Sushi Palace. At night, we continued unpacking our apartment.