Weird towns in MA #2

Rehoboth and North Seekonk. Can you imagine telling someone you live in North Seekonk? No one would ever take you seriously.
My sincerest apologies, in more ways than one, to anyone who lives in north Seekonk.

Land of cool gadgets

I actually kind of enjoy being at the hospital because of all the cool technology. There is a very nifty device that they use to draw blood that allows them to take multiple samples in different tubes with only one needle. It has some kind of auto-shutoff valve that allows blood through only when a tube is attached to the needle. I also just had an x-ray, and the x-ray machines are AWESOME. All sorts of exciting tubes and lights. Very sci-fi.

Inspected, detected, rejected…

I have been giving a prescription for azithromycin, which is used to treat whooping cough, among other things. It seems that at some point my vaccinations for whooping cough were not up to date, and this may have something to do with it. They are also giving me a spacer for the inhaler, which I am to continue using. It looks as though I may be out of here relatively soon.

First day of school

School starts tomorrow. Although I’m somewhat sad that the summer is over, I am looking forward to this school year very much.

Breathe easy?

I came back from the NHC Summer Institute with a rather terrible cough, which has persisted and worsened significantly. I was prescribed an inhaler on the premise that it was some kind of allergy-induced asthma, but it didn’t help that much. Now am I am in the ER, since it’s Labor Day and the doctor’s office is closed. The doctor on call recommended that I come in to get x-rays and the like, so here I am. It looks like I may be here for a while.

Big Loud Party

I’m at our friends’ annual Labor Day Party, an all-evening affair. The music has begun; it’s mostly blues at this point. As the evening progresses, the musicians tend to shuffle around a fair amount, so I’m sure before too long, we’ll be hitting the requisite rock and funk, especially once the sax player takes the stage. It promises to be an excellent night of music.

3-County Fair

I live down the street from the Fairgrounds, so today when I got home I took my younger sister to the Annual 3-County Fair. Although I of course enjoyed the requisite fried dough and cotton candy, I felt a sense of privilege while there. All of my rides were operated by very nice, overworked, and presumably underpaid, black and Latin men. I was surrounded by blond children named Courtney, Tiffany, Brittney, etc. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit bourgeoisie as I climbed off the Ferris wheel with my sister for the second time, thanking the operator, and thinking about how many more children and couples he would open the gondola door for before the fair closed.
I am at home now, and my mother has taken my sister back, as she wanted to be there in the evening. I agree, the fair is wonderful at night when all the rides are illuminated, but I didn’t feel up to going back. Maybe next year.

"You will ingest the nourishment"

Visiting a friend in the hospital, I noted this sign on a cafeteria room. It reminded me of the first episode of Star Trek in which Kirk is captured by aliens and held in a cell. They give him food, which he refuses to eat, at which point they say “You will ingest the nourishment.”

What DO they teach in school these days?

I was at my old elementary school this evening doing some computer work, and I ran across a rather silly spelling excersize sheet. Look about halfway down, after the first block of text.

Ridiculous, huh?

Musical endeavors update

My quest to listen to all of the music in my iTunes library is going well. The strategy I came up with for syncing only unplayed songs to my iPhone is working as desired. Already, I have listened to a lot of music I didn’t know, some by artists I already knew, some by completely new people. Great success!

Prolon

We are on our way out of the hostel where we’ve been staying since Friday. We recently discovered that some of the plates in the kitchen were manufactured by Prolon, a division of Pro Corp., an old plastics manufacturing company based Florence MA. Not only is Florence right next to where we live, but the Pro building has since been turned into studio spaces, and my father rents one. I figure that the odds of this happening are about the same as us ending up here with that woman from Haydenville, so that’s twice that we’ve beaten seemingly insurmountable odds.

Robitripping?

This is actually about something that happened to me on Thursday. I have had a rather terrible cough for about a week and a half now, and before I left for Saratoga Springs to pick up my father I stopped as CVS to get some cough medicine. Upon bringing a bottle of Tussin DM, the CVS house brand knockoff of Robitussin, up to the front counter, the cashier said “Can I see some ID?”. Stunned, I said, no, because I’m under 18, and then asked why on earth I needed to be 18 to buy cough medicine. The cashier informed me that kids are apparently now doing what he called “Robitripping” – chugging cough syrup. I asked if he could let me off, since I had been coughing constantly and extremely audibly during the few minutes I was in the store. He told me it was his fourth day on the job. The upshot of it was that I had to pay someone else to buy my cough medicine for me. It was utterly humiliating.

One in a very large number

Somehow we have ended up here, in Truro, on the opposite side of the state, with someone who lives in a town right next to ours. I’m not sure what the odds are of this happening, but we beat them. We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.

Truro

Truro could be considered the knuckle of Massachusetts, in that it is the second town from the end if the Cape. Despite this rather unattractive metaphor, it is a most attractive place. I spent the afternoon at the beach, and I am currently on my way to a bonfire.
Spending time here has made me understand the origins of American patriotism. Anyone arriving in this area, or one like it, would have no choice but to deem it the land of opportunity. It’s breathtaking. If you don’t believe me, take a look at these photos.

Massachusetts=weird

Driving to Truro for the weekend, I am struck by how strange the names of towns in MA are. I just passed a sign for Mashpee and Sandwich. Whether Mashpee is a food or an action I cannot say.
Other strange names of towns in MA:
Belchertown
Athol
Braintree
Alewife
I think I will keep a running list of such strange names. Expect more posts on this in the future.

Biiiiig concrete thang

I am on I-90E, on my way home from picking up my father at Yaddo and visiting a friend from the NHC Summer Institute. The trip there was uneventful, and I had an excellent time in Saratoga Springs. On the way back we encountered, in rapid succession, two trucks carrying gigantic concrete I-beams, probably for some sort if overpass construction. For some reason, they were traveling in the left lane, at about 50 MPH, slowing everyone down, especially because each of them was traveling in a convoy of two police cars and two maintenance vehicles. It reminded me of the scene in The Dark Night when they are transporting Dent to the prison in the police convoy. Except no one was firing a rocket launcher at the trucks. Considering the speed they were going at, it probably won’t be long, though.

Musical endeavours

As part of my ongoing quest to listen to every song in my iTunes library, I have changed the way my iPhone syncs. It now contains only songs that I have not played. When I play a song, it is removed from the iPhone and replaced by a new song the next time I sync with iTunes. Theoretically, this will force me to listen to new music, potentially expanding the amount I know, and allowing me to free up space by deletig music I don’t like.
Since my sister and I share the same iTunes library, I have come up with a way for us to track which songs we both want to delete. I created two “Delete” playlists, one for each of us, and a smart playlist that shows only those songs that are on both lists. We can now both add music to our own playlist individually, and delete music that we know neither of us wants to keep.
I will probably write further posts about the status of my quest.

Jews and Mountains

The institue is in full swing. As we speak, I am standing on top of Mt. Monadnock, having arisen at 4:30 for a (theoretical) 5:30 departure time. I have no cell service, so I’ll be publishing this when I return to campus. It is now 8:23; I arrived at the summit just before 8. I’m taking some photos of the view from here, which is incredible.

Packing

I’m leaving for Institute sometime in the next hour or so. I’ve started packing, and I’m getting pumped! I will write another post once I get there. It’s about an hour and a half drive.

NHC Summer Institute

Tomorrow I leave for the National Havurah Committee’s annual Summer Retreat in New Hampshire, a weeklong Jewish extravaganza. The NHC organizes many such events, but this is the biggest. Basically, a lot of really awesome people get together for a week and learn, talk, and debate about pretty much everything. I look forward to this event all year, and I’ll probably write a few posts over the next week about what’s happening there.