I've been out of touch all day, even more than usual.
So I did not call the Clerk to find out if anyone else has pulled nomination papers for elected office.
Aside from driving to Gloucester, I spent the entire day gardening - first at my mom's house, in Gloucester, and then at our own veggie patch in Newbury. My brother and I were pruning rose bushes, which all attacked me and now I'm covered with scratches.
Mom's yard looks awesome, though! (My sister Helen - the one who lives in Malden - was also there, only she was clever enough to mostly stay away from the sprawling rose bushes.)
Stuff grows faster in Gloucester. I can't figure it out.
I'm now trying to figure out how to trellis watermelon plants ...
Showing posts with label Gloucester. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gloucester. Show all posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Monday, August 4, 2008
An interesting idea for here?
When I venture down to Gloucester on Thursday to visit my mum, and my sister comes up from Malden, we usually do lunch.
Sometimes mom doesn't feel up to going out, so we race out to get takeout. Recently we found - or rather, my (other) sister who lives nearby found and the rest of us latched onto - a takeout place that offers pre-packaged Southwestern food.
The place is called Chili Choice.
It's a tiny little place packed with burritos, tamales, enchiladas, salsas galore, dips, tempting soups and luscious flan. Most of the food needs to be heated up (although last Thurs. they had hot burritos on offer), but -
We love it!
I'm jealous of my sister and brother-in-law, who can walk there in a matter of minutes. Swine.
Sometimes mom doesn't feel up to going out, so we race out to get takeout. Recently we found - or rather, my (other) sister who lives nearby found and the rest of us latched onto - a takeout place that offers pre-packaged Southwestern food.
The place is called Chili Choice.
It's a tiny little place packed with burritos, tamales, enchiladas, salsas galore, dips, tempting soups and luscious flan. Most of the food needs to be heated up (although last Thurs. they had hot burritos on offer), but -
We love it!
I'm jealous of my sister and brother-in-law, who can walk there in a matter of minutes. Swine.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Another fight with Gloucester?
Well, last year we had the 'epic,' but short-lived, battle over our flagpole/their historic boom.
For those of you not familiar with the situation, here's the short version:
Newburyport 70 years ago acquired an old ship's boom to use as a flagpole outside its downtown fire station. Gloucester's historical element decided last year that since the boom came from a Gloucester schooner, they needed it back.
From the Feb. 6, 2007 story in the Daily News: At least two Gloucesterites - Mayor John Bell and Geoffrey Richon, president of the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center - want the boom since it is the last remaining piece of one of the city's most famous schooners.
Bell is no longer the mayor of Gloucester and the issue seems to have died in committee, so to speak. (By the way, I can't find the story that ran in the Gloucester Times, sister paper to the DN, and also by Stephen Tait, with the hilarious headline: Gloucester wants its boom back.)
So now, at least one person in Gloucester thinks that Newburyport should not be the home for a satellite facility of the New England Aquarium. In this Op-Ed piece that ran in yesterday's Boston Globe, one Susan Pollack speaks to why, in her opinion, Gloucester should be the location, not Newburyport, for the facility.
Since I snitched this 'lead' from a comment on Tom Salemi's blog, I won't go into it much. But he hasn't posted about it, so I felt free ...
Gloucester need not follow in the footsteps of Nantucket, Newburyport, Newport, and so many other New England seacoast communities that have ceded their economies to second homes and tourism, she writes.
Unfortunately, this is the tag that Newburyport carries. As I believe I mentioned before, someone recently said that she sees our fair city as a "tourist trap" - and coincidentally, the comment was made in Gloucester (although she does not live there)!
What are we willing to give up in the contest between preservation and development, as she says Gloucester's future is characterized? I think it's fair to say that's what is going on here, as well as there.
Hell, I earlier wrote about possibly giving up the fireworks in the name of development.
Gloucester, btw, is pretty much still a serious seaport city.
(To which I can attest, as our sailboat was nearly rammed by a huge fishing boat in Gloucester Harbor, while I was at the tiller: "Watch out for Princess Diana," said my brother-in-law, the real sailor in the group; "Huh?" said I. The boat bearing down on us was the Princess Diana. Yikes, it was HUGE.)
Newburyport's seaportness is confined to half a dozen fishing boats of moderate size and a bunch of pleasure boats. I don't mind the latter - they look really nice bobbing in the river.
Well, I don't know what will happen, how far along the decision-making path the NE Aquarium is, or where such a structure would go that would include a decent parking lot, or nearby parking, or anything along those lines.
I'm having lunch today with my sister, who lives in Gloucester, and will solicit some thoughts from her.
For those of you not familiar with the situation, here's the short version:
Newburyport 70 years ago acquired an old ship's boom to use as a flagpole outside its downtown fire station. Gloucester's historical element decided last year that since the boom came from a Gloucester schooner, they needed it back.
From the Feb. 6, 2007 story in the Daily News: At least two Gloucesterites - Mayor John Bell and Geoffrey Richon, president of the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center - want the boom since it is the last remaining piece of one of the city's most famous schooners.
Bell is no longer the mayor of Gloucester and the issue seems to have died in committee, so to speak. (By the way, I can't find the story that ran in the Gloucester Times, sister paper to the DN, and also by Stephen Tait, with the hilarious headline: Gloucester wants its boom back.)
So now, at least one person in Gloucester thinks that Newburyport should not be the home for a satellite facility of the New England Aquarium. In this Op-Ed piece that ran in yesterday's Boston Globe, one Susan Pollack speaks to why, in her opinion, Gloucester should be the location, not Newburyport, for the facility.
Since I snitched this 'lead' from a comment on Tom Salemi's blog, I won't go into it much. But he hasn't posted about it, so I felt free ...
Gloucester need not follow in the footsteps of Nantucket, Newburyport, Newport, and so many other New England seacoast communities that have ceded their economies to second homes and tourism, she writes.
Unfortunately, this is the tag that Newburyport carries. As I believe I mentioned before, someone recently said that she sees our fair city as a "tourist trap" - and coincidentally, the comment was made in Gloucester (although she does not live there)!
What are we willing to give up in the contest between preservation and development, as she says Gloucester's future is characterized? I think it's fair to say that's what is going on here, as well as there.
Hell, I earlier wrote about possibly giving up the fireworks in the name of development.
Gloucester, btw, is pretty much still a serious seaport city.
(To which I can attest, as our sailboat was nearly rammed by a huge fishing boat in Gloucester Harbor, while I was at the tiller: "Watch out for Princess Diana," said my brother-in-law, the real sailor in the group; "Huh?" said I. The boat bearing down on us was the Princess Diana. Yikes, it was HUGE.)
Newburyport's seaportness is confined to half a dozen fishing boats of moderate size and a bunch of pleasure boats. I don't mind the latter - they look really nice bobbing in the river.
Well, I don't know what will happen, how far along the decision-making path the NE Aquarium is, or where such a structure would go that would include a decent parking lot, or nearby parking, or anything along those lines.
I'm having lunch today with my sister, who lives in Gloucester, and will solicit some thoughts from her.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Beverly gets horrible
Everyone loves a parade, right? So why are people in Gloucester so upset by the July 4 so-called Horribles Parade in nearby Beverly?
Aha! Might it have something to do with the floats mocking the teen pregnancy rate in Gloucester? Read about it here, in the Globe.
As we all (around here, at least) know by now, Gloucester's rate of teen pregnancy has shot up dramatically (four times the 2007 number of pregnant girls), and it was reported in Time magazine that it was the result of a "pregnancy pact" between some high school girls.
Everything except the jump in teen pregnancy at the high school has been disputed by various Gloucester officials since the city hit the big-market media last month.
What's almost as interesting (if you're at all interested in inter-city disputes) is that the editor of the CNC paper The Beverly Citizen shot video of the Beverly parade and put it on YouTube.
(Sorry, you're going to have to go to YouTube to see it - I'm not clear on whether uploading it violates my blogging agreement not to upload obscene video.)
On a side note, this editor, Dan MacAlpine, was one of the few people in the CNC office who ever actually spoke to me ...
Some of the floats were kind of lewd, and I guess even some Beverly citizens were not thrilled since teens were throwing packaged condoms into the crowd and one float had a ... well, a giant phallus projecting out the back, spewing liquid (water, I assume).
Ummm .... so ... it was a 'Horribles' parade, so I guess the participants took it literally.
But should Gloucester take offense? Yeah, I'd say so. It's a shame that the Beverly teens could not have contributed something a little more meaningful and not quite so tasteless.
A fellow editor at CNC/Gatehouse media, David Rogers, wonders on his blog whether MacAlpine will take heat for putting the vid on YouTube. (You can also see the entire video on this blog.)
Aha! Might it have something to do with the floats mocking the teen pregnancy rate in Gloucester? Read about it here, in the Globe.
As we all (around here, at least) know by now, Gloucester's rate of teen pregnancy has shot up dramatically (four times the 2007 number of pregnant girls), and it was reported in Time magazine that it was the result of a "pregnancy pact" between some high school girls.
Everything except the jump in teen pregnancy at the high school has been disputed by various Gloucester officials since the city hit the big-market media last month.
What's almost as interesting (if you're at all interested in inter-city disputes) is that the editor of the CNC paper The Beverly Citizen shot video of the Beverly parade and put it on YouTube.
(Sorry, you're going to have to go to YouTube to see it - I'm not clear on whether uploading it violates my blogging agreement not to upload obscene video.)
On a side note, this editor, Dan MacAlpine, was one of the few people in the CNC office who ever actually spoke to me ...
Some of the floats were kind of lewd, and I guess even some Beverly citizens were not thrilled since teens were throwing packaged condoms into the crowd and one float had a ... well, a giant phallus projecting out the back, spewing liquid (water, I assume).
Ummm .... so ... it was a 'Horribles' parade, so I guess the participants took it literally.
But should Gloucester take offense? Yeah, I'd say so. It's a shame that the Beverly teens could not have contributed something a little more meaningful and not quite so tasteless.
A fellow editor at CNC/Gatehouse media, David Rogers, wonders on his blog whether MacAlpine will take heat for putting the vid on YouTube. (You can also see the entire video on this blog.)
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