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Phoebe Sinclair Writes

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Tag Archives: cambridge

Celebrating a Birthday at the Harvard Square Chocolate Festival

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, With Friends

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

cambridge, family, winter

For years I’ve been telling my mother, “It doesn’t matter when you come to visit, there’s always something going on in Boston. There’s always something to see or do* and, in the summer, a festival every weekend.”

Dancing stars in H Square

Still, it was mighty convenient that the 2013 Harvard Square Chocolate Festival coincided with my mother’s birthday visit. We arrived late on the plaza in front of Crema Café and neighboring shops, so we scored only tiny slices of chocolate cake baked by Legal Seafoods from the actual festival part of the event.

Not too cold for free samples

Naturally, Bertucci's gives out rolls

A rare WHL blog Phoebe-sighting . . .

From there we explored a hat shop and headphone shop, paid an adoring visit to Bob Slate Stationer, where my partner, mother and I had to battle strong urges to over-purchase. (Pens + notebooks + office goods = squee!!) Finally, we joined up with good friends for a chocolate lover’s afternoon tea at Upstairs on the Square. Although we didn’t eat as much as we could have, we did end the day with so. much. chocolate.

You shouldn't have

Too much chocolate

(*Boston’s enormous collection of summer and winter markets explode the possibilities of what a person could get up to any day of the week, all year long.)

What Is It: Bike Lid in Cambridge

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life, What Is It

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bike-commuting, cambridge

For at least a year, my bike commute route has taken me past a speckled white contraption located outside a brick building in the Cambridgeport neighborhood of Cambridge.

Bike hood 1

At first I thought it might be a type of sculpture (right down the road is a stone sculpture that reminds me of a dragon’s hindquarters.) Then I decided, since it’s vaguely bike-shaped, it must be a hood intended to protect bikes from weather. But that seemed impractical: what institution, business, or city-living individual would go through the trouble of purchasing and mounting such a bulky apparatus for the benefit of just one or two bikes?

Bike hood 2

So I decided, despite my hunches, that I really had no clue what it was. Today, I was getting my hair trimmed in that same neighborhood and grabbed at the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity.

Bike hood instructions

That’s right, folks: a bike lid.

Touching Every Part Of A Thing

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Learnin'

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Tags

as-we-are-living-it, cambridge, craft-tastic

At thirteen, I started my first paid job as a page at my local library. Among many boring and not-so-boring tasks: shelving books and folding letters and flyers for mailing. I remember marveling at how my fingerprints were possibly on every single thing in that children’s room.

At twenty-one, I started my first job out of college as an administrative assistant at a dotcom boom era start-up. I stuffed many thousand envelopes and collated collateral. I felt amazed by how, for pay, I touched things and converted them into other, supposedly more valuable things.

Today I rolled a ball from a skein, the yarn sliding through my fingers, silken yet firm. Touching every part of a thing. The work I’m doing is not for pay, but for learning, for creativity as I excitedly anticipate my first class at Gather Here, a soulful neighborhood knit/crochet/sew/craft shop in Cambridge.

yarn on the yuke

Gone to Winter Market

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

cambridge, city-farm, events, winter

This time we were prepared.

Strolling through the market

Because you can’t just walk into such an exciting winter market and expect to leave with your wallet intact. It’s important to have a plan of attack (and a budget.)

David chooses spices

And it’s important to being open to seeing people you know (and like) ’cause at the Cambridge Market the mood is sunny, and the sun is streaming through the tall windows of the Cambridge Community Center gymnasium. There is no ducking behind a tall stack of Oreos!

IMG_3327

Culinary Cruiser team smile for the camera

Coffee kart

Band plays at the market

Solitary metal bird

Buying A New Bike: One Woman’s Journey

19 Monday Nov 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bike-commuting, bike-love, cambridge, goals, jamaica-plain

My first step was to wish for a new bike.

Back a number of years I met a lovely woman riding a shiny, well-kept and smooth contoured road bike by a company I’d never heard of. She intrigued me further by explaining how she believed the bike’s particular geometry -specifically the shorter length top tube– was a natural fit for the female body.

My second step was to continue riding my “$60 police auction special” Raleigh for four years. Through sun and rain and snow and one thankfully minor accident on a hill with a car. This step included a continued desire for the bike of my dreams to suddenly appear in my life, as if unbidden, and pretty much for free.

Packin' the bags full of yarn and crochet

The “police auction special”

My third step was to consider my values:

  • Buy used when possible
  • If not used, then go local, independent, neighborhood-based, community-minded
  • Smaller manufacturers first
  • Don’t get seduced by the allure of the Perfect, or the Expensive
  • Don’t go flashy
  • Pay only as much as is comfortable to spend again if the bike gets stolen

My fourth was to make a list, which I presented with flourish (and perhaps a trace amount of geeky embarrassment) to shop attendants.

My fifth was to visit nearby retailers, trying used and new, refining my list, balking at price tags. My original budget was $600, which I thought could bag a more-than-decent mid-range bike. True, had not I been searching for a bike with drop handle bars, which I heard help reduce wrist strain, something I’ve struggled with since becoming a regular commuter with a desk job (typing, typing, typing.)

Finally, as the weather cooled, I reached the point where I feared I’d have to go beyond my budget to purchase something that didn’t have most of the features I wanted. But then one morning (sixth step, but also a first) I happened to glance at the Boston Craiglist bicycle sale ads, typing in the brand I’d discussed with the woman from earlier in this long tale. And lo. Behold.

Desmond the Lemond

The road bike prize

Coming in well below budget ($400), Desmond Puddin’ the LeMond – a prize from 2005, sold by a gentleman who took gentle care of the newest member of my household. Another $150 bought me a rack and fenders (and the labor to install them.)

Here, at the end of my list, is where I express gratitude to the ladies and gents of the many bike shops I haunted, rumpled list in tow, hopeful gleam in my eye:

  • Bikes Not Bombs, Jamaica Plain
  • Broadway Bicycle School, Cambridge
  • Cambridge Bicycle Shop, Cambridge
  • Eastern Mountain Sports, Cambridge
  • Ferris Wheels, Jamaica Plain (my home shop)
  • Quad Bikes, Cambridge
  • Superb Bicycle, Brookline
  • Wheelworks, Somerville and Belmont

‘Til next bike!

Cambridge City Dance Party 2012

16 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cambridge, dancing, events

Dear Cambridge City Dance Party,

You rock, but I couldn’t fit. It’s true: I got bumped. Maybe it was the perfect weather; maybe all the thousands in attendance were as in need of “dance therapy” as I. Whatever the reason, first I was on the edge, and then I was edged right out.

I retreated with a few friends to the grassy hill of City Hall and shook my rump between the contact improvisation dancers and the people who probably deserved a much better view than I could offer. It was beautiful though, the sky gone pink and punks everywhere, laying down their posturing to take up shaking. And rattling, and arms-swinging. Babies, mommas, poppas, grams. Every type of person, out in mass, one mass, under stars and spotlights and police patrolling the rooftops.

We were the best of Cambridge.

And while there could have been more Tina Turner, Madonna, and Stevie, I forgive those few lapses. In the end, what really matters is that we got out there, and we danced.

Your adoring,
Phoebe

P.s. Ahem!  Please next year, a little more jam?

The pose

Where's the DJ?

Three stop dance

Watching the dancers

It Warms Up

12 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life, Boston Moments, Green Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

arts, bike-love, cambridge, dancing, events

It warms up and we start moving.

Young women hoop

Bikes Not Bombs Green Roots Festival

Dance partners

Dance for the World Community

JP Spring Roll

JP Spring Roll Bike Ride

Wake Up The Earth 2012

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, Home

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

arts, cambridge, events, jamaica-plain

I love my Canon Rebel EOS automatic film camera, but it tends to make me tardy.  What with having to use up all the exposures before I can get a roll developed, and having to schlep all the way to CVS (which doesn’t do that great a job), and then with the sometimes coming out funky and off-color -like what happened with my shots from Wake Up the Earth, a parade and festival organized by Spontaneous Celebrations.

If you can forgive the blue tint . . .

Legalize chickens

This year’s Wake Up the Earth was my first time at the festival full day. I even brought my mom.

My companions

Hi, Mom!

It’s the most amazing festival: color and passion and humor and generosity and music and heartfelt dancing and ginger beer. I invited my mother because, as far as I can see, Wake Up the Earth is a big bite of what makes JP, JP.

Float

Chorus

Young dancers

99%

And who doesn’t love that?

Yarn bombed

Cambridge Winter Farmer’s Market

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cambridge, city-farm, food-n-cookin

Oh, naive urbanite! So unsuspecting when you should have very well anticipated your well-known lack-of-fiscal control when facing a gym filled with tables, tables lined with farm fresh veggies and value-added delights at the much anticipated Cambridge Winter Farmer’s Market.

Oh, city-girl. How you underestimate your ability to leap to excitement, time and again. Why did you think you could stroll in, coolly observe, walk out only a dollar or so poorer, homemade marshmallow chick in pocket? When was the last time you exhibited such decorum at a farm stand or food truck (never?)

To think you assumed anonymity, when you’ve made so many friends of farmers!  And besides, you are a swirl in the social pudding of Cambridge.  Not a chance you can step into the most happening (and only) winter market in the “People’s Republic,” and then away without bumping into a friend . . . or six.  Without making a new friend, or two.

Phoebe, Phoebe.  Really!  You should have known.

Sculpture in front of Cambridge Community Center

Fresh tea, fresh fish

David buys mushrooms

Polly and Joan

Bringing It

26 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

angry-bike-moments, bike-commuting, cambridge

In general, I’m not quick to anger. Sure, like most people, I’ve got my triggers, but I’m much more likely to laugh, shrug, or shake my head and wonder aloud at the mysteries of humans.

Enter bike commuting.

So this morning, riding serenely down Putnam Street in Cambridge (j/k – Putnam, with its constellation of potholes = far from serene), a woman in a large white SUV swerved around me, yelling out her open window, “Move over!”

Putnam Street is, I don’t know, twelve feet wide. It’s a narrow street. The Big Dipper potholes and road patches usually result in my taking the lane (for non-commuters this means = riding in the middle of a travel lane.)  I just don’t feel safe otherwise.

Enter the hollering driver in her SUV that barely fit in the lane. Enter 9:30 AM on a Wednesday. Enter fury.  

I fantasized about chasing her car down and through her open passenger’s side window (that she rolled down to shout at me?), giving that woman a piece of my mind. In a big way.

But you see, I’ve already done this. Multiple times, in multiple situations. It’s not satisfying. It’s never satisfying. Not even perhaps raising a choice finger. Not even mumbling savagely to myself. What happens is I get upset, I look out-of-control, I get exhausted by my own anger-adrenaline. And it’s just not worth my energy to take these situations personally, because they’re not personal.

Still when these situations occur, which is fairly often, a large (loud, panting, spitting) part of me is so ready to bring it; so unwilling to back down.  

Frustration leads to trashed bike?

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