Sweet Ride Cambridge 2013

04 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life, Community

Tags

bike-love, cambridge, community, events, food-n-cookin, spring

Officially, I gave up my candy habit some time around 2005. Shocking then, right, that I somehow found myself sucking down conversation hearts while listening to a talk on Cambridge’s sugary legacy -that of flat, candy wafers that spark in the dark, figgy cookies, and mints that come in papa, mama, and junior? (Actually, not that shocking . . . )

Mayor Davis helps to kick things off at the start of the Sweet Ride

Cambridge Mayor Henrietta Davis helps to kick things off at the Sweet Ride (photo courtesy Cambridge Bicycle Committee)

Between the riding, listening, and somewhat guilt-free gobbling of complimentary goodies provided by our hosts, I may not have found opportunity to snap photos even if I had bought along my reliable (and admittedly clunky) Canon. Glad I’m not the only person sweet on fond remembrance.

Cambridge Bikes is a Sweetheart (courtesy of Cambridge Bicycle Committee)

The photos featured here are borrowed courtesy of the fine planners/bike enthusiasts at Cambridge Bicycle Committee.

In addition to being so kind as to let me partake of their photos, I enjoyed that this well-organized tour of Cambridge was split into “sweet” and “savory” with brief, interesting lectures at several resting points.

Sweet or savory, bikes in all flavors (photo courtesy of Cambridge Bicycle Committee)

These gents could be on the bow tie ride (photo courtesy of Cambridge Bicycle Committee)

JP Spring Roll Bike Ride

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Bike Life

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bike-love, events, jamaica-plain

Annually since we’ve lived in Jamaica Plain, my partner and I have enjoyed taking part in the JP Spring Roll bike ride organized by our local culture and advocacy group, JP Bikes.

This year, it rained pre-ride so a lot of folks didn’t come out. David and I had the curious experience of being outnumbered by family groups, toting or accompanied by little ‘uns.

We stood out: kidless in the community bike parade. I was also without a bike bell with which to ring in cheers from spectators along the route. Next year I will have to address one of those issues! ;^) (And by that I mean, the bell.)

Overexposed, but I kind of like it!

Welcoming Spring at Wake Up The Earth

13 Monday May 2013

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

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community, events, jamaica-plain, spring

I appreciate how, when taking part in something annually, you can be awarded opportunities to meet that activity/event anew.

This year, we watched the Wake Up the Earth parade from what we thought was the middle of the route (later, we learned differently.) My partner sipped his coffee and I fiddled with my camera, trying to appear invisible to an intensely compelling group of children-on-stilts and their cheerful parents. The tall crew had gathered and were waiting to join the parade from the end of Paul Gore Street, right in front of the Connelly Branch of the Boston Public Library.

We heard the drums first. Then the kids, most of whom had been walking in place so as to be prepared to join mid-stride, struck out.

My partner and I didn’t see it, but apparently this was repeated further along the route as three separate parades -each originating from and representing different neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury– merged into one then continued together down Lamartine Street, landing finally at the festival.

National Poetry Month Lament

01 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Writing Life

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Tags

community, events, poetry

I am not a farmer. Barely a keeper of house plants, but I’ve heard some things and I’ve read other things about letting a field go fallow. Or planting a cover crop of rye or clover. Whatever the process and the terms, the analogy of letting lay to inspire a future season of fertility -if one is feeling generous- is a suitable fit for what happened to the postcards I send out annually in celebration of National Poetry Month.

They are in a fallow field. That field being my mind.

You see, for possibly a decade, I’ve mailed poem postcards to family, friends, and folks I’m cultivating for friendship. I call them poemcards. I started small -a few poemcards in the month of April, containing a short poem and the inscription: Happy Nat’l Poetry Month! xoxPhoebe. Every year I added more addresses, scoured anthologies, until finally I was stretching to send out nearly forty postcards in a month. Handwritten or cut-n-paste, it took a lot of effort.

This year: nada. The desire was more a soft wind; every time I turned my head, it was gone. Between the busyness of work and life, Ladies Rock Camp Boston, and a slow recovery from winter, the seeds of my annual celebration drowned.

So. A lament, then a hope for next year. In the meantime:

Dispatches from Ladies Rock Camp Boston – April 2013

29 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Boston Moments, Community, Learnin'

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Tags

arts, community, events, family, jamaica-plain

Some stories are so good, a person trips over herself trying to tell them. How to begin?

With my mother and her newly acquired electric keyboard? How she surprised me with an affirmative to my inquiry, asked slightly in jest: hey, Ma, want to do Ladies Rock Camp with me this spring?

With the brief essays we wrote for our applications, mining our memories for favorite musicians and artistic influences (me: Stevie Wonder; mom: Yanni.)

With my learned love of alternate learning opportunities? Like libraries. Like volunteering. Like skillshare.

With forty-plus women, in support of girls, signed up for a three-day rock and roll bootcamp? With Girls Rock Campaign Boston, bursting on the scene in 2010, educating girls ages eight to seventeen in the ways of music and self-empowerment.

The story, on paper or on screen, holds more than I can give words to. More nerve. More verve. More vulnerabilities. More inspiration. More risk-taking. More generosity. More skill. More dancing. More surprises. More support.

So I’m not going to attempt to tell this tale linear. Here are some impressions. Here are some photos. Here is a challenge for you to sign yourself up (or your daughter, your sister, your mother, your friend), and find out. Tell your own story.

However this thing begins, you can be sure it ends with gratitude.

Oh. And a video. Rocking out to Maids of Mayhem!

LRC Maids of Mayhem 4-2013 from Phoebe Sinclair on Vimeo.

Local Maple, Moosehill

05 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life, Learnin'

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events, food-n-cookin, trees, winter

I was encouraged by the number of people who showed up to Saturday’s sold-out Maple Sugaring Festival at Mass Audubon’s Moose Hill in Sharon, MA. Friends, families, and a few couples like us.

Snow on the group, sap rising, and the sugar house was steaming maple smoke.

Due to climate change and invasive pests, folks claim these woods are endangered. Spying the maples at Natick Community Farm and Moose Hill has been bittersweet. As a kid, having never seen them, I’d envisioned sugar maples as stately and smooth. I’ve since learned they’re more tall and gnarly, holding in their veins a thin, silent treasure.

Not a sugar maple

Souper Bowl Sunday

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

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

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events, food-n-cookin, this-moment, winter

That’s right. I said it: SOUPer bowl. At Roxbury’s very own community-boosting Haley House Bakery and Cafe, the sport isn’t how far you can run with a synthetic pigskin, but how much soup you can spoon before gastrointestinal collapse.

For me, in case you wondered, that’s about six or seven bowls filled to 1/4 full.

An event originally organized by now-retired Boston Localvores, the non-profit Haley House has taken over inviting chefs to create soups using wholesome, locally sourced ingredients to raise funds for its programming that addresses homelessness, joblessness, and hopelessness.

At the first Souper Bowl I attended, (Souper Bowl III, I believe), my companions and I picked up our hand-thrown ceramic bowls by MassArt’s Clay for Change and waded into a full-house of soup-lovers.

For my second Souper Bowl experience, I promised myself to work the room strategically but promptly fell for a soulful seafood chowder that blew me and my companions away. Skipped the bread, was careful with the water, but still my stroll home at the end of the evening looked more a waddle. Souper Bowl V, you won, but there’s always next year!

MeiMei Street Kitchen staff serve up carrot soup

Hand-thrown bowls for keeps, seriously

KidsArts Homemade Arcade

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

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

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Tags

community, events, jamaica-plain, kids

This winter, I got a little taste of summer, Jersey-style. That is: a crowded room of shouting and running young’uns, calmly strolling middles, and smiling, photo-snapping oldies; the beeping-bloop sounds of electronic toys; and the sweet smell of sugar whipped into a pink, puffy cloud.

Sadly (and thankfully), the Homemade Arcade, created by the talented young-uns and staff of KidsArts! Multicultural Afterschool and Summer Program, did not offer cotton candy. What it lacked in kill-you-quick sugar, though, it more than made up for in creative, homegrown fun.

What to do on a snowy winter’s afternoon? Walk on over to KidsArts for . . .

. . . some Whacky Watermelon Minigolf.

Navigating a field of strawberries . . .

and avocado pits . . .

and a tricky pineapple-windmill.

Play some . . .

Toss a tiny basketball.

Dance, dance, the revolution.

Play Pac-Man . . .

. . . pinball . . .

And foosball!

This arcade really hit all the boardwalk standards, and with none of the wood splinters, dank carpet-smell, or dropped hotdogs. I’d say that’s a win.

Gone to Winter Market

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Phoebe (she / hers) in Green Life

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Tags

cambridge, city-farm, events, winter

This time we were prepared.

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.)

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!

Culinary Cruiser team smile for the camera

For the Pie (in the Sky)

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

events, food-n-cookin, giving, volunteering

I used to do it for the pie.

Back nine or so years, as part of the annual public service efforts of my dotcom job, I started volunteering with Community Servings, an organization that prepares healthy meals for individuals and families struggling with life threatening illnesses. As a group, we first did a stint in the kitchen -to my memory washing pounds and pounds of broccoli. Then we discovered Pie in the Sky, an enormous bake sale that raises thousands of dollars each year. Some of us fell over heels for the pie hospital (can you guess where some of those “sick” pies end up?)

Now days, I do it for the tradition. For the moment of walking into whatever enormous warehouse the pie quality-checking and packing operations are set up in. The refrigerator-chill and boxes of pies stacked higher than our heads.

I do it for time with friends and “ex” co-workers.

I do it for the music pumping through the speakers of that excellent lady DJ, spinning beats that keep our feet moving as we honor our imaginings of all of the people who will continue to receive much-needed meals as a direct result of just a few hours of our labor.

Phoebe Sinclair Writes

Tag Archives: events

Sweet Ride Cambridge 2013

JP Spring Roll Bike Ride

Welcoming Spring at Wake Up The Earth

National Poetry Month Lament

Dispatches from Ladies Rock Camp Boston – April 2013

Local Maple, Moosehill

Souper Bowl Sunday

KidsArts Homemade Arcade

Gone to Winter Market

For the Pie (in the Sky)