Snow.my.god 2015

Hi friends,

I write this holed up on my living room couch, trapped in my apartment. Trapped because all the weather channels predicted a megastorm by the name of Juno that was supposed to be a lot more threatening than the teen character in the film by the same name. On Sunday, the city of Somerville declared a snow emergency for Monday and by noon yesterday, I received the notification that my work was closed today. The mayor of Boston also declared a travel ban, effectively shutting down the entire MBTA system and making it literally impossible to go anywhere, just in case you were crazy enough to leave the house on a day you had off from work.

Winter Storm Juno was predicted to drop about 3 feet of snow on the state of Massachusetts. Considering that Illinois cities rarely shut down for major snowstorms (I used to have to drive to the bank on days where the streets were coated in at least six inches of snow because the plows hadn’t been by in some time), I was not worried about the impending storm. But then Jackie Rosetti, a Somerville city official, left four emergency messages on my phone about the city being shut down. And my electricity and gas provider Nstar sent me a number of communications letting me know what to do in case the power went off or there was a gas leak in my apartment building due to flooding ruining our furnace. Since the pipes in Boston are ancient, I figured this time there much be something to worry about. I got the flashlight out and my roommate bought a ton of candles.

I got to leave work an hour and a half early yesterday, which was helpful not because of the weather (it was only flurrying) but because I got to deposit a check before the bank closed and wash a load of laundry by the time I would have returned home from work. Then I kicked back with a giant mug of Kahlua-spiked cocoa … and waited. I waited for the snow to build but by the time I went to bed, the snowfall still seemed pretty light. I expected to wake up to a snowglobe landscape, like the epic Nemo snowstorm of 2013.

This is actually what it looked like when I got up. Definitely not nothing but also not as epic as I expected.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely enjoying having the day off. I slept in, finally washed my sheets, paid some bills, signed up for a class I’ve been meaning to take for fun. I even did my part for the shared space of the apartment building, shoveling and salting the front steps. But that only really took me about 10 minutes because my roommate had shoveled early in the morning and despite the gusting wind, there wasn’t too much additional accumulation.

I will say, I love how cautious Boston is. Chicago has an attitude of, we can take anything, which has passed on to its residents, who continue to drive like bozos when the streets are undriveable, Here in Boston, officials make sure it residents stay safe and the highways aren’t clogged with costly pile-ups. I’ll take an extra day of leisure over an unnecessarily stress-filled day any time. See you tomorrow, outside world.

Flea market fun

Sometimes  (actually many a times) I hate on hipsters for their appropriation of low-brow culture and then sometimes I can’t help but love them for transforming something that was once trashy into something funky (assuming that the prices are still right). In the case of the Somerville Flea Market, the latter is definitely true.

As a former Goodwill employee, I’ve always had a soft spot for second-hand treasures. So it’s surprising that it took me two years to make my way to a flea market just a few blocks away from where I lived. The Somerville Flea is conveniently located in the Harvard Vanguard parking lot next to the Davis Square T station, so it’s really easy to get to, even for non-Somerville residents.

As far as I can tell, the outdoor market takes place on Sundays from the summer to Oct. I randomly happened on the market one hot summer day when I found myself without plans. What I found was a small wonderful filled with reasonably priced custom-made/refinished furniture, live music, cold-pressed coffee, and gems from yo’ grandpa’s basement.

I hit the jackpot in terms of the perfect gift to get one of my best friends who just so happens to an MJ super fan. So much so that a few years ago for her birthday, we dressed up as members of the Jackson family (I was flashy Randy) circa the Victory Tour and performed the Thriller dance in my friend Mike’s living room. For those of you who don’t know, the Victory Tour is the first and last tour featuring all six of the Jackson brothers and it happened just as MJ was ascending to solo superstardom. This is also when they co-promoted Pepsi and MJ’s hair infamously caught fire during a commercial taping.

I called my friend after I left the market to tell her about the rare find and she begged me to head back. And because I wasn’t home yet, I did. For a mere $65 I got her this one-of-a-kind conversation piece. When she received it in the mail, I know it made her day.

Flash-forward to last weekend. After moving to the new apartment, I was desperate for a new dresser. My old dresser was a hand-me-down that had started falling apart at the seams. So, for the first month of life on Aberdeen Rd., I was getting dressed from a large moving box on the floor of my room.

The search for a dresser led me to lots of surfing on the Target, Walmart, and Ikea sites, where everything is cheaply produced, cost way too much money for the quality, and had to be assembled at a later time. And I was afraid to buy a dresser off of Craigslist because my roommate had done that a year ago and it had resulted in a bed bugs scare. So, I hoped that I could find something reasonable and bug free at the market.

And the perfect piece was found, less than five minutes after walking into the flea market. For under $200, I got a dresser from I Want a Pony, a badass jewelry/furniture/all things awesome co-op, and got them to deliver to my apartment. I was enamored with it upon first sight because of its funky color, unique drawer pulls, and how roomy it was.

It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the dresser perfectly matches my bedspread! WIN. Thanks to the Somerville Flea, I was finally able to get all the boxes out of my room, stop living like a transient, and finally get settled into my apartment!!