17 Apr 2010

R: W's birthday party, filled with friends, food and white people karaoke. I have to say, the dreadful rendition of My Heart Will Go On certainly made me feel better about my own sorry crooning.

C: Instead of sitting in business class, sipping my way to 100-degree heat in Abuja, I was stuck in freezing Boston; many thanks to a volcano by the name of Eyjafjallajökull, a.k.a. Eyjafjöll, i.e. it sounds nothing like the way it is spelled anyway. I have to admit, however, that I was kind of dreading the trip. My body has all kinds of issues on its own without a 6-hour shift in its day. Although we had been watching the ashen storm creeping its way through Europe, I dutifully packed my bag last night while trying to simultaneously celebrate a 58th mensiversary and kitty quinceañera (I decided this was her age since at 1 year, cats are just about fully grown), only to be underwhelmed with the news of a cancelled trip.

Despite the fact that it was a blistering high of 40 with drizzle, M and I trekked all the way to East Cambridge to find a flea market. What I had in mind was something like Happy's Flea Market from home, but what we found was Cambridge Antique's Market. Spread out over five levels, the place allowed a small space (not much bigger than a mall kiosk) for each seller, and their items were numbered with the stall number. My favorite part of these kinds of places is being able to touch and examine random kitsch by hand. Although there were a handful of items that had potential, my main gripe with the place was the fact that half of the jewelry and smaller items were tucked behind locked cabinets, and salespeople were hard to identify to open described cabinets. I know, I get it; they don't want sticky-fingered people sneaking around five floors of merchandise, unsupervised. Luckily, some vendors were a little more trusting, even laying out their products in a decorative way. We will be back soon.