Camm-o-Glam

After the 100th email complaining that "Patti's not in the pix!" I arranged a rush photo session featuring my newest fashion item: camouflage pattern cargo pants. Made to render combat troops invisible among the weeds, jungle cammo is still very popular in certain hippie-fied sections of Cambridge, and I am told it's mandatory at gun clubs in the suburbs. Not that the we're trying to hide from anything. Just the opposite. We like the rough n' ready air it gives us. Especially when fighting for parking spaces [me first at the health club + (W)hol(e)y Foods]. As those who know me know: I'm rough 'n' tough; don't take no stuff.

Travels With Raleigh

Submitted by guest blogger JoeY

Late July

Pond.






Swim.

Hot or Not

Attended a 4th of July evening celebration held on a hill in Arlington that promised a commanding view of Boston's famed fireworks display. The big booms were scheduled to go off at 10:30PM, but after 2 1/2 hours spent crowded on all sides by The Public, I decided to bail out in favor of the relative serenity of seeing said pyrotechnic display on TV.

When it's 95 in the shade, there's nothing better than a refreshing visit to a Secret Swimming Hole in an undisclosed location. I'm tired of this heat!

Summer days in Cambridge

It was Formaggio Kitchen's BBQ Weekend, a must-attend for vegetarians like me who make exceptions for pulled pork, pulled beef brisket, pulled lamb, pulled spicy chicken, Niman Ranch dogs on brioche bun, grilled and smoked using a variety of woods and smothered in savory onions. Glaringly absent was the usual block-long queue of salivating BBQ enthusiasts lining the Huron Avenue sidewalk. Was it the July 4th holiday that kept them away, or perhaps the rumor that I'd be there to buy out the store?

The Secret Gardens of Cambridge is now an every-other-yearly event I first attended some years ago, and try my best not to miss. For one jam-packed Sunday a year, I get to wander around people's backyards and hobnob with amateur gardeners who take serious delight in creating tiny urban parks where you'd least expect to find them. A true inspiration for this Chauncy gardener.

The Boys of Banner Hill

To your left: photographic proof of old friend Sandro's ability to tolerate my show-off theatrics while visiting the Gloucester estate of Dr. Jay on a moody Saturday afternoon. Fortified by a free-range Mediterranean saladio and accompanied by Global Design Director JoeY, we scaled the local Matterhorn and noted the highest point in town from the former estate of Canadian-born glue czar W.N. LePage (yes, the Mucilage King himself).

To your right: Banner Hill below decks. The good Doctor led us to the basement to reveal an honest-to-gosh naval swivel gun, found buried on the property and dating back to the Napoleonic Wars (we hope). Sailing vessels of yore employed these to guard against invasion (and not the Bose kind, either). Maybe the LePage clan kept it around for similar purposes. Or maybe as an ancient form of Pulse Width Modulation. Who knows?

Just below: Sandro points out various geographic highlights of Gloucester Harbor while I dream of Nicoises I Have Known. It only took one flawlessly mixed wine spritzer for me to see that these fellas really know how to entertain a gal (and I mean that in the nicest way). A tour of the art-filled East and West wings capped a perfect afternoon by the sea.

Rue the Day

This blog's first embedded video: a clip from the "lost footage" of my association with Paris motorcycle gangs in 2009.