There was a snow storm coming in today, but I had 2 events to go to in the Boston area, so I started out my weekend like always, heading to the Hillcrest Cemetery at Centech Boulevard near Green Street in Shrewsbury first to take pictures of an old tower there.
From here, I headed to breakfast at
Mom's Restaurant, a small town breakfast place in Uxbridge. There were a lot of people here already, although I was still able to get a seat. This place has pretty interesting food on its menu, of which I got the Blackstone Benny
(Sausage patty, poached eggs and sausage gravy on an English Muffin)
and the Meat Stuffed French Toast (Ham, Sausage, Bacon, Cheddar).
The eggs were pretty interesting, since no hollandaise sauce was used at all. I thought the meat would be stuffed into the french toast, instead of being just placed on top of it like it was, which just made it a little typical. Overall, not too bad a meal though.
After breakfast, I passed through Hopedale,
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Spindleville Pond,
Green Street and Mill Street
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| Mill Pond, 366 West Street |
and went for a short hike at
Clark's Island Bicentennial Park, located at 20 Dilla Street on the
Upper Charles Trail in Milford, where the path I took here is shown below in pink.
There were okay views of Milford Pond from the island.
From here, it was on to Holliston,
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Old Metcalf Pump House,
Washington Street near Summer Street
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| Factory Pond, 146 Woodland Street |
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| Upper Charles Rail Trail, 156 Woodland Street |
Sherborn,
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| Farm Pond Beach |
Dover,
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| Channing Pond, 47 Springdale Avenue |
and finally Needham.
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Cochrane Dam,
South Street near Fisher Street
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| Walker Pond, 156 Charles River Street |
From here, it was time to head to my first event of the day, learning how to make a macrame bracelet at the
Boston Bead Company, located in the city of Cambridge. Due to difficulties in finding parking, I was a little late, yet still the first one to arrive for my lesson.
The instructor first showed us the different types of fabric we could use for our strings,
then the different types of knots we were going to do today.
Before we were to start on our actual bracelet, we practiced first with another set of strings.
After clipping down the base string,
we made a lark's head knot using the knotting string.
With the knot tightly in place, it was time to learn to do a reverse double half stitch knot.
This is performed by clipping down the left end of the string,
then using the other end to form a "4" by going over the clipped down string to the left,
then looping back under to form the first knot. With the knotting string now on the left, it is time to go back to the right, this time going under the clipped down string to the right,
then looping back to form the second knot. The result of doing this several times is shown below.
Our next practice was to do square knots. 3 strings are required, with the shortest string being the base string, and the other two are clipped to the left and right of the base string.
Starting with the right string, it is crossed over the base string and under the left string, and the left string is then passed under the base string and over the right string, like so.
With the knot tightened,
it is time to do the reverse, starting with the left string crossing over the base string and under the right string, then passing the right string under the base string and over the left string. Repeating this sequence causes a flat series of knots to form, while constantly starting on the same side causes the piece to spiral.
Finally, it was time to start on our actual bracelet. I decided to go with the blue string and beads.
Doing the same procedure for the square knots, 6 knots are made
before inserting the first bead onto the base string.
The next square knot is then wrapped around the bead.
From here, 3 more knots are made before inserting the next bead and repeating the process
until the third to last bead is inserted. After tying the bead down, 6 more knots are made to complete the first part of the bracelet.
Taking both ends of all the strings and lining them up parallel to each other, one end heading in one direction and the other end heading in the other, it is time to secure the ends while making the bracelet adjustable.
This is done using another piece of string,
wrapping around the ends and making slightly loose square knots around them,
making about 4 in all.
The loose ends of the adjusting string are then cut off
and sealed with super glue.
All the ends of the main bracelet are then knotted with small knots,
with one string on each side being attached with a bead as well.
With that, my bracelet was finally completed.
After leaving the place, I had some time before my next event, so I decided to grab some food at
Scoozi, a pretty decent looking Italian restaurant located in the midst of the
Boston University campus.
By this time, it had started snowing, so I was glad to be indoors, if only for the time being. With my deal, I decided to get the soup of the day, the Beef Chili,
and the Shrimp Risotto (
Arborio rice, mushrooms and asparagus in a white wine sauce) for my meal.
Unfortunately, the chili was way too sour for my liking, while the risotto was just so-so. I tried to save the situation by ordering the
Warm Apple Crisp (Layered apples, caramel topping and vanilla ice cream).
Once again, way too sour. Even the ice cream and caramel could not save it. Overall, considering the tons of restaurants in the area, not coming back here again.
I had to go back out in the cold again, to pick up my friend and head to Jillian's, the bowling/pool place in the Fenway area of town, where we were organizing a meetup event, yes, in the middle of a snow storm. We arrived early in order to try to ensure that we had lanes to bowl in, but I guess there wasn't much of a need to bother anyway.
In the end, out of the 30 people that were supposed to come today, only 7 showed up in the end. We still had a good time , starting with a round of bowling,
then a few games of pool, before finally heading to
Lansdowne Pub, a typical bar restaurant nearby for dinner, mainly because the snow was coming down real heavy by now.
I decided to get the Traditional Shepherd's Pie,
while my friends got the
Crab Cakes (arugula and mustard aioli),
the Scallop Salad (pan seared scallops, arugula, pickled beets, goat cheese, red onion, cucumber and champagne vinaigrette),
the Guinness Beef Stew (soda bread and Irish butter)
and the Prime Rib
(roasted potatoes, vegetables and Au Jus).
Of them, I managed to try the beef stew as well, which was pretty good. My pie was a little undercooked, but it was still tasty.
Overall I had a fun time tonight, although the drive home was horrendously slow. When I was about to get to my driveway, which unfortunately was up a slope, the road had not been plowed yet, and I got stuck, forcing me to go back down and take a long route back to the other side in order to go downhill instead to get to my driveway. I'm just thankful I managed to get home safely.
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