Hey, Who's the New Guy?

...that would be me.

I'm Kate. Sarah, of the Trenches variety, and Ms. Chicky herself, have graced my inbox with their vaulted words, and I'm dipping my toe into the world of group blogging.

Can you lean just a little closer for a minute? Just... pull in a little... yeah, c'mere. Okay, listen. It's kind of a secret. Ready? I'm not a real New Englander.

It's a little sad, I know. I'm just a transplant, and will never be a true Yankee. I pronounce R's at the end of words that end in R, and can allow names that end in vowels to go R-less. I could not - seriously, I've tried - care less about sports. I live in New Hampshire and don't own a gun.

But I like it here. I consider myself a permanent transplant; after we've survived two or eight more years of my husband as grad student at UNH, we plan on moving closer to Boston. I don't get nearly enough opportunities for road rage up here on the Seacoast.

What else, what else? I never know whether my interests are interesting or merely another set of lists. I knit, I travel, I have children (Emily is 7 and Jacob is 3) with the option for more in a year or two. I blog. I'm a sort-of psychologist, doing crisis assessments in the emergency room. I, I, I... you get the idea.

I hope this is fun. I hope to get to know some fabulous new people, because that gives me more chances to gossip about the unfabulous ones out there. I hope not to be boring.

Hello There!

I'm MamaLee from Fullplate, and I am a newbie to this website. Thanks to Mrs. Chicky for graciously letting me join this group!

I grew up in Northeast Connecticut - I spent 34 years over there - and when I got married 7 years ago, I moved west to Litchfield County. Here we live in a 4-bedroom colonial, right next to slobs-for-neighbors and ticks in the woods in the backyard. Typically New England (well the ticks anyway)!

I have 3 wonderful, busy cherubs, ages 5, 4 and 2, and they, along with our 2 springers and my busy hubby, keep me on my toes. Especially Princess (the 4yr old) - she is SOOO lucky she is cute!) I used to be a music teacher and theatre guru before I got married and moved away, and now the mama-thing keeps my attention and my heart.

I look forward to posting about my life here in Connecticut and reading about your lives as well.

Again, thanks for having me!

I have an idea-rrr

I was busy browsing for my stylehive. As an aside, does anyone else find it time consuming to constantly update their stylehive? It drives me nuts sometimes. But I digress....

Anyhow, I came across this. I didn't even know it existed, but it looks like FUN. And since it's location is near bars and restaurants, it might be a good outing for us NE Mamas. I know it's in Boston and all you outer states people are going Ugh, BOSTON. But it says they have free parking! FREE PARKING IN BOSTON. Who would have thunk it?



It's open Sundays. I looked at about half the vendor sites (how do you think I update my stylehive?) and it looks like there is just about something for everyone. Heavy on the purses, like that's a bad thing? But I think there should be enough to look at before hitting some watering hole. I'm totally unfamiliar with the South End, but I know it's like restaurant ally with plenty of places for drinkie poos. Does anyone know more?



So what do you think of maybe planning an outing for shopping, schmoozing, and libations?

(pics stolen from their web site)

Can't take New England out of the Girl

Hi everybody! CapeBuffalo here, late as usual (see Mrs. Chicky- I really am always late!). I am a true Masshole. I was born and raised in the Merrimac valley and have spent most of my summers in Saco Bay and Nantucket and lived for many years in the Berkshires. I married a Mainer who I began dating when I was living up there just before moving back to Boston where I finished college. Although it's my goal to travel on every continent, I've only truly lived outside of New England once and I hated it.

I live in Stepford, a western suburb of Boston, with the lovely Hubby and beautiful Kiddo and our cats Harry and Guinness. I am an educator, but I have an unusual job.

Turn-ons: sand betwen my toes, the smell of Coppertone, ice cold white wine, grilled vegetables, snow days, manners, kindness, Harrison's roast beef sandwiches, cold draft beers at Fenway, the slow boat to Nantucket, Maine in any season, the New England Coastline, Teddy Bruschi, Sting, that scene at the end of Bend it Like Beckham where Jonathan Rhys Meyers bites his lip oh my gaw, Eddie Izzard, art

Turn-offs: Route nine, people who allow their kids to hit them, people who talk too loudly on cell phones in public, bad grammar, people on the T who don't give up their seats to old people, people in general, people who don't teach their children to say please and thank you and to share, surly customer service, overseas call centers, the Bush administration, Mitt Romney and all he stands for, aggressive seagulls, people who have had the same haircut since 1986, couples who dress alike, adult contemporary radio, xenophobia, eggs

And now you know all about me.

It's Introduction Time

I'm terrible at introducing myself. I can't tell what is interesting and what is deadly boring, so I tend to blather on and on and on ...

Oh, sorry! I'm Margalit. I'm very old, and for Ms Chicky, not only going gray down there, but going to the next step, which is even worse than gray. Yikes!

I'm the very happily single mother of teenage twins, known on the Internet as The Boy and the Girl. Which is better than their names at home, which range from the Jackass and the Obnoxious to much worse. Ah, nothing like the teens to really drive home what a deal college is!
I work very part time as a professional blogger! Yes, you can actually make a tidy little pittance writing blogs, and that's just what I make, a pittance. But I enjoy it and hope that eventually I'll get a decent paycheck out of it.

I've been a professional writer my entire adult life. I wrote many very dull books about computer software for various clients as a technical writer, and then broadened my skill set, as they say in HR, and went to the dark side as a manager. I liked the dark side better! But about 6 years ago, a congenital heart defect that had been benign most of my life started to seriously affect me, and I eventually ended up with congestive heart failure and now am fully disabled. I still do stuff, but I have to be very careful, which sucks, and I tire very easily. Plus, the many medications I'm on have rendered me fairly useless when it comes to clear thinking. I would guess my IQ has plummeted since I got sick.

I'm very interested in local and national politics. I'm extremely liberal and try hard to defeat anything remotely conservative. I tend to blog a lot about local and town politics on my blog, which has made me extremely popular (not) with our mayor. Oh well.

I live right outside Boston in a streetcar suburb, where my kids attend one of two local high schools. While I identify as being observantly Jewish, I've given up on finding a synagogue in my community that feels haimish enough for us. So we kind of are lapsed Modern Orthodox/Traditional Conservative looking for a small, lay-led community synagogue. Yeah, right.

I'm a huge RED SOX fan, but really don't care much about other sports, although my son is a Patriots fan as well. I like gardening, knitting, reading, and watching way too much TV. I post a LOST discussion every Thursday, and I'll find some other TV to glom onto in the summer. Maybe Big Brother. I don't know yet. But there will be something.

I also like to cook and bake, and I post recipes on this site fairly often.

We have one pet, a cat, whose Internet name is Worthless Pet. I think that is probably self-explanatory. We really want a dog, but I don't think we can adequately care for one despite living on a huge tract of land.

Thanks to Ms Chicky for starting this up and I really hope we can have a get together someplace soon (close for the non-drivers like moi!) to get to know each other.

Hi! I'm Paula aka Rock the Cradle

Writing semi-anonymously. As in, some friends know I have a blog, but not the family. I hope to keep it that way. Less bloodshed.

I started this before Ms. Chicky introduced herself, and found I am WAY out of practice with the one-minute interview bio form, so please forgive the rambling chaos that follows:

I'm one of those strange New Englanders from the greater Boston area who somehow lost the accent somewhere along the way. I would like to say it was due to twelve years of living in Philly and learning to say “Ack-ah-mee” in stead of “Acme”, and “prohvy with” for “a cheese steak with provolone and onions” (or artery clogging, grease dripping heart attack in a soft squishy bun) but no. It happened long before. The accent is still there...it only shows itself at extended family gatherings. You know the ones...where the old matriarchs gather like dons around the kitchen table, and the room is packed like a clown car with people and food...lasagnas, ambrosia, dirt, hamburgers, meatballs, crab rangoon, lemon squares, and a neglected fruit salad. Everyone goes for the dirt, of course.

But I digress.

I went to school for illustration, graduated, and went through an interesting line up of jobs. Book store to architecture firm to free-lancing to senior graphic designer at a medical publishing firm. This last helped get Dr. Science through med school, along with massive amounts of debt and a promise to work in an under-served area for four years after residency is survived. We are entering our fourth year of residency.

I now live in Brookline with my husband (Dr. Science) and 2+ year old daughter (the Impling). The transition from Queen Village, Philadelphia to Brookline involved months of what I can only describe as culture shock. I can walk for fifteen minutes in any direction here, and still the neighborhoods are safe and beautiful. In Philly, around the corner were numerous crack houses with clientele that amazingly never showed any interest in actually crossing the road and making the pilgrimage to our block. Maybe because our street was gentrified to the point of mafia protection? Could be. One night we heard a “POP POP” which in my sleep induced torpor I took to be fireworks. Dr. Science knew otherwise. “Those were gun-shots!” he exclaimed as he called 911.

Our next door neighbor was found dead beside his SUV, piles of the dry cleaning he was carrying strewn on the sidewalk, an empty casing on the hood of the car. A hit. No robbery, clean getaway, no clues. Seems that “Bugsy” got one the wrong side of some of the locals. All our neighbors gathered in what by now had become a sort of collective support network whenever something crazy happened.

There were fires in our neighborhood, one started by a desperate, mentally ill woman who took hostages. There were arguments that escalated into violence. Car “accidents”. Road rage. Molotov cocktails thrown through the windows of our favorite bakery one neighborhood over. Good times.

But there were also the jovial early morning voices yelling “Yo, Vinnie!” in friendly greeting. There were amazing restaurants, lots of musicians and artists, and a growing number of young professional families. Within a year of our moving in (we chose the neighborhood because it was “quiet”...as in, no gay prostitutes singing medleys of Les Mis songs at 3 in the morning...little did we know), property values went through the roof. Life quieted down. But you always walk with hyper-awareness in Philadelphia. Not fear, mind you...just a constant awareness of everyone and everything around you.

But here in Brookline...it is so quiet. I asked about crime when we signed the lease on our ground level apartment and was laughed at. I walked along the street for weeks, months, tense and alert. It was so very, very...quiet. Finally, I relaxed, and began to enjoy myself as I explored my new home.

Three years later, I am a mother (and one of those SAHM's no less) and a blogger. And I know the best place to get Thai take out in Coolidge Corner.

Damn, this is ridiculously long. Hi everyone. Glad to be here.

And Mrs. Chicky, as for Metro West... I swear, the only reason I never cross 128 is, um...lack of a driver's license.

Yes. I am lame. I never had a reason to get one, so it just never happened. That and I don't have a death wish. (Irrational fear of driving, right here. Now you all know my dirty little secret.) Hey, I'm working on it! But for now, public transportation is my friend.

Hope we can still all meet up at some point!

I'll stop now before your eyes begin to bleed.

Hi! I'm Mrs. Chicky

Yep, that's me. I'm Mrs. C, damn good to meet you. I blog anonymously to save myself from being found out through any embarrassing Google searches, like "going gray down there". Not sure I need my in-laws to know that much about me. Plus it gives me the opportunity to trash my soul sucking bosses whenever the spirit moves me without fear of being Dooced.

Chicky, Mr. C and I live just East of Worcester, at the very edge of Metro West, but to our Boston area friends we may as well live out in Nebraska. What you city dwellers have against crossing 128 I'll never know. It's not that far west, really.

(Those of you in the Boston area are shaking your heads right now. Don't think I don't know.)

Anyhoo... Chicky, my one and only, just turned two and I've been blogging for most of her life to keep myself from going insane. Oh, I'm still going nuts from this SAHM thing, but blogging makes the descent more interesting. I've "met" some really great people on line and, so far, I've had the pleasure of meeting Cape Buffalo face to face. I'm really looking forward to the possibility of meeting more of you in person!

So, what's your story?

Meet the mamas

Our numbers are really starting to grow! Welcome to our new contributors.

I already read most of your blogs but there are some of yours that I'm just starting to visit. Blogs are a lot like high school, we tend to stay in our comfortable social networks, so now might be a good time to introduce ourselves. When you get a sec, write your own post introducing yourself. Give as much information as you feel comfortable providing. At the very least let us know which state you live in.

And if there are other NE blogging mamas that I don't know of but you think would like to join our merry band of revelers send them over. The more the merrier.