Foliage

I spent the last couple days in Boston with my brother—it was the first time I'd been back to New England in the fall since my college days! And it was a nice little break from small-apartment, no-car, super-urban living in NYC. We saw a couple movies, ate sushi, and made a feast at home one night (naan and an Indian rice-and-chicken concoction):


Then drove up into New Hampshire, looking for scenes like this:


And trees like this:



We pulled many times when we came across big views, like Mount Monadnock:


We even stopped by a farm stand. I can still taste the apple I bought—it was perfect!


I also did my last long training run for the marathon, which is three weeks away now. It was a beautiful day in Boston, and I got to check out (well, sort of) the Arnold Arboretum, the Emerald Necklace, Jamaica Pond, the Charles River, Harvard, MIT, and lots of pavement under my feet. (Sometimes, if I stare at the ground, I can pretend I don't know how much further I have to run.)




Of course, no weekend in New Hampshire would be complete without a trip to the Monadnock Rod & Gun Club, where my brother is a member. While he set up targets, an old dude regaled me with stories about the various fauna he'd felled.


Fake fauna:


I'm not a gun person—at all. My parents' car, for years, bore a bumper sticker that crowed, "Shame on the NRA!" I still feel the same way. But just this once (maybe) I did a little bit of target practice with a .22-caliber rifle (fun) and shot a Colt .357 Magnum (not that fun—I was, and am, totally scared of it). I hit the target a few times, but mostly plugged my ears. Here's a short clip of me and the revolver. Step 1: Hold gun gingerly. Step 2: Feel the kick through the whole body. Step 3: Look at fired weapon, confused. Step 4: Turn to camera and grin triumphantly.



Now I'm back in Brooklyn and need to do some schoolwork. No more packin' heat!