Yesterday Erin and I met after work to do a portrait project for her Photo 1 class. She’s using my little Canon AE1, and she was supposed to photograph our friend Edgar but he bailed, so I was the only option remaining. Let’s just say I’m not destined to be anyone’s photographic muse.
We met at the Borders in Downtown Crossing, which @Bostontweet has informed me will be liquidating soon, but the very rude cashier I spoke to yesterday had no idea when the sales will start. I guess getting excited about the closing of his place of employment was a little rude on my end, too. I wanted to buy the latest issues of IdN Magazine and eye, but let’s be real, I can’t afford $17.50 UK export magazines.
So Erin and I met at Borders on our bikes and decided to head to the South End, where our favorite playground is. Yes, we have a favorite playground, and there are a few more on our list that we love around Boston! This one is Peter’s Park at E. Berkeley St and Shawmut Ave and we sat on the bleachers to watch a little league game while eating free, delicious Cosi sandwiches I had snagged from our office lunch.
We tried to photograph me in various candid situations while watching the game, but the awkwardness was relentless and I’m sure I’m going to look like a total fool in all of the photos – we’ll share the super classy ones when Erin’s prints them tonight!
So, as two tall blond girls who clearly knew none of the kids playing baseball, we already stood out. But in good Erin fashion, we couldn’t leave without causing a scene. At one point the umpire yelled “HEADS UP!” as a fly ball flew over the fence right above the bleachers and starting falling right above Erin’s head. Her Tiger-like reflexes being – well, non-existent – she covered her face and ducked. The guy next to her screamed “WATCH OUT!” and the ball slammed onto the metal bleachers with a huge thud RIGHT next to Erin. She freaked out, started scrambling for the ball while holding the camera and proceeded to topple over my bike, which hit her bike, which fell on all our stuff and crashed to the ground. The hot dog man started laughing his ass off and the baseball-moms all stared at us. We just sort of waved at everyone and handed the baseball to the over-eager ball-retrieving kid.
We proceeded to wander the playground taking unbearably awkward photos of me amongst the kids. I felt like a legit giant – especially when our little 5-year-old friend insisted with have a “fake picnic” at the table underneath the playground bridge. Erin and I squeezed our giant selves into the little cave and chatted about how the girl was a regular at Peter’s Park. But the playground is awesome — for your reference, the Eiffel Tower rope thing is the best part of the park.
Erin took a few pictures on Instagram (her personal religion), such as this very lovely photo of me being me on the swings — naturally she tweeted this one, not the cute one of me. And to make matters even better, there’s a great twitter account called @SouthEndFeed that I suggest you follow if you live in/around the South End. They feed everything that hashtags #southend (which Erin did) so now my photo was just broadcast to 1,451 followers. THANKS ‘MU!
Then we gathered our awkward selves and went to Anthropology, where I held some fancy old lady’s little terrier in the dressing room while the lady tried on clothes and waited for Erin to live out her dream in Anthro.
More on us being city girl biking pros later – hey Erin, let’s take pictures of our bikes!
[super awesome sign-off],
L
homemadehotsauce 