Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

Oh, guess what happened tonight when I tried to go to Friendly's to get some nice ice cream sundaes for me and my friend and boyfriend? If you guessed they had the door locked 25 minutes early and were sweeping up and then proceeded to ignore me as I tried to open the door and then stood there dumbfounded staring at them you would be correct.

In case you forgot, check out this other wonderful incident with the Charlestown Friendly's.

Here's a general announcement for the entire world, but specifically I want restaurant and other service type employees to pay special attention:

It is your job to be open during the hours you are supposed to be open, and to do your job in a pleasant manner and to be helpful and friendly. If you cannot manage to do these things, then you should not have a job where you have to interact with other humans. Since there are very few jobs in the world where you don't interact with other human beings, you will have a tough road ahead of you. Better to just learn how to be a pleasant person.

And I have a special message for the staff of the Friendly's in Charlestown. (If there is actually someone there who doesn't totally suck at their job, then I hereby exclude them. This applies to everyone else.) Your restaurant sucks and it's unpleasant to be there and it's entirely because of the employees. I am done going there and I will be sure to loudly tell anyone who mentions it that they should not go there either. As far as I know Friendly's has not been doing that well lately and they probably would do better to fire all of you and either close the restaurant permanently (though it's less than a year old I think) or to completely replace the current staff. Maybe you should import some teenagers from the midwest. They seem to be able to handle serving ice cream and working a cash register better than anyone I've ever seen doing either of these jobs in Boston.

Guess what? Remember how you're meeting in the middle of a city where people live and work? Well, at night those people sleep. Most of them are probably already asleep or trying to go to sleep by midnight. So maybe that's not the best time to set off fireworks. A Monday night at midnight. Just a suggestion.

Are they really this out of touch with regular people? Or is it just that they don't care at all? If they are having fireworks every night of this stupid thing then that's just the dumbest thing ever. Whose idea was this? I want to know so that in a month or so I can show up at their house at midnight and set off some fireworks. Sure, I'll probably be arrested. But it might be worth it.

FANTASTIC. Meanwhile, this morning it smells like a tire heap is on fire in Charlestown. I thought maybe someone blew something up. But no, that's just the pleasant smell of morning in my lovely city.

Probably most people here remember this. I'm not a fan of people suing for millions of dollars all the time, but I do have to say that I think her lawyer has a point when he says:

"The notion that the T is going to rifle through our briefcases and shopping bags in the name of public safety is an absurdity when they won't even stop a train for a man who's dying and desperately needs help," Boyle said.

I also find it interesting that the T is refusing to put defibrillators on trains, even if someone else pays for it. That just seems like they are being bastards just for the sake of it.

This is pretty funny if you ask me. I guess maybe it's a good idea. Of course you still have to assume these people aren't lying. It's entertaining at least.

Welcome to Boston, conventioneers! The city where you can just throw your garbage in loose heaps on the street! No one will mind!

Guess what? If you don't want any garbage containers in the city during the convention, including clear garbage bags, then you get to have garbage trucks driving around constantly, collecting trash directly from people's hands. What do you think is going to happen? No one will produce trash? People will just save it in their kitchen sinks until the convention is over? Seriously, give me a break!

Do they understand that garbage cans aren't the only possible hiding place for explosives either? I have an idea, let's flatten most of the city and pave it over. Then no one will be able to hide anything. There won't be a city anymore, but at least we'll have the convention.

Way to go, Mr. Governor. For me it's not so much that he's being very homophobic or sexist, it's just that he's such an idiot that he would use some stupid line from a skit making fun of him on SNL to try to put down other people. The guy just does not have much of a brain in that giant head. Kind of like a dinosaur.

Oops, I decided to go for animal crackers and water for breakfast on Friday, and then donate blood at the MGH Blood-mobile which comes to my office periodically. Too bad that didn't work out so well. I did fine until a few minutes afterwards, while I was waiting for my friend Rebecca to finish. I had already eaten my cookies (Oreos) and drank my juice (orange juice) when all of a sudden my vision started going black and I felt tingly and I just had time to think uh-oh, I think I'm going to pass out, before passing out. I woke up to a nurse over me putting cold cloths on my forehead, the back of my neck, my legs, and my stomach. Once I came to a little I realized I did feel really hot. Then everyone fussed over me until I was more awake. Meanwhile I felt like an idiot. I only gave blood once before and I was really scared but I did fine that time. I must have had a better breakfast.

Anyway, so I also got to do this other fun thing - throw up in a bucket. Nice. Once I sat up on my way to move back to a real chair/bed (rather than the bench I was initially on after passing out), I felt more nauseous and I had to say goodbye to my bad breakfast as well as my after-donating snack. Very awful. Very embarrassing. Plus I kept thinking about how the other people in the van donating blood probably could do without seeing me like that. So then I went and sat in a reclining chair (one of those they use for donation) and got an IV to replenish my fluids. After about an hour and a half total from the time of the pass-out, I was feeling OK enough to get up and the nurses told me I needed to go home. I agreed as I was still feeling pretty out of it. So my friend Michelle was leaving work early anyway and offered to drive me home, which was nicer than a cab. So I arrived home safe and sound and the animals were happy to cuddle and nap with me.

Rob got home soon after and we ordered lunch in and I lazed around. I was awake for a while then fell asleep a little later again. By about 4pm or so I was feeling more normal physically though I guess I was kind of spacey all day and night according to Rob. We actually went to see a movie - I, Robot. It was actually OK though there were dumb things about it of course. But it was a fun movie and not stupid like the previews kind of made it seem. Rob read a different review of it or more about it and we decided maybe it would be OK to see it, though earlier we had been saying we didn't want to.

So that was Friday. What a night. Oh, and our bonsai tree was declared dead. We tried to take care of it but didn't try enough I guess and it died. We were so excited about it when we got it and actually I can't really write about it because it will literally make me cry. I was crying about that on Friday afternoon. I was just a mess.

I've seen some evidence of this around Boston, actually. I remember a little while back, Atlanta was trying to "steal" high-tech workers from Boston.

Go ahead, cool cities. Make me an offer I can't refuse. I like Boston but if I can get the same stuff for less $ I might be down with that.

Oops, this isn't such good news. I'm glad I'm not a prisoner, an athlete or a small child. That's it, the bike riding is off. I can't be an athlete. Ha ha, just kidding. Bike riding is still on. I got awesome new Speedplay pedals and shoes by the way - way better than the shoes and pedals I had before (the shoes were really heavy - mountain biking shoes really - and the pedals were way harder to deal with.)

So maybe you don't need like 8 big cats on your personal property. Just a suggestion.

Anybody want to buy us this? Only the best for me, you know. Ha ha. Seriously, the pans we own now have managed to hold up for a long time - maybe 6 years or more - but they're nearing the end of their lives... losing their non-stick properties, warping, etc.

I guess this isn't exactly very recent news but it's the first I heard of it. A friend sent me photos of it that she got as a forward, saying, "This can't possibly be real!" so I did a little google search and up popped this msn story. I think it's pretty cool but I also think I'd be scared to go potty here.

Did you know they were called cygnets? I didn't. Anyway, the swans at the Public Garden laid eggs but now there is doubt about whether they will hatch, which is so sad.

So keep your fingers crossed for swan babies soon.

This is too bad. There have been so many crashes this year! And this poor guy, Sven Montgomery has now not finished his fourth tour, due to crashes and injuries every time. It must be so frustrating. He tried to continue with the broken collarbone on Saturday but couldn't do it.

He's paying for two kids to go to college.

Just look at this front page, folks, if you have any doubt. I think this will reset after today, but it doesn't even really matter. Every front page looks like the cover of The Enquirer or something.

Don't worry, you're not alone. Apparently an awful lot of us are mentally ill. Need any more evidence that this country has some issues to work on?

OK, not exactly. But Rob and I are planning to go for a bike ride for each day that the Tour de France is going. So far we're 3 for 3 though the longest of those three is 10 miles total. Still, it's a better record than we've had ever before I think.

Anyone else up for the challenge? If you'd like to, you can ride the same number of miles that the folks on the Tour do. I know better than to promise to do that. We'd be over 100 miles behind already. But hey, yesterday I did manage to finally figure out how to pull up in my pedals to help myself up a hill (I have SPD pedals). That was exciting.

What does everyone think about this, I wonder? I think something that's true about everyone is that it's not OK to blame other people for your problems for eternity. At some point it's really not anyone's fault anymore but your own. I think it's interesting that Bill Cosby is saying all this stuff. I wonder what prompted it?