Jenn Martinelli Blogging in Boston

So Friday Rob, Heather and I went to dinner at Bennigan's and then a movie before Heather left to go to Syracuse for Christmas.

Bennigan's was pretty crowded and though we didn't have to wait long to be seated, there were lots of kids running around and it was loud, so that was a little annoying. But it would have been fine despite all this except for the emergency that happened next.

All of a sudden, just after we had gotten our food, a woman started shrieking hysterically and she seemed to be saying "he's not breathing! he's having a seizure!" The restaurant got very quiet while people tried to figure out what was going on. The commotion was coming from the bar area and every few seconds there was another panicked similar scream. People called 911 and within seconds cops, fire trucks, and an ambulance showed up. In the meantime someone who seemed to know what they were doing could be heard trying to calm down what I assume was a child's mother saying, "he's fine, he's crying, he's breathing, it's fine, calm down" and then you could hear a baby crying. But the shrieking continued periodically so I'm pretty sure this woman was just basically beyond any ability to behave rationally.

So based on the fact that the emergency personnel eventually calmly led the family out of there without any kind of CPR happening or anything looking like something life-threatening was going on, how much of an ass are each of the three of us that our first thoughts were along the lines of calm down crazy woman, you're ruining everyone's dinner! Yeah, I think it's basically right up there with my now infamous (at least with Clementine) "Will someone shut that baby up?" comment. I'm also guessing it's some sort of sign that if I ever had it there isn't much mothering left in me.

I'm pretty tapped out folks. But I can't help it, I try to take care of basically everyone I've ever known. Apparently that wears on you. Hmmmmmmmm. Interesting.

I am FED UP with people today.

Earlier this week, the Parks Department removed the gates from Phillips Street Park.

I assume there was a discussion something like this:

City Hall Dolt #1: This fucking lady on Phillips Street isn't going to stop riding our asses until we do something about the dogs in that park.
City Hall Dolt #2: I know, we need to do something to shut her up. What can we do?
City Hall Dolt #1: I know! Let's just take the gates off the park! Yeah, that's perfect! Then nobody will go there with their dogs anymore!
City Hall Dolt #2: God, you're a genius. That's fucking brilliant.

Guess what geniuses? It's FUCKING STUPID. Sorry to pepper the F word here so freely but it really deserves it.

First of all, people don't follow leash laws in this city. Which is another pet peeve of mine, but not the chief point of this story. Suffice it to say, gates or no gates, park or no park, law or no law, people who don't follow the rules will continue to do whatever the hell they want. Also, people who DO leash their dogs can of course still use the park, even though you stupidly took the gates off. Me, for instance, I keep taking my dog there. So way to go fucking geniuses.

Secondly, according to this document, I think it's fairly clear that the city can't just do whatever it wants willy nilly on the street of Beacon Hill. For instance, this regulation was used to ban newspaper boxes. Not exactly what most people would consider an "architectural element" probably. Less so than a gate on a city park for instance. And, just in case you were wondering, it looks stupid. It looks like teenagers vandalized the park by stealing the gate. It's obvious there's SUPPOSED TO BE a gate there, and it's just idiotic.

So, I'd like to congratulate the bitch who bugged City Hall till she got what she wanted, and the geniuses there who came up with this award-worthy "solution". Really, stellar work all around.

Assholes.

12/22/06 Update: I spoke to the contact for the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission and because it's a park and not a structure, it falls under the Parks Department's jurisdiction but not the commission's, so they can't help.

Well guess what, Parks Department? You still did a crappy job and solved nothing. Way to go.

As you may guess, I don't own too much cashmere. I have one sweater that's cashmere/silk and that's the extent of it.

But look! Lord & Taylor is having a nice cashmere sale! So if you're wondering, I wouldn't mind having a nice turtleneck or lovely wrap sweater or this cute little v-neck either. Just in case you were wondering. $69 is pretty good for real cashmere. Usually it's about twice that much.

Any non-ugly color is fine and probably M for size is fine.

Thanks to all my fans! Ha ha....

And I think I've mentioned before that I'm an INFP.

Please people, let the trans fat be. Seriously, you can stop making so many laws to protect me from myself. If people want to be educated about what they're eating, then they are free to be. There's plenty of readily available information out there. If they don't, then so be it.

If I want to eat deep-fried Oreos, that's my right as an American. I'm not being facetious. Please stop telling me what to do so much. Stop trying to save everybody from themselves.

Um, yeah. I agree on the sentiment about the underwear, young lady. Let's keep our bits out of the public eye, OK?

Hey, here is a fun little how-to to make a 3-d paper snowflake. Random holiday fun.

When I was in college Clementine and I would make paper snowflakes and put them all over our dorm room. Dork-a-rific, right? Don't worry, we decorated for every holiday. I think we did things like made mardi-gras masks for our stuffed animals for mardi-gras. Um, yeah.

We're nerds.

Hey losers, I'm out with Rob Reed at Faneuil Hall and there's free wi-fi here from the city. It's really fast which is good. I'd hope it would be but you never know. Some free internet access is total C-R-A-P.

Anyway, just wanted to post from here to say that I think it's a good idea and the city should expand it to cover more of Boston.

So I have been meaning to post more stories about Billy and Cleo.

Billy, as many of you know, is a grumpy old dalmation with all sorts of issues. Cleo is a much younger hound dog mix with her own sort of issues, not least of which is if you let her she will trick you into feeding her about 8 dinners.

They generally get along well, ignoring each other, or even hanging out together and snuggled up nicely like in this photo.

However, sometimes not so much. Billy has particularly grumpy times and Cleo has particularly hyper times. There are sensitive issues like food and personal space which cause problems. Billy growls and snaps to put Cleo in her place, or so he thinks, but he often unfortunately catches her giant hound dog ears, which results in much freaking out from Cleo and enough blood to look like a murder scene to a casual observer. This is followed by a round of crazy howling from Cleo, and she also tends to want to howl at him every time she sees him for about the next 8 hours. Kind of funny. More funny when she's not bleeding.

In any case, we had a particularly funny instance of this the other night, at least I thought so. We came home from the grocery store and the dogs were all worked up because they know that FOOD comes from the grocery store. Also, they're excited we're home, and additionally, Cleo is trying to trick everybody into feeding her a second dinner.

In all the excitement of jumping over grocery bags on the floor and trying to check them out, Billy randomly slipped on the hardwood floor and fell. Cleo was close by so he decided it would be a good time to snarl and snap at her, since he was having a bad moment. He didn't really catch her at all, or at least he didn't break the skin, but this set off a crazy howling episode from Cleo and nothing we could do would silence her. Heather and I were falling all over the floor trying to control her, hold her mouth shut, calm her down... but she was having none of it. I really wish we had it on tape because it's probably one of the funniest looking scenes to see played out. Meanwhile, Billy hangs his head because he knows he was bad and just kind of mopes around. And Cleo tries to get in his face for the rest of the night to remind him that he shouldn't bite her by howling deafeningly half an inch from his nose.

Fun times on Beacon Hill at chez BadBoy Family.

Disclaimer: I don't actually believe in astrology at all. But this is pretty funny.

Apparently some company found a correlation between number of accidents and astrological signs of the drivers. And ta-da - Geminis are among the best! So, ignore my 5-6 pullovers and 3 accidents, and remember that I've never actually had a ticket. It must be in the stars, folks.

Maybe surprisingly to some folks, the US is holding its own in the Geography Cup online against the UK.

However, if you want to play, please only do so if you actually know world geography.

I just tried to play and I didn't do anybody any favors. I was good at getting in the general area and bad at actually finding the correct country.

Oops.

Please, don't run. You are too stiff, too New England Liberal. I really don't think you'll be elected. I just really don't.

I don't know what to tell you, Democrats. You need to put somebody forth as a candidate who isn't going to piss off 87% of the country. Because in case you can't do math so good, you can't win an election with 13%.

My favorite quote from that very first South Park, "The Spirit of Christmas":

"You're such a fat fuck, Cartman, that when you walk down the street, people go, 'Goddamn it, that is a big fat fuck!'"

That show is just so wrong. And this is the wrongest of the wrong. I love it.

Scary! I used to work in this building, at Syska Hennessy Group, which is mentioned in the article.

Not a fun day for anyone working in this building not to mention the management company or MIT.

OK everyone, get ready, Heather Rose is back.

I've been wanting to see this ever since I first heard it was being built. It's open now, so I'll have to go check it out. It looks really cool.

We have a toaster that we like a lot, except every few months or so it tries to kill us.

An email from Rob today:

Our death toaster didn't pop and a slice of white bread just about caught on fire. As a result the apt filled with smoke and the smoke detectors went off - not just in the apt but also in the entire building. The landlord sent someone to turn them off and I ran upstairs to try to cover the smell so people couldn't tell it was our apt. I waited around 10 extra minutes or so to make sure that it looked like everything quieted down and then left. The dogs don't seem to be any worse for wear.

Thanks, Toaster of Death.

You know what is a really excellent breakfast? Pringles. Mmmmmm.

Ok, so it's totally fair that a major music label executive would verbally reprimand his children for stealing music, but he'd prefer that yours get sued or arrested, right?

Sure it is.

What's a 26-year-old actor doing in a car with 3 teenagers, two of whom are 15-year-old girls?

Hmmmmmmm.

Update: By the way, we discussed this at dinner this day and it was pointed out that I should cut this guy some slack until we knew more. Maybe these kids were his cousins or something and he's letting them drive his car. But no, he was driving, possibly drunk, and not related to any of the kids. So we're back to him being S-H-A-D-Y.

Someone explain this one to me.

They have a censorship board, the board released the movie, the movie has a "parental discretion" warning or whatever.

What's the problem? Isn't this guy's real beef with the producer or the censorship board? Why is it OK to get the actors in trouble for doing their job?

I don't get it. But I think I can add it to my list of reasons I'm glad I don't live in India.

You know, I really kind of like these. And since Rob Reed has temporarily stolen my messenger bag, I could use something other than a canvas book tote to carry my knitting in.

The bag I think is the coolest is this one. I like Cypress or Ocean Blue, so surprise me.

Look at this fun site. I haven't played with it yet, but maybe the next time I'm feeling like chopping my hair to about 1 inch long (like I was the other day) I'll try playing with this before doing anything drastic.

Of course, it's really all about the styling products more than anything else.

OK, so I love Battlestar Galactica. So finally this Friday we got to see what the hell Starbuck and Apollo's f-ing issue is. I mean, we know what their issue is in general, but we finally got a flashback to explain why he's so pissed at her. He's right of course.

Anyway, so I'm a supernerd and if you're a sci-fi nerd like me, you really need to be watching this show. Seriously.

OK, nerd fest over for now.

Yeah, in case you missed it, Britney Spears decided to share her ladyparts with the world. Obviously, you might want to skip viewing that link at work.

Ladies, ladies, ladies. Please. Try to have maybe a tiny smidge of decorum. For goodness' sake.

This header photo was originally posted 8/22/2006. We went to the Woods Hole Film Festival this year to see 10 MPH, which was fun. It was very very hot that day unfortunately, but we made the best of it. At least it's a coastal town - it was much cooler when we spent time right by the water. The movie was definitely worth the trip and when it's finally released I'd recommend checking it out.

Somebody could get me new iPod earphones, because these things are killing me. They don't stay in my ears anyway, but at the same time they kill if I wear them for very long.

Thanks.