It is not fair to just complain about the Convention so I had better find a thing or two to I liked about it to justify the Local sending me all this way.
Firstly Boston is an awesome city for walking. I only took the shuttle bus between the hotel and the Convention a couple times. Many times I got there faster than my sisters and brothers who took the bus. Those of us walking would head out the hotel door in the general direction of the event and just explore the city as we passed through. This is how we “discovered” Boston Common, Quincy Market, the docks; Best to avoid the financial district. Banks and Suits you know. I always got where I was going and had a good time getting there. I probably learned a thing or two along the way as well.
The Whisky Priest is a great pub on the water near the convention center with fresh fish and chips and the Bean Town serves the same purpose closer to the hotel. I never had to walk very far to find what I was looking for whether I needed food or technical support. There were more freakin’ Starbucks in downtown Boston than in Olympia, but we liked to walk down to the Seattle’s Best coffee stand in the book store.
The cupcake fanatics in my family would go wild at Mike’s in Little Italy. I saw many of their take-home boxes at the airport on the way out. The two bites I had of their product I had definitely rivaled anything in Seattle or Tacoma.
Boston is fantastic people, riding the subway to Fenway Park was a blast. Mass is the first state to embrace marriage equality, lots of awesome folks living their lives the way they feel in their hearts. I met a couple guys at the Red Sox game who are getting married in February. When Scott heard that we were with a union he proclaimed that he wishes he could get into a union. He is a nurse at a hospital that is predominantly a union shop but his unit is contracted out to a company and he gets paid less and has less favorable benefits than the folks he works with that are in a union. Since Mass is down with marriage equality then at least Scott can get Thom’s benefit package.
I can’t help thinking about these four women I sat near on the plane on the way home. I think they spoke German or some other closely related European language. They were sitting next to me and every time they would hold hands they would put something over their hands so no one could see them publicly showing affection. I thought about nicely letting them know that they did not have to hide themselves here. But I didn’t. I think about all the states we flew over where they would be considered targets for expressing their affection openly in public. I did show them six volcanoes that we could see from the plane.
A six volcano day is a very good day. Mt. Adams, Mt Hood, Mt St. Helens, Mt Rainier, Glacier Peak, and Mt.Baker, all without leaving my seat.
No comments:
Post a Comment