...a little wave: rainy day at the pru

okay, i know it's been a while. but i've got some end of summer stuff to show you, and then i'm going to get back on a regular schedule, because the girls are out of control cute. example: bebe is riding her balance bike around the downstairs part of mems' and teek's house, pretending it's a motorcycle. she's making the motorcycle noises, going "vroom! vroom! vrooooooom!" then, as she's doing laps she starts adding "eeks" in. bebe: "vroom! vrooooom! vroom! eek! eek, eek! vroom!" me: "what's that other noise your motorcycle is making, bebe?" bebe: "i'm a mouse. riding a motorcycle!"

ridiculous. stuff this cute just goes on all day long at our house. which is also mems' and teek's house. and that's the other thing. i left my job at the end of august and we officially made a big move out of the city. it happened kind of fast, but it was a long-term part of our overall plan. we just didn't expect it to happen exactly when it did. and we moved during the hurricane. and it took two trips in a huge u-haul truck and a herculean effort by family and friends because, quite frankly, we have too much shit.

anyway, more on that stuff later. what i really want to do is get two posts from our last month in Boston up. the first is from one of our last trips into the city on the orange train. it was a rainy afternoon and beebs and i decided we needed to get out of the house. so where do we go? the mall, of course.

don't get blown away, kiddo!

being conscious of the fact that we would soon be leaving, i took all kinds of pictures of all kinds of stuff we'd be leaving behind, from the monumental to the mundane. this one is mundane. it's an empty customer service kiosk for the T. it's mundane because they're always empty. if there had actually been someone in there, it would have been something else. if the person in there had actually been helpful, it would have been monumental.

rain on the train.

are we there yet?

yep.

as we were walking up the stairs bebe said, "i've never been here before!" it was a true statement.

then, as we opened the door to go in, in her loudest conversational voice she said, "wow! it smells really great in here!" that statement was less true. well, to me at least.

escalating on the ceiling.

"i'm sooooo curious about all of the things in this place!"

she ran from window front to window front, slamming her face into the glass and yelling this. i'd love for her to be excited like this. just not about the mall. but it was her first time.

and there was a lot to be curious about.

like these pineapples. just growing there.

where do pineapples like these come from?

"well, daddy. when a boy pineapple and a girl pineapple are in love, they give each other a special hug and-"

"hey! can we go out to that courtyard? LET'S GO!"

it had rained for a couple days, and i think the cabin fever was getting to Kid. we hit that courtyard and she freaked. so hard that the sun had no choice but to come out. it was up in the sky and was all 'what the hell is all that noise about down ther- whoa! look at that kid going completely crazy! i'm gonna' go check that shit out!' i kind of imagine the sun's voice to soiund like redd foxx. we all have our quirks.

this was one of those 'i've lived in this city for ten years and i've never been to this courtyard' type of experiences.

great number for a firetruck in the city of boston.

and no rainy day trip would be complete without some total puddle anarchy. she's got a real system in place for this type of shenanigans.

first, she sizes it up. how clean or dirty is the water? how deep? what's the chance of hydroplaning? wind conditions?

the first pass is always slow and cautious. no matter how long you stand there staring, you never know the true character of the puddle until you've waded in.

observing the splash factor at its deepest point.

once all the proper and necessary measurements have been taken and noted-

WE'RE OFF!

and afterward there's the matter of drying one's clothes out.

for which step-jumping is perfect.

a quick snack break outside the library

and then it's off to find the orange train!

the last days of a city kid.

waiting for the train to go(dot). godot, get it?

luckily, beebs always has her camera with her. "KA-WICK! KA-WICK!" she says as she snaps pictures with her trusty hand camera!

it's hard to get pictures of bebe these days. the second the camera appears, she hides her face or runs from the room. unlike my double chin, which it seems is quite fond of having its picture taken. bastard.