The Sawx Suck, Boston Does Not

The oddest selfie I have ever taken.

The Boston Red Sox are pretty bad this year. The local sports radio station, which lives to tear apart struggling local teams, has been having a field day. The Red Sox are for sale! Their manager shows up late for games! They're moving the team to Vermont! Ahhhhhhhh!

And that's just NPR.

The Red Sox are an inescapable part of living in Boston. Though I was kidding about NPR, a few weeks ago the local NPR station (WBUR) did spend 15 minutes breaking down a Red Sox trade. Usually, NPR announcers can't pronounce players' names correctly. It's a different kind of town.

Around 10:30 p.m., during a rain delay.

That's what has made the tradition to city life a difficult one. It's a different kind of town. Obviously, I've had some trouble getting myself, my dog and The Wife acquainted. One thing we were not prepared for: Humidity. July and August are pretty miserable months just about anywhere, but to have them as your first two months is rough.

We have two small window-unit air conditioners in our condo. They could barely keep the apartment tolerable during the warmest (and most humid) summer on record. I currently think living on the West Coast sounds spectacular, due to an utter lack of humidity. I've long argued that if it wasn't for money factors, everyone would live in San Diego. I would hire a moving company for the first time in my life if that were to actually happen.

But hold off on registering Good Evening From San Diego as a blog name. Temperatures have dropped. TW has started her work routine and likes it, generally speaking. The last three days have been cloudless, with temperatures in the 70s.

It's funny that things like weather have a profound effect on our perceptions. For instance, if you go skiing at a ski resort that hasn't had snow in two weeks, your experience will be a little different than if you go during or just after a big dump. That's what skiers call big snowstorms. I apologize for skiers.

Boston's South End is amazing and incredibly expensive.
My Dad needs to win the Powerball lottery if we're going
to live there.

A multitude of people have asked the obvious question: Do you like Boston? Until a few days ago, the answer was a pretty firm no. We don't have any friends. It's hot. We don't live in the nice part of town. Boo hoo. Etc.

And then the last 48 hours happened. I drove 12 minutes to pick up TW at work. We had a lovely Thai food lunch. We'll be doing that every week, it's been decided. That wasn't our only date. We met last night at an Irish pub with an amazing beer list and a few cheap appetizers. Then we took the subway home.

I took another 12 minute drive this morning. Dove through the tunnel with Daisy Duke riding shotgun, then up onto Storrow Drive. If you're a tourist, Storrow Drive is the highway from hell. It has weird left exits. There's generally traffic and there's generally people honking.

But at 11 a.m. on a beautiful sunny day, Storrow Drive is absolutely stunning. The road winds along the Charles River, basically on top of it, really. There's sailing clubs, runners, and most importantly, convenient access to a Trader Joe's that had a near-empty parking lot. I forgot the gluten-free macaroni and cheese, but that's OK. I'll go back tomorrow.

Daisy Duke and I were bombing down Storrow at 40 mph (no easy feat, I assure you), when I saw my favorite part of Boston dead ahead: A gigantic Citgo sign. It's not the sign so much as what the sign sits behind, Fenway Park.

On my first trip to Fenway, I was coming down from a job interview in New Hampshire. I had no freaking idea where I was going. With no map and no pre-planning, I just figured I'd drive down the river and look for Fenway. It was the dumbest thing I'd ever done to that point while driving a car, but amid 5 p.m. traffic on Storrow Drive, fighting for my rental car's life, I saw the Citgo sign and knew exactly where to go.

The river. Trader Joe's. Fenway Park. Date nights on the subway. Do I like Boston? I do, but it would be great if the Red Sox would fire Bobby Valentine.