The Case of the Tasty Burrito

I once mentioned to T (friend of N and M) that she's appeared a couple of times briefly in my online journal, and she found this immensely amusing, and so when she invited M over to dinner, she said I could also join on condition that I blog it. OK! We dined upon homemade burritos to which she had heavily applied garlic and ginger, which the three of us all happen to like, and so a lovely time was had by all, the end.

As I've already noted, T is third person I know of who has left the Boston area to return to Maine. Not just Maine, but the Waterville area specifically, the place that I left to come to Boston, nearly three years ago now. She has a lovely space, an apartment just down the street from Waterville's little downtown for which she is paying $400 a month, with all predictably attendant wailing and teeth-gnashing from visiting Boston friends paying triple that, sure. (I mean, I think that's even $25 less than what I paid for my W-ville apartment, back in the day.)

I nod with understanding when she speaks of the overarching redneckitude of the area's culture, which is part of what ultimately drove me south, but she (as have the others in this circle to whom I have spoken) otherwise likes the place. So that's pretty good. And I do have to wonder how the increasing wireless-friendly nature of Waterville -- it's fulfilling the idea of public WAPs faster than Davis Square ever has, I dare say -- will subtly change the local culture. Maybe Jorgy's will become a friendlier place to sit down and read or work once the city's ever-growing 802.11 coverage finally seeps into it. That would be something, eh? Here's to the future.

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On the drive up M and I passed the time by playing Paperless Jotto. This was pretty fun, despite the fact I earned my opponent's unending ire by mismarking a key word, which caused her to eliminate 'E' when my word had an 'E' in it, argh. Fortunately she figured this out before the game ended, and dinner was saved.

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My parents' fear of another terrorist attack has become so pervasive that it keeps touching on conversation no matter the topic. They insist they saw in the Globe or the Sentinel or somewhere that Al Qaeda has instructed all Muslims in New York, Boston and DC to leave, and assumed that I was given the opportunity to move into my new place early because my new landlord is Muslim and has skipped town. (She's Greek, actually.) They also suspect that T & co. left Boston to flee the impending devestation that will befall all major U.S. urban centers at any moment now.

Unnerved, I didn't press them until they revealed that they heard this from a friend who etc., and thus make the tale no more genuine (and no less *ist at core) than other post-9-11 rumors. Probably I should go ahead with that, distasteful as I find it, just to put them a little more at ease, maybe.