I really thought that after returning from Japan in March I would quickly get all caught up with “life” and have time for a lot of blogging.
I managed to blog about the first 3 days in Japan (of 13) but for the last 2 weeks I have been struggling to have the energy to write, or even do chores and exercise, so no writing at all.
I was energized after attending the Hands Off rally in Buffalo 2 weeks ago but by the next day was back to fearing nothing was going to stop the Trump/Musk/Putin efforts. And of course I have several personal challenges right now. I didn’t blog about that huge rally… but here are some photos I took. I really enjoyed the speakers (labor, social justice, refugees, disabled, etc).
The crowd was huge despite the drizzle.
Today there were more rallies but I couldn’t attend.
I do have an hour before my flight home to Buffalo so let me at least do a quick blog about last weekend in Boston and the last 36 hours in NYC. Next weekend I have my 35th Albany Medical Reunion and then NO traveling for a few weeks. I am taking Amtrack to Albany next week, so I will make an effort to use those long trips (only 70mph, not 180mph like in Japan) to do a few more Japan blogs.
I went to Boston last weekend to spend Passover with my sister’s family (and my mom came up from Boca).
4/11/25…
It was an easy, on time, JetBlue flight to Boston and then an Uber out to Brookline/Chestnut Hill where my sister L… lives.
On the flight I read my Kindle … I was reading “The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins.
I don’t read a lot of “self-help” books and had not heard of her before but I had read a good review somewhere and added it to my reading list. With large font and many sentences about “in our next chapter we will ….” And “reviewing what we learned in this chapter” it could really have been a long magazine essay. I liked the premise of trying to care less about what other people “think about you” ; as no matter how hard you try to be perfect it will never be enough.
While walking in the airport in Buffalo and on the Uber ride I was listening to a Sci-Fi audiobook (part of a long trilogy).
L…. And I talked for a few hours while she prepared food for the Seder meal on Saturday night.
My medical school classmate P…. picked me up in the afternoon and we had a late lunch with his daughter (an ICU nurse at Brigham/Harvard). We walked around Jamaica Plain a little bit and P…., a Boston native, told me about the area’s changes over the last decades, we had Sushi for lunch.
We drove south an hour to P…’s house. He fed and walked Lucy…. ❤️🐕
She was a little shy at first but then became my buddy.
We drove further south (almost to Rhode Island).
The USS Massachusetts is in Fall River at the Battleship Cove naval museum.
We were in Fall River for a district meeting of the Mass Medical Society (P… is a delegate) that included tickets to a concert at the performance space.
The duet was great, acoustic Americana. The vocalist was very outspoken about the Trump/Musk BS. They are from Mussel Shoals, Alabama so maybe she was enjoying the chance to speak her mind.
Back at P…’s house we stayed up way too late watching our medical school class’s “Grand Rounds” stage show from 35 years ago. It was the first time we had seen it since then! Our classmate J…..’s dad had videotaped it on a a 1990 video camera and the tape had been lost in a box until recently. J…. Digitized it and added some cute captions.
I “acted” in 2 of the skits.
It will be fun to watch this with my classmates at our reunion in Albany… and then we will share it via Vimeo for those who couldn’t attend.
Saturday morning P….. drove me back to Brookline. It rained almost the whole time I was in Boston and it was cold but luckily my brother-in-law has a well equipped basement gym so I used the Peloton Saturday and the Treadmill Sunday.
While exercising I watched some episodes of season 2 of Netflix’s “The Night Agent”. It is a Decent spy thriller but there are much better ones streaming.
In the afternoon I got a lot of quality time with my favorite nephew …. Snoopy!
A pleasantly short Seder was followed by a delicious meal (my sister and mom are great cooks…me not so much).
For liberals like us the story of refugees fleeing persecution resonated with the plight of those suffering under Trump.
Sunday morning I snuck in an hour on the treadmill and then we all headed to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see a Van Gogh exhibit. Lisa is a docent (tour guide) there.
I really enjoyed the exhibit. It was well curated and revealed lots of new information to me even though I am a lover of Van Gogh and have been to the museum in Amsterdam.
It was also super interesting as I had just been in Japan and seen there a book of Van Gogh’s Japanese Print collection. And the book I just finished, “Killing Comatore” by Murakami is about an artist who at one point reflects on Van Gogh’s “postman” paintings.
Here is a short review of the exhibit.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/27/van-gogh-roulin-family-exhibit/
I had also forgotten that Gauguin had visited and painted there with Van Gogh.
It was an argument with Gauguin, not a rejection by a woman, that led to the psychotic episode of the cut off ear and stay at an asylum.
And if u haven’t seen it there is a great 2017 animated movie about Van Gogh that my Uncle helped promote. The animation was all hand painted and it was nominated for an Oscar.
I spent a short time in the Egyptian art area.
We all enjoyed the John Wilson exhibit. Of course also very disturbing in these times of erasing history and reversing voting rights.
He also did the MLK bust for the U.S. Capitol and the one at MLK park in Buffalo.
His work in the 1940s (including some murals in Mexico City) compared the Nazi evils to those of the Lynchings in the U.S.
The MFA is definitely a full day museum but we headed home for lunch as Lisa takes us there at least once per year. It was getting very crowded also as it was a rainy Sunday.
After lunch it was a quick trip back to Logan airport … I was at Gate 34!
5 days later I was back on JetBlue but heading to JFK this time.
A quick easy flight and another stay at the TWA hotel for me.
I have been an Ani Difranco (pronounced Ah-knee) fan since first hearing “Little Plastic Castle” 25 years ago.
She had left Buffalo by the time I moved here and I had never seen her play. When I saw her tour dates for this year there was again no Buffalo show (she lives in New Orleans now) even though her record company has a production studio and performing space at “Babeville” in a restored old church downtown. But luckily she was playing a date in Brooklyn near my kid’s apartment so I bought some tickets. Of course …. Last week she announced she is playing the Buffalo Waterfront this summer so I guess I’ll see her again.
In 2020 she made a great anti-Trump re-election video.
We both shaved our heads during Covid but she has let hers grow back, I trim once per week 😉
A few months ago i listened to her read her memoir/audiobook which was excellent.
I got to the restaurant half an hour early and saw on Google maps that McCarren park was a block away. It was filled with people and dogs enjoying the nice spring weather.
And the surrounding blocks had lots of nice looking eateries and bars.
My friend J…. had recommended the restaurant as he had enjoyed a meal there recently and it was just a 20-minute walk from Brooklyn Steel.
My nephew B… joined us.
J…. Rode his bicycle from Garden City to the restaurant ! He walked it with us to the concert and then rode it to a subway for the way home! What a New Yorker!
Brooklyn Steel was a great concert venue. Standing only but nice sight lines.
Ani was awesome. The audience was mostly female and gay and they sang along with her older “hit” songs. She was very emotional about being back in NYC (where she moved as a teen from Buffalo). She said she was hopeful for the future after the recent giant protest rallies but also did lots of commentary on the evils being done to women, LGBTs, refugees by Trump. She played several songs from her 2024 album that I recognized but I was surprised she didn’t play “Little plastic castle” as the final encore. I guess part of being a truly independent artist is NOT playing it every time.
I Uber’d back to the hotel.
They were renovating the cocktail lounge area when I was there in February but it is restored to its 1962 motif! The plane outside is also a bar. One of the original Constellations of Howard Hughes era at TWA.
Sunday my kid picked me up in their car and we spent the day visiting Great Neck/Lake Success where I had grown up.
With them moving back to Buffalo soon I wasn’t sure we would have another chance to show them everything from my childhood.
We just did a drive through of Flushing Meadows Park in Queens near where I lived until I was 7.
From age 7-12 we lived in Lake Success Hills.
The blue siding is new but otherwise the lawn and driveway looked the same. Although very SMALL appearing. When I was young the front lawn seemed such a big hill.
This is “where” I lived from age 12-18, then it was college, med school, residency (Baltimore, Albany, Los Angeles) and only rare visits home. The actual house was torn down when my parents sold it and moved away.
We also visited my Elementary, Junior High and High Schools.
The Great Neck public library I have fond memories of. It is right on a small inlet of the Long Island Sound.
I had hoped we could visit the nearby old Grist Mill that had a water wheel that changed directions as the tide came in and out of the narrow inlet. It was closed for winter though and looked like maybe it isn’t open at all or under renovations ?
The waterfront houses were huge and many had ugly modern designs but a view of Manhattan at night must be worth a few $M extra.
They were very serious about obeying traffic rules!
When we drove through Great Neck’s Main Street we saw lots of sushi and ramen and Korean bubble tea shops. We got Ramen and Poke and it was just like we were back in Japan ! There was even a Koi pond!
At the bottom of the train photo is a “Great Gatsby” poster. At the library there was an exhibit of Gatsby themed art. Fitzgerald lived in Great Neck early in his marriage and it was the “West Egg” where rhe novels narrator lived …the “East Egg” of Port Washington/Sands Point was where Gatsby lived.
Alex drove me back to the airport and before my flight I did a 30 walk around Terminal 5.
I listened to some Zen Buddhism podcasts. I was already trying to meditate a little and do more Yoga before the Japan trip. Now, having visited the world’s most important Zen Buddhist Temples, I am trying to learn more about Zen.
I listened to one random podcast in Japan but have now started at the series beginning. It has a weekly episode since 2017 … so I have only 300 more to catch up!
It was great to have a full row of seats to myself but for a one hour flight it wasn’t that big a deal. The Mets won. Both the Yankees and Mets are in 1st place !
Sunday was Easter and 4/20 so I went with my friend R…. To see a Grateful Dead cover band and enjoy a nice brunch!
And the advantage of being sober is that after the concert as I had nothing to drink I got home and went for a nice 7 mile run!
Wow. That was a lot more writing than I planned. If I had the time I would try to edit it down a little but I have already spent more time than I should on this “brief recap of 2 weekends”.
If u read the whole thing..Thx!
I will hopefully get back to my Japan 🇯🇵 travel blogging soon.
Please comment, like, share, complain, just don’t ignore my writing. If a blog falls in the forest but no one reads it did it make an impression ?