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the morning rain seemed like it'd threaten the somerville historical bike ride happening later this afternoon but i had it on good meteorological authority that soon the sun would be out. had it been dryer i would've tried to make it to belmont, where my sister was taking my mother out for brunch on mother's day. my mother really wanted pancakes but decided to go to the watertown country buffet instead of IHOP (she's a big fan of buffets). later she told me they got there right during the breakfast to lunch transition, so they ended up eating from a wide selection.

sure enough, by the afternoon it was sunny and warm, enough so that i wore a pair of shorts. i rode my trek allant bike, figured this would be a good occasion to take it out. the bike ride starts from somerville city hall, and the theme this year was industrial somerville. i've known about these annual historical society rides for a while, but i never had the change to go on one. unlike the cambridge ride (happening next weekend) which is free, the somerville ride has a suggested donation of $3 (which i paid).

people began congregating outside somerville city hall. i'd never been there before, which is also next to the somerville public library (built in 1914, designed by edward lippincott tilton, architect for several buildings on ellis island) and the somerville high school.

we left sometime after 2:00 with a police escort (both bicycled and vehicled cops), taking a large figure-8 route that spanned 10 miles. one of the problems with these thematic rides is the intention is often times loftier than the actual practice. although there were numerous interesting historical sites, we could only stop for a few, and quickly rode past the rest. it's worth coming back at some later date to further investigate.

we stopped at the taza chocolate factory, where they were having a special mother's day promotion but were probably surprised when 50-60 cyclists came into their store to eat and drink their samples. next we stopped at the assembly square mall, where in a former life was the site of a ford motors plant. then it was shore drive parkland (blessing of the bay) next to the mystic river, where people could also use the public bathrooms.

i met dave, a young man who was visiting the somerville library to get a free pass to the JFK museum but decided to join the bike ride instead. he and i ended up talking motorcycles. he recently got a $400 100cc honda, but it required too many repairs so he's going to sell it. he told me the best ride he ever took was in marin country, on a borrowed carbon-fiber bike, through canopies of red wood forests. i also met sophan, a cambodia fellow from lowell, who mistook me for his chinese friend, whom i also met (sho, from taiwan no less, with his girlfriend who didn't seem to be speak any english).

dave went home before our next stop through davis square, on the cambridge/somerville line of the minuteman bike trail. finally we went to brooklyn boulders, formerly the ames envelope company, now a rock climbing gym. they're still in the midst of construction, but there was a guy there who took us around. it was interesting to see the inside, but kind of boring since it became an informercial for the gym.

afterwards, instead of continuing with the group to the somerville museum for refreshments, i took a detour and went home. shortly afterwards i motorcycled to belmont.

my mother wanted to eat out for dinner, using mother's day as an excuse. we ended up going to allston village to buk kyung, a korean restaurant (actually buk kyung 2, apparently there's another restaurant in union square somerville). for some reason all the waitresses wore black short shorts. most of the customers were korean, but there were a few non-asians, one table even getting some special service from the manager, a young woman who came out to personally chat with them. the food was okay, but not that good to endure the hassle of coming out to allston. i ordered this beef broth which i thought would be a noodle soup deal but turns out it was mostly soup with a trace of cellophane noodles, and i couldn't figure out how to eat it.

had i known we'd be going out for dinner, i would've asked for my parents to come pick me up instead, since on the way back we were just a few minutes away from my house. instead, we returned to belmont.

my father seems to be really embracing kombucha. he's more excited about it than i am. as a child, he remembered making kombucha, but never drank it before until now. suddenly he's remembering all sorts of anecdotes from back when, and is eager to get onboard the probiotic lifestyle. it's day 1 of our kombucha fermentation and it already smells very vinegary.

sunday night: the battle between bear and maiden in game of thrones wasn't as exciting as i'd imagined from reading the book. maybe because they used a real bear who didn't seem to be all that scary. i could really care less about the weekly theon torture scenes, or bran and the gang trekking through the forest to reach the wall. on mad men, this was the first episode showing the effects of the agency merger. we got creepy don, playing some sort of power sex game with his neighbor's wife, but only to revealed as a fraud when she finally has enough and decides to go home. best scene of the night: ted chaough flying his own plane to a meeting with a petrified don in the passenger seat. when ted puts on his aviator glasses, that was classic.