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APR

22

2007

"what day is it?" i asked myself this morning, unable to recall if it was the weekend or the weekday. a few long seconds later i finally remembered it was just sunday. one more day of rest. nevertheless, i had to wake up and head down to the community garden to do some earth day cleaning. a few other people were already there (jane, sarah). i grabbed a big plastic refuse barrel and started clearing all the dead branches and stems from my plot. armed with just a pair of pruning clippers, i ended up getting all sorts of scratches and splitters on my hand because i wasn't wearing gloves. i was surprised to see how big my actual plot was - it'd seemed much smaller last may when i first got it. maybe it was because so many things were already growing so i couldn't really see the actual size. before i left, jane came to talk to me, and told me that she agreed with my stand on the issue that the old mulberry tree in the garden shouldn't be cut down just because people want more sun.

the other thing i scheduled for today was to check out the greek independence parade happening in boston (copley) at 1pm. since i worked briefly at the boston public library 2 summers ago, i sort of have a pretty good idea of some the secret spots where i could stash my motorcycle. the traffic was starting to get congested as the police started blocking off roads for the parade route, so it still look me a while to find a place to put the bike. the weather was beautiful, a balmy spring day with a blue sky and wisps of white clouds. i walked down boylston street a little bit, trying to find the best location to shoot the parade. i settled on the intersection of boylston and exeter, across the street from the copley station subway exit, with the sun behind my back so i wouldn't be shooting into the light.

the parade started at 1pm and the procession lasted for about an hour. as far as parades went, it was okay, but it's no pride parade or carnival parade. other than the occasional flash of ethnic greek costumes, it's a pretty austere affair. i'm somewhat surprised that the greek-american community has enough clout to get its own parade through boston. i consider greeks to be "old" immigrants, that they've been so integrated into the fabric of american history that their cultural is just american culture at this point. but it's our cultural heritage that makes us unique and it's good to keep traditions alive.

i personally don't know a lot about greeks, or what i do know is mostly of ancient greek, things like city states, greek architecture, and their pantheon of gods. greeks have their mediterranean, idealized body images, olympics, stuffed grapes, and the iliad. i've always considered the greeks an island version of italians (is that racist? i'm just revealing the depth of my ignorance). as for modern greek, i just know they don't like turks, something about a war and territory dispute.

a chatty mother with her circle of children asked if i was a photography for the newspaper. "no, i just do it for kicks," i told her. there wasn't any celebrities (unless you count mayor menino) but there were probably prominent members of the greek community that i failed to recognize. miss greek independence showed up on one of the floats with her tiara and cape (the closest thing to pride/carnival).

after the parade was over i headed home. since boylston was still blocked off, i rode down huntington avenue the wrong way before finally getting my bearing and found my way to fenway then onto storrow drive back to cambridge. cutting through harvard square, i noticed the crowd of people taking advantage of the warm weather along the banks of the charles river. i even saw my next door neighbors franz and jen sharing a PDA moment by the jfk bridge.

i spent the rest of the day watching red sox classics on NESN, rebroadcasts of past games condensed to just under an hour. old favorites like carl everett, nomar, daubauch, pedro, brought back some fond memories. for a late lunch, i microwaved a cheese burger and poured a thick layer of barbecue sauce (that's been my favorite sauce, i use it for everything now). whenever i'd hear some noises outside, i'd grab the telephoto lens and take a few snapshots of passing pedestrians.

in the early evening i went over to my parents for dinner, some homemade meat buns. i came home before 8pm to watch the last game of the red sox yankees series. 4 consecutive homeruns and finally a win for matsuzaka. it's never a bad thing when we sweep the yankees but my only complaint is that with their depleted lineup, the red sox should've totally dominated them, instead of having these 3 very close games. next weekend the series returns to the bronx, and if we can hardly beat an ailing yankees team, imagine what's going to happen when they get their weapons back (matsui, mussina). at least gary sheffield and bernie williams are no longer playing.