Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Portland is literally cooler than Boston

Some of you may have recently been dazzled by a new plan circulating the Avogadro-sphere. It is reminiscent of the Portland Plan…except that it doesn’t involve us all moving to Portland. I conducted an informal survey of people living in my apartment, and asked “Why is Portland better than Boston?” An answer that scored highly was “Boston’s hot and humid in the summer.” (Another popular answer was “The city and street names around Boston are hard to pronounce. We might look silly.” The humidity somehow seemed more tangible.)

I was reviewing the Third Chapter Chart this afternoon, not in connection with this Boston v. Portland question, and found this commentary on the East Coast Humidity,

“I often wonder, no lie, why colonists landing here in the 17th century didn’t say, “Hey,this sucketh, why not look for better land yonder, a place without fens, malaria, and this oppressive heat.” Something like that. Silly colonists.”

~ by meteowrite on July 18, 2006.

One Response to “Portland is literally cooler than Boston”

ON HOT AND HUMID SUMMERS
Name a place that you want to move to, that you think your friends would want to move to, that ISN’T Portland, that also IS NOT hot and humid in the summer.

Also, one word for you: Air Conditioning (okay, two words)

ON BOSTON STREET NAMES AND THEIR PRONUNCIATION
I need to hijack your blog for a few minutes to tell you the following:

People in New England? They can’t pronounce worth shit. They must have all failed phonetics as children. This was confirmed for me on a family vacation a few summers ago. My sister-in-law Maureen organised it. She thought it would be a great idea to have a family reunion camping trip. Lovely idea for me and my beloved, a house of horrors for many of my in-laws. Many opted to stay in hotels with lots of trees around them just a few miles away from the campsites. The camping took place in Maine in a lovely lovely national park. My husband and I talked about this trip to Arcadia National Park for months. He researched Arcadia online and checked out what this park had to offer. He exchanged ideas with his parents during their weekly phone conversations on the Arcadia trip. When we all convened in Boston ready to make the drive up to Maine, all my in-laws were abuzz about Arcadia. Would the hotels be nice? Someone heard that the campgrounds had showers and laundry facilities. Was there good hiking in Arcadia? Is Arcadia the name of the nearby town as well? Or just the national park?

Imagine my confusion when we drove up to the kiosk of a park called ACADIA National Park. Is Acadia another part of Arcadia, I wondered. Nope. It’s Acadia National Park. Our vacation was in Acadia.

I have corrected my husband each time he inserts and “R” in that name, but he still persists. And if I try to talk to my in-laws about that lovely time we had camping in ACADIA, they all look at me with blank faces. When I ask to see the photos they took at ARCADIA, they say: OH! Let me take out the album for you! There’s a really good one of Ellen throwing out the wine.

I say this to you to make you feel better. NO ONE in Boston pronounces things properly. You will never sound silly for saying something wrong. This is not unique to the Kenny clan. Next time you’re in New England, ask someone “Is Amanda in her room?” And they will say, “I think AmandaR is in the kitchen.” Everyone.

You get the idear?

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