Cambridge chronicles

B was a little blue and the truth was so was I. It was Friday night, and the week was long with presentations, gross work confrontations, and emotional roller coasters with boys. B and I needed a night out. B wanted to meet new people. She wanted to get away from the medical area and the hospitals.

With little or no plan in mind, B and I hopped on the 66 bus. Harvard Square is always a good transitioning point. It is full of yuppies and that wish to to be hipsters. So to slowly acclimate to Cambridge, we went into Daedelus. It is a bar slash restaurant with 20 dollar entrees and non college student clientele. B and I sat the bar. As I tried to get my chair out to sit, the man next to me introduced himself as S and pulled out the chair for me. How fortuitous! 20 minutes into our night to meet new people and here they were introducing themselves to us. Sitting next to S was a good looking couple in their thirties. We played the guess what we do for a living game for a while. Apparently, it was obvious what B and I did, but guessing our new friends careers was a little more difficult. The lady was an opera singer. Her boyfriend and S made parabolic dishes out of used car parts as an energy source. They had just gotten a grant from the World Bank NGO to install these dishes in West Africa. We even got to see their immunization records.

However, it became time to move on, so we left our new friends at Daedelus. B and I walked on Mass Ave towards Central Square. Plough and Stars had a loud band playing and People's Republik scared B a little, because last time she was there it was invaded by a woman's rugby team. We looked into the window of one bar but it seemed kind of dead. Outside of the bar under the its green awning stood three guys smoking cigarettes. They were wearing leather jackets and Boston Redsox hats.

"Hey, ladies you should go in. It's a nice place, especially if you want to dance."

"Hmmm... No that's okay I think we are going to move on."

"Come on. Would you please dance with me here?"

"Sure."

His friends started singing "In the Still of the Night" and snapping their fingers as I danced with some random man on Mass Ave.. You might think that I was highly intoxicated, but I was not. It just seemed like the right thing to do and probably the closest thing I came to movie like romantic gesture in a long time. The song ended and I thanked him for the dance. A homeless man with newspapers in a plastic shopping bag tried to convince B that the beer was cheaper in this bar. Really was not a good selling point.

We walked to Inman Square and settled into Bukowski's. Hipsters galore. The bouncer, J, was super friendly and I will be sure to look him up at his new job at the Rattlesnake. B ordered a peanut butter burger and I ate all her french fries. The night turned into a very cathartic bitch session about our trials and tribulations with men. Even when single and happy, men always seem to somehow creep into our lives. We drank PBR and wondered about life, flirted some more with the bouncer and stared at the hipsters in the room.

It was 1am, time to go home. We were worried we would not find a cab. As we walked down Prospect, a cab pulled right in front of us Letting off three very giggly and drunk girls. As we waited for the cab to empty so we could take it, Another cab came up the sidewalk behind us. The driver yelled in a heavy Lebanese accent "It is illegal for this cab to take you." (In Cambridge, Boston cabs are not allowed to pick up fares.)

The chances of getting one cab on a cold Friday night is rare, but two fighting for you even rarer. We did not care so we got into the crazy Lebanese cab. The other driver started yelling at our cabbie. To which our driver responded, "You are a very handsome man. I said you are very handsome man, but this is my fare."

Our driver was the most entertaining cabbie of all time. I spoke to him in Arabic, and in English he told us a story about his roommate. The story went something like this. "So I was talking with my roommate Tony and he has a big gap between his teeth. So I say to him Tony when did you eat tabbouleh, because you have tabbouleh in your teeth and he say to me three days ago. I say that is disgusting. My roommate is so dirty can you imagine three days with tabbouleh in your teeth. Then I see him eating beans....."

B and I could not stop laughing. Even in the apartment, we barreled over in the foyer trying to catch our breath from cabbie's stories.

Sometimes my stories of night adventures border on ridiculous. Ridiculous that someone in their thirties behaves like me, the strange encounters with even stranger people, and the sheer randomness of events. But all the events I report are true, and I would not want to have it any other way.