Boston’s Old State House, one of my favorite buildings in the world.

(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 17)

I got my first dose of the vaccine this week.

I wrote about it on Wednesday so I won’t get into it too much here.

But the reason I bring it up is that I had to go to Boston to get it.

I actually went to Boston three times this week, which I didn’t even realize until I sat down to write this.

But only one of them was to wander the city, which is one of my favorite things to do.

And it is something I look forward to getting back to very soon.

First of all, when I was considering booking a sooner vaccination than the one I was scheduled for next week, Kathy asked me if I really wanted to go into Boston.

First of all, it’s not that far. Secondly, it’s never really a burden for me - I like going to Boston and trying to win the parking game and all that. (And Monday was a holiday here in Massachusetts, so I had that in my favor.) And lastly, I’ve gone into Boston for some really terrible comedy shows and if I did that without any hesitation (well, with minimal hesitation, I suppose), of course I’ll make the trip to get vaccinated now.

But Monday was a vaccination trip to Hynes. Tuesday I took the girls to the BU Bookstore to get a little something for Kathy, who graduates my alma mater with an MBA in just a couple of weeks. (Which I also used as an excuse to outfit the girls in some BU gear.)

And then my oldest daughter wanted to get out and see some historic sites and on Wednesday the weather was nice enough that we decided somewhat suddenly to just go into Boston.

It was a good decision because we beat the rain and we parked by Boston Common and walked the Freedom Trail up to Long Wharf, sat and had the lunch we brought with us, and then turned around to go back.

We’ve been careful about getting out too much - I’ve written about it a lot over the past year-plus. I consider each week taking down the “Stay At Home Dad” part of the title of each Sunday Paper because it feels like we’re close to the end…but we’re not. Even with a vaccination we’ll err on the careful side and keep things close to home until there’s an all-clear of sorts.

But doing something very outdoors like walking part of the Freedom Trail while masked seems like a pretty safe venture. It was good to be out and see some of my favorite sites, some of the things that helped me fall in love with Boston all those years ago. (And get a little inspiration as I took a quick walk past the Boston Marathon finish line before I got my vaccine since I was right there on what would have been Marathon Monday.)

So I think as the summer approaches, maybe we’ll do this once or twice more, so we’re not stuck at home all the time.

After all, we still have the walk from Long Wharf to Charlestown to check out.

Notes

*Hey, did you know I’m running the Boston Marathon?

*Just kidding, I know you know. But it’s still very exciting and this week I did my running. Did a smallish run during the week (30 minutes) and then upped things to 70 minutes on Friday. Both felt good, so: so far, so good. I wouldn’t consider myself heavy into marathon training yet, but it’s good to know I can still run the longer distances that I started to approach a couple of years ago when I was gearing up to hopefully tackle the marathon.

*I mentioned the Wednesday post above. You can see those posts by Liking the Facebook page here. You can also follow me on Twitter here. Thanks!

*I had kind of a lost week work-wise. I ordered a bookcase to put in my office and the initial delivery said late May, then suddenly it was Tuesday, April 20. So I got the office all empty and ready to build the bookcase…and it never came. Now it’s supposed to be here by next Wednesday. But I had to put some stuff back in the office so the living room isn’t a mess…and it’s just been a lot of that type of work, getting little done. BUT it’s no small thing that I got vaccinated and spent some nice time with the girls while they were on spring break…so overall it was a plus week.

*Let me end this week by saying thank you for all the supportive messages last week about the Marathon. I can never tell when Facebook hides these posts with links and whether anyone sees them or not so for one thing, it’s nice that people are reading. Thank you for that. But for another, it’s nice to know that I have you all in my corner for something that’s such a big deal for me. I have meetings coming up in the next couple of weeks where I’ll find out more about my role in Team Framingham. I’ll keep you posted as I learn all that. But for now: thank you.