Boston Sports Domination

Boston's wealth of athletic riches was the subject of a recent article in the New York Times that must have rattled New Yorkers to no end. It proclaimed that their nemesis city, that scrappy, little Beantown-- its sports fans "connoisseurs of pain, lovable Charlie Browns to New York’s success-swiping Lucy"-- has ascended to the throne of professional sports. To read the article (which I'm sure most New Yorkers are convinced was written by an infiltrating Bostonian) click here.

We may be native Californians, but Boston loves its sports teams unconditionally, and its love is contagious. In the summer, no other city stops what it is doing and descends on its baseball field downtown the way Bostonians flock to Fenway, whether it is Wednesday or Saturday. Even those without tickets go down to Fenway just to "hang out" in the streets and at the bars and cheer for their team. Red Sox Nation is unbelieveable. Celtics fans are almost as crazy as Kings fans (but not quite). And Bruins fans are awesomely aggressive. We are, and probably always will be, Kings fans And Celtics fans; Giants fans, A's fans AND Red Sox fans; 49ers fans AND Patriots fans. And Bruins fans.

Get ready for Superbowl Sunday, folks! 19-0! Go Patriots!

Celebrity Brian

Brian is a celebrity today. As some of you may know, he's really good at trivia. Especially pop culture and pop music trivia. This morning, he won $200 on Mix 98.5's morning radio show, chatted it up with the DJs on the air, and even got a little announcement on their website: Click here and scroll down. It's a daily page, so in case it's not still there when you're checking, the Mix 98.5 website reads, "Brian from Charlestown knew that “Hey Jude,” by The Beatles was voted the #1 Oldies song of all-time, and won $200!" The DJs asked Brian what he thought about the Superbowl this weekend and had quite a little chat with him.

I (Sherry) think the funniest part of the whole thing is that Brian was coming off a long night shift. I mean, how motivated do you have to be when you're so tired and have been working all night, to call into a radio show? Brian says that, while listening to the show, he knew the answer, and heard so many wrong answers that he felt compelled to pull his car to the side of the road, while driving home from work, to call in. :)

January Update

We've been going through a tough time lately. We try to keep things positive on this blog, and would rather not share our troubles on the internet, but things have been a little rough. If you want to hear all about it, give us a call. On top of all the stress, we're both working a TON; Sherry is swamped with jury trials as Brian is toiling away on nightfloat. So that makes it all a bit harder. We are incredibly blessed, though, to have such wonderful friends here in Boston, so many of whom have been so kind to us-- Manish and Maya, Seth and Jen, Darren, Cheri and Mike-- just to name a few.

On the good side, we have had the opportunity to hang out with several great friends lately, and to enjoy Boston's great sports teams!

Earlier in the month, one of the surgeons with whom Brian works gave us third row seats to the Celtics game against the Houston Rockets. Yao Ming is HUGE in real life-- especially from the third row! It was a great game! Go Celtics!

We also had the opportunity to get together for dinner with our friends Kathleen and Peter. They are both Stanford Med School classmates of Brian's. Kathleen lives here in Boston and is a pediatrician at Children's Hospital, and Peter is a surgeon at Stanford, who was out here visiting. It was so fun to catch up!

Then, last weekend, we were so excited to have our friends Ted and Jody to visit from Miami. Jody is a med student in Miami, currently interviewing for residencies in anesthesia, and her husband Ted (a med school classmate of Brian's) is an opthamologist in Miami, and is looking for fellowships. We're hoping they land in Beantown. Jody got in before Ted did, so last Friday, she was able to join us and several of our other friends (Manish and Maya, Darren and Laura, Seth and Jen) for the Celtics v. Sixers game. Our seats were in the nosebleed section this time, but EVERYTHING is more fun with good friends! Afterwards, we met up with Ted and then all enjoyed late-night eats at a new hip restaurant called Stix. We've posted some pics from that night in this post. For more, click here.

On Saturday, Ted and Jody and we had the opportunity to meet up with our friend Kathleen again. We all met up for sushi at Oishii (which absolutely lived up to its reputation), and then for drinks at Anchovie's, one of our favorite dive bars.

On Sunday, Jodi left, but Ted stuckaround for another day. We all vegged out at Jillian's to watch the Patriot's game. Go Patriots! Superbowl, here we come! Our friends Cheri and Mike had us all over for a delicious paella dinner on Sunday night with our friends Courtney and Nikki.

Enjoying our friends has made it all the rest of our January stress somewhat bearable!