A Perfect New England Day

So many things have happened in the past six days, including the real beginning of the end of the Bush presidency, and the slap in the face we got in California with the success of the discriminatory Prop. 8, that I was in danger of glossing over what was a perfect day in Boston, last Saturday.

It was warm in the morning, I had breakfast at Crema Café in Harvard Square, then chatted with my other half for a long time, mostly about the election, while sitting on a brick ledge at the corner of Brattle and Eliot Streets. Being able to sit outside on Nov. 1 in Boston is a hit-or-miss proposition. It can still be Indian Summer, or it can be winter. Actually, two days earlier, it had been 36°F (2°C) in the morning. And now it was in the mid-sixties (18°C).

I went to the Symphony box office to buy a ticket for that night, then I walked over to my old haunt, Aquitaine on Tremont St., for brunch. I got the best table in the house — in the corner, in the back, facing the whole restaurant — and a very good server named Rebecca. And they had not run out of the pressed duck sandwich, my favorite brunch dish there.

After brunch, I walked through the Public Garden and the Boston Common to get on the T at Park Street. There were musicians everywhere, including an accordionist, a jazz duo that was rather incongruously made up of a young Asian couple, with the girl playing the trumpet and the guy playing the bass, and a lone saxophonist playing a little farther down.