<stands up> Hello my name is Emily and this is my blog that I’ve neglected for the past seven months.
My last post was a thorough and detailed recounting of Ed’s and my first week at HBS; it is now June and our first year at HBS is over. I realize now that I had very high and unattainable blogging hopes last fall. Reality has since introduced itself to me and I’ve learned that it is very difficult to be an involved partner at HBS, a top-notch girlfriend, a full-time employee and an up-and-coming blogger all at one time. So, no blogs.
However! I have found true Japanese mind feng shui in the past few weeks and my blogging hopes have returned. Are they unattainable again? No one knows yet, it’s like living on the edge! The only thing I do know is that Ed is in Boise for what feels like years and I have extra time to kill and watching Dateline is definitely not a good way to use it.
I guess we’ll reacquaint ourselves with the basics: I am living in our same Harvard housing apartment this summer and Ed moved to Boise, ID on Sunday, May 24th. He’ll be there until mid-August working at Albertsons on the Albertsons-Safeway merger. I will consult with Ed about what that means exactly and give a laymen synopsis at a future date. Need-to-know facts: Albertsons and Safeway are grocery stores and Ed is a VIP intern at their headquarters. Headquarters has a full-size tree indoors.
When we first learned that Boise was the location of this internship, we pictured something remote, something a little desolate, something full of potatoes, something like this:
Now, that’s not a bad view, but it’s not fair to Idaho. Our ignorance of the state before Ed’s move was vast, much like the vista above. My prior judgements of Idaho now feel like others’ judgements of Minnesota when I first arrived in Chicago for college. I remember being asked “are there real buildings in Minnesota?” and “is it just moose and pine trees there, or what?” I thought they were losers for asking those things but just look at that photo above. What do I know! As it turns out, Boise is actually like this:
That’s downtown Boise, a thriving, outdoorsy city nestled in what the locals call “the foothills.” The two things non-residents seem to know most about Boise is that 1) Boise State has a football field with artificial blue turf called Albertsons Stadium and 2) Sun Valley is absolutely beautiful, which is a ski town that is not near Boise at all but is still in Idaho. So really, people only know one fact about Boise and one fact about another town in Idaho. One other thing: despite Ed seeing a young male get arrested right in front of his apartment this past weekend (underage drinking manhunt turned successful), in 2006, Farmer’s Insurance ranked Boise as the #1 most secure place to live. How great!
Here is a picture of the exterior of Ed’s apartment:
He’s renting the studio apartment above an elderly woman’s detached garage, and that is his private staircase to heaven. The two car garage underneath it is all his, in which he parks his silver company car. In the remaining car stall, he likes to sit with a Coors Summer Brew and watch the neighborhood activity unfold (there is little). Sometimes he switches it up and sits on that front porch in front of the top door. The only character in the neighborhood of note so far besides the fellow who got arrested, is the guy who lives directly across from Ed – he’s a large Hawaiian man who wears a do-rag, name currently unknown.
Last week the Blackhawks were playing and Ed doesn’t have a TV so he wanted to go to the local bar and watch the game. Prior to leaving, he called Crickets (the bar), and made sure they were willing to play the Hawks on one of their TVs. The bartender answered and said no problem, come on down. Ed journeyed the three blocks and watched the game in the company of the bartender, as he was the only patron in the bar the entire time he was there. Shortly into the game the bartender told Ed that if he wanted another Coors, just come outside to the alley and let him know, he was gonna go hang out with a buddy back there. Guess who that buddy was? The Hawaiian do-rag-wearing neighbor.
And because I can’t be left out, here are two sunsets Ed and I were #blessed with before he left for Boise:
Snapchat translation: Sunset on the banks of the Charles River
Sunset off of our balcony, overlooking Harvard Square
For cute!
E
for you, love emily 