around town: artbeat somerville & outside the box festival

i'm relishing the chance to actually spend a weekend around here, since i was back in NH last weekend, going to cape cod next weekend, and then back to NH the weekend after that. where is this summer going, guys?! i don't like this one bit.

anyways, i've been trying to jam-pack all of the boston goodness into one weekend that i can. currently coming to you live from peet's coffee in lexington centre (yeah, that lexington, where the revolutionary war started?). it's a beautiful little town with lots of shopping, dining, people that probably eat organic, people that ride bikes, and ADORABLE DOGS. it's pretty sleepy for a twenty-something, however, so i feel like living 3 miles away in arlington is like the best of both worlds. 

so, yeah, lexington. i'm going to walk around later and maybe hit on a historical reenactor and who knows what else. but let's talk about saturday!

i'd made plans to meet a friend for lunch at dave's fresh pasta in davis square somerville, but didn't realize that the place had like, 2 seats, so we moseyed over to orleans just down the street. it was decent, but they were only serving brunch, and you know when you just REALLY want a sandwich? that's where i was at. but french toast always has the power to transcend my food mood, so it was fine.

we decided to go to the vintage store buffalo exchange afterwards, not realizing that some random festival was happening. but it was kind of cool! there were people dancing to gangnam style, a parade with tuba players and people on stilts, and other such whimsy. i realized shortly after that this was "artbeat," an annual festival in somerville. here's a few random pictures from that:

weird hippie tent

does anyone know if this cow has always been here? 'cause i've never noticed it.

parade!

AND THEN. i had some time to kill before the concert on boston common, so i decided to stroll in the 95-degree heat from park street station to the prudential center. i'm walking down boylston, minding my own beeswax, when i see like a hundred 13 year-old girls standing in front of the mandarin oriental hotel. "who are you waiting for?" i inquire. "BIEBER!!!" about 3 of them scream at me. i waited around for a bit in case sir biebs dangled a baby out of his suite window or something, but no such luck.

bitches waiting for bieber

maybe his tour bus? maybe not? the world may never know. or care.

on a serious note, it was incredibly moving to see that life is back to normal after the bombings, but that the memory is still fresh and thoughts and prayers still abound:

okay, so finally onto the good stuff. what i'd been waiting all day for. one of the highlights of my '90s-loving life. a FREE concert with buffalo tom and the lemonheads (oh, and the mighty mighty bosstones too, but...not a huge fan and didn't stay for them, sorry not sorry). this was all part of this awesome, free, weeklong music & arts festival called "outside the box". just walking around the common, i pretty much cried tears of joy because i'm so happy to be back. you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming away to get me to leave again, man. yeah, the winters are miserable, but when it's good -- like yesterday -- it's just so. friggin'. good.

buffalo tom was awesome! they played "soda jerk" and i danced, and then evan dando (lead singer of the lemonheads) came out and sang with them. somewhere, angela chase was smiling.

then the lemonheads played. can we talk about how evan dando is still totally dreamy at 40-whatever he is? and still totally on drugs, probably? and wearing long-sleeved shirts when it's almost 100 degrees out?

if i could put emojis in blog posts, the heart-eyes one would go here.

the radio station chick literally introduced them as "the ever-still-hot evan dando and the lemonheads." ouch! 

all in all, an EXCELLENT day.