Yesterday I took Charlie to the swim championships in Springfield. I went last year and told myself that I would never go again, but Alisa had a meeting to attend and talked me into it. It was horrible. It was unbelievably crowded -- they always talk about "plenty of free parking" in the flyers, but all the nearby parking fills up instantly. I hate being in crowded places -- about half an hour is as much as I can really tolerate. We were there for about 6 hours. The bleachers were all full so there was no place to sit. I alternated among wandering around, sitting on the floor, and fighting my way to within eyeshot of the pool to see Charlie swim his events. We had to wait about three hours for his first event and then another three hours until his last event. On top of it, I found myself coming down with a virus. The only upside was that because the pool building is kept hot (75 or 80 degrees), I wasn't shivering with my fever. Did I mention it was horrible? It was fun to see Charlie swim.
Today Lucy and I are planning to attend a performance of the 
Capitol Steps at Symphony Hall in Springfield. I ordered the tickets last week through the Symphony Hall web interface and it said they'd provide confirmation within 48 hours. But they didn't. So we're planning to attend, but it may be that there will be no tickets for us. That's the last time I use their web interface to order anything.