What To Do If You Want More Stress

If you decided to raise your blood pressure, what could you do? You could eat a lot salty food. You could ride a roller coaster. Or, you could write a petition addressed to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) demanding that quality of the commuter rail service be improved, and try to get people to sign it.

Clearly I have chosen the latter. (You can reference the previous post for the short version of the petition.) Let's just say that the service has never been as consistently bad in over 3 years that I have been riding the train as it has been in the last 3 months. So I got tired of standing on the platform for hours (literally) and wasting my energy on complaining about how terribly unreliable the trains have become.

I did reiterate over several versions, with several of my coworkers providing feedback on the document. Unfortunately, still not everyone agreed with all the points, causing more discussions, arguments, and long email threads after I have sent out the petition to the commuter mailing list at work.

After putting in the effort to write the petition, I did not want to give up just because some people disagreed. So tonight together with my friend and coworker, I started collecting signatures on our ride home.

Most of you know that I am not at all an extrovert, so approaching people and soliciting signatures was not exactly a breeze. Unexpectedly we got a very welcome reception from most train passengers. We did get into trouble with the conductors, who did not mind us approaching the passengers, but who claimed that it was inappropriate for us to start collecting signatures without alerting the conductors to what we were doing.

I am proud to say that we collected 51 signatures tonight. We plan to continue our solicitations for another 2 days. Then the signed petition will be sent off to Mr. Dan Grabauskas, the General Manager of the MBTA. We understand that the problems plaguing the system are very complex, but we hope that putting the pressure on MBTA will stir the monster and result in gradual improvements in our commute.

Petition to the MBTA (the short version)

To Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA):

We, riders of the Framingham/Worcester commuter rail line, demand that MBTA raise the quality of service it provides, as well as stop discriminating against off-peak direction passengers.

The following is a list of improvements we demand.

1. MBTA should stop discriminating against off-peak direction passengers and stop providing preferential treatment to peak-direction riders. Inbound and outbound trains should receive equal precedence when determining right of way during delay situations.

2. The Framingham/Worcester passengers should receive the same timely service as the passengers of other commuter rail lines.

3. MBTA should provide accurate and timely information about train delays and cancellations through announcements, its website, and electronic message boards at the station.

4. The on-time service guarantee reimbursement should be proportional to the length of the delay. The passengers should be properly reimbursed within a finite amount of time after the delay has occurred.

5. Outdoor stations should have shelters for passengers to wait during cold or precipitous weather.

Reupholstering Chairs

You may have heard of the amazing dining room table Nick and I snatched up over Labor Day weekend on Craigslist. It came with 5 chairs, which I planned to reupholster the very next weekend.

Two months have passed since that plan was made... Last week I ripped off the old cushions from 2 chairs, and today Nick ripped up another chair. But more importantly, today I finished one chair!

A chair with the old cushion is on the left; the chair with the new cushion is on the right.

The Adams Family

I just finished listening to "John Adams" by David McCullough, so venturing out to Quincy to see John Adam's birth place and residency felt like I was back inside the book following his life again. We had an hour before the John Adams tour began, so we used the time to take a guided tour of the United First Parish Church where John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, and their wives are entombed.






The congregation of the church was established in 1639, and the church building we visited today is the 3rd built by the congregation. John Adams donated land to help fund the building, but he died 2 years before the church was dedicated in 1828. John Adams and his wife Abigail were first buried in the Hancock cemetery, but John Quincy Adams built a crypt under the church, and the coffins of his parents were moved there. Upon their deaths John Quincy and his wife, Louisa Catherine, were also buried in the Hancock cemetery. Later their son, Charles Francis Adams, had the crypt expanded and moved his parents' coffins there as well.



The little wooden house where John Adams was born, this 18th century gem, now stands on a rather busy street surrounded by modern businesses. Less then 50 yards away stands the house where John and Abigail Adams lived until, anticipating their return from Europe, they acquired the house of Leonard Vassall built in 1731.








Abigail significantly expanded the house, which originally only had 2 rooms on the main floor, 2 bedrooms and an attic. Adams returned to live in the house he refered to as Peacefield permanently in 1801 after losing the presidential election to Thomas Jefferson. The house was inherited by John Quincy Adams upon John Adams's death, and remained in the Adams family until 1946, when the family gave the house to the United States.


Unfortunately, photography is not allowed inside any of the houses. Peacefield, even after all the additionals the Adamses built, seemed a lot smaller then what I imagined while reading the book. We also did not see John Adams's beloved books, as his library is now housed in a special room in the Boston Public Library.

Riding the Commuter Rail

MBTA never ceases to entertain its riders. Tonight the inbound train arrived at Natick sans any electrical power. The conductors shined their feeble flashlights to help us find our way onto the train, and we used the light from our cell phones to find empty seats in pitch black cars. I love how my commute is always an adventure. What will tomorrow bring...

Have More Cake Merchandise

Exactly what you have been waiting for--Have More Cake merchandise is now available for purchase at the Have More Cake Online Store. Actually, I just learned about the CafePress, and thought it would be so much fun to create my own products.

Run Run Run

I am starting a new blog, entirely dedicated to running and fundraising. As some of you have already heard, I will be running in the 112th Boston Marathon as a member of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) team. So besides the challenge of training for a marathon to work off all that ice cream I eat every night, I am also taking on the challenge to raise $8,200 towards DFMC team goal of $4.5 million to benefit the Claudia Adams Barr Program in innovative basic cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I feel extremely honored to have been accepted onto the DFMC team.

Please check out my new blog, Run Helen Run. I hope to share with you all the fun I have while training, and all my reasons for the running, and I hope to involve you in some of the fundraising activities that I will be organizing.