Flashback Friday: Beantown in '00

When I first heard of doing a "Flashback Friday" blog post every week I thought it would be a great motivator to encourage me to scan in some of my oldest photos so that I could save them for posterity in digital file formats. Growing up, I loved to look through the yellowed pages of my grandmothers' photo albums, and ideally, someday my future grandchildren will have the pleasure of making fun of my hair and fashion choices by simply turning on some electric device.

Anyway, I have totally slacked at the photo scanning and for my last several Flashback Fridays I have had to rely on the images available on a slideshow I had to make for my 10-year class reunion last summer. I am working off limited material, people.

This photo below, while not groundbreaking or particularly interesting, is at least a glimpse into what I looked like as a soon-to-be child-bride. The summer before my senior year of college, I packed up my bags, used 1991 Apple Powerbook laptop and fake ID (if you knew me back then, you'll know I answered to the name of Pam Rodriguez) and headed to the East Coast where I roomed with one of my best friends, Tori, in a very old, very dirty fraternity house.

We lived here with some very smart, some very socially awkward MIT frat guys but the killer location and views of the Charles River and Boston skyline made up for it. Plus, sometimes there was free beer.

I enrolled at Harvard for the summer where I experienced serious culture shock, considering that my classmates at SUU would often roll into class late and dirty from working on their farms and my fellow Hah-vahd students rolled into class tardy because their family's private jet took a bit longer than expected returning them from the beach house.

Zach and I got engaged that summer, much to my nearly-40 and single professor's dismay. While getting hitched in your early 20's is common in the Beehive State, it turns out it's not so much standard procedure in the REST OF THE WORLD. Who knew?

Z flew out to visit and help me move back home and I had a great time showing him around my temporary digs. We tied the knot the next summer.

Z & Me in Harvard Square. Because I was private-jet-less and beach-house-less, I actually had to work at a job to support myself. The three-story brick building over Zach's left shoulder was where I punched the time clock, the Harvard Coop. Basically, one of the coolest university book stores ever known to woman. They even have a Clinique counter in there. And a Starbucks.