Social Boston Sports | The Young Urban Unprofessional

I wasn’t quite sure what I would do today for my random act of kindness and again, it had become dark and was getting nervous at the prospect of not fulfilling my goal of one act per day. Tuesday nights I play Broomball with Social Boston Sports out in Cleveland Circle so I was trying to think of something that would align with my activities for the evening.

This is what we can only aspire to look like.

This is what we actually look like. My SBS Broomball Team "J2: The Mighty Jorts" sporting ugly (or epic) Christmas sweaters. We were League Champions last year under the team name "Social Boston Jorts". Can we bring home the gold two years in a row?

My team had plans of getting together before our game to watch the movie Slapshot. However, because I’ve been traveling so much, constantly on the go, I decided to show up just before the game in favor of making dinner and taking a few hours to chill out at my apartment (a rare occurrence). So after I got back from work I went to the grocery store for some grub. While walking up and down the isles (super hungry) I made an impulse buy of brownie mix. As I was walking home it came to me that I could bake the brownies tonight and bring them to my broomball team as my random act of kindness.

So I made dinner (angel hair pasta with tomato sauce and Romano cheese) while simultaneously making coffee for the morning, lunch for the next day (rice, veggie burgers, and sugar snap peas) and baking the brownies. It wasn’t exactly the restful period of time I was expecting at home but it wasn’t a big deal because I like being productive. Also, I was sure that my team would be stoked about getting some brownies as broomball fuel so it was worth it.

Everything in this picture is awesome: Brownie Mix, Boston Common Coffee, a Jar of Homemade Jam, and a Pint of Maine Maple Syrup. Awesome.

When I got on the T it was absolutely packed with rush hour commuters. I was shoulder to shoulder with my fellow commuters; one hand was holding onto a railing and the other was holding the plate of freshly made brownies. It became evident to everyone that someone (me) had brought fresh brownies onto the train because they smelled delicious. At that point I looked down at the brownies and realized that I was holding them right in the face a 5’2” girl. We made eye contact, I said sorry for shoving a plate of brownies in her face. She replied that they did indeed smell amazing. Not surprisingly she turned down my offer for her to take one. It’s generally not a good idea to take food from strangers, especially on the T so I don’t blame her. All in all, I’m not surprised that giving out brownies on the T isn’t a valid tactic for random acts of kindness, no one is interested and rightly so.

When I got to the Broomball game my team gladly shoveled down most of the brownies which ultimately led to our 2-1 victory, propelling us into the championship game next week. Is athletic performance correlated to the number of brownies eaten? Definitely, although it could have also been the beer. The plate of brownies still wasn’t finished after the game so I walked around to the other teams offering freshly made, though not really warm anymore, brownies. Some people respectfully declined and a few others took a piece commenting on what things I probably put inside of them: marijuana, roofies, arsenic, razor blades, etc. The people who took brownies were definitely stoked at the random and delicious treat, some more skeptical than others, but a positive impact none the less. Even the referee took one, hopefully that’ll help us for our championship game next week.

I think that I need to stop trying to plan ahead so much and start living in the moment, making random acts of kindness actually random. I’ll definitely have to start trying harder to recognize those opportunities and be more assertive about putting myself out there throughout the day.

My friends and I use the term “Baby’s First (fill in the blank)” to describe when someone does something for the first time. Baby’s First Hike, Baby’s First Bruins Game, Baby’s First etc etc. So today for me was Baby’s First Barbeque. I was going to get ambitious and make a dish but I opted for veggie burgers from Shaws instead. First however, here’s the outline of my day.

Sarah and I spent the morning cruising around Boston and we came across a CrossFit promo in Copley Square. Apparently they are putting in a new gym in Back Bay and they were giving out Paleo-Muffins. CrossFit is all about the paleo-diet. It’s basically a hunter-gatherer diet where you eat only the things you would have been able to scavenge for, mostly nuts and berries with a huge de-emphasis on carbs and an over-emphasis on protein. From the reading I’ve done, the paleo-diet has been discounted by nutritionists as a viable way to increase your level of athletic performance. In order to perform at a high level, you need carbs (even in power lifting), the paleo-diet has a grudge against carbs and an emphasis on protein which people tend to abuse. Carbs do not make you fat, it’s actually very difficult for your body to turn carbs into fat because evolutionarily your body wants to ingest carbs and then immediately use them for energy in your muscles. It’s excess calories that make you fat, not carbs (sorry Atkins diet). OK, enough pontificating, the moral of the story is that CrossFit as a workout is awesome, but these paleo-muffins tasted like sawdust, no thanks.

Nasty paleo-muffin from CrossFit table in Copley Square.

We then went to Boloco for lunch. My go-to choice would have been an original classic with chicken but this time I went for the original classic with grilled vegetables. I liked it well-enough but I prefer fresh and crunchy vegetables, not sautéed or boiled, give em’ to me right out of the ground. Then Sarah brought up the fact that we’re “that couple”, the well-educated, city couple who are both vegetarians and who should probably move to Cambridge in order to fit in (no offense to the vegetarians in Cambridge, but you’re definitely a “type”).

Veggie Boloco Burrito after picking up my previously Macbook from the Apple Store.

That night my broomball team from Social Boston Sports was having a BBQ out in Somerville. On the way there we picked up some Morning Star Veggie Burgers. As usual I looked at them with disdain and skepticism, really doing it just because I have to. I also picked up beer from Peak Organic out of Portland, ME. My buddies busted my chops a little bit about bringing veggie burgers and organic beer. I defended myself on the beer-front by explaining that Peak Organic is awesome beer regardless of how it was made, after they had a few they shut up about it.

Morning Star veggie burgers from Shaws, I heard they were the best so I picked them up.

Stuffing a veggie burger into my face. At first I wasn't 100% sure it wasn't a real burger. After consulting two of my vegetarian friends they confirmed it was indeed veggie.

I took a couple of small bites out of it to see if it was veggie or meat.

The veggie burgers were actually awesome. I could hardly tell that they weren’t real burgers, I had to double and triple check to make sure my buddies weren’t pulling a fast one on me. They definitely weren’t as tasty as real burgers but they were passable. We noticed that most of the ingredients actually came from corn. I’m learning that this is not uncommon when it comes to industrialized food. We’re consuming more corn in our diets than ever before. I can’t imagine that it’s corn itself that is the problem, but when it’s present in almost everything we eat then it certainly changes our diet as a culture in a drastic way. I’m not sure what the impact of that is but it’s definitely a change from how we ate 30-40 years ago.

By the end of the night I reached an epiphany about being vegetarian. For me, vegetarianism has always been associated with eating healthy. The two are perhaps correlated but not synonymous. You can eat as much junk food as you want, you just can’t eat meat. You can be vegetarian and still be super unhealthy, this is something that I hadn’t considered before tonight. So I had a bunch of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies as well as beer (both organic and non-organic, I don’t discriminate) and Knob Creek bourbon whiskey. I think I’ll probably be the only person who actually ends up gaining weight as a result of becoming vegetarian.

Ate a gratuitous amount of chocolate chip cookies at the BBQ. This sounds obvious, but being vegetarian isn't exactly about being healthy, it's just about not eating meat.