Dottie Hottie

Apologies for the radio silence here at DottieHottie.com. The DH family was welcoming a new member over the past month, and new babies with all of their neeeeeediness sure do get in the way of maintaining one’s rep in the blogosphere, ya know?

Anyway. In the interim, the Dottie Hottie has been busy about the neighborhood, taking walks with the newbie and showing him What It All Means to be Originally from Dorchester (OFD).

One place we have visited twice now is Pho Hoa, in its bright, zen new home in the T. Le Building on Dot Ave. Pho Hoa is a terrific lunch destination what with speedy service, free parking (lot in the back), affordable prices, delicious (read: non-rubbery chicken) pho and vermicelli dishes, and…

the mystery fruit drink!

That’s right. You already got up and did the Sunday Times Crossword. You thought all the puzzles were done for the day, eh? Well, here’s a new one for you. Help the Dottie Hottie crack the code that is the Honeydew Melon Smoothie at Pho Hoa.

Episode the First: The Dottie Hottie’s inaugural lunch visit to Pho Hoa. Orders the honeydew melon smoothie with pearls. Smoothie is not delivered with the rest of meal. The Dottie Hottie inquires as to its whereabouts. Smoothie is delivered. Only, it is peach colored. The very creamy light orange color of…cantaloupe, no? So the Dottie Hottie inquires again of the waitstaff. Is this honeydew? Yes, says waiter the first. But the Dottie Hottie is not satisfied. Asks waiter the second. Is this honeydew–because it appears to be cantaloupe? Yes, says waiter the second. Sometimes, honeydew melon is orange-ish.

IS THIS TRUE? Polling you, fellow Dotties. Can you corroborate this story? Are honeydew melons sometimes orange in tinge?

Episode the second: The Dottie Hottie visited Pho Hoa and ordered a honeydew melon smoothie WHICH ONCE AGAIN WAS NOT DELIVERED WITH THE MEAL BUT HAD TO BE REQUESTED AGAIN AND AGAIN FROM VARIOUS WAITSTAFF BY JOVE WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO, ISN’T THERE AN iPHONE APP TO REMEDY THIS INCONGRUITY???? the smoothie looked like this:

image from divya-dilse.blogspot.com

Your input graciously solicited on this inconsistency in fruit coloration….

(To Be Continued….)

Pho Hoa
http://www.phohoa.com/
1356 Dorchester Ave.,
Dorchester, MA 02122-2912
Tel: (617) 287-9746

Here’s a tip for you Dotties as the Mother of All Holidays approaches:  Coleen’s Flower Shop.

Sure, flowers. How original.  Some chrysanthemums for Mum’s Day. Cliched, dying bunch of weeds.  I know, I know.  You already blew your wad on the Estee Lauder cosmetic set with the free gift faux leather tote.

But roll up with a bouquet like the Dottie Hottie got last week?

And suddenly big things might start happening.  Just wait.  With that kind of good karma surrounding you, I defy any Boston copper to give you a parking ticket. For any lotto ticket to not net you double. For any gum to be found on your shoe.

Check out Coleen’s (whose newest neighbor is Dot Dogs) and get your orders in for Sunday stat!

Coleen’s Flower Shop
Proprietor:  Coleen O’Donnell
912 Dorchester Avenue
Dorchester, MA 02125
617/282.0468
800/644.1581
www.coleensflowershop.com
coleen@coleensflowershop.com

Dottie dog owners, have you recently noticed an improvement in your pup’s morale?  Is Fido trotting more proudly, with a greater sense of belonging?  Did Clancey recently woof that there’s no place like home?

The Dottie Hottie wonders if this heightened happiness could be due to the arrival of our new canine-lovin’ neighbor, Dot Dogs!

Owners George and Jessica Greene, parents to a beloved Puggle, said they kept having to flee to Southie for their doggie treat needs.  Other ‘hoods of Boston have caught on — the South End and JP are host to several shops that cater to canines.  Given the expanse of green space that Dorchester offers, the pup/capita, and the imminent launch of the dog park at Ronan Park, the time was more than ripe to launch Dot Dogs.

The shop is still filling its shelves with goodies for your hot dog, but presently offers puppy pedicures, some great looking leashes, a vast array of chew toys and treats, and bathtubs that owners can “rent” to bathe their dogs.

Stop by and make a new friend with your own best friend in tow.

Dot Dogs
916 Dorchester Ave.
Dorchester, MA 02125
617/288-DOGS (3647)
www.dotdogs.net/
(right next door to Coleen’s Flower Shop.)

Ah, the Dottie Hottie does love a good forced rhyme.  Mr. Guy (Harris), children’s librarian at the Adams Street Library, is the best kept secret in entertainment in the ‘hood.  Of course, his cult following is a specific demographic.  They range in age from 0-5 and then from about 20-50 years.  You can see Harris perform for the groupies every Tuesday morning at the BPL branch at 10:30 a.m.  There he’ll present a story hour in theme.  The most recent gig was a veritable pajama jam.  Harris donned his jammies, read several bedtimey tomes, told a story by way of felt/velcro apron attaches, tried his hand at a few puppets, led the groupies in a round of songs to the tune of his banjo (!!!), and closed the hour with a coloring/gluesticking activity that the groupies took home to their refrigerator walls of pride.

We are lucky to have Mr. Harris, a literary advocate and performer all in one.

Adams St. Library

690 Adams Street, Dorchester, MA 02122
617-436-6900

CityBeams is a fledgling website with a great concept.  A messageboard of sorts where any question about life specific to a city and even a sub-neighborhood (e.g. Boston >> Dorchester) is fair game.  A little Yelp-like in the sharing aspect, but not so business focused.  One of its founders, Nicholas Lohr contacted the Dottie Hottie, to share the love, and now the Dottie Hottie is happy to share the love with you.  Check it!

The Dottie Hottie’s greatest fear of going into labor on Patriot’s Day was allayed.  The threat of having to ferret through the crunch of Marathon traffic in order to get to the hospital manifested itself…and the Dottie Hottie considered the feasible ways one might arrive at the hospital (by parachute?  through the MIT tunnels?) but Pee Wee Dottie chose not to appear. Hurrah!  This gave the Dottie Hottie family a chance to check out the excellent puppetry show at the JFK Library, and find a patriotic treat at the Sugar Bowl.

The Dottie Hotties have had good fortune in teaming up with The Food Project over the last two years.  By teaming up, I simply mean that The Food Project built us a box garden, tossed some soil and seeds our way, and made the process of growing delicious vegetables so dang easy (with frequent tutorials available in our ‘hood) that we’d be jokers to say we were real gardeners.  We just added sun and water…and voila!

Just like the Public Garden!

Now, this coming summer, when our family’s child population is going to double GASP and our sleep quotient will concurrently divide by…what?  Sixteen to the eighth power?  We’re just not sure we want to commit to the cultivation of the box garden again.  We might forget to mark the places where we put seeds or we might forget to water it for a few weeks or we might forget where we live and just take up permanent residence at the Ice Creamsmith.

Either way, though, these little Container Gardens that Cedar Grove Gardens is pimping seem pretty stinking adorable and relatively manageable, no?

Would anyone like to weigh in on the functionality of the container garden?  When should one start one and what kinds should you not start if, say, you’re going to have a newborn around and you might forget that plants don’t need breastmilk?

Oh, those DotBikers. They’re just too adorable.

They plan an event, and they don’t say, durrr, like, uhhh, let’s all get on our two wheelers and ride around Dot see if we can pedal faster than the ice cream truck moves down Talbot Ave.

They’re orchestrating something so adorable, it’s called:

“The Shiny Green Dot Ride”

and it’s all going down Saturday April 24th @ 1 p.m.

In celebration of Earth Week (this is the week when Dotties are especially encouraged not to throw their empty cartons of Marlboro lights out the window of their cars — unless they have good aim and can make it into an open wastebin.  But anyway, you shouldn’t be smoking either.  It makes it hard to bike), Dot Bike and Boston Shines are going for a ride around the neighborhood to check out a selection of Dorchester’s many parks and green spaces.

But…there’s more!

BORROW A BIKE -  It’s as literal as Stop n’ Shop.  You can borrow bikes from Boston Bikes!

The fleet has adult, youth and child bikes. Reservations for bikes are required.
To reserve bikes sign up here.

ROUTES

New! Improved! routes with short and long options with pit stops at great green spaces around the ‘hood.

Pace is relaxed so what’ve you got to lose?

Helmets are required and riders under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Email dotbike@bostonbiker.org or call Andy at 781-367-9200 to RSVP or with Q’s.

The Dottie Hottie will be at church, ’cause that’s how the DH family rolls on Saturday, but if the holy sabbath was not being observed, the DH family would surely not be missing out on Shiny Green Dot Ride.

“The peacocks are total divas. Not the good Aretha Franklin kind, either.”

“The gorillas are just…like…such primates. Snacking on their own feces. They’re such chimps.”

“It is only a matter of time until the killer bees haunt the picnic pavilion once again.” Killer bees might have been a slight exaggeration.

“Christopher the Lion is thinking about going on ‘The Bachelor.’ He wants to meet his Nala. But he’s not sure about that whole cheesy rose ceremony business. A roar ceremony, though? Now we’re talking.”

“The giraffe family had to downsize.” They moved in with the zebras. Everyone asked if it was because the giraffes read The Power of Half. But no. Something to do with the rising water levels due to last week’s super-precipitation had temporarily transplanted the giraffes. The zebras were starting to feel the pinch, truth be told, but the giraffes just stuck out their tongues and made some joke about being too high on the food chain to care.

“I heard Ben Affleck is shooting ‘Gone Birdie Gone.’ That’s what’s up with the whole film set in the middle of the zoo.”

The Dottie Hottie and MID were privy to the above at the FP Zoo the other day. So glad we have a family membership so we can go back and get all the poop (pun intended).

A recent thread on DotParents (on bigtent.com) generated some discussion on how wifi-tastic Dorchester can be if you know where to go.  Here are a few places in the Dorchester vicinity that the Dottie Hottie recommends for freelancers, students, and for the minions out there that need defibrillation if they cannot access dottiehottie.com at all times.

- Dot2Dot cafe (bring headphones) - free wifi, good coffee

- Sugar Bowl on Dot Ave. (also has wifi) - there’s an anteroom off the main cafe area where you’ll find a lot of other laptoppers

- Lower Mills Library - always very quiet during the week but can’t speak for evenings or weekends.

- Both Dorchester Flat Black locations have free wifi but don’t allow a lot of room to spread out and are pretty high traffic (read: not quiet)

- Bruegger’s @ E. Milton Sq. has free wifi - probably fairly quiet on a Sat. or Sun. morning

- The new library in Milton appears to have free wifi, coffee and huge tables to spread out as well as private desks. There are rumors that Dot residents can get cards here too….

- Panera Bread just over the bridge on Hancock St. in Quincy - free wifi, pretty big tables - crowded during lunch but not too bad in late afternoon

- JP Licks in JP - open late