This Is Framingham

Do you live in this area?

Are you registered to vote?
Can I get your signature?

I have to get 25 signatures from registered voters in my awesome precinct to be nominated for re-election as a Town Meeting Member.   This April will be one year since I became part of town government.  It’s been an interesting 8 months so far and I’ve learned a lot.  I’d like to keep doing it if I can, but we’ll see what happens. ivermectin oral uk

If you can and would like to sign my nomination papers, please drop me a line at michelle@thisisframingham.com
Thanks!!

This is a public meeting for anyone who is interested:

Before I start this post I’d like to say:

A) I’m sorry about the length of time between posts.  I personally, like to read blogs that are updated more often as well.  I’ve been busy in other ‘hams like Bellingham and Waltham and haven’t had time to investigate much but hopefully things will slow down and I’ll get some  decent posts.

B) Since it has been known to happen that occasionaly readers misunderstand me, I’d like to say that the following post is in no way states that I don’t think people should practice religion or that going to church or synagogue or a mosque or temple of any sort is a bad thing.   That’s great people get something spiritual out of going to church and feeling a sense of community.

I’m posting about how I’ve noticed some religious organizations that occupy prime foot traffic, storefront spaces downtown. 

Used to be Clough’s Pharmacy


Next to the Salvation Army thift shop

Used to be Friendly’s, now a Mosque (I still mourn the walkable distance to a Fribble!)

Personally, I’d like to see retail stores or reaturants on the ground levels.   I know downtown has other problems and some people will say “Hey, it’s better than that space being abandoned”.  Which may be true, but when I walk down Moody St. in Waltham, there are so many small business, from grocers, to bookstores to restaurants to little giftie type shops.  There aren’t any churches, people don’t say “Oh Moody St. is great, there’s a church at every corner!”
Just something I’ve noticed when I walk around downtown, looking for something else to go to besides the few usual places I go.
I was also curious about how many places of worship are in the downtown area and counted 30.  Again, I’m not saying people shouldn’t have the right to pick their flavor of church or temple or whatever, that’s great, but I was surprised that there is a need/demand for 30 churches in a 1 mile radius.  I also wonder what the effect of so many churches on the town’s economy is being that they are tax exempt.  Maybe it’s not much if most of them are in rented space, I don’t know.

The Framingham Civic League is holding a haunted house on Halloween night. This is right down the street from me and I’ve never been there yet so it’s a nice opportunity to check it out.
Here’s their flyer if anyone is interested:
 

(This is the only photo I have on file having to do with SMOC)
I don’t usually get into anything too political because it’s not the mission of this blog, but I felt I had to post about SMOC suing Framingham officials and even residents for expressing their opinions.  I’m…speechless.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/10/25/antipoverty_group_sues_framingham_over_rights/

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x870923984

We decided to take a walk down to the old burying ground on Main St.  We had been down here over the summer but I thought it might be nice to revisit in October with the foliage going and it really was pretty.
I like this cemetery because it has some really old graves. ??? ???? ???????   I was thinking this might have been the first burying ground in Framingham but there is a marker that states it was the site of the first school house.   I don’t know if the school shared the space with graves at any point but maybe I’ll look it up sometime. ?????? ?????? ??? ?????????

There is a gated section for members of the Buckminster Family. 

This is where one of the more interesting graves belonging to Joan Buckminster Marcy is. Of course now I’m curious about her. 

This place (despite being so close to route 9) is a quiet, peaceful place to walk around and get a sense of Framingham’s history by looking at how old some of the stones are and checking out the engraving techniques and language used to describe people.  If nothing else it’s just nice to walk around and look at the trees too. ?? ?? ???? ????? ?? ???? ?????

I made a previous post about Skazka. I found it to be cold and unwelcoming there but they have such good lox that on occasion I go in there and a couple of days ago I had a decent experience there so I decided to post again about this place. ?????? ?????   
I’ll start off with the wine selection that was pretty extensive for a small shop.  I picked out a Transylvanian Pinot Noir as a novelty item for my Halloween  party. “Vampire”!

Next, I was in luck (since it is not always available) that they had the lox  I like. ??? ???? ????  

This time the woman behind the counter was friendly and offered to tell me about how good this salmon is and how they get it shipped up from NY and her husband goes down to NY himself to try out products they choose to carry in the store.
In addition to lox they have various smoked fish, deli and cheeses:
 

I’d like to make a note since someone on the previous post assumed I am ignorant to Russian culture not being as warm and friendly as others but I assure you, being of Russian decent I’m aware of it.  As a little girl I could be very intimidated by my own bubbie (who grew up in Russia), she just wasn’t the rainbow and unicorn type and that’s fine.  I was pleasantly surprised this time by the people though and now I look forward to going back.