📝💅 Sen. Markey’s ins and outs

It’s Monday, Boston.

📣 Girlies, we have an announcement: The Harvard Square Anthropologie is going out of biz on Jan. 16, and it’s having a BIG sale to get rid of inventory. Run, don’t walk!

👀 What’s on tap today:

• The Pats’ new coaching era

• Beware of smishing

• How to make holy water

Up first…

LOCAL NEWS

These resolutions better not fail …

Millions of people have already quit their New Year’s resolutions. But lucky for us, our state and local officials aren’t going down so easy. And we would know because they literally sent us their resolutions:

📝 City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune will have a busy year. And by that, we mean she sent us seven resolutions. Among them: Allow ranked-choice voting in local elections, get rid of rats (or, at least, reduce their presence), “resist rollbacks on reproductive rights, immigration, climate change, and public health” from the Trump administration, and, on a personal note, cook, hike, and (maybe) finally start “The Sopranos.”

📲 Boston’s Chief of Community Engagement Brianna Millor wants us to use city services. Specifically, she’d love more folks to download and use the Boston 311 app (which we’d highly recommend). She also wants to see more new faces at both Love Your Block neighborhood beautification events and the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services weekly office hours with neighborhood liaisons. Personally, her goal is to hit up some new small businesses citywide.

🌊 City Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata is honing in on two goals. 1. Tackle the housing crisis by expanding funding for affordable housing, creating incentives for landlords to keep rents low, and preventing residents from being priced out. 2. Fortify Boston’s coastline against sea-level rise and climate impacts. Bonus: She also wants to listen to more music by powerful women (Doechii is one of her faves). 

❤️ Mass. Rep. Ayanna Pressley wants a future “rooted in love.” For her, that means spending time in her district (Mass. 7th) “at events that feed our collective soul.” It also means governing “like lives depend on it” as she prepares to “mitigate the most harmful and hateful policy decisions that will come from the Trump White House.” When she’s not doing that, she wants to master a TikTok dance with her daughter and drink a gallon of water a day. 

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 City Councilors Ed Flynn and Benjamin Weber want everyone to get along. Both councilors noted they hope to work well with folks who have differing opinions “even when we disagree,” Weber said. Flynn also hopes to prioritize the safety and well-being of the city’s residents, and Weber wants to protect against “draconian” immigration policy, advocate for workers’ rights, and “do something once a day that makes [his] daughter laugh.”

🙅 And Sen. Ed Markey … has no resolutions. He told us he’d rather just send a list of his 2025 “ins” and “outs.” In: The East-West rail, Medicare for all, and the Green New Deal. Out: Private jets, billionaires, corporate greed, big oil, and climate change denial. Thank you, Sen. Markey. 

QUICK QUESTION!

👀 If we were to host IRL events this year, which sound most interesting to you?

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🏈 Please give a warm welcome to the Pats’ new head coach. One week after firing single-season head coach Jerod Mayo, the Patriots officially secured his replacement on Sunday: Mike Vrabel, a longtime former Pats player (and recent Hall of Famer). Vrabel was a hot commodity on the coaching scene this year and has been a fave in the Pats’ search, thanks to his local ties and no-nonsense, hands-on coaching style. Judging from fan reactions so far, he’ll be welcomed with open arms. His official introductory press conference is at noon. 

☕ There’s some new Boston City Council tea. First up: City Councilor Ed Flynn has opted against running for mayor next year, deciding instead to focus on winning his council seat. The move shut down the monthslong rumors that he (among others) would challenge Mayor Michelle Wu. Speaking of Flynn, the council voted Wednesday to shoot down his measure for a council ethics committee following its latest scandal. Despite supporting Flynn’s intention, several councilors concluded that an internal committee would be “duplicative and susceptible to politicization.”

⚠️ MassDOT says: Beware of smishing. You know, smishing, SMS-message phishing (yeah, we hadn’t heard of it either). Well, MassDOT is warning folks to be wary of text message scams following an uptick of fake messages asking folks to pay off a toll. According to this warning, EZDriveMA will never request payment by text, and all links associated with the system will include “ezdrivema.com.” Long story short: If you get a text alerting you to an unpaid toll (or a parking ticket, in case you forgot), don’t click it! 

🏆 Another W for Boston’s foodie scene. Tripadvisor’s 2024 Traveler’s Choice Awards are here, and Boston earned the No. 6 spot on the “Best of the Best Destinations” in the U.S. for food list (NOLA nabbed the No. 1 slot). The award is given to cities with a “high volume of above-and-beyond reviews and opinions from the Tripadvisor community.” If you’re looking for more specific Boston recs, you can find a list of the city’s Traveler’s Choice-winning spots here (warning: the picks are a smiiiidge touristy).

THINGS TO DO

Weekday checklist

🍝 Give Monday date nights a rebrand. These two deals should help: Source in Cambridge has a three-course, $26 date-night deal. And Ciao Roma in the North End is back with a three-course, $59 deal for two.

✨ Hop on the charm jewelry trend. FOUND in Cambridge just opened up a charm bar where you can customize your own necklaces and bracelets with vintage and modern charms. 

🧙 Hold space for this “Wicked” watch party. Tired: Screaming at the Pats on TV. Wired: Scream-singing the lyrics to “Defying Gravity” at this sing-along party at Parlor Sports on Tuesday.

🧶 Stay cozy with your new blankie. Going out in this weather is a big ask, but this chunky knit blanket party at Dorchester Brewing Co. on Tuesday might be the exception to the rule. No knitting experience required!

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 Link up with a lover before V-Day. Skip the Small Talk is hosting a night of speed dating for bi and pan folks at The Kartal on Tuesday. As the event name suggests: You’ll cut right to the "big talk" conversation prompts.

🏒 Watch Boston’s hockey superstars. And we’re not talking about the B’s! The Women’s Beanpot Semifinals are set for Tuesday at Northeastern (tickets are only $13)!

👀 Celebrate the pink naked guys in DTX. ICYMI: We’re talking about this year’s Winteractive. Wednesday marks its kick-off, where you can meet the artists behind these 15+ wacky installations.

🧘 Stretch out with a free yoga class. The BPL ain’t just for books! The Roxbury branch is hosting a free, eight-week gentle yoga series, and the next class is Thursday.

ONE LAST THING

A Father on your FYP

TikTok’s hottest new influencer is … a local college chaplain? Yes, you read that right. Allow us to introduce you to Father Simon Teller, the chaplain for Providence College and … a TikTok star with over 90k followers. 

A quick scroll through his feed makes it easy to see why he’s so popular: His content is both wholesome and very on-the-pulse, including church ASMR, recipes for holy water, clips of him blessing dorm rooms, and generally being an all-around silly figure on campus. His vids regularly earn comments like this one: “Nothing like priests with a sense of humor.”

He knows that his dual identity isn’t the most conventional. But as he put it in an interview with WCVB: “I’ve learned to follow the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has led us to TikTok.”

— Written by Gia Orsino and Emily Schario

🙏 Thanks for reading! Did anyone else not know that holy water is made with salt?

📲 The results are in: 57% of B-Siders say that they’d want a special extra B-Side send to drop on Saturday mornings. We hear ya. One reader said: “Give me my last minute weekend plans!” 

💃 Keep up with us @BostonBSide on IG, TikTok, and Twitter. Send comments and suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected].