Sunday dawns, bright and clear. I dress, then roll with my dad over to Cambridge, at which point I discover that despite the warm sun, the air is very, very cool. Did I mention my shoes? I didn't...tangent time!

On the trip down, about halfway through our trip to New Jersey, we stop in a rest stop. While there, I happen to notice a strange man with long, flowing white hair plus an equally prodigious beard and a bright blue hawaiian shirt covering a large gut. Normally I'd have blinked and moved on, except for the fact that Friday afternoon, while having lunch with Fincher, she'd elbowed me to notice the same guy who was watching a new science museum open up. We'd been rolling around the streets of DC until we found this bizarre scene of kids in line, a live band belting out tunes, and old people dancing. Old people dancing is only one step above old people smoking, which is the worst combination of things ever. While there, we noticed the crazy man, who appeared later in New Jersey.

So after we get out of the rest stop, we return to the car and notice it smells bad. Really bad. Turns out my running shoes, which I had thoughtfully doused in a bucket of ammonia, had become a nightmare of vicious gas. Lacking a bag to throw them in, we had to suck it up and deal until we made it to Boston, when we threw the two of them into a drawer. Saturday when I opened the drawer above the shoes I noticed it smelled awful: the pungent shoes were starting to corrode our entire room! I knew then I needed to score some new trainers in order to trash the old ones to get rid of the horrible odor.

Saturday Brad and I browsed for some shoes, and Sunday I planned to finally purchase some, courtesy the parental unit in tow, whom I'd bought dinner for the night before. And so we find y.t. and friends at EMS at 11 in the morning, freezing, but willing to buy new shoes. EMS was closed. So we roll over to the local ABP, which not only possessed the idiotic DC lack of credit-card ability, but also any brain cells at all: the people running the store seemed dullards to the last. What should have taken two minutes took ten, and finally we were sitting outside, warming ourselves basilik style until EMS opened.

Brad met us shortly thereafter, and we snagged shoes socks and other items before heading to lunch to make use of one of Brad's numerous gift cards which had been burning a hole in his wallet since 2001. Yeah, that's right. So we end up at Legal, with a chatty UVA grad who seemed more interested in talking to the three of us than in providing quality service. Quite annoying. At least the meal was tasty. All three then split up, to study, attend a product demonstration exhibition, and hit the saunas at the hotel. We planned to get together later, and have dinner with Adriana.

Unfortunately, that story will have to wait as I'm late for some saint ex. love. But it'll be worth it...