List

The As-Promised-Memorial-Day-Weekend List

• Up at 4:30 am
• Mikey laughed at my "preparedness" the night before. It seemed normal to me to have the bag packed, my outfit laid out, the snacks partitioned and in their ziplocks in the fridge, lunch packed . . . I guess what got him was that I had a bowl of dry oatmeal on the table with a glass of water and a spoon ready to be popped in the microwave. He said he felt like it was living with the Jetsons. I pulled a string and we were off!
  
• On the road by 5:15
• Took a wrong turn 10 minutes later that sent us south on I-495 until we found ourselves on some obscure Highway 201. We pulled over for directions at a gas station (a trend that continued to and from our destination) and they were surprised we had made it that far. We were set straight and were in the car nearly 7 hours until we decided to take a detour.
• Princeton was a great pit-stop.
  
• Mikey had to use the bathroom really (I mean he was waddling) bad so we asked a student where a bathroom was and he let us into his dorm. We walked up the stairs and down the hallway (past students who were moving out, past rooms with blaring alarm clocks, etc) and found the bathroom on the left. I waited in the hall and found messages scrawled in pencil here and there. While I waited numerous boys in towels walked in front of me and one went in the bathroom to shower. I felt like such a creeper-girl hanging around outside the bathroom looking at scantily clad boys.
• We looked up Paul Krugman's office and went up to see it, hoping the door was open and we could casually wave a hello. No luck. But I pressed my ear up against the door and heard someone flipping through a book. I'm convinced it's him. Mikey's not so sure. Neither of us had the courage to knock on the door and mumble something stupid like, "Hey Mr. Krugman. We read your column, but we don't agree with alot of what you say, er, but you're as close as Princeton gets to a celebrity and we just, uh, wanted a picture with you?" He had a political cartoon of himself on the door. We found it a little narcissistic.
  
• Back on the road and got caught in carzy traffic in New York. We learned to take the lower road next time. Oh, and to bring cash for the toll roads (Mikimber, the bills should be in the mail . . .)
• Got to Westborough around 8 and had a great evening getting a tour of the Chaosison's absolutely, stunningly beautiful home. And we got to check on the eggs that were recently laid under the deck by what we concluded (after some mild research) were soon-to-be offspring of the Massachusettes state bird, the Black-capped Chickadee.
• Off to Boston the next morning. Loved the:
• parks
• cityscape
• Boston Commons
• Fenway Park atmosphere (aside from the ticket scalpers who have no concept of personal space)
• Seven Subs
• Brookline
• Riding the T
• The Freedom Trail. All of it.
• Harvard
• The Hispanic man playing guitar outside the Italian Restaurant we had dinner at
• Paying less than we expected for parking.
• Church the next morning was eventful as Bishop Chaosison was released and we got hear both him and his lovely wife speak. They did a great job.
• Dinner was excellent and several times throughout the meal Emmiecakes burst into song. It was like eating with Giselle.
  
• Painting our nails. Ababy painted one of her nails. All of the colors. One on top of the next. The result was a thumb that slightly resembled one that was just slammed in the car door.
• Rockband. We sung our hearts out. All of us. It was a great time.
• Up the next morning and on the road again by 5
• Drove straight to Cape May (we avoided traffic this time by avoiding the 95).
• After looking for someplace cool to eat, nothing spoke of coolness like a hotdog stand with an old guy wearing a hotdog hat. They even sell t-shirts. The food was good. So was the price.
• We had to pay some lady sitting in a lawn chair reading Men are From Mars Women are From Venus five bucks a head to go to the beach. I was tempted to ask if I could sit in her chair for a bit an ask people for money to support my expensive reading habits. I bit my tongue, but wondered who would ever read that in public. Like way in public. As in, thanks for you cash, I'll slip it in the back cover of MY RELATIONSHIP HELP BOOK.
• Mike got sunburned and after we were walking back to the car and some guy shouted from across the street and said, pointing to his sunburn, "Dude, does that hurt?" Mike quickly put on his shirt and mumbled something about the nerve of that concerned citizen. He claimed it wasn't even that bad. Four hours later he was whistling a different tune.
• We took a ferry from Cape May to Deleware. So fun. So windy and cold.
• Mike shouted, "LAND HO!"
• We got into DC around ten and were so tired I had to bribe my body with the promise of a warm bed to get myself out of the car.
• Thanks so much to our family for making the trip possible. We're becoming quite apt moochers.