Been a busy couple of days. Went up to Wellesley yesterday to visit the cousin with the rest of the family. My aunt drives crazy fast, apparently, because even though we left 1 hour and a change late, we only got there half and hour behind schedule. Of course, I had already told my cousin that were running 1 and a half to two hours late, so she had left for MIT already. Doh. 40 minutes later, and we're nearly lost in the maze of one way streets and converging highway on/of ramps, and we finally meetup with her ... and our Virginia neice. I think she's my neice. Her grandmother is my dad's cousin ... sounds about right I'd say. She brought me a nice Boston University mug as a gift, becuase she was told I was an older man (she was thinking 35 vs my 29). So we had a good laugh (at my expense I think). 40 minutes later and we're eating overpriced Thai food at Island Hopper. My cousin's choice. As per the usual college student mentality, when the 'rents are paying the bills, price considerations just jump out the window. 'Course, I picked up the tab instead, and whoo, it hit the pocketbook pretty hard. We put in too much money in the meter, so it was time to enjoy a nice walk to MIT. We were walking too slowly tho, so we only got as far as 140 Smoots, or nearly to the halfway point on the Mass Ave. bridge before we had to turn around. Dropped off neice at her dorm, swung by MIT to pick up cousin's boyfriend, use bathroom, and off to Wellesley. As usual, even though I haven't been to MIT in ages, I knew how to navigate around there better then cousin who goes over twice a week. And then, after an impromptu detour by the lake ... at night ... in the dark ... we met Sarah's all too crazy friends. E., whom I thought was nearly normal but turned into quite the crazy ball of running energy; and C., who was another boiling sea of crazy energy. Which, of course, tipped the balance of power from us norms to the crazys. Sadly, the dining hall at Stone was closed, so we hoofed it over to Figs to eat some highly overpriced thin crust pizza. Cousin's boyfriend was going to pick up the tab, but silly cousin stopped him. A bad thing to do, because her mom never found out that he offerred to pay the bill (aunt was in the bathroom at the time), and we had blown quite a bit of money coming on up. So on both counts, saving some cash and winning some points with the 'rents, she stopped him from scoring some favor. But by far the worst part of the evening was the sitting around. Just sitting as Aunt and boyfriend talked and talked and talked for 3 hours, followed by another hour of waiting for cousin and aunt to clean cousin's room. Considering I had a 4 hours drive ahead of me, sticking around the dorms until 11 pm was not my favorite idea at the time. We ended up getting home at 3am. . . . . . . . . . . As a bonus, I got some insight into a Saterday night at the all girls college: Pseudo-deep conversation about the nature of life and person bios (standard college conversation) Movie reviews Dicusssion, but no action, on going to the PKT party Inquiries about who has Better Luck Tomorrow. (E. gave it to Y. who gave it to C. who already saw it, like everybody else.) Inquiries about who has Gone in 60 Seconds "Give me some of your OJ." Toss the orange (4 people, sitting in couches, playing catch with a valencia orange). Very sad indeed. . . . . . . . . . . . Halloween Parade on Friday night, on the other hand, was a blast and a half. I found out the parade is an open parade. Meaning that if you've got a costume (or even if you don't), and you show up at the start of the parade, at the gathering point, you can march. Just like that. No registration, no fees, no nothing. Just show up and march. And don't forget to wave at the crowds (there were quite the crowds). Jeff and I, after a series of subway transfers and delays that seem destined by fate to prevent us for going to the parade, had a bit of fun watching all the people at the marshalling point. There were the floats, the bands (who rocked, btw), the floats of dunk revelers, requisite squad of stormtroopers (What costume parade wouldn't be complete without nerds dressed as stormtroopers?), the requisite anti-bush float and marchers, and all other sorts of costumed people. There was a crazy energy to the place. Jeff marched, but since I had to get to Fort Lee early for the big drive up on Saterday, I had to bail. Plus, I didn't feel like marching without a costume of some sort. Not that anybody was going to stop me, however. Maybe next year I'll go as a parking ticket, or a can of ensure (Nooo! Not the badge of old age! I'm still young!); something truely scary.