Today I went to the gym for the first time in two months. I was in the pool doing my old lady exercises. There was one other dude in the pool, who was half-assing laps. He'd go four or five strokes and then kind of walk the rest of the lap. He spent a lot of time chilling at the end of the laps.

His girlfriend walked in and said something about how she was ready to go. The guy started berating her for not working out a certain amount of time. He kept telling her she really needed to get in shape blah blah blah. By the way, she had a great body and wasn't ugly. He told her she needed to wait while he finished his laps. Mind you, he hadn't really done any full laps at a meaningful speed.

He made a big show of doing three or four laps. He had a pretty sloppy crawl stroke and by the end of the second lap, he was breathing hard.

When he got out of the pool, I could see his starter beer belly. I should have reached out and grabbed his ankle so he'd break some teeth falling on the floor. What an asshole.

Okay, so this has been in the works for a couple days, but I was afraid of jinxing it, so I didn't say anything.

As of tonight, I am the very proud owner of a red 2008 MINI Cooper!!

It was a really lucky thing, the husband has made a habit of car shopping- long before the accident. He found an ad from a private seller, and we contacted her a couple days ago. Went out and saw the car, test drove it- loved it. Few more days of negotiations- oh, did I mention that the seller was actually in New York? We were dealing with her friends here, and e-mail/texting her.

Yeah, that made for some interesting (read stressful) times. She was interested in selling quickly because she was heading back to Taiwan for the winter break. After a flurry of e-mails and texts, and the extreme kindness of her friends, we got everything settled and tonight I drove the car home.

I loves it. The car doesn't have a name yet, but I'm sure it will shortly. Will post some pictures after I get a chance to take them.

So correct me if I'm wrong... But if you walk into a business, and say that you're from Company A (a company the business is not currently erm, doing business with) and want to talk rates, because Company C is a reseller of Company A's and you are doing business with Company C. They say Company C costs more because they are a reseller, and that your business can save money by going through Company A directly.

Is that solicitation? Because I thought that if you were to try to get a business to change who it contracts with, to go from C to A, that was soliciting...

Further, if that is soliciting, would you get mad at being reminded that there's a 'No Soliciting' message on the front door?

I love Boston. But I still have this terrific fondness for San Francisco, my first city, my first urban love.

These photos of the City by the Bay would have made Herb Caen proud.