Day 78: Mother of 'em all (...not)

Hurricane Gustav, now approaching New Orleans, was called by that city's mayor "the mother of all storms." I remember Saddam Hussein developing, so it was rumored, "the mother of all bombs." (In that vein, "Hot Shots" was "the mother of all movies.")

Today wasn't the mother of all runs. Yesterday might have been, at least so far. Today was brisk and -- dare I tempt the fates? -- easy. Morning run on the trail, and today we'll round up to 3.2, to get that coveted integer figure in the total slot above. Knees and shins are, maybe surprisingly, OK -- I slept last night with knee and shin braces firmly in place on both legs, and I think they must have helped. Stomach, shall we say, feels much better. I even got more than a little bit of sleep. As all of Cambridge moves between apartments this Labor Day weekend, and the summer sun shines above, things seem good.

I am worried about Gustav, which looks to be even more powerful than Katrina (they say that Baton Rouge may experience hundred-mile-an-hour winds), as well as Hanna, still a tropical storm for now, which is threatening the Bahamas, where my brother and his fiance are examining wedding-venue options. Hopefully all the traveling will work out fine, and the entire family will be together in New York next weekend.

Bonus: can there be a funnier sight than a corpulent, clueless-looking man who must be in his 60s waddling along the Minuteman Bikeway, sporting a shirt that reads "GOT BEER PONG?"