Whoops

Dropped another too-large amount of money on bike gear today (or rather, yesterday). But! Two brand-spanking new pairs of bike shorts are well worth the money. My vagina can stop crying about the inadequate padding from my crew trou. Plus, I've needed a new helmet since I was 16. And this helmet? It matches my bike! How cool is that??

So, now my shopping list is down to: (oh god it is still so long)

Either some $90 clip-in sandals (which are going to be a PAIN to acquire, considering I don't even know if Shimano makes men sizes as small as my feet, and I'll have to order the shoes over the Internet and just pray that they arrive before June 7th and that their shoe sizes are identical between models. Are shoes referred to as having models? That's a question for Siggy. When she gets here Monday I'll quiz her about shoes.

Oh, right, so if the $90 clip-in sandals don't work out, instead I get to buy new pedals for the bike and some sturdy Jesus sandals. I have my eye on a new pair of Chacos, but I really wanted to hold off on that (again) $90 price tag until Nordstrom's annual shoe sale, right before Peru. Argh, so can you believe it? It will cost me more to go the easier route. So unfair.

A giant monster fanny pack. To scare my friends with, and also to carry the giant tube of

Sunscreen that I will need to apply liberally, every fifteen miles, to places that have never felt the touch of sunscreen before. Like the backs of my ears and the tops of my toes. Somehow I don't think Georgia will be accepting of my "oh I don't burn, I just tan" skin tone.

A very large bottle of Ibuprofen.

A camping sleeping pad.

Very Strong Bug Repellent.

A white t-shirt, which I will decorate with silly Washington pride phrases.

Fake plastic trees?

A hat. One with a hole in the back for a ponytail. I've always wanted one of those, and now I need it.

Okay so I guess it won't really take a whole lot of effort to check off the BRAG shopping list. But I'm really starting to run out of cash and I wanted to avoid tapping into my CD already (although I do realize I'll cash it out long before maturity.)

In other news, while studying for Spanish at the local Starbucks tonight, our neighboring old man companion decided to butt into the argument on verb conjugation that my study buddy and I were having. I didn't really cotton on to what he was talking about at first (he mentioned something about my Georgetown sweatshirt. I considered interrupting to tell him I found it in the nocturnal exhibit at the zoo, but then realized that's a much more interesting tidbit for things like the Internet.) Eventually however, he made it clear that he used to know Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's killer. They used to call him Sparky, he said. Because of his temper. And Jack Ruby's buddy's wife was at the Kennedy Assassination, then went on to marry some important official under Nixon, so she was around for Watergate, too. And that the Cubans probably had little to do with Kennedy's death, but that woman was probably involved somehow. Why was this all relevant? Because the verb conjugation we were arguing about was part of a text about the Kennedy Assassination that we were supposed to be translating.

Man, that old man was cool.

We shared a few choice comments are Salvador Allende's death, how South America is going socialist, and that our book authors obviously have a pro-USA anti-Socialism stance. (The text we were translating also spent a good chunk of time talking about the Cuban Communist Conspiracy Theory.) Then he got mumble-y again and I turned back to trying to recall the differences between pluscuamperfecto, past subjunctive, imperfect subjunctive, present perfect, and oh god I know there are more of them but I try to pretend they don't exist. Seriously, why is there a difference between han perdido, hayan perdido, hubieran perdido, habian perdido, perdieran, and perdieron? And why do I have to remember all the subtle contexts in which each version is necessary?

Alright, I'm stressing about Spanish again, which I had managed to forget about since 10:30. I suppose I'll let it go and call it a night.