'Picnic spoiler' (3 letters...)

1) Good news guys: One of you might have a chance at entering this year's 4th of July, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. If you can get past the initial snap of the natural casing (I just puked a a little in my mouth,) one of you could take the place of Kobayashi — the Japanese competitive eating icon and international celebrity. Kobayashi's latest stint with lockjaw leaves him questionable for Wednesday's contest. Sounds to me like this guys a little scared of this Joey Chestnut guy (...wouldn't blame him, sounds like a character straight of out the Sopranos) who broke the record in a prelim. competition by scarfing down 59 1/2 hot dogs. Ughth! I bet The Black Widow from Alexandria, VA (no, not Uncle Bill) will be there too! Banks, maybe they will peel the hot dogs for you first! :)

2) I spend a majority of my afternoon yesterday getting my car registration renewed. Besides having to deal with the dreaded DMV, stupid northern VA and their dumb air quality laws that require Emissions tests before you can renew your registration. Good thing I realized Sunday, July 1st around 11ish p.m. that my registration expired on June 30. Hrumph. I've got to do a better job of remember these things. Anyone remember the incident of June '06, where I got pulled over TWICE in a matter of 72 hours for this crap, once without my license...dumb dumb dumb...luckily no ticket! Thankfully, bossy suggested I take the afternoon off to take care of all this. SO, 4 hours and $70 later, I've registered by car for another year; this time no cops involved!

3) To celebrate this victory, Sus and I went on a 5-mile walk along the Washington & Old Dominion Trail that runs 45 miles from Purceville to Alexandria. Unfortunately, I got home to discover a blister had formed again on my heel inside the previous blister that had finally opened and started to heal, another one on my other heel, and on the sole of my right foot.

Later, I decided to break out the old crossword puzzle book to unwind after a stressful day. I was so excited to finish the entire puzzle sans cheating and looking in the back OR asking anyone for help...then I realized it was the 'Easy' category. Oh well. I should have figured when all the clues were "Mayberry youth"...."Black and white sandwich cookie"..."Tennis star Lendl". Doh!