In which I rent a car and explore the neighboring states

Yesterday the boyfriend and I took a trip to Baltimore. I quite enjoyed both the seedy parts of the city and the more tourist-packed harbor area. His complaints about not being allowed to ram boats are exaggerated; I did not exercise any sort of control over his boat ramming capacity, and if my importunements to respect the apparently prevailing boat usage norm of non-ramming were taken to heart, it must have been because his guilty conscience acknowledged that they were unwanted but true.

The crabs at Obrycki's were everything promised, and my next project is to reverse-engineer the black pepper and mustard based seasoning they were slathered with. It looks unsettlingly like mud but is delightful to the tongue. My only regret was running out of crabs at just the point at which my hammer and knife skills had hit their peak.

I also broke my longstanding boycott of Virginia for our trip to Wegmans, which may be the best grocery store of any kind, ever. Zabar's is pretty good for specialty foods, but give me Wegmans access and I might never go anywhere else again; it's like Wal-Mart for food, except not trashy or evil. The staff is unfailingly cheerful and volunteers assistance to gobsmacked customers lost in the sea of delicious and low-priced merchandise. This store is a triumph of capitalism. Wegmans should take over the world.