I was born ready... in ten seconds.

Picking up from the last blog: I woke up like six hours later in the early Tuesday evening and discovered I'd missed people doing stuff.  Apparently a group of people had gone down to Lowes Wharf and then into town to get ice cream.  I've never explored the little town of cool shops on Talbot Street, because on the day I would have done so during the WC1 shoot, Schatz took the car to go to the movies by himself.  So I didn't see the town because Schatz was seeing The Town (2010).

But my allergies felt better.  Why did the Zyrtec not work for the entire day after I took it, but then kick in when I was asleep?  It must be the same as installing a program update on your computer.  You have to restart in order for it to work.

I blogged in the red room while Phoebe watched Peter Pan (1953).  This was my favorite Disney movie a long time ago, but I didn't remember most of what I was seeing.  The animation was phenomenal.  There was a musical number that portrayed Native American Indian tribes as terrifying caricatures.  Except for Tiger Lily.  Tiger Lily was a cutie patootie.  I think Pan got down with her.

Brett and Sheldon went for a quick bike ride, during which it started pouring rain.  When they got back and dried off, Brett asked if we wanted to go to Target.  We said sure.  We drove through the downpour and observed a cool foggy mist on the very bottom of the road.  As we passed through Talbot St., we had to stop for a family of ducks that had no designs on relocating from the middle of the road.

And even though I had already been to this Target three times, I had a lot of fun.  We browsed snacks and movies, as usual.  I explained to Brett and Sheldon that I love slipcovers, and how slipcovers are a huge selling point for me when I'm browsing at a store.  Especially shiny ones that look all cool.  I briefly considered the purchase of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2012) on Blu-ray/DVD/digital combo pack with great slipcover for $15, but held off instead and went for some better bargains.  I purchased The Social Network (2010) and Mean Girls (2004) on dvd for $4.75 each.  Each came with good extras.  I also grabbed Cloverfield (2008) on Blu-ray for $7.50, but told the cashier I changed my mind at the last second.  The man behind me in line asked me if it was any good, because his wife just gave it to him for his birthday.  I told him it was great, and I was only putting it back for budget reasons.  Just then a thought bubble appeared over the wife's head that said, "Why don't you watch it, instead of asking other men at Target about it."

I was then able to get some Chick-fil-A for the ride back.  And even though they were about to close, instead of telling me, "Sorry, we already closed the registers, bye," they took my order on a piece of paper.  Sweet!  I ate it while Brett and Sheldon talked about their stocks.

After two hours of sleep, we had a 3am breakfast of waffles, franch toast, bacon, and gluten-free strawberry rhubarb pie.  Didn't make a lot of sense to have pie then, but the gluten-free crust was prepared specifically because Andy doesn't do gluten, and this was the last meal before Andy's departure.  So we had to do it.

Then we commenced Wednesday, Day 14, our final day, with some painless Jesse bits.  Ping pong, coffee, running.  As we were walking to the main road to shoot the running, Nick gave me some mosquito spray, which I sprayed all over myself.  The can says to wash your hands vigorously after using.  Instead, I got it all over my hands and then handled my phone so I could take set photos.  But I did my best to remember not to touch my eyes or mouth, just cuz poison.

Then we shot car.  It took a long time to set up whatever they did with the camera for car, so I spent most of that time on the rocking swing chairs behind Dolly house reading Cracked articles on my phone.  After that, we shot our one-take-or-bust dock shot and finally wrapped Whit.  This was cause for celebration.  We decided to break for several hours before getting the last few shots.  I went to the back porch, where Phoebe forced me to play Barbies with her while we waited for meal.

Meal was taters, rice, and fruit bowl.  As we ate it, people discussed what the upcoming Apple announcement was gonna be.  Some people think it will be a smartwatch, because Apple did a photo that had an out-of-focus person who had a watch on.  Brett says no way, and that an announcement that big would come in September.  Or something.  He said something about September.  When the underlying logic is not explained, I forget details.

At that point, I took a 90-minute-ish nap, attempting to do the thing where I reboot my body to make the Zyrtec kick in.  It didn't work.  The longer I stay in Maryland, the worse my allergies get.  I got up at noon to take Sheldon, Andy, and Whit to Dulles Airport in DC, a two-hour drive.  Andy volunteered to drive there, because otherwise he gets carsick.  Perfect!  That meant I could relax.  Early in the drive, we saw an outdoor shopping center that had freestanding Penneys and Sears, and I explained to everyone how I can't handle mall department stores when they are unattached to a mall.  They are symbiotes, and seeing them by themselves is wrong.  And like, they're good stores, but impossible to enjoy if you don't have the option of dead sprinting to, say, a Brookstone or Auntie Anne's, for whatever reason.  I also said I hate it when albums are named after a song on the album or the artist themselves.  Everyone agreed.

Andy was playing his music, which was very boring and trance-like, so everyone fell asleep, only waking when Andy pulled over and announced the GPS was taking us to the wrong place.  Sheldon gave him his iPhone 5 GPS and we were back in business.  We got to Dulles and said our goodbyes.

Then I got in the driver's seat and discovered a shocking horror.

This car had no radio.

I mean, I looked all over the place.  It had a CD player and some other shit, but no radio.  And if the radio was there, I didn't find it.  So I was forced to play music from my iPhone 3GS, which only contains movie scores.  I went with Speed (1994), to help me make better time on the road.

Following a GPS in a strange area is hard, so I made several wrong turns.  While trying to get back on track from my first fuckup, I noticed a cool-looking giant shopping mall.  I decided this was a good opportunity to stretch my legs for a bit and avoid becoming fatigued on the road.  So I drove around a bunch of weird circular exit ramps and parked at the Macy's parking lot of the Tysons Corner Center in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

This place was great.  They had a Disney, a Lego, an Apple, a 2-story Barnes & Noble, and a third-story AMC.  I didn't see a movie, but I did browse the B&N and get a writing magazine.  On the way back to the car, I got a snack from the Wetzel.

Me: "Can I get a plain pretzel with no butter or salt?"

Woman: "You gotta wait ten minutes."

Me: "Okay."

Woman: "(rolls fresh pretzels for several minutes, then goes to pretzel oven with a tray of salted pretzels) You want salty?"

Me: "No."

Woman: "Oh sorry."

So that took a while.

When I got back on the road, it took me many lifetimes to get out of DC.  I kept going the wrong way at road forks because the GPS would never show me anything beyond one step ahead of where I was.  Eventually I just turned on the GPS on my iPhone 3GS and ran them simultaneously.  Once I got through the ID4 traffic in Washington, it was mostly smooth sailing, and I only got lost once more, near the Target, when I turned off my phone thinking I could navigate myself.  I might've lost my sanity had it not been for the soothing scores of Scent of a Woman (1992) and Batman Returns (1992).  Also, while crossing the very long Chesapeake Bay Bridge, there was a moment where a seagull was flying perfectly next to my car, and it was fucking awesome.

I got back at around 7-something pm, about seven hours after I'd left.  No one was at Waterhole Cove.  Anne told me they were shooting.  I remembered the last shot was a field, so I bike rode to the main road and found that they had just wrapped the entire movie.  That's when I gave them the news.  Less than ten minutes away, I had passed a fancy seafood restaurant that was serving all-you-can-eat shrimp until 9.  I expected to be met with indifference, but everyone was mega stoked.  Because the movie was wrapped, so we were gonna keep on dancing till the world ends.

Quoting The Simpsons ep "New Kid on the Block" all the way, we hauled van to Chesapeake Landing, where we feasted on fresh fish.  About half of us ordered the all-you-can-eat shrimp, which was cheaper than a lot of the other stuff on the menu.  It turned out to be huge peel-and-eat shrimp, presumably caught fresh nearby.  This to me was so much better than the scrawny shrimp they always fry or bury in sauces at Red Lobster.  Brett did not care for it because he didn't want to peel the shrimp himself.  I will say it was pretty messy.  But it was definitely one of my favorite shrimp-related experiences ever.

After that, we went to Good Time Charlie's, a bowling alley that stayed open till 1am on Wednesdays.  Inside it was glow-in-the-dark bowling with rap music playing over a screen of Castle reruns on TNT (and, eventually, the rap videos themselves).  We split up into two lanes and I played some games against Sharon and Nick.  I lost the first two but won the third, thanks to my coach Rolling Rock.  By the end of the night, I'd bowled a turkey, which is three strikes in a row, as well as whatever you call three double gutterballs in a row.  This is par for me.  I also got an Elmer Fudd slap bracelet from a machine.  So the alley was aptly named.

We got back late and each retired to our quarters.  I was now the only person sleeping in Harry house.  So I took the opportunity to really cut loose and just do the shit out of my laundry.