Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I had lunch at the local diner with cattitude and then headed downtown. First stop was the gym, where I had a good workout in pleasantly uncrowded conditions, probably the last such I will have for at least six weeks. (After New Year's I'll be mostly if not entirely going at the end of the workday, and the gym is always most crowded in January.)

Exercised and showered, I walked over to the New Balance store, where they were friendly and helpful about exchanging my sneakers for the right size. I explained that I needed a women's size eight and had gotten a men's. The salesman took a quick look in the box, then verified that I wanted 8EE, went in back, and brought out the correct shoes. I tried them on, walked around briefly, checked the size label on the tongue of the shoe (which says both 8 and 39), and noted that they left shoe is a little tight at the little toe. He assured me it would be fine in a couple of days, which matches my general experience of leather shoes, but also means I should break them in gently, not dive in to wearing them for a full day.

From there, feeling good about things, I got on the train and went down to Greenwich Village. Varsano's was open, uncrowded, and had a wide selection of chocolates available--I'd thought they might have closed early, or sold out of some things. I told Mark Varsano I didn't need ginger this time--he offered to take a look for it as soon as he saw me--and got a selection of creams and truffles, plus some orange peel and one cordial cherry for Cattitude. Thence home, and it was still light out.

( gym numbers )