The latest Wikileak

In the last week, I have spent 1300 miles on America's Interstate system which means that I know the words to every popular country song.  I also accidentally ran a half-marathon, and was spit up on twice.
I have visited with a diverse group of friends and family, and learned something that did not make it onto Wikileaks:  My dangerously single friends told me to watch out for "Trick Dates." Apparently, besides Internet dating, the great new way to ask someone out is to pretend you are not asking them out, but you are just arranging a meeting. Then when they show up at the appointed time and place, you go ahead with typical 'first date' behavior and see how it goes.  After witnessing one such event unfold at an adjacent table in Washington, DC, it seems that the warning should not go unheeded.
Also newly revealed in the Nation's capitol: another dimension. I refused to see a movie at a museum because it was advertised as "4-D." Does the Tea Party know about this? What's the fourth D anyway? A friend told me it was "time." Time? Isn't that inescapable? Wouldn't it be more interesting if they found a way to show a movie outside the time-space continuum?
There's lots to be learned schlepping around this seaboard, if you can handle repeat views of box stores and love multi-lane freeways. I have seen dozens of people who don't make it to Alaska often, and enjoyed spending time with them and meeting their new offspring.
In the in-between times, I rake. North Carolina has an infinite supply of leaves. Even though all the trees look bare, more appear on the ground every day. In my effort to corral them, I have broken two rakes. Replacing the first rake, a metal relic of a bygone era, I checked into everyone's favorite box store, Target. I was informed there that rakes are a seasonal item. Not this season. Not the season with the unending leaf deluge. No, no. It is snow shovel season at Target. I lived in North Carolina for four years and never saw a shovel-able piece of snow. Super secret documents have shown, the season of winter wonderland exists here, just only in the confines of your local Target store.
Because I have so much to learn from classified documents and classy friends, and because, right now, the leaves are winning,  I have made a decision. I am certain this decision was influenced by those country songs blaring out of my borrowed Volkswagen's radio as I barrel down I-85:
"You're gonna miss this! You're gonna want this back!"
I bought a ticket to South America, but I won't leave until December 27th. My grandmother is thrilled and the leaves are terrified that I am staying in the Southeast until Christmas.