I should really try to update more frequently when my days are busy and waiting until Monday after a four-day weekend will pretty much result in my forgetting many details or not caring enough to write it all out.

The quick hits:

Wednesday: Drove to Little Silver. Casey, Jess and I went out to Basil T's with Dave, Tom, Jen and Jen after making vodka gimlets at home. Casey and I were hungry by midnight, so she Dave and I went to the diner, where our waiter raised his eyebrows at my order of mozzarella sticks and home fries. "I was just saying how I'm sure you've seen more interesting orders," I said. "Oh, I definitely have," he replied. The place teems on weekends with drunk and high high school kids and other young hipsters around Red Bank.

Thursday: We ate. Moom and Tessa arrived a little after 2 and pet the cat and we ate and talked and played Trivial Pursuit, Casey's family against mine (minus Dad, who watched football).

Friday: I helped Jaime and Dan navigate Jaime's new route to work, since she's moving from Philadelphia back home to take a new job in New York in two weeks. We took the ferry from Atlantic Highlands through the soup -- the entire harbor was fogged in -- to Wall St. It was the first time I'd been to Lower Manhattan in three years. With the fog, we wouldn't have been able to see the World Trade Center even if it was still standing, but I realized the next day that with the buildings shrouded in white, it must've been a bit like Sept. 11 -- at least to the eye, though certainly not to the ear, the nose, the heart.

We walked west on Wall St., took the subway at Trinity church up to Prince St. and walked to the Puck Building before hoofing over to Little Italy for lunch. After our pizza, I stepped outside while Jaime and Dan went to the bathroom and watched the people walking down Mulberry St. I spotted one woman, clearly holding something under her coat, out of the drizzle. I thought at first it was probably a dog. Then I realized it wasn't a dog, but Brooke Shields (not under the coat, but the woman walking) and it was most likely her son beneath the coat. The fact that her husband, Chris Henchy, was pushing a baby carriage filled with shopping bags pretty much confirmed it for me. Not comfortable in my star-spotting abilities (I never see them; it's always Casey who spots them), I asked Dan if he recognized her when he came out. "Wow. Yeah! That's pretty cool," he said. After they and their companions crossed Spring St. and continued south on the east side of Mulberry, I watched the reactions of the people they passed on the sidewalk. At least one person in every cluster turned after passing Brooke, confirming my suspicions.

Saturday: I played football. I'd agreed to join some people from the BlueClaws in a charity touch-football tournament that happened to take place across the street from my parents' house. I was there at 9 a.m. for the 10 a.m. start of the 16-team competition. We finished the five-game pool play with a 3-2 record, and I made two interceptions to contribute to our playoff-clinching victory in our fifth game. The top eight teams made the playoffs, and our first-round opponent was a team we'd lost to 30-7 (they got a safety) earlier in the day. We kept it close, scoring first but losing 21-7, ending our day at 2:30. It was cold and windy, but I was dressed well and wasn't uncomfortable. Dad had found a pair of little-used cleats I'd bought cheap in college for my days playing dorm baseball, and they came in handy on the wet ground.

But now I have trouble moving. The rest of the day, I actually felt better than I did earlier in the week after playing hockey. But football, while involving less sustained running, involves more cuts and turns, starts and stops. My legs and left groin muscle are particularly tight, and on Sunday I had trouble lifting the left leg. I've had the same results every now and then since high school, when I first strained the muscle during my sophomore year soccer season.

After showering, I went to buy some CDs, getting Jess Dave Matthews' Some Devil for her birthday (and giving it to her early so that I could copy it) and buying The Essential Bruce Springsteen for mom and dad and copying the third disc of rarities and unreleased tracks for myself. I got a Windmill burger for lunch and went home to watch Florida/Florida St.

We all went to Val's for dinner, hoping to watch Notre Dame/Stanford because New York's ABC affiliate was showing Miami/Pittsburgh. But they didn't have the college football package, so after eating we shot over to the Globe (Dad went home but Dave joined us). Mom and Jess left after the first quarter, but it was pretty much over then. I spoke several times with Heather, but I don't remember much of the last call, as Dave drove home, because by then I was affected by seven pints of Harp in four hours.

Sunday: Spectacular. I went back home early and after Casey and I got some essentials at the grocery store, we watched a couple episodes from the second-season Alias DVD before I napped. I then got some Xbox time in and we settled in for the Sunday night Fox lineup up to Alias -- which was very Twin Peaks-y -- and then watched Arrested Development before bed. And if you haven't watched that yet, check it out. It's pretty damn funny.

And I refuse to look at my fantasy football score because, though I have Chad Pennington and Santana Moss going tonight, I feel I'm way too far behind for it to matter. I don't want to know if the outstanding performances from Hines Ward and Jon Kitna would've mattered, as I'm playing the team I'm tied for second with in the division. There's one more week to go, with the top two teams in each division making the playoffs. Dammit if I don't sneak in next week, with a bit of luck -- something I haven't had this season, considering my team has scored more points than any other, yet is 6-6 heading into this week.

Enough of that.