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Day’s Verse:
But I do not consider my life of any acount as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course adn the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.
Acts 20:24
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Two hours of running errands yesterday, and we did not visit one national chain. Instead we patronized:

Brine’s Sporting Goods – Looking for a new bicycling jacket, but only finding $50 Underarmor shirts. May actually go buy one (they looked warm!) if I do end up riding through the winter.
Frank’s Spoke ’n’ Wheel – Asking about my bike’s shifting issues, learning about studded snow tires for bikes (seriously; $50/tire, so I’d have to be committed to riding in subfreezing weather), and buying a rack for the back of my bike to bungee cord my backpack to.
Bearly Read Books – $20 of used books at about $2.50 a book has filled the book-tank for Ian, at least for a while. He cleaned out their Barbara Hambly section almost totally, wreaking only slightly smaller devasation on the science fiction section in general. I entertained myself with Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (possibly will get it from the library.)
Cloud Nine Toys – Stopped more out of curiosity than any desire to by remote control cars or tutus, yet I did have to pry the long grabbers out of Ian’s hand before we left.
Monnick Supply – To purchase bungee cords, of course.
Price Chopper – For premium East-Coast (if Pennyslvania is East Coast) spinach, California cranberries (which makes you wonder, considering that Massachusetts supplies cranberries to the rest of the country), fetta cheese from New York, and various other salad-related items. Not strictly as local as the others, you still don’t see Price Chopper all over the country. Thank goodness.
The Witch Doctor – Just kidding. There’s a shop in Marlboro called the Watch Doctor, only I inevitably read it as witch doctor. I spent several weeks wondering what they did and if it was legal before somebody pointed out they fixed watches, not communicated with spirits.

In other news, I have finally started reading Crossroads of Twilight, the last book in the Wheel of Time series that I own (apparently Book 11 has come out, but I doubt I could stomach another 800 pages of Robert Jordan). I started this series August 24^th and had become thoroughly sick of it by the 8^th book, but my sheer stubbornness has compelled me to slog through his endless descriptions and thousand sub-plots to finish the series. Now I see the end of the tunnel — albeit 600 pages from here — and can only hope to hang on that long.